I started my blog when Erin was a few months old.

In June I’ll be celebrating my six year anniversary – that’s a lot of blogging. Highlights have been many but include a fantasic trip to Disneyworld, a trip to Seaworld, the chance to meet Santa in Lapland and many more.

In December 2010 I wrote the mum blogger eCourse which has been taken by over 1000 mums. Blogging now forms a big part of my work at ACE Inspire.

For more blogging CV’s check out the linky.

In this video;

and more…

For more videos like this sign up to my free blogging ecourse.

Have you always wanted to start your own blog but never known how to go about it? Well why not have a look at my new video eCourse.

I have joined up with Britmums to bring to you a new way of learning how to start a mum blog. Blogging can be a great way to document your journey through parenthood or as hobby, and this new eCourse will show you how to get started.

This course is designed for complete beginners and has no techno terms, so is very user friendly. The course consist’s of 35 elessons which are delivered direct to your inbox, great for even the busiest mum as they will always be there ready for when you have the time to view them.

This course details everything you will need to know and do to create a mum blog. So if this is something you have been wanting to do but never known how to do it, join up now.

It’s that time of the month again. The Wikio Top 20 will officially be released on 5th August, but here’s a sneak preview. Congratulations to all that made it. Happy blogging to everyone for another month!

Ranking made by Wikio

All going well I’m in sunny Wales and learning to bodyboard (pictures pending, not!)

This is an interview I did with Wendy Shand where we talked about blogging and starting a business. You can listen by clicking on the link, I think it’s about 30 mins long.

For more on becoming a mum blogger visit – Become a Mum Blogger

Be back soon!

Guest post by Emma Burford

Last week Erica invited me to attend and represent her at an Avon Launch at the luxurious Soho Hotel in London.

I walked in and got chatting to Yogeeta Mistry who had come down from Birmingham to attend the event. Yogeeta is a senior Avon Executive who told me all about her job role within Avon and how much she enjoyed it.

Whilst enjoying some networking prior to the event our Avon hosts plied us with Champagne, Juices and breakfast canapes at 10 am in the morning so we were very spoilt!

The session was made up of a number of Avon representatives from around the UK along with a handful of seasoned bloggers and it wasn?t long before we were all networking and introducing ourselves.

At 10 am sharp Karenn Brady appeared and casually stood at one of the cocktail tables with a glass of juice and began her talk.

Karren was a delight, she discussed the Golden Rules of Business Networking

Here are some of her Top Tips

Networking ? general

? ?Listen and learn, talk and share?

? Face-to-face and digital networking are complimentary and shouldn?t be considered mutually exclusive. A layering of both techniques can be the most effective way to grow a network

Afterwards two Avon representatives gave us a short talk about how they found working with their Avon businesses and also how they felt they wanted to be able to combine a blog to create a line of communication between new and potential customers.

There followed an open debate with a lot of participation from Birds on the Blog, Lilach Bullock of Socialable.co.uk, Zoe Findon of Diary of a Surprise Mum and myself who gave suggestions about them joining the BritMums (formerly British Mummy Bloggers) community for support and advice.

Blogging Tips

? Provide content that people want to access ? don?t make your blog a sales pitch. Identify a gap in the market and tap into what you reader wants; encourage them to come to you as a reliable information source

? Be passionate about your subject ? become and expert who offers advice and solutions

? Blog regularly to build your following

? Link into other relevant bloggers blogs and Twitter feeds to grow your network and raise your SEO rating

? Don?t underestimate the time-investment needed to run a successful blog

? Inviting guest bloggers to post an article is a really good way to offer interesting and varied content

It was a great session and enjoyed by all.

Erica: Thanks Emma, can’t believe I missed the champers!

If you’d like to start a blog to promote your business check out our free 21 week blogging eCourse over at ACE Inspire

Become a Mum Blogger

After 18 months and 750 subscribers The Mum Blogger eCourse has a new home!

Over the next few months I have tons of top mum bloggers lined up who’ll be sharing their mum blogger experiences.

Read the mum blogger experiences of Laura ‘Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy’ and Becky ‘Englishmum’ now.

Please feel free to sign up to The Mum Blogger eCourse or pass the link on to anyone who could benefit from a helping hand.

