5 Star Teachers Pay Teachers Conference Review

Teachers Pay Teachers conference 2021 took place virtually this year which had its pluses and minuses. A huge bonus was that teacher sellers had the option to watch all presenters if they chose to do so. The minus was the lack of connection and camaraderie that typically takes place when the bunch gets together. The two activities or connections that you could make live was a cheesy live trivia game and one pajama happy hour which primarily took place in a breakout room with 6 other people. The presenters and keynote speakers were nothing short of amazing with some great tips and tricks I’ll be sharing below.

Some data that proves how big and effective Teacher’s Pay Teachers is as a website is that 85% of teachers purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers at least once this past year and more than two million students tried a paid digital resource.

A sentiment expressed from most presenters was that in the beginning they kept comparing themselves to other TpT seller authors and it was highly discouraging. Some even almost gave up because they couldn’t imagine holding themselves to such high standards. Thankfully none of them did, and they are top sellers today. The second sentiment that was expressed was that they would enthusiastically attend TpT conferences, but then found themselves overwhelmed with all the new information provided. They said they found one thing they were really good at and stuck with that. For example an email list, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, blogging, copywriting, etc. One keynote speaker Jon Avery gave the following advice: Be realistic on how much time you can spend on resource creation, evaluate your strengths and play off of those, It’s ok not to be finished with a product, Don’t measure yourself with someone else’s ruler, and slow down.

Teachers Pay Teachers Conference: Pricing Faux Pas

Chynell Moore

1. Waiting until the last minute to set a price
2. Raising prices just cuz
3. Feeling like your taking advantage of your customers
4. Low price=Sale. Not so
5. Pricing based on how much time it took to make the product
6. Having a one size fits all pricing strategy
7. Setting a price and leaving it or “setting and forgetting”

Teachers Pay Teachers Conference: Video Marketing

Kerry Tracy

1. Short form content is content that lasts two minutes or less. Examples: teaching tips, class tour, favorite book, funny stories, ads, preview, highlighting product, canva, keynote, and PowerPoint
2. Long form content examples: courses, webinars, lives
3. Lives, example- facebook live

*Fun Fact-She uses wall paper samples to decorate her background or peg board. You can put pegs in and build shelves-very aesthetically pleasing!

Teachers Pay Teachers Conference: Social Justice

Sonam Shahani

1. Social justice teaches kids how to think not what to think. Students shouldn’t know what political party you run with.
2. Teachingfortolerancorg is now the LearningforJustice.org

*Tip-when teaching a subject have students see things through a “villain’s” or other character’s perspective. So if you look at Goldilocks and the three bears, look at it through the three bear’s perspective. Another great character that comes to mind is Elphaba from “Wicked”

Teachers Pay Teachers Conference: Stay Current

Cindy Martin

1. Go to Trends.google.com
2. Look up education
3. Put what you find in the google search engine
4. Hit news
5. Stay current! It helps with your sales and your reputation!

*Fun fact-Worksheets are trending over google docs, and third runner up is Booms cards

Teachers Pay Teachers Conference: Research Based Products

Jan Smith

1. Research based products are built around research based practices
2. Example: collaborative discussions have been proven to engage students in learning. Therefore, a product would be a philosophical chairs discussion or a Socratic Seminar.

*Tip on how to find research based practices: NCTE-English, NSTA-Science, NCTM-math

Growing an Email list

Rachel Noak

1. Choose the right provider-she uses ConvertKit
2. Brainstorm your goals
3. Think long-term
4. Be consistent
5. Know and understand your purpose for emails
6. Find the right approach
7. Know your audience, have the right audience, delete cold subscribers
8. Help your audience get to know you
9. Continually build your relationship

Tips-Use a template: she includes three things-free resource, helpful blogs, teacher self-care. Love this template!

Instagram

Michele Grifo

1. Show your personality through your brand in everything that you do
2. Know how the algorithm works
3. Reels-once you use it you will love it! Repurpose content, use trendy songs, show your face, keep it simple, use product photos and videos.
4. All these above will grow your followers

Not so fun fact-Instagram only shows 10/100 of your audience members your posts. If there is engagement they will send them to more people and so on. Not everyone sees what you post like they do on Facebook.

Blogging Excuses

Tanya Marshall

1. I would rather be creating products
2. I don’t see how it’s helping me make money
3. I would rather be on Instagram or Tik Tok
4. I can’t think of anything to write about
5. It takes sooooooooooooooooo long

*Tips-Use your products as the topic of your blog posts. Search your topic on google and use the “topics related” section for your subheadings. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the words at the bottom as your long tail keywords. Try batching 4 blog posts in one day-if you hate blogging this will save your life!

