Last week, I got to attend Altitude Summit, a business conference for bloggers and creatives that takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was my second time attending (read my first-year insights here!) and I gleaned some new ideas from the sessions, which you can read below! I also got a BUNCH of book recommendations from the different workshops and I seriously can’t wait to dive into them.

This time, I got to teach my own workshop, too, which was an honor to me. I led a class about Photoshop + Branding for Bloggers — something I’d never done before! I used to be a teacher in Japan and also did a lot of teaching-type activities in college, but haven’t formally taught anything in a couple years! I felt a little out of comfort zone since it had been so long, but it also reminded me how much I enjoy intimate teaching sessions and having students. It totally makes me want to start offering in-person workshops. Hopefully sometime soon! After I finish the e-course I’m working on, of course. 😉

Now, I’ve put together some of my favorite pieces of advice and book suggestions. I hope you dig them!

Lessons Learned:

On building community:

• Take your community along for the ride when you do or create things.
• Ask yourself: “How am I emotionally connected to the blogs I read?” Then, extract those feelings to infuse into your own site.

On working with brands:

• Always be thinking about your NEXT collaboration with a brand. As in, go so above and beyond with your current collaborations that there’s no doubt the brand will want to collaborate with you again.

On productivity:

• Try having “In Days” and “Out Days.” On “In Days” you write, design, and create content. On “Out Days,” you handle more administrative tasks — you plan, research, take photos for future content, etc. It helps to batch together your tasks so that you’re not jumping around to different things every 20 minutes.

On Social Media:

• Facebook’s algorithm is designed to show your content to, like, 2% of your followers. Yikes! Try spending $5 to “boost” your popular posts on Facebook so that your content gets seen by more people.
• Don’t give up on Facebook. According to Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist for Apple, it’s “ten times more powerful than Twitter.” (p.s. He has 1.5 million Twitter followers).
• There aren’t any across-the-board “best times to post on social media.” You need to determine that for YOUR audience.

On Collaboration:

• Find a partner to exchange ideas with. This promotes mutual growth and learning.

On Being Brave + Standing Out:

• Keep your eyes on your own paper. If you just keep watching what everyone else is doing, then you’ll only do what everyone else is doing.
• Always ask yourself, “What’s the takeaway for this post? What is my audience going to get out of this?”

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I also noticed that a lot of the speakers recommended books that have helped them. I was SO into it when they did — writing the book titles down like a madwoman. I put them into a list for you below. Can’t wait to check all of these out. They seem like killer suggestions for anyone building a business or blog. *heart eyes*

Book Recommendations:

1. The Renaissance Soul: How to Make Your Passions Your Life-A Creative and Practical Guide by Margaret Lobenstine
2. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
3. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer
4. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
5. First Things First by Stephen Covey
6. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
7. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins
8. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
9. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

Two questions I’d love to know your answer to:

1. Do you have any blog conferences you recommend?

2. Any business/blogging/personal-development books you recommend?

Photos by Brooke Dennis