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The Motherhood

Building Your Blog Community: Part One – Blogging 101

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Starting a blog isn’t much harder than choosing a blog name and a platform, clicking a few buttons, and starting to write. But if you build it, will anyone come? And what will happen when they get there?

 

Today in The Motherhood, we had a great talk with an exceptional panel of bloggers who enlightened us on everything from the administrative to the creative, and gave guidance to beginning and longtime bloggers alike on building our blog communities.

 

Vera Sweeney of Lady and the Blog, Melissa Chapman of Married My Sugar Daddy, Nadia Carriere of Child Mode, Audrey McClelland of Mom Generations,  Annie Shultz of Mama Dweeb, Victoria Pericon of Veep Veep, Whitney Wingerd of Mommies with Style, and Megan Crume of Sweet Sadie Marie weighed in on the blogging questions you’ve always wanted answered.

 

 

If you build it…

 

First, of course, you have to build the blog. When asked whether it was more important to have a great looking blog or one with great content, the panelists were unanimous: it’s all about the content. Annie of Mama Dweeb noted, “Content is King! That is what they told me in newspaper class and that applies to blogging.” Even an ugly site with great content draws readers back, though an attractive site may keep them there longer.

 

How to make that site good looking? Nadia of Child Mode and Whitney of Mommies with Style advise that WordPress and TypePad have lots of easy-to-use templates and themes. Vera of Lady and the Blog recommends “adding more images and videos that are engaging for the readers.” She cautions, though, that it’s never okay to grab images from other websites, even if you credit them. If you use others’ images, you should be prepared to pay for them.

 

Along with good content and good looks, several panelists emphasized that regular posting is critical. Vera said, “You should carve out time each day. Even on the weekends I sneak over to the computer and get at least one post up.”

 

 

After you build the blog itself, it’s time to build relationships. Vera summed it up neatly when she said, “Building relationships is key to any successful business. With blogging, there are three types of relationships that need attention:

 

-Blogger to Blogger: Start linking to like blogs with similar traffic. Do weekly roundups. Post one another’s badges on your sidebars. Tweet one another’s work. There is strength in numbers.

 

-Blogger to Brand: Become friendly with reps. Attend events. Work on projects and keep the communication line open. Make them remember you.

 

-Blogger to Reader: Reply back to comments. Offer something special on your newsletter, interact on your Facebook wall. All these things matter.”

 

To build relationships with other bloggers, consider joining a blogging group (or a few). As far as building Blogger to Brand relationships, the panel was mixed about whether it was easier to build relationships directly with brands or to go through PR agencies.

 

 

What to do to get noticed by brands? Again, the panel emphasized content. Megan of Sweet Sadie Marie said to ask yourself who and what you’re passionate about–that will guide you.  Melissa of Married My Sugar Daddy added that “when you’ve got really good content, it’s easier to make brands notice you–and you will feel a lot more confident making those introductions when you’ve got the blog content to back it up.” Vera and several panelists also recommended having a media kit, something you can send to PR reps to showcase your brand relationships and past work.

 

As you build relationships, especially with bloggers and readers, you’ll build audience. Vera recommends increasing SEO by tagging your posts with keywords and repeating those in the post itself; matching your post title to its first paragraph, and using bullets and headers (which search engines love) throughout your post. Annie adds that it’s wise to think about specific terms readers might be searching for, and using those in your post title in lieu of something more generic.

 

Another way to grow your audience is the use of Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and the like to drive traffic to your site. Whitney says she uses “auto-feeds–everything I post goes straight to my Facebook page and Twitter feed–makes it nice and easy and I get a ton of traffic that way. ” For those who are not seeing success from those methods, Victoria of Veep Veep reminds, “Talk with others. If you write but never reply to e-mails or respond to comments or tweets, then they won’t come back.” In other words: engage your audience. Nadia recommends participating in memes such as Wordless Wednesday as a good way to connect with other bloggers and build audience.

 

 

…They will come.

