Personal Writing Style as a Mom Blogger

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">As a mom blogger, you must balance your need to write for pleasure with the need to give something to your readers in every single post. Even if you're already an established writer, developing your personal writing style as a blogger is something that can only come with time. If you ask established professional bloggers about their first few blog posts, you'll likely notice a hesitation and cringe before they respond.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Blogging is different from any other writing medium. Posts need to be relatively short and have a well-defined value proposition for the reader. A <i>value proposition</i> is simply making sure your readers know what they'll get out of taking the time to read your blog post.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">If readers can't determine "what's in it for me" in a short amount of time, they'll leave your blog. Additionally, as a blogger, you have to enjoy what you're writing, or you won't be writing for long.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">To be successful at blogging, you really must enjoy writing for the sake of writing. This is why it's vital to choose a topic for your blog that you're extremely passionate about — a topic that you love so much that you'd be willing to write about for free. Because — let's face it — at the beginning, you <i>will </i>be writing for free!</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">On top of all this, the personal nature of blogs makes it next to impossible <i>not</i> to write about the people and things that are a part of your life. It also can make it tricky when you want to make a business out of the parts of your life that are typically shared only privately with friends and family.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Some of the harshest criticisms leveled at mom bloggers revolve around the ethics of sharing stories about family members — especially children — who don't (or can't) give explicit permission to appear on your blog.</p>

Personal Writing Style as a Mom Blogger

As a mom blogger, you must balance your need to write for pleasure with the need to give something to your readers in every single post. E...

Read more »

Personal Writing Style as a Mom Blogger

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">As a mom blogger, you must balance your need to write for pleasure with the need to give something to your readers in every single post. Even if you're already an established writer, developing your personal writing style as a blogger is something that can only come with time. If you ask established professional bloggers about their first few blog posts, you'll likely notice a hesitation and cringe before they respond.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Blogging is different from any other writing medium. Posts need to be relatively short and have a well-defined value proposition for the reader. A <i>value proposition</i> is simply making sure your readers know what they'll get out of taking the time to read your blog post.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">If readers can't determine "what's in it for me" in a short amount of time, they'll leave your blog. Additionally, as a blogger, you have to enjoy what you're writing, or you won't be writing for long.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">To be successful at blogging, you really must enjoy writing for the sake of writing. This is why it's vital to choose a topic for your blog that you're extremely passionate about — a topic that you love so much that you'd be willing to write about for free. Because — let's face it — at the beginning, you <i>will </i>be writing for free!</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">On top of all this, the personal nature of blogs makes it next to impossible <i>not</i> to write about the people and things that are a part of your life. It also can make it tricky when you want to make a business out of the parts of your life that are typically shared only privately with friends and family.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Some of the harshest criticisms leveled at mom bloggers revolve around the ethics of sharing stories about family members — especially children — who don't (or can't) give explicit permission to appear on your blog.</p>

Personal Writing Style as a Mom Blogger

As a mom blogger, you must balance your need to write for pleasure with the need to give something to your readers in every single post. E...

Read more »

How Privacy Affects Your Family and Mom Blogging Business

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Blogging is a balancing act between finding ways to share personal stories while setting boundaries about the things you refuse to share publicly. Even thebloggers who seem to bare it all have certain topics they won't discuss.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">The permanence of blogging puts a different perspective on cute and funny stories about children as they go through stages such as breastfeeding, potty training, and social struggles with their peers.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">There's no way of knowing what children will think of these writings when they're 16 years old and in the midst of teenage angst. Or how a spouse will feel about what you wrote about an argument you had. Or how your own parents will feel about how you could blog about a childhood experience that you never had the courage to share with them.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">There are also safety issues to consider when you start living your life publicly online. It's next to impossible to conceal your home address and home phone number thanks to public records and online phone books.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Additionally, newer cameras are equipped with sophisticated geo-tagging technology that can embed detailed location information in photographs you make public. To date, there have not been any incidents in which bloggers or their families have been harmed due to the findability of personal information. But unfortunately, such harm is still in the realm of possibility.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Ironically, the simple solution to this problem — being and remaining anonymous — isn't a solution that really works for bloggers. Blog readers typically want to know the person behind the words. They care about not only what the blog says, but who says it.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Additionally, it's these very personal stories that seem to resonate most with our readers. In fact, writing about taboo subjects (carefully, of course) can be helpful and healing to both the author and the reader.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">For example, several mom bloggers have shared their personal struggles with anxiety and depression. While this may be a topic that's difficult for their families to discuss, more good than harm has come from shedding light on this condition that affects many women. And the communities that have been created because of these blogs have become an invaluable support system for thousands of women.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Here are some of the questions to ask yourself to help weigh the value of sharing versus the potential consequences:</p> <ul class="level-one" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Is this information self-serving, or will my blog visitors get something out of reading thispost? </b>Sometimes you'll need to rewrite sections to change venting into a sharing of lessons learned instead.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Does this blog post say anything that I wouldn't say directly to the persons involved?</b> If not, then either choose to speak to that person first, or omit the information from your blog post.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Does this material violate the privacy of the persons I've written about?</b> If you would be afraid to have them find the post, then the answer to this question is probably yes.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Is there a way I can get my message across effectively without sharing personal details?</b> If so, it's probably in your best interests to do so.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>How would my children feel about this post if they were reading it as adults? </b>The best way to answer this question is to imagine that your own parents wrote this blog entryabout you. If that leaves you with hesitation or uneasiness, there's probably room for revision.</p> </li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"><b>Can anything in this post get taken out of context in a way that I hadn't intended? And could that misinterpretation cause harm to me or my family?</b> If so, be sure to edit your words or add more information. You don't want to risk being misrepresented in a way that creates problems that aren't there in the first place.</p> </li></ul><p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Sometimes you just don't know the answers to these questions. Trust your intuition when that little voice says, "don't hit Publish just yet." When that happens, walk away from the content for a few hours or days until you can see the situation objectively. Sometimes you don't know you've crossed the line until the line is already crossed.</p>