Over the past few months I’ve been making a few pennies online and it’s a nice addition to our usually fairly tight budget. For the most part we live on one income so we don’t often splurge, but with my minor successes recently we’ve purchased an iPod Touch and an iPhone, both are very cool, although being connected constantly can have it’s downsides.

This month we’ve also enjoyed our first break away alone since Erin was born. We went to Peebles Hydro for two nights and really relaxed.

February will see our most exciting purchase though, after months of deliberation we decided to buy a puppy. We settled on a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel (I think that’s right!) and I set about looking for litters in Scotland. Well last week I found a litter just outside Glasgow that were five and a half weeks old. We drove through to see them and of course they were all adorable but Erin had her heart set on one that didn’t seem to want to leave her alone, we’ll be picking up Daisy on the 9th Feb when she’ll be eight weeks old and ready to leave her mum.

She’s already costing us a small fortune though, I’ve spent nearly ?500 so far! I guess I better get back to blogging and earning some more money

………………………………………..

If you’d like to start your own blog you can still join the mum blogger e-course free. I’ve got a few plans for 2010 and it may mean that this course will either close for a period of time, possibly forever so if you want in sign up now and pass the message on.

We were going to achieve so much, we were going to have such fun, we were going to make new friends…

So far it’s been a disappointing year. I haven’t yet commented on the goings on anonymously or otherwise. These are my thoughts on what I believe to be the issues.

New Bloggers

It’s hard to be a new blogger, we get it. Join BMB, there are hundreds of bloggers waiting to connect with you there. Join my e-course, weekly lessons will gently introduce you to this crazy blogging thing. Ask other bloggers, most will be more than happy to help. Don’t expect everyone to fall over themselves to be your best friend though, life isn’t like that and relationships take time to build, but you know that, right.

Tagging

Whether you’re tagged in a meme or not is not a measure of your popularity. Some people tag the same people, that’s because they don’t read many blogs. There’s no rules when it comes to tagging, don’t lose sleep over it, as if you would…

Cliques

What may seem like a ‘clique’ is probably merely a close friendship, one that has been built up over time from literally thousands of interactions, online and off. People have friends, you can’t be everyone’s friend. You can’t be in everyone’s group. You won’t be privvy to every ‘in joke’. I won’t make excuses for having friends, but always feel free to butt in on my conversations on here or on twitter.

Controversial Posts

Some people write funny posts, some people write sarcastic posts, and some people like write controversial posts. Posts that stir up debate. If you don’t like that style you can always unsubscribe…

Which brings me onto my final point, don’t waste your time criticising other people’s tweets and posts, quite frankly they don’t care. If you don’t like it you can unsubscribe, block or unfollow.

The Pond

I think it was Dan who said that there were no big fish and no little fish, there were just fish. Anyone who seriously thinks otherwise is deluded. Some of us have been ‘lucky’ I’ll grant you that, but that is all. So never feel like you can’t approach someone because they’re a ‘big fish’.

If you find yourself ‘sizing up’ bloggers based on their Top 100 position, then stop it. The person who creates the list admits this table is just a bit of fun, any change in the metrics used would throw the whole lot up in the air and they wouldn’t land in the same place so take it with a pinch of salt. Yes, some people get more traffic than others, but it’s quality not quantity that counts (unless you want to make money!)

So with all that being said, may we now move on and perhaps start over?

Start by unfollowing or unsubscribing from those people that don’t resonate with you, there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Gravitate towards the blogs and tweets that make you smile and ignore the rest.

Anyone who likes a bit of banter is willing to join my ‘clique’ anytime

* None of my points relate to anyone specifically, they are my general opinions collated from reading many posts on many blogs.

This discussion accompanies lesson six of the mum blogger e-course – blog etiquette & commenting.

One of the questions that has come up regarding commenting is whether as a blog writer you should reply to every comment left on your blog.

Some bloggers I know respond to every comment, others reply to some and yet others never add comment replies.

If you’re an established blogger what do you do and why.

If you’re new to blogging what are your thoughts.

As a commenter do you like a response or doesn’t it bother you.

Leave comments below and discuss…

I respond to comments if I have something to say, I don’t answer every comment. Sometimes I don’t feel I have anything to add so I’m comfortable not commenting as I wouldn’t leave a comment on someonelse’s blog if I had nothing to say.