 

Your hard work will pay off, the panelists agreed, but be patient and persistent. Annie said, “There is no such thing as overnight success with blogging. It takes most bloggers at LEAST six months of hard work before they see a dime.”

 

Several panelists offered their best tips for getting paid. Vera said, “Don’t be afraid to pitch yourself,” and recommended charging for contests, even if it’s only $25. “Something is better than nothing.”  Whitney cautioned, “Do NOT work for free with the promise of a later paid gig! There are so many of these ‘offers’ out there. You are worth more.”

 

As important as it is to know your worth and to be paid, don’t get hung up on earnings and pageviews. As Audrey of Mom Generations wisely observed, “It will come if you keep with it. As soon as I let that piece of it go and started producing content that I loved and was ultra passionate about, doors began to open.”

 

You can read the full transcript of the Talk here.

 

Next up we’ll be posting a second part summary of the Building Your Blog Community: Part Two – Advanced Blogging. Look for that post soon! Thanks!

The Mometer Monday: Pinterest, Time for Me and The Motherhood Network

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We like to think of The Mometer as The Motherhood’s thermometer, taking the temperature of moms, how you’re all doing, what’s top of mind and even what might be coming down the pike.

 

You may have noticed our new “The Mometer” polls (you can see the latest polls here) which we love, especially because they help us get to know each other a little better.

 

Based on recent The Mometer polls, for example:

 

This community is exactly 50/50 split on the economy – half think we’re coming out of the recession and the other half say we are still in it, and are worried.

 

 

With last night’s wonderful season finale of Downton Abbey, we were not surprised that almost 50 percent of us say “OMG, yes” we’re obsessed with the show (and, OMG, how can they make us wait a full year for the new season!!!!!!!!!!?????)

 

 

For our new The Mometer Monday series, we’d like to share a few other topics that are particularly resonating among moms this week:

 

 

1.  Pinterest.  We held a live Talk in The Motherhood on Pinterest and it was clear:

 

-Pinterest is all about women, especially moms

-Pinterest is not necessarily for the uber-social media types — women who are “more Facebook” and “less Twitter” are flocking to it.

-People and organizations are using Pinterest in creative, cool and innovative ways.

 

From our live Talk we created Pinterest 101: A Crowd-Sourced User Manual, a fantastic resource on the platform, whether you’re a newbie, a seasoned user or a brand considering using it. Check it out!

 

 

2.  Taking #10Minutes for ourselves.  Social media moms get innumerable emails from publicists that lead off with …  ‘busy moms need a break’.  Clearly, the idea that we’re all overworked and over-tired has hit mainstream marketing messages, with the result that many of these emails get a collective eye-roll from the moms on the receiving end.

 

Having said that, however, when Christine Koh of Boston Mamas suggested creating a #10minutes for Me Challenge for moms to take just 10 minutes for themselves each day, moms piled into the Talk to share their best ideas and talk about why it’s so hard to do this.

 

Top #10Minutes ideas included:

 

-Read

-Get in the car and DRIVE

-Quiet – of any sort

-Stretch!

 

Read the full list here. And then take #10Minutes for yourself, K?

 

 

3.  The Motherhood blogger network. For years we have worked with the best of the best when it comes to mom bloggers, partnering with many before they were the stars they are today, and are so proud of the deep and lasting relationships we have formed with women across the blogosphere. The magic and quality content we create together is like nothing else on the web.

 

Timed with our new look and platform, we’ve created a more formal, official network of The Motherhood’s mom and dad bloggers, too.  If you are a blogger and would like to join our network, fill out this form to get started, send an email to [email protected] and we can get the ball rolling.

 

Have a great week everyone!

 

PS. Our design partners, Red Antler did a wonderful write-up on The Motherhood redesign and we wanted to share! You can read it here.

 

 

 

Your Mother-In-Law: Turning Over a New Leaf

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A man is torn between two women. One has known and loved him since he was a child, and he owes her his very life, but he has pledged his heart to another.  Sounds like a setup for a great movie or romance novel, but this drama is lived out every day in women’s relationships with their mothers-in-law. Can this story possibly have a happy ending?

