St. Louis Bloggers Guild

With just a few days left until this year’s Interactive Festival, I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know exactly who and what they will be hearing on Saturday.

I’ve already told you that we have an exciting line up of panelists; so who are they?  Every day this week I will feature one or two of the panels, giving you a brief overview and introducing you to the speakers listed on that panel. 

Read on:

Build-A-Blog

This panel, led by Patrick Dalessandro, Scott Roberts and Michelle Moore, will take you through the step by step process of building and designing your own website with Wordpress.  It will include guidance on what themes and plug ins to use and how to effectively lay out your blog for maximum readability.

Patrick Dalessandro is a blogger and struggling writer. His blog, Patrick Says, has received critical acclaim nationwide and was voted the best musical on Broadway for twelve straight years. When not blogging, Patrick enjoys herding cattle, playing Trouble with senior citizens and eating the spleens of exotic animals.

Scott Roberts is a website developer, blogger, food reviewer and a hardcore chile-head. His 13-plus year career in the internet and technology has seen him take on roles involving web design,programming, graphic design, SEO, internet marketing and web
usability.

Michelle Moore started working with technology in the mid-1990’s, right around the time it became popular to have a home computer. Fifteen years ago she took her passion for all things computer related and turned that into a full time technology consulting firm for small business. Michelle’s company, Small Business Office Solutions, provides full service consulting-from Administration to Web Design and everything in between.

You Have a Website!  Now What?

This panel will focus on helping you learn insider tricks on how to find and build your audience, interpret analytics, use SEO, monetize a blog, foster blogger relations and attract public relations companies. You will also walk away with a few guerilla-marketing tactics when plugging your blog and creating a brand.

Marianne Richmond founded the Resonance Partnership in 2005, a consultancy specializing in new media strategy and word of mouth marketing programs. Her clients value her creativity as well as her ability to apply ROI to social media and community building.

Scott Roberts (see above)

Aubrey “Nominimom“ is the author of NoMinivan and, in a former blog life, was known as Karaoke Diva. Her seven years in the St. Louis blogging community began as a way to chronicle her family’s infertility journey. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, Aubrey and her stay-at-home-dad husband have new blog fodder in the form of two little boys.

Lisa Bertrand’s foray into website writing began in January of 2005 with the creation of Midwestern Mommy, which was later renamed MotherOfBun. A review blog soon followed as did a position for Parent Bloggers Network as a manager for product review campaigns. Lisa is a founder of/contributor to the St. Louis Bloggers Guild and launched the site StLFamilyLife this past summer.

Dana Loesch blogs at DanaRadio.com and Mamalogues.com and hosts her own radio show, The Dana Show, on KFTK 97.1 FM Talk. She was named the Riverfront Times Best Columnist of 2007 and she was selected as one of St. Louis’s “30 Under 30″ by the St. Louis Business Journal in 2008. In May 2009 she was named as one of the top 16 most powerful moms online by Neilsen. Dana is a contributing editor at Blogher, writes for Biggovernment.com, and vlogs for Momversation.

Come back tomorrow for information on more of the breakout sessions and speakers lined up for this Saturday’s Interactive.  The conference runs from 9:00-4:00 at Shock City Studios with breakfast and lunch provided.  If you haven’t yet registered for tickets you can do so here.