How Privacy Affects Your Family and Mom Blogging Business

Blogging is a balancing act between finding ways to share personal stories while setting boundaries about the things you refuse to share p...

Read more »

How Privacy Affects Your Family and Mom Blogging Business

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Blogging is a balancing act between finding ways to share personal stories while setting boundaries about the things you refuse to share publicly. Even thebloggers who seem to bare it all have certain topics they won't discuss.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">The permanence of blogging puts a different perspective on cute and funny stories about children as they go through stages such as breastfeeding, potty training, and social struggles with their peers.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">There's no way of knowing what children will think of these writings when they're 16 years old and in the midst of teenage angst. Or how a spouse will feel about what you wrote about an argument you had. Or how your own parents will feel about how you could blog about a childhood experience that you never had the courage to share with them.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">There are also safety issues to consider when you start living your life publicly online. It's next to impossible to conceal your home address and home phone number thanks to public records and online phone books.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Additionally, newer cameras are equipped with sophisticated geo-tagging technology that can embed detailed location information in photographs you make public. To date, there have not been any incidents in which bloggers or their families have been harmed due to the findability of personal information. But unfortunately, such harm is still in the realm of possibility.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Ironically, the simple solution to this problem — being and remaining anonymous — isn't a solution that really works for bloggers. Blog readers typically want to know the person behind the words. They care about not only what the blog says, but who says it.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Additionally, it's these very personal stories that seem to resonate most with our readers. In fact, writing about taboo subjects (carefully, of course) can be helpful and healing to both the author and the reader.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">For example, several mom bloggers have shared their personal struggles with anxiety and depression. While this may be a topic that's difficult for their families to discuss, more good than harm has come from shedding light on this condition that affects many women. And the communities that have been created because of these blogs have become an invaluable support system for thousands of women.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Here are some of the questions to ask yourself to help weigh the value of sharing versus the potential consequences:</p> <ul class="level-one" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Is this information self-serving, or will my blog visitors get something out of reading thispost? </b>Sometimes you'll need to rewrite sections to change venting into a sharing of lessons learned instead.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Does this blog post say anything that I wouldn't say directly to the persons involved?</b> If not, then either choose to speak to that person first, or omit the information from your blog post.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Does this material violate the privacy of the persons I've written about?</b> If you would be afraid to have them find the post, then the answer to this question is probably yes.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Is there a way I can get my message across effectively without sharing personal details?</b> If so, it's probably in your best interests to do so.</p></li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>How would my children feel about this post if they were reading it as adults? </b>The best way to answer this question is to imagine that your own parents wrote this blog entryabout you. If that leaves you with hesitation or uneasiness, there's probably room for revision.</p> </li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"><b>Can anything in this post get taken out of context in a way that I hadn't intended? And could that misinterpretation cause harm to me or my family?</b> If so, be sure to edit your words or add more information. You don't want to risk being misrepresented in a way that creates problems that aren't there in the first place.</p> </li></ul><p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Sometimes you just don't know the answers to these questions. Trust your intuition when that little voice says, "don't hit Publish just yet." When that happens, walk away from the content for a few hours or days until you can see the situation objectively. Sometimes you don't know you've crossed the line until the line is already crossed.</p>

How Privacy Affects Your Family and Mom Blogging Business

Blogging is a balancing act between finding ways to share personal stories while setting boundaries about the things you refuse to share p...