 

Despite the stereotype of the “monster-in-law,” the answer seems to be yes: a happy (or at least happier) ending is possible. Judy Goldberg, senior editor of Parents Magazine, and a wonderful panel of featured guests joined The Motherhood to discuss our relationships with our mothers-in-law and how we can make them better.

 

MIL vs. Mother: Which relationship is harder?

 

Judy Goldberg posed this thought-provoking question early on.  Shell of Things I Can’t Say offered that she sometimes finds it easier to get along with her MIL than her own mom. Kristen Kemp of Barista Kids cited three reasons the relationship between women and their MILs can be so tough:  “First, you put two women together who are in love with the same man. Second, you are stuck together for the long haul, no defriending on Facebook allowed. Third, your man probably cares what she thinks, so you have to be careful that you don’t tick them both off.”

 

Judy observed that it’s possible that “people struggle with MILs because they have this new, but suddenly very intimate relationship to navigate.” Britt of In Pursuit of Happiness added, “I think the in-law relationship is unique because it’s one of the few times when you’re forced to have an intimate relationship with people you didn’t necessarily choose – that’s a big leap for everyone involved!”

 

 

What does your MIL want from you? What do you want from her?

 

Judy asked these questions: “What do you want from your MIL? What do you think she wants from you?” One participant felt that her MIL wanted to have “the same relationship with me as I have with my mother,” and that from her own end, that would just not be possible. Britt and Fadra of All Things Fadra agreed that they were looking for a “second mother” to “fill in gaps” in the relationships with their own moms. Some of the participants had never really considered the questions–and as Joe Jackson famously sang, “You can’t get what you want ’til you know what you want.”

 

 

 

Gossip and Guilt Trips and Grasping, Oh My!

 

Though several participants and panelists reported great, easy-to-navigate relationships with their MILs, there were, predictably, a number of conflict issues. One MIL needs to talk to her son for at least an hour EVERY day, and gets miffed if a few days go by without a call (or if it’s suggested that a three-week-plus visit is a little too long). Judy said she gets lots of letters about such situations, and emphasized the need to “set super firm limits and stand by them. Even if MIL is angry.”

 

Tales of overbearing and controlling MILs abounded, from the MIL who rearranges her daughter-in-law’s porch furniture when she’s not home, to the one who schedules medical appointments for her grandkids–WITHOUT their parents’ input.  Then there was the flip side–MILs who don’t seem to want to be involved in their grandchildren’s lives, or who make promises to grandchildren and don’t follow through, or who show blatant favoritism to some grandchildren over others–even within the same family.

 

 

What’s a daughter-in-law to do?

 

We may not be able to change the things we don’t love about our MILs, but there are several things we can do to change our own perspective (and maybe to influence their behavior a little bit).

 

We loved this advice from panelist Meagan of The Happiest Mom: “I think a big part of forging a positive relationship is accepting who your MIL is (which may not always be the same as the person you would like them to be.) She also noted, “…the biggest thing that improved our relationship is realizing that her having an opinion didn’t mean she was dismissing mine or thought me incompetent. SO much of our early tension was due to me being defensive, and perceiving criticism that wasn’t always there.” Britt added, “Screwing up enough times as a mother myself (helped the relationship). You get more compassionate, I think, the more often you fall short of your own ideal.”

 

Shell recounted how she and her MIL made their way out of negative drama with clear communication and finding their common ground: “She thought I hated her and I thought she hated me… so we both acted that way. We realized that there really was no hatred there. And that we both love my husband and the boys, so that helped.” Shell also advised making an effort to include MIL in special days, to make her feel like part of the family. None of us, including MILs, wants to be on the outside looking in.

 

Fadra offered, “What helps me… is imagining what I will be like with my future daughter-in-law. My son is my world and I can’t imagine any girl meeting my standards. Yes, I know. That’s wrong!!” Several participants echoed the sentiment that thinking about how they want a future daughter-in-law to treat them reminds them how to treat their MIL.  As Joy of Creative Mamma put it, “I now have a new mindset about how to be an MIL in the future!”

