This is a guest post by Carrie Rollwagen

Last year, I decided to come to WordCamp almost on a whim. I’m not a developer or a designer, so I thought the sessions would be over my head and hard to understand. One of my clients urged me to go, and I had a Saturday free, so I figured — why not.

That turned out to be an excellent decision. I really did learn a lot, and the User/Blogger track was totally relevant and understandable, even for someone like me who doesn’t know a thing about coding.

After I attended WordCamp last year, I finished my own WordPress site, and I learned a lot about blogging that I’ve put into practice for myself and my clients this past year. I also realized I have something to offer on the speaker track, too. This year, I’ve started teaching Pop Up Workshops on Social Media for Small Business and Personal Branding, and the experience has been incredibly rewarding. I’ve learned to help people through the rough beginnings of transitioning into the world of social media, and I’m proud of what my students have accomplished. After all, I really believe that the key to successful blogging and social media is remembering that, even when we’re blogging and tweeting, we’re talking to people — and we use the same social skills we’ve already developed in our daily lives. We just have to tweak them a little so they work well online.

For my WordCamp presentation this year, I went to a question I get a lot from my clients — How do I drive blog traffic? The follow-up question — How do I do this without driving myself nuts? — doesn’t usually occur to people until they’ve already begun, but I’m including it in my presentation anyway. We’ll touch very lightly on SEO, and we’ll jump into how to use social media to get likes and shares for your site. After all, it’s frustrating to work hard on the perfect WordPress site and create great content and then have no idea how to get readers. I’ll help you do that, and this presentation is 100% appropriate for beginners.

I’m excited to present at WordCamp, but I’m even more excited to attend. If it’s anything like last year, I’ll have a good time, I’ll get to network, and I’ll learn a lot. I’m so thankful that I get to be a part of that.

Carrie Rollwagen is a copywriter at Infomedia, co-owner of Church Street Coffee & Books, and  teaches Pop Up social media workshops.