Read more »

Personal and Professional Boundaries for Mom Bloggers

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">In an interview, Heather Armstrong of <a href="http://www.dooce.com/" style="color:rgb(1,69,138)">Dooce.com</a> revealed how she crossed personal and professional boundaries, the result of which was losing her job and hurting her family. Heather Armstrong started<a class="" href="http://m.dummies.com/DummiesArticle/Personal-and-Professional-Boundaries-for-Mom-Bloggers.id-284116.html#glossary-blog" style="color:rgb(1,69,138)">blogging</a> as a way to vent her frustrations with her co-workers, and to share her critical opinions on her family's Mormon religion.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Back then, she certainly never thought any of her family members would ever find her blog online. And she never mentioned names, either of her company or her co-workers, feeling that this level of privacy was all she needed to ensure that her writings wouldn't cause any trouble in real life.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Heather learned the hard way that her co-workers did indeed find out about her blog, and she was promptly fired for it. And around the same time, her family found out about it as well, and was devastated to read the hurtful things she had said about them and their religion.</p> <p class="Remember" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Heather's lesson learned is as important now as it was back then — everything that you publish online is <i>permanent.</i> You can't delete a blog post and erase it from the web. Your words don't just reside on your blog — they are spread around the Internet via RSSfeeds, search engines, and webarchives. They get copied on server backups and on any computer of a blog reader.</p>

Personal and Professional Boundaries for Mom Bloggers

In an interview, Heather Armstrong of  Dooce.com  revealed how she crossed personal and professional boundaries, the result of which was l...

Read more »

Personal and Professional Boundaries for Mom Bloggers

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">In an interview, Heather Armstrong of <a href="http://www.dooce.com/" style="color:rgb(1,69,138)">Dooce.com</a> revealed how she crossed personal and professional boundaries, the result of which was losing her job and hurting her family. Heather Armstrong started<a class="" href="http://m.dummies.com/DummiesArticle/Personal-and-Professional-Boundaries-for-Mom-Bloggers.id-284116.html#glossary-blog" style="color:rgb(1,69,138)">blogging</a> as a way to vent her frustrations with her co-workers, and to share her critical opinions on her family's Mormon religion.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Back then, she certainly never thought any of her family members would ever find her blog online. And she never mentioned names, either of her company or her co-workers, feeling that this level of privacy was all she needed to ensure that her writings wouldn't cause any trouble in real life.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Heather learned the hard way that her co-workers did indeed find out about her blog, and she was promptly fired for it. And around the same time, her family found out about it as well, and was devastated to read the hurtful things she had said about them and their religion.</p> <p class="Remember" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Heather's lesson learned is as important now as it was back then — everything that you publish online is <i>permanent.</i> You can't delete a blog post and erase it from the web. Your words don't just reside on your blog — they are spread around the Internet via RSSfeeds, search engines, and webarchives. They get copied on server backups and on any computer of a blog reader.</p>

Personal and Professional Boundaries for Mom Bloggers

In an interview, Heather Armstrong of  Dooce.com  revealed how she crossed personal and professional boundaries, the result of which was l...

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Change a Personal Mom Blog into a Business

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">To take your personal blog and turn it into a business, two of the most important things you can do are grow thicker skin and consciously start looking at your blog objectively from an outsider's point of view.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Blogging is a personal business, and your personality is the greatest asset of your business. But you may find that some things are just too important to you to risk making them a part of your professional life.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Successful bloggers pour their hearts and souls into their blogging businesses. Blogs aren't just an online journal of personal events — many times they are an expression of who you are as a person. This can make it difficult to be impartial when your highly subjective content must be analyzed objectively from a business point of view. And it makes it even harder to not take criticism or setbacks personally.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">For many bloggers, that may mean shifting content around into a more user-friendly format and putting up more formal boundaries between personal life and business. It doesn't mean you have to stop being personal — far from it.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">On a larger scale, it's important to pay attention to how exactly you plan on making money off your personal writings. You want to think carefully about what exactly you're selling on your blog. Even if you aren't selling products, you may be selling advertising or your own services.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">How will your personal opinions affect your ability to market yourself? In some cases, a blog with controversial content may have a hard time finding advertisers. Other times, you want to put policies in place to ensure that you aren't giving your readers an impression that your opinions are for sale.</p>

Change a Personal Mom Blog into a Business

To take your personal blog and turn it into a business, two of the most important things you can do are grow thicker skin and consciously ...

