Hi everybody.
Somebody wrote in to the site and asked me if I have any tips or pieces of advice for
rookie blog writers.
So I thought that was a great questions and I'm going to try to share now for any of you
for whom it could be useful what I think are some good things to think about if you're
considering starting your own blog.
My first tip would be to speak from your own experience.
Unless you are, you know, a board certified pediatrician or a lactation consultant, people
really aren't turning to you for the kind of general advice they can get, you know,
from their doctor or on the internet or in a, you know, baby treatise type book.
They really want to hear what you've been through and what worked for you.
So they want to hear what's real, you know, they don't want to have you know general sort
of medical tips, that's not really why they're you know coming to your blog.
And part of that which is difficult is that you have to kind of share or be willing to
share this messy stuff and as much as you might be sharing the stuff that are the beautiful
sort of fun moments of parenting because let's get real people, we all have a ton of them
every day.
I mean it's right now a Saturday, I've got some kids planted in front of a movie because
I really needed to film a blog for this week and I have to keep my house quiet.
Meanwhile I live in New York City, there's so much construction going on there's like
loud banging outside my window, you know all that kind of stuff.
That's real life.
Blogs are not sitcoms, they're not highly produced network television, you know people
don't look for that kind of perfection, but they want to hear from you.
If they're going to read you, make it you.
Make it the real you, maybe not every single piece of the real you, but what you write
should be real and it should be from your own experience.
My number two piece of advice would be to make it creative and to not be scared because
blogs are not about being an expert.
CloudMom really started as a collect of videos on new babies, I had no idea what I was doing.
I had a background, I had worked at HBO, I had a background in video and in television
but as a lawyer.
And when I had my fifth baby I just started filming videos because I felt like I had so
much to share and I then uploaded all of them to YouTube, I uploaded like 200 videos onto
YouTube having no idea what would happen to them and that is how it started.
And actually wasn't really the right way to do it, but that's how it started.
I then got into a lot of like health topics, pregnancy type topics, I started blogging
about fashion because I just like thinking about fun things to wear.
For me it's like a nice escape from being a mom in the way I usually look on a daily
basis, which is super casual.
I've done some travel things because my family likes to travel, I've done recipes, you know
I've done some more sort of thoughtful type posts, I've done some yoga blogging - I've
really done a lot of things and it's been quite open ended and that is really the freedom
and liberty that's provided from a blog.
You don't have to have one mantra and just stick to that, you really can be creative
and in doing that, really talk about your own personal experience.
Further to that point about speaking from your personal experience, think about your
voice, ok?
Your a true, authentic voice, the way you want to portray yourself.
Is video right for you, are you better off writing, you know, text blogs, are you somebody
who's great at taking photos and really wants to share that?
What is going to be the medium through which you're going to most effectively be able to
communicate?
And again, people want to relate to something that feels real, that looks real, and they
want to see really parts of you.
So you want to really think about that voice and what you'll be sharing so that it's something
that's very relatable.
And again as part of that, people really aren't looking for perfection, I actually think people,
I have been surprised, I mean I have had some really mean people comment on my stuff, but
I've had so many kind and lovely people really from all over the world that touch my heart
every day and they'll say thank you for some video they watched that they said was helpful,
and I feel that they're really, really kind and in general YouTube has been an incredible
audience and I've met a lot of great people through the web too, and that they're not
looking for perfect production quality.
People know, you know, I'm not Megyn Kelly, they're not looking for NBC, they're not looking
for Katie Couric, they don't want like a perfect looking thing, they just want some good advice
or some good tips or somebody they can relate to so that they can share a bit of their own
experience as well.
Ok, so as a practical matter, it's not so easy to run a blog when you're doing all these
other things, you know, you might still be working, you have a bunch of kids, you have
all these family demands.
Somebody taught me this once and it really was an invaluable piece of advice, the perfect
is the enemy of the good.
And what does that mean?
Well, if you want everything that you do to be so perfect, you'll never be able to publish
it and you'll never be able to move on and get to the next thing which might be cooking
dinner for your kids, driving to a soccer game, or producing your blog for the next
week or your vlog.
So you've kind of got to just like get it out there and then go with it.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist and sometimes I spend a lot of times, time, on the text
blogs I write every week, but there's a point at which you just gotta like click that publish
button and they just have to go out in the world and then you don't look back because
part of having a blog is just continuing to produce content so you don't want to be too
particular about it, just do your best, get it out and go on to something new.
My fifth piece of advice, and this has been one of the most fun things I've been able
to do, is to really get out there and meet other bloggers.
You will learn so much from them, there's such an incredible community on YouTube, on
Twitter, on Facebook.
I've met, you know, actually the Freckled Fox, I've met like a lot of cool bloggers.
I started by going to two BlogHer conferences.
I went to some other conferences and I've tried to stay in touch with people, I've worked
with other people in the past, it's been really incredible.
We try to promote each other, that just makes it feel like one big group of friends and
it really can teach you a lot too.
I've learned a lot about YouTube from other bloggers, I've learned a lot about, you know,
fashion blogging, or some of the other things I've done, so that I really, really recommend
and you know it's fun so there's really no reason not to do that.
So my friend rookie blogger, I'm so happy that you're going to be embarking on this
big journey of trying to start a blog.
Please write in with other questions, please send me the name of your blog, I can't wait
to see it, and I really appreciate your asking me your question.
I hope my tips are helpful, and I will see you soon on cloudmom.com.