#BlogHer18 Creators Summit Takes on a Tone of Inspiration and Empowerment

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that the #BlogHer18 Creators summit was Ahhhhmazing! Over 2000 women filled Pier 17 for two days of learning, inspiration, and networking. #BlogHer18 Creators Summit was a call-to-action to women content creators: The panels, keynote talks, and masterclasses were designed to elevate women’s voices and empower content creators.

Amy Schumer, our surprise guest at #BlogHer18, encapsulated that vibe perfectly when she encouraged the audience to pledge that they’d “promote the ever-loving sh*t” out of other women content creators in her introduction of our Voices of the Year Awards — a bi-annual ceremony that honors women in the community who have used their voices for impact.

Gabrielle Union also delivered an honest and normalizing discussion on infertility, miscarriage, and her struggle with adenomyosis, a type of endometriosis that affects the uterine wall, while Senator Kirsten Gillibrand urged women to take a stance against the nomination of supreme court judges who could endanger women’s health protections.

The Value of Women was another key theme at the front of #BlogHer18. Uzo Aduba, in conversation with TIME’s UP CMO, Rachel Terrace, left us with the idea that, “”We are all in everyone’s fight. Everyone is suffering,” she said. “Just because your issue is on the front burner does not mean there are no [other] issues.”

Behind our keynotes were panels and masterclasses that pulled our core themes together with educational content and takeaways. As content creators, we know that creating content which reflects our social values and ideals is not enough—we want creators to be able to affect real change with their content, and that only comes through understanding distribution, understanding the variety of platforms at your disposal, and learning how to navigate the digital world to reach the biggest audience.

From our Visual Storytelling masterclass, which took the audience A to Z in video content creation; to our Digital Power Hour, where we broke down digital algorithms and Google distribution hurdles; to our Passion to Profit session, where we dove deep into how you can generate revenue for your business—one thing stood true: #BlogHer18 was the destination for creators to learn how to scale, but in meaningful and impactful ways.

Jessica Alba, who delivered a keynote interview with SheKnows Media CEO, Samantha Skey, about The Honest Company and her experience as a woman entrepreneur left us with the powerful truth that “[Women’s] representation as a business leader now is just as important as it was in entertainment.”

It was always our goal to impart that belief on our audience—that women’s ideas mattered, that our representation mattered, and that we can and should take a seat at the table and not get up.