IFB Conference Re-Cap

Wednesday was a fun, informative, conversational, fantastic, hectic, long day (I know that's  a lot adjectives, but trust me I needed them all).  Just to fill you in, I spent last Wednesday at the IFB Conference held at Milk Studios in NY.  I feel like I grew ten fold that day, mentally and emotionally.
I did a little video recap for you all and if you are super ambitious you can scroll down to read my overview of each of the panels. I also include links at the bottom of this post to more re-caps of the IFB conference.



I learned so much that it is almost impossible to cull anything from the archives (my brain) to relay to you.  However I will try to give you a brief rundown of the key ideas and little snippets of advice from my notes.

Panel 1: The Bloggers Tool Kit

Panelists:

Christen Rochon - Divas & Dorks

Leandra Medine - Man Repeller

Vahni Georgoulakos - Grit and Glamour

Sammy Davis - Sammy Davis Vintage

Erica Chan Coffman and Lauren Kolodny - Honestly WTF

Alisa Gould Simon - Pose.com

The Bloggers Tool Kit, gave an overview of social media channels that you can use to reach and interact with your audience.  Interestingly each of the panel members had a different opinion as to which social media tool works best for their brand.  I would interpret the difference of opinion as it is up to the blogger to determine which social media channel they feel comfortable with and works for them or what has been the most effective at bringing in an audience.

Panel 2: Is the Social Media Industry Broken?

Panelists:

Tony Wang - Post.Fashionism

Carol Han - Milk and Mode

John Jannuzzi - Textbook

Mark Beeching - Digitas

Yuli Ziv - Style Coalition

Bryce Gruber - The Luxury Spot

Meghan Donovan - WIT & Whimsy

Is Social Media Industry Broken? panel took a look at the free model social media was born from and the current standard for blogger compensation.   Which as of now, there is no standard , it is up to the individual blogger to determine how much their time is worth and if there is no compensations look at the reward of opportunity versus compensation.  A lot of interesting questions raised, but in this open argument there are no clear answers.  So bloggers be informed as to your worth and what you are willing to accept, rates and terms for advertising and go with your gut.

Panel 3: Balancing Act -Business & Blogging

Panelist:

Grechen Cohen - Grechen's Closet

Coco Rocha - Oh So Coco

Annie Tomlin - BellaSugar

Aimee Song - Song of Style

Natalie Suarez - Natalie off Duty

Kristina Medhus - Pretty Shiny Sparkly

Ari Goldberg - StyleCaster

Balancing Act: Business & Blogging examined the fine line between being a credible blogger and writing posts for advertising to make a profit on blogging.  They discussed topics such as finding your value, product repping, transparency on your blog and understanding the market.

Panel 4: Evolution of Fashion Media

Panelists:

Ann Colville Somma - HolierthanNow
Mr. Mickey - PaperMag
Mary HK Choi - MTV Style
Claire Sulmers - Fashion Bomb Daily
Ari Seth Cohen - Advanced Style
Joyce Chang - People Style Watch
Christian Remrod - Fashion Networks

This diverse group of bloggers, media moguls,  editors and entrepreneurs examined the current state of the fashion media as well as  their predictions for it's future.  The panel seemed to feel that while more and more fashion media is happening online, there is no reason to believe that the internet will replace print publications.  The other factor is that blogs often speak to a very specific subject and appeal to a narrower audience than a larger print or media source which has to appeal to a broad audience.

Keynote Speaker  - Joe Zee  Creative Director of Elle Magazine

Interviewed by Tina Craig - Bag Snob

Joe Zee Creative Director of Elle Magazine, author and now TV personality on his reality show All On the Line was the last speaker of the evening.  He talked of juggling multiple ventures, social media and Elle Magazine. Under Zee's stewardship, Elle Magazine introduced original digital content online and street style photography inspired by what bloggers are currently doing.  Zee touted the weight that blogger's opinions and websites now carry in the fashion media. 

All in all it was a great day I could keep going in more detail, but my fingers are seriously about to give out (Honestly if you made it this far in the post you must be a voracious reader).  IFB sent all the guests home with a fantastic gift bag, check out what was in it here. Thanks for stopping by I appreciate all the support that I have gotten since starting my blog.  I hope to take what I learned at the conference and channel it into my website to make the content better, reader relationships stronger and myself a more confident blogger.

Other IFB Conference Blogger Recaps:

Eidetic Fashion 

Ms. Marley Simone 

Fabulous Life of the Not so Rich & Infamous

Silk and Satan

Dress Me Mag Pt.1

Dres Me Mag Pt. 2

IFB-What was in the Gift Bag

Did you write a re-cap of the conference? Share it in the comments section below, I would love to check it out.