This past Saturday I attended Blog Podium “The Business of Blogging” at the newly renovated Arcadian Room at The Bay in downtown Toronto.

With over 200 bloggers in attendance it was a fun-filled, thought-provoking, information gathering event of which I gained so much great advice, knowledge and inspiration from. Phew….now to start processing it all! Blog Podium’s generous sponsors were Para Paints, EQ3, HomeSense, The Home Depot and Blurb.  Sharing her wisdom on how to successfully monetize a blog was Blog Podium’ keynote speaker Nicole Balch of Making it Lovely.  Nicole explained the options of direct sales, ad networks, text links, affiliate links, Google ads and sponsored ads.  Also, how bloggers should sell themselves to businesses and how businesses benefit from bloggers.

A panel discussion followed moderated by Leigh-Ann Allaire Perrault of Benjamin Moore/Cityline TV with Christine Dovey  of Bijou and Boheme, Lindsay Stephenson of Little House Blog , Laura Muirhead of Tribal DDB and Cheryl Kozoriz of GlucksteinHome. I appreciated these bright women’s honesty and candor about the business of blogging.

Of course fabulous food had to be involved! A ‘delicious’ cocktail reception with a vendor ‘meet and greet’ took place giving everyone the chance to relax, mingle and enjoy. Lots of laughter coming from the Smilebooth where we had our photos taken by Mango Studios. That would be me in my best pose (covering my face – hate having my picture taken) with Melissa.

Also a big shout-out to Blog Podium’s creators and organizers Lindsay Stephenson and Jennifer Flores of  Rambling Renovators because if it were not for these 2 wonderful ladies I would still be trying to figure it all out on my own!

Thank you to Blog Podium Sponsors and Vendors.