Read more »

Change a Personal Mom Blog into a Business

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><br></h1> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">To take your personal blog and turn it into a business, two of the most important things you can do are grow thicker skin and consciously start looking at your blog objectively from an outsider's point of view.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Blogging is a personal business, and your personality is the greatest asset of your business. But you may find that some things are just too important to you to risk making them a part of your professional life.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Successful bloggers pour their hearts and souls into their blogging businesses. Blogs aren't just an online journal of personal events — many times they are an expression of who you are as a person. This can make it difficult to be impartial when your highly subjective content must be analyzed objectively from a business point of view. And it makes it even harder to not take criticism or setbacks personally.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">For many bloggers, that may mean shifting content around into a more user-friendly format and putting up more formal boundaries between personal life and business. It doesn't mean you have to stop being personal — far from it.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">On a larger scale, it's important to pay attention to how exactly you plan on making money off your personal writings. You want to think carefully about what exactly you're selling on your blog. Even if you aren't selling products, you may be selling advertising or your own services.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">How will your personal opinions affect your ability to market yourself? In some cases, a blog with controversial content may have a hard time finding advertisers. Other times, you want to put policies in place to ensure that you aren't giving your readers an impression that your opinions are for sale.</p>

Change a Personal Mom Blog into a Business

To take your personal blog and turn it into a business, two of the most important things you can do are grow thicker skin and consciously ...

Read more »

How to Profit from Mom Blogging without Selling Out

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><i style="font-size:18px;line-height:24px">Selling out</i><span style="font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> </span><span style="font-size:18px;line-height:24px">is a term used for compromising your integrity, principles, or morals to gain money or success. The problem is, if everyone had the same principles and definition of integrity, there wouldn't be much need for different political parties or religions.</span><br> </h1><p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">People can be accused of selling out if they simply do things like broaden their horizons or develop new interests over the course of time. Additionally, you may have certain beliefs in place that seem important now, but become less important as you gain more experience and knowledge.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">A great example of this is the evolution of the very organization that provides standards to bloggerswho work with brands: the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (<a href="http://womma.org/main" style="color:rgb(1,69,138)">WOMMA</a>). When WOMMA was first established, its founding members came from a very traditional media background and took old-school journalistic standards and applied them to all marketing in the new world of social media.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">For several years, WOMMA formally said that members were not allowed to pay money to bloggers for writing blog posts, but they could offer products for free. The founding members felt strongly that this led to the perception of buying opinions from bloggers.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Yet as the blogging industry evolved, bloggers began to feel taken advantage of. They didn't want useless free products; they wanted to be compensated for their writing and input. The tables began to turn as WOMMA realized this position was enabling brands to get free or cheap advertising at the expense of bloggers' businesses.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">In a reversal, WOMMA changed its policy (and its board management) to reflect the new needs of social media marketing, and now states that it's absolutely ethical to pay bloggers for writing sponsored content as long as they comply with the FTC guidelines.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Sadly, mom bloggers are sometimes accused of selling out when they get opportunities to work with brands. The importance of this is not that the accusers are right — usually they aren't. They are projecting their own definition of selling out onto other people. And they are usually coming from WOMMA's old-school perspective that is out of tune with the reality of running a blogging business.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Here the crucial issue is that you know what selling out means to<i>you</i><i>,</i><b> </b>because <i>true </i>selling out can only hurt you in the long term if you don't correct your course.</p> <p style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:24px;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">No matter what you decide is right for you, here are some general topics and guidelines that apply for everyone who wrestles with the idea of what "selling out" means:</p> <ul class="level-one" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"> <b>Unethical advertising:</b> An advertiser that specifically asks you to write something positive about the company is being unethical. All professional bloggers will refuse any opportunity that requires they lead their readers to believe that an opinion expressed is their own when it isn't.</p> </li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"><b>Breaking FTC guidelines:</b> An advertiser that wants to hire you to write something and asks you not to disclose that the content is sponsored is breaking the FTC guidelines. If you do not disclose that the content was compensated, then you're breaking FTC guidelines, too. Both you and the advertiser would be liable for fines or damages that could arise in the future. This is not ethical social media marketing.</p> </li><li><p class="first-para" style="margin:0.75em 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;line-height:24px"><b>Conflicts of interest:</b> A blogger maintains a respected blog and is a trusted voice in social media only by avoiding opportunities that present very clear conflicts of interest. For example, a mom who writes as a breastfeeding advocate shouldn't become a spokesblogger for a baby-formula company. Most opportunities are not this clear-cut, however, which is why it's a must to create an editorial policy for your blog.</p> </li></ul>

How to Profit from Mom Blogging without Selling Out

Selling out   is a term used for compromising your integrity, principles, or morals to gain money or success. The problem is, if everyone ha...

Read more »