Podcasting Myths

Trina Deboree

1. You can’t earn money podcasting-see tips below
2. It takes a lot of time-only at first
3. You need to be a natural storyteller or speaker-it’s a skill that is developed
4. You need an audience-you may start without one

Tips-You can earn money by linking your store, using it as a lead magnet, or getting sponsors

Photos

Stephanie Sutherland

1. Use the northern most room in the house for natural lighting between 9-12
2. Use the southern most room in the house for natural lighting between 12 and sundown
3. Do not take pictures at night

Tip-Use a foam board covered in laminate to look like a desk background. The two most important things for photography are a foam board and natural sunlight

Accessible Resources

Daniel Mault

1. Choose the right tool-use a tool that teachers are using such as google docs
2. Make it engaging and interactive
3. Use awesome clipart
4. Place text on top of your slides
5. Record audio
6. Be careful with color-no green or red (people who are color blind cannot distinguish between the two)

Tip-Include printable and digital. Check out Erintegration who sells digital, moveable pieces! Cool!

Pinterest

Alexandra Baxter

1. Pinterest is a search engine not a social media site
2. There are 450 million users
3. Teachers love it for ideas
4. People come to try or buy
5. You can be salesy
6. It’s free and user friendly

Tip-Like Dori, Just keep pinning! 2-3 ratio, use pins that are light, and don’t forget to use a title

How do you Get Noticed on Teachers Pay Teachers: Redesigning Your Store for Maximum Impact

Kristin Hammond

Three types of brand styles

1. Minimalist-no fuss, no frills, and likes to keep it classic
2. Scroll stopper-bright, bold, clip art
3. Trendsetters-Trendy patterns, designs. Photographs with Boho trends, colors, fonts

Why it’s important to incorporate your brand style on TpT

1. It helps you stand out
2. It makes your overall storefront
3. It makes your product listings
4. It saves you time and money

What you need for your covers and thumbnails

1. Large simple text
2. Bold fonts that appeal to your audience
3. 1-3 photos of your resource

9 Benefits of being a Part-time TpT’er

Susan Schwartz

1. Work on TpT when you want
2. Less pressure to sell resources
3. You can make resources you want to make
4. Don’t need to try every new thing
5. Can spend less time on social media
6. Less time on marketing
7. Have less possibility for burnout
8. Don’t have to watch every video or webinar
9. Don’t have to buy a lot of courses

Fun fact-TpT can just be done as a creative hobby

What VA’s Do

Heather Fergen

1. Video creation and editing
2. SEO for TpT product titles and descriptions
3. SEO for blog posts
4. Blog Design
5. Tech help on the blog
6. Newsletters
7. Product editing
8. Image creation
9. Product cover creation
10. Pinterest live pinning
11. Facebook
12. Twitter
13. Media Kit
14. Email management
15. Blogger for WordPress
16. Taking action photos
17. Schedule out guest bloggers
18. Updating WordPress plugins
19. Research
20. And much more…

Tip-shop around and try to get a referral. Or hire for one project prior to hiring long-term

What Administrators Look For in a Product

Maria Montroni-Currais

1. Standards
2. Preview
3. Inclusivity
4. Rigor
5. Relevance

Is Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers Worth It? These People Say it Is

Kristen Rivera was the keynote speaker for Tuesday and she really brought it home with a heart wrenching-authentic story. Jon Avery was Wednesday’s keynote and he brought a fresh perspective and new wisdom with some straight-forward advice. Maribel Sheehan also shared some adverse life experiences and her treacherous journey through TpT, sometimes not sleeping for two nights in a row to save her family’s home. Kristen Rivera seemed to capture a common theme throughout the conference when she expressed, “Do not let the noise drown out your inner voice. You do not need to do everything to be successful. You have the answers. All you have to do is listen.”

They also said not to be afraid to market your products for sale! So below are some of mine:)

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury-a short story digital assignment

The Benefits of Being an Octopus-a novel study

Titanic-a nonfiction read and respond

Social Emotional Learning-a new curriculum

Teaching Tolerance-learning for justice

New Kid by Jerry Craft-a graphic novel unit

To read my blog post on an anti-biased framework for teaching for tolerance, click Here

If you attended the TpT conference this year or previous years, please respond in the comments what your favorite tip, trick or fun fact is! The Teachers Pay Teachers sitewide sale is this August and you don’t want to miss it!