Shape Meet and Tweet 2015 {Event Recap}

My event recap of the Shape Meet & Tweet conference that took place last year is a little late. However you know that saying, better late than never! You’ll recall that I wrote about the Skin Smart panel last year, which featured Dr. Katie Rodan of Rodan + Fields, as well as Sonya Dakar who is the founder of Sonya Dakar Skin Clinic & Skincare. Now here I am finally getting a chance to write about the rest of the day’s events!

After I arrived at check-in, I spotted several blogger friends that are from the San Diego area. It was great to catch up with Zoe from Turquoise Bohemian & Cynthia from Life by Cynthia! Selfie time… 🙂

Our first speaker of the day was Jen Widerstrom who is a fitness expert & TV personality. You might have seen her on The Biggest Loser. Jen talked about how to find  your motivational formula. She advised us all to just “let yourself off the hook” once in a while. There are days when Jen isn’t excited about working out or struggles to give it her all on a hike. This is perfectly normal people! She told us to take the pressure off ourselves. The key is to just show up [to work out] & see where you are today. Most people end up going the extra mile even when they originally intended on “checking out” during the workout. I can so relate! There are times when I just want to slack off from taking that spin class or going to Pilates, but since I prepay these workouts, I just force myself to go. Once I’m there, it takes me about 10-15 minutes & then I forget all about my sluggish mood.

The next panel was the Skin Smart panel, which I covered previously on my blog. After the Skin Smart panel was the “Taking Your Brand to the Next Level” presentation that featured Lisa Lillien of Hungry Girl, Annie Lawless of Suja Juice & Sara Forte of Sprouted Kitchen. They gave great advice like: make sure to write strong content, following your gut, don’t get distracted and be open & evolving as a blogger but don’t stray from your core business.

I even had the opportunity to talk to Lisa afterwards. Speaking of Hungry Girl, I will be giving away two Hungry Girl cookbooks later this week! Stay tuned…

Following the branding panel, we broke for lunch & the opportunity to tour the sponsor/gifting booths. Check out how pretty the pool area is at Annenberg Beach House!

Some of the brands included: Seiko, Bogs, StarKist, Jergens, Hearts on Fire Jewelry, Luvo, Garmin, Clarks shoes & many more!

The last panel of the day was called “Power of the Social Community” & featured Karena & Katrina (aka the Tone It Up ladies)! I knew about Karena & Katrina from their show Toned Up on Bravo TV; however, I have to confess that I had no idea how powerful their TIU community was until I checked out their social media, in particular the hashtag TIU! Both of the ladies are super nice – I chatted with them outside of the conference room but sadly I didn’t get a selfie with them.

One of the things that the Tone It Up ladies talked about is how to nurture their #TIU community. They recommended checking in with the people that are part of your community & carving out a part of your day to do it. So perhaps it is over your morning coffee & you check the comments section of your blog so that you can reply back. Maybe it’s daily commenting on your social media networks (i.e. Tweet back, like & share, respond to an Instagram comment, etc.). Make sure to review your emails from readers that way when you go to create content, you know what your readers & community want to see & read.

Thank you SO much to the folks at Shape Magazine & to the sponsors and brands who gave generously! I had a wonderful time at the Shape Meet & Tweet event. I hope they do another one in the future!

Disclosure: No monetary compensation was received for this post. I attended the Shape Meet & Tweet event as a member of the media which helped facilitate this recap. All images & opinions are 100% my own.