 

All of these things can help, but we have to remember, as one participant put it, “Some relationships are just toxic.” Sometimes, for the health of your marriage or family you really do have to just walk away. The trick is knowing when to walk, and when to try to repair the relationship.

 

The Upside

 

There are days that it may seem tempting not even to try, but it can be so worth it to work on your relationship with your MIL, as Kristen Kemp observed. “Finding peace with your MIL makes life so much easier. As I get older, I am so much more relaxed about the little things she’d say that bothered me. I think I’m learning to live with her quirks. I’m even learning to love her for them.” Judy Goldberg pointed out that your MIL has already done one thing right, saying, “(Y)ou could end up with an amazing relationship with a woman who loves your husband and has helped make him into the amazing person he is. You’ve got to give her props for that!”

Join Us This Week For An Awesome Line-Up Of Live Talks!

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This week brings us Live Talks that cover the gamut and then some. Get ready for a fabulous week of amazing experts, a variety of topics and LOTS of valuable conversation and information! Join us!

 

Monday, January 30, 1 pm EST – MAKING TECH WORK FOR YOU WITH CARLEY FROM DIGITWIRL

Carley Knobloch, host and Chief Twirler at Digitwirl.com will share her all-time favorite technology products and innovations to help you organize your life.  If you’ve ever smacked your head and wondered, “Is there an app for that?!” join us for a talk about tech tools that help you save time, money and a little sanity. From managing the schedule to figuring out what’s for dinner— we’re covering it all!

 

Tuesday, January 30, 12 pm EST – EMPOWERING GIRLS WITH RACHEL SIMMONS

Bestselling author and founder of the Girls Leadership Institute, Rachel Simmons, will lead a Talk on helping our daughters to discover and embrace the best parts of their authentic selves.  Bring your questions, your stories of raising your daughters and we’ll all learn skills for our girls (and us!) to live with integrity, personal authority and self-awareness.

 

Wednesday, February 1, 1 pm EST – TALKING WITH YOUR KIDS ABOUT SEX, DRUGS, ALCOHOL OR GRIEF

Sex, drugs, alcohol or grief: few topics are as stressful for parents – or as important for your kids.  Dr. G, of AskDrG.com, will give you the words and tools to pass on your own values on these subjects to your children.  We’ll address the issues that make you feel most anxious at home, and find new ways and ease to talk about them with your kids.

 

Thursday, February 2, 1 pm EST – GAME DAY AND SLOW COOKER RECIPES

Get ready – and hungry – for Game Day!  Cold weather and football puts us in the mood for some tasty slow cooker recipes.  Join us in our second Cooking Connections 2012 cooking class to share your favorites and be inspired by suggestions from others! Cooking Connections is brought to you by ConAgra Foods and ReadySetEat.com.

 

 

Friday, February 3, 2 pm EST – THE ALT DESIGN SUMMIT WRAP-UP WITH GABRIELLE BLAIR

Join Gabrielle Blair, Design Mom and a team of presenters from the Alt Design Summit to hear about the Summit highlights, the latest great design ideas, innovations and inspirations.

 

Great line-up, right!?!?! See you there!

Things Happen When You Get Out Of The House

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I once heard a wise saying: Things happen when you get out of the house. It’s simple, but it’s true: You’re a lot more likely to meet your neighbor if you’re in your front yard instead of your kitchen. You won’t meet the love of your life if you hunker down on your couch to watch reruns, but you might if you go to that party you were invited to. If you don’t go downtown, you won’t see the “Help Wanted” sign that leads you to your dream job. If you put yourself out there, you never know what might happen.

 

In 2005, I had two little kids, and I wasn’t getting out of the house (alone) nearly as much as I wanted to. I loved my kids, but I craved the company of like-minded moms. I had recently seen a link to a blog in one of my favorite magazines. I followed the link. I loved the blog. I started one of my own. As I wrote, I began to read. I played “blogscotch,” finding a blog I liked and then visiting blogs in that blog’s blogroll, and so on and so on. One day I saw a link to a blog called “Been There.” It was even better than I’d hoped—not one, but two women: smart, funny, sympathetic. They really had been where I was; they got it. Then came my “getting out of the house” moment. Instead of just reading, I left a comment.

