I first started blogging about 5 years ago as a hobby. I worked for an online blog where I would review beauty products and although I absolutely loved trying out new make up and face creams I knew in my heart of hearts I was not cut out to be a beauty blogger, not long term with that as my only focus anyway, so when an opportunity to review a long weekend in Scotland came up I was all over it. A travel blogger I could be! But alas, I am not that well travelled nor do I have the kind of bank balance that would allow me to travel the world on a whim and write about it, so I decided to start writing about what I knew and became a parent blogger.
When people ask me what I do for a living I get very embarrassed when I admit that I blog. I don’t know why as it is something that I LOVE, it fits around the kids, I get paid and we get opportunities that we wouldn’t get if I was still a teacher. Yet for whatever reason I get embarrassed and wait for people to judge me, yet most of the time people ask me how they could start a blog like mine too. They see what I do and think it looks great and instead of judging me like I expect them too they actually want a piece of the blogging action. Sometimes when I tell people what I do they admit they have read my blog, a mutual friend has shared an article or review and they now follow me on social media or check out my blog to see if I have reviewed a certain place before they book. This gets me every time. I find it equally mortifying and incredible that people actually read what I write even after all these years.
When I have these conversations with people I always tell them the same 3 things
-
Blogging as a business is not easy, it takes time but it is absolutely worth it.
-
You need to find your niche and decide what you will bring to the table
-
Blogging is not all free things and nights out
So what do parent bloggers actually bring to the table?
Well actually a lot more than you think. Personally for me I focus on reviewing days out and highlighting how you can get the most out of your day by giving tops tips such as where to park, what to take and what to avoid. For others they offer parenting advice like how to get your baby to sleep from day 1 (something I’ve never mastered) or recipe ideas for tricking your toddler into eating vegetables. Other parent bloggers focus on a particular niche such as parenting with mental health issues or parenting a child with a disability and now more than ever before there is a rise in parent bloggers bringing their culture to the table, showing the world how parenting styles can change from culture to culture and educating us on the options we have available to us that we may never have known before. Parent bloggers are brilliant at helping us to expand our view on motherhood.
And of course there are also the dad bloggers. Now obviously parent bloggers include dad bloggers but so many people assume all parent bloggers are female but this is not the case at all and I have met some incredible dad bloggers over the years at a variety of events and blogger conferences. Dad bloggers are so much a part of the blogging world now that some of the companies that work with the blogging community have support in place to specifically help dad bloggers break into the world of blogging and becoming influencers as well as helping them to connect with brands which is fabulous.
So if you are reading this and thinking that you too would love to start a blog, then do it, you wont regret it. But remember these 3 things
-
Blogging as a business is not easy, it takes time but it is absolutely worth it.
-
You need to find your niche and decide what you will bring to the table
-
Blogging is not all free things and nights out
Good luck.