Friday was a day-long conference for the Social Media Moms, so at 8am we all turned up {bright-eyed & bushy-tailed, of course} for a group breakfast.
As we walked into the restaurant, before we even reached our tables, we were stopped at the buffet to hover over the selections. Whilst hovering I met Shannon of Traveling Mamas, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Shannon honestly made my experience at Disney so much richer.
After a delicious breakfast {by the way American bacon is to die for!} we headed for the conference centre. It was set up like a wedding with flowers on every table, stunning chair covers and a castle on the main stage.
Meg Crofton was the first speaking on the stage. She’s the President of Walt Disney World Resort. She urged us all to make magical memories during our stay, as that is what Disney is all about. She said, “Let the magic of this place move you.” After she finished speaking the music started up {it felt like I was at an Oprah show or something} and out came a goodie bag with a beautiful frame inside to put our favourite memory inside.
Managing Facebook pages is part of my day job so I loved listening to Matt speak. He was funny, relevant and really insightful. My favourite piece of advice from Matt was regarding separating personal profile pages and fan pages. He suggests that we do a regular clean up and we all laughed when he suggested we do it during “boring conference calls”.
He also shared with us that just recently he had told his friend Kanye West that he should ease up on the Facebook updates because he was becoming a spammer. I love a celebrity friend mention!
When bloggers stood up to ask him questions, he’d reply with “I can help you with that” and even shared his personal email address with the room. He’s a brave man!
Rene Syler of Good Enough Mother was our next speaker. She was a news anchor for the Early Show {like the Today Show in Australia} and after being fired she started blogging around 4 years ago. There were tears and laughter as Rene spoke from the heart about her story. She was a hit with the whole crowd, and mingled with us throughout the whole conference.
Rene blogs from her closet at home, and says, through tears, she’s never been happier, “Every day I’m in my closet blogging. Every day I eat a $2 Lean Cuisine meal for lunch. Every day… I am happy.”
I loved this gem Rene shared about choosing what you do with your life, “You may not know what you want to do, but you know what you don’t want to do.”
The Fairy Godmother then stopped by for a quick visit and prize giving. There were watches, handbags and an overnight stay in Cinderella’s castle to be won. Unfortunately, I didn’t win.
We then had a break and headed back to the resort for lunch with our fellow bloggers.
{to be continued this afternoon}
It's a little bit like a cult. But I'm jealous and wish I were there!
Loving these posts, what a great time you had. I didn't try American bacon last visit, but Phil assures me this time he promises to make me breakfast!