 

Through that comment, one of the women, Cooper, found and commented on my blog. That reaching back was the start of an online friendship between me and Cooper and her co-blogger, Emily, too. They were the kind of mom, the kind of friend, that I wanted to be. And they made it feel like it was possible.

 

When Hurricane Katrina hit, I sent a check to the Red Cross. I sat in my house, wringing my hands, wishing there were more I could do. Cooper and Emily DID something. They started the “Been There Clearinghouse.” If someone who fled New Orleans needed a crib, or clothes, or anything, Cooper and Emily found a way to connect them with people who had those things to give away. If someone had something to offer, Cooper and Emily connected them with someone who needed it. Here I was just trying to get out of the house, for Pete’s sake; they were helping people who no longer had houses to get out of.

 

One day I got an e-mail from Emily: would I be willing to give her my phone number and actually talk on the phone? Of course, I said, despite my husband’s mutterings about Internet safety and his suspicions that “Cooper and Emily” was really an ex-con in a stained undershirt who lured unsuspecting suburban moms to his paneled basement lair. I gave my number, and soon I was hearing the real voices of these women I already loved and admired (or the surprisingly convincing voices of two women the ex-con had imprisoned in his basement as part of his diabolical plan).

 

It was really them, though—and they had a very non-diabolical plan of their own: a website for moms, a place to gather, share ideas, learn, talk, laugh, support each other, maybe even change the world. A virtual neighborhood—a Motherhood. It barely seemed possible to me; I mean, I was having a hard enough time getting the laundry done. Run a website? One that would really matter? Well, if anyone could do it, my money would have been on Emily and Cooper. I listened to them, laughing with delight and anticipation as they talked about their plans. Did I want in, to participate in some way? Of course I did. Who wouldn’t?

 

The Motherhood has been a lot of different things to me, just as “real life” friendships are. I have to put that phrase in quotes, because the friendships I’ve developed with Cooper and Emily and other women through the Motherhood are no less real or substantive than the friendship I have with my neighbor across the street.

 

Whether I was feeling grateful, fearful or hopeful, the Motherhood gave me a place to share. If I was in a valley and cried out, other voices, kinder ones, echoed back at me. When I decided I wanted to donate diapers to a local clinic for homeless women and their children, the Motherhood encouraged me (and Cooper and Emily were the first to send diapers—big boxes of them!). After almost seven years of being a stay-at-home mom, I decided to start my own family law practice. On the days I doubted I could do it, guess where some of my best encouragement came from? I had a Motherhood behind me, believing in me. So I believed in myself. The practice flourished, so much so that I was too exhausted at night to get online much. When I did make it to The Motherhood, the welcome was always warm. And when I had to close my practice so my husband could take a new job out of state, The Motherhood provided a place to voice my excitement at a new adventure, and the grief of leaving home.

 

Who would have thought all of that could spring from one little comment on a blog? I stepped outside of my “house,” my comfort zone, that day, and talked to a “stranger,” and things did indeed happen: I found new friends and a place that still feels like home.

 

Parental Controls Bootcamp with DadLabs’ Clay Nichols – Today @ 1 pm ET

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Join us today for a Talk that can’t be missed. DadLabs creator Clay Nichols will be leading an all star line-up for Parental Control Bootcamp: eProofing the Kids’ Technology. Clay and his co-hosts will share their tips and insights on how to actually put into place all the great parental control mechanisms the geeks build into our gadgets and we parents don’t know how to use. We’ll let Clay tell you himself (you’ve got to watch his class intro video – it ROCKS!):

http://youtu.be/MbhNO6z1vHg

 

Please join us TODAY at 1 pm ET for Parental Contols Bootcamp with Clay Nichols!