Any day that I get to spend with Mickey Mouse is a magical day! If you know me you know that I have a fascination with all things Disney! From when I was little and I took my first trip to Walt Disney World I have been amazed with the whole Walt Disney World Company. I have applied countless times for the Disney Parks Moms Panel putting in long hours working on essays and even making it to the final round involving an interview with the Disney team. To say you could hear my scream of excitement from across our house when I got an invitation to the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration "On-the-Road" in Boston is an understatement!
Every year Disney holds a Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at one of their parks or cruises and it is a coveted invitation that I hope to receive some day. They also hold On-the-Road events to spread the Pixie Dust to other locations and this was the first I had ever heard the Celebration coming to Boston in my own backyard!
I got up bright and early the day of the event to make sure traffic would not cause me to be late. When I arrived I squealed as I saw this hat!
I can't wait to wear it when we head to Disneyland in August!
Before the event started there were some cool props to take pictures with.
The event is a half-day conference-style program which included exciting speakers in addition to what is to come at Disney Parks. The event started with some sneak peeks of Pandora - The World of Avatar which I can't wait to experience!
Toy Story Land and other new attractions coming to Disney Parks Worldwide.
One of the first speakers was Jennifer Fickley-Baker who is the Editorial Content Manager of the Walt Disney World Resort. She writes a lot of the content on the Disney Parks Blog which I love to read to learn the latest and greatest information about the parks. She gave great tips such as "Stay curious when writing a story."
She also emphasized the range of emotions you should try and evoke when providing content. To quote Jenn, "Be a storyteller, not a writer. Make them feel". This is something that Disney is so fabulous at! A video clip she showed us of a runDisney event displayed this beautifully. Here is the video she showed us that will definitely have you looking for a tissue.
We also heard from Alex Ruiz who handles Digital Marketing and Social Media for Disney. He explained the need for us to be "thumb stopping"! In other words make people take notice of your content and want to stop and like, comment or share. He also talked of the importance of using Live Video which I love! Another great tool he talked about is 360 views. Make the reader feel immersed. Then combine Live and 360, WOW!
He also focused on how we now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish on social media and you only have 3 seconds to grab someones attention!
We also heard from Andrea Roxas from Babble talk about microcontent and making your content mobile friendly as many are reading on mobile devices.
She talked about when you have relatable content. I know I love little cartoons like the one below! I love sharing them with my readers.
We got some great tips on Pinterest from Kristyn Merkley from Lil' Luna. She stressed the need for making vertical collages in Pinterest as they catch the eye more. I totally agree and need to do this more. She also stressed the Pinterest algorithms and publishing content in advance of holidays and events to ensure people see it in a timely fashion.
Last but not least we heard from Paula Faris from Good Morning America and The View. She had some really funny parenting stories. She was awesome! She cracked me up when talking about trying to get this picture below. Sometimes we project the perfect family on Social Media but to get that "perfection" is so hard and if we knew the back story we would probably appreciate it even more.
Here are all the speakers. Left to right: Alex Ruiz, Paula Faris, Jennifer Fickley-Baker, Andrea Roxas and Kristyn Merkley.
Another quote I totally appreciated from a Disney Cast Member was "Being a cast member at Disney Parks is being the living legacy of Walt Disney! That brought tears to my eyes!
What an amazing event! I am so thankful to the Disney Parks Marketing Team for an amazing event! I hope to "See Ya Real Soon!".
Disclosure: I was provided with this conference and a Disney bag. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.
Congrats
ReplyDelete