Update: In November 2018, Full Sail’s Internet Marketing programs were updated and are now Digital Marketing Bachelor’s, Digital Marketing Master’s, and Digital Marketing Certificate.

Blogging and social media enthusiasts came to Full Sail last month to attend the fourth annual Florida Blogger & Social Media Conference (aka FLBlogCon). The event kicked off in Full Sail Live with opening keynote speaker Sheryl Connelly, who discussed her role in assessing digital trends in the marketplace as Ford Motor Company’s Global Trends & Futurist.

The morning’s events also awarded the FLBlogCon scholarship to Media Communications student Rebecca Groh, who hopes to someday combine her professional portfolio as a graphic designer with her personal blog to help clients gain a better insight of her style and personality.

This year’s theme, “Blogging is the Journey,” was an effort to accommodate bloggers in their ideals and goals. Not everybody’s journey is the same; some are interested in monetizing their blog while others simply do it to create change because they’re passionate about something, said FLBlogCon founder Bess Auer.

To get things going, Bess split up the entire room of attendees into groups based on their area of interest. Groups were scattered in and around the Venue to discuss topics such as travel and business, to pets and religion. Many also used this time to just discuss the very foundation of their blog and ways they could improve it to gain more readership, or just improve their site’s functionality.

The rest of the day was dedicated to seminars which focused on topics such as “How to Create Killer GoPro Content,” “Personalized WordPress Help,” and “How to Win Millennials Over with Snapchat.” Bess explained that this year was more dedicated to creating content than previous years, because companies want to see bloggers who are capable of creating videos, podcasts, using Snapchat, etc.

“We’re so thankful for the partnership with Full Sail. A lot of these bloggers have never experienced a space like this that really caters to them. It’s like Disneyland for adults, especially for us techie people!” she laughed.

After a whirlwind day full of seminars and workshops, the FLBlogCon wrapped up with closing keynote speaker Rusty Partch, Social Innovation Strategist for Chipotle Mexican Grill. Rusty discussed his research about what’s next for social media, and how bloggers can work with brands to help build their following and maybe even get paid for it.

Even at the end of the day, everyone was still thinking about the future and what their journey has in store.