A Few Fun Photos From Mauritius: TL- Sally and Flea, TR- Beach Sunrise, BL- Sally and Flea Para-Sailing, BR-Our kiddos jumping in the pool

by Alison Chino
Y’all! Remember how I said that every once in a while you get to do something amazing as a result of being a blogger. Well, last month I got to travel all the way to Mauritius, a place I did not even know existed a year ago. I got to share this experience with another blogger in England name Sally Whittle. Sally runs the largest network of bloggers in the United Kingdom, with at least 10000 bloggers registered and she speaks regularly to bloggers at conferences.

 

So while we were lounging around by the pool and watching our kids play on the beach, I asked Sally if she would be willing to share her story and expertise with Arkansas Women Bloggers and she kindly obliged.

 

 

 

I am a journalist by trade and had been writing about the Internet and social media for more than a decade when my daughter was born. I’d always blogged about the media and PR, but increasingly found I wanted to use social media to capture our family story – the little everyday moments that otherwise get lost. So I started my own blog at whosthemummy.co.uk. Soon after, I found that there were dozens, maybe hundreds of other people writing parenting and family blogs just like mine – but there was no one place where you could find them all. In the mainstream media, there are lots of media databases, and I used that knowledge, with a few of my IT connections, to come up with Tots100 – a directory of parenting blogs that would provide one place to find lots of parent blogs, and which would provide some independent metrics about blogs in the same way media databases provided circulation figures for newspapers and magazines. At the time, nobody was doing that in the UK, and the business grew very quickly. Over time we’ve added new services, and launched two other directories – one of food blogs, and one for homes and interior blogs. 

 

 

Whenever I speak at a conference or in a magazine, I see lots of people giving very technical advice to bloggers, or advice on how to sell sponsored posts on your site. But honestly, I think that’s missing the point. For new bloggers I advise them to blog what they enjoy. Blog something you’re passionate about, blog with feeling, enjoy what you do – and ignore everything else. Don’t feel you HAVE to use this platform, or use THAT camera or whatever – have fun, write from the heart and then even if your blog doesn’t become an all-singing, all-earning multimedia platform you’ll still be doing something worthwhile that you feel proud of. But the irony of blogging is that this is the best way to grow an audience, and that audience, combined with authentic content, is the best platform if you DO then want to partner with brands. 

 

As for mistakes, I think providing someone is enjoying their blog, I wouldn’t assume to tell them what to do differently. Some bloggers write to be creative, some to add money to the family finances, some to build a professional reputation – if there’s a mistake to be made, it’s thinking there’s one sort of blog, or one right way to do things. I get so frustrated by the whole idea that, “If you’re not doing it the way I do it, you’re doing it wrong”. 

Two pieces of advice. First, remember that people do business with people. We’re all busy and occasionally have bad days, but I know that when I sit down at my desk to recruit blogs for a campaign, alongside stats and influence, I’m looking for people who are reliable, flexible and good fun to work with. If you work with a brand and deliver the content on time, with great photos, and you’re positive and friendly to chat to – then word of mouth ensures you’ll get more opportunities. Second – don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. I don’t mean bombarding brands with Tweets asking for free stuff, but by ensuring your blog is listed in directories, that your Twitter feed carries your blog link, that you have a nice contact form on your site, and a PR policy that explains what you’re interested in.

Probably Twitter – I think it provides those few minutes of chat at certain points of the day that I used to get from being in an office, and I now get on Twitter. I love that the 140 character limit can really highlight people’s humor and wit – on a good day – and lots of the people I follow on Twitter are just ridiculously smart and funny and interesting. What’s not to love? I like Instagram to a point, but I get frustrated easily by my own ineptitude with a camera, and Facebook can sometimes feel a bit too much like looking at the Martha Stewart version of my friends’ lives. And I’m about as far from Martha as you can get, so I get a bit depressed about all the crafting, cooking and general outdoorsiness that everyone else seems to do with their kids. 

Blogging started as my hobby and it’s now my job, so that’s pretty amazing. I earn a decent living, and my job is flexible enough that I can spend lots of time with my daughter so I’m very blessed in that regard. And of course blogging means we get sent a lot of stuff – although that does get old pretty quickly, believe me! I now don’t really do many product reviews (there’s only so much stuff you can fit into a Victorian terraced house, in my experience) but we love the opportunity to travel, to try new experiences and meet new people. We’ve ridden rollercoasters and met famous chefs. We’ve gone to previews of new films, stayed in amazing hotels and traveled to fantastic places. For me that’s the benefit of my personal blog – the experiences it’s allowed us to have. But even without all of that, I love to write, I love to share stories, and I love to capture memories. I love that those conversations I had with Flea when she was two and three years old are always there for us to look back on – because I know if I didn’t blog, I’d have long forgotten that Flea used to imagine that puppies were lurking round every corner waiting to steal our biscuits, or that she used to pretend to be a dog when we visited the doctor. That stuff’s so precious.