This past weekend, the BlogRollers had an amazing time with their Anipals at BarkWorld Expo.
Held in Atlantic Station, Dennis Quashie from Events by Canvas did an amazing job organizing the first conference dedicated to teaching pet lovers how to better use social media to network and collaborate with other pet parents, businesses and all things pet!
The greatest part of the conference was seeing people come together from all different corners of the world. Countries like Israel, Canada, UK and many more were represented. And of course, native Atlantans were a minority there with expo filled with people from across our country.
As someone relatively new to the “social media business,” I (InternSunny) was definitely surprised to see the impact social media has on our world today. As someone who grew up with this technology (MySpace came out when I was 17), I knew that Facebook and Twitter were good tools, but I never realized just HOW impactful they’d become.
I also didn’t realize how committed and how large the pet community was. The need for a BarkWorld Expo became quite evident and how we didn’t think of it sooner was astonishing! All these pet business, pet parents, pet lovers and no real platform or way to connect this community together? How could this be?!?
As an outsider looking into the pet community, I certainly learned A LOT. Not just about social media, but also the mentality that goes behind it. As it was put to me, most people don’t think others care about what we are doing or where we’re going, but in fact, if it relates back to what others are doing, people want to know our opinions. If we have a bad experience with a certain product or place, the consumers voice makes an invaluable difference.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience. Hats off to Denise for organizing such a great and much needed event. I, for one, am definitely looking forward to seeing all my favorite canines and felines friends for next years BarkWorld Expo.
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As someone who tweets and blogs for their dog for fun but does social media for work too, I really enjoyed your presentation at Bark World! Thanks for sharing your experiences and your enthusiasm!