I’m More Than a Mommy Blogger
First, let me say this- I am proud to be a mom blogger. For that matter, you can call me a mommy blogger and I won’t be offended. At heart, that’s what I am. I’m a mom with a blog.
But there’s so much more to my blogging career than just being a mommy blogger.
For one, you’re discounting that (as a mostly one-person team), I do my own tech support (within my ability), I schedule my own social media, I answer (late) my own emails. I send out my own newsletter (when I remember) and I create my own images. Sure, I don’t take all of my own pictures yet but that will be changing over time too.
And I’m not alone in this.
Sure, many of us hire VAs for various tasks or we may hire contributors.
But we are still behind the scenes, coordinating everything, making sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible.
So when you say that someone is just a mom blogger, just a mommy blogger, just a food blogger, etc. You aren’t getting the full picture. The really is so much that goes into this crazy career!
This post does make use of affiliate links
For many of us, and especially those of us who are just starting out, blogging is a solo show.
In essence, we take on multiple roles of an office job. While we may not specialize in that on a regular basis or have a degree or certificate for it; we learn things (sometimes as we go) because we have to know them.
And as both a mom and a blogger, for some of us that means learning how to manage our time so we can make the most of the time we have. For me this can be challenging, especially as I was taking on another role of watching Squeaker’s cousin Boo-Boo a few days a week. I also plan on starting tot school/home preschool with Squeaker in the Fall so we’ll see how this all pans out.
For me, once all of this starts falling into place and once Sweet B is back in school; I hope to finally have a manageable and more predictable schedule in place. Right now it’s borderline chaotic but that’s also because the days/hours that I watch Boo-Boo are not always set in stone.
However, I at least will know that I need to factor in the following to my day:
- Home preschool for Squeaker (whether that’s through a boxed curriculum or referencing a book like Every Parent Can Teach Their Toddler)
- Afterschool at home program for Sweet B
Seems simple enough, right? I use the Epic Blog Planner to plan my blog, and Mom’s Family Desk Planner for everything else. I also use a set of Google Spreadsheets to help track social media.
In theory, this is great because I can loosely structure out my day. Sweet B’s schedule is the most predictable in terms of when she goes to school and when she gets home. The next step is factoring in home preschool time. And then I can factor in blog and work time. By this point, of course, I hope to have at least one or both of my network marketing plans in place. I also need to spend some time working on my paid member’s area and developing courses.
But why put in all of that work for a paid members area and courses?
So I can start with more passive income streams.
Which, while we’re on the topic of misleading labels; passive income is also one of those. Eventually it becomes passive because you don’t have to do too much. But initially, there is a lot of work involved. And it isn’t truly passive when you’re also promoting it or planning launches periodically for it.
But I digress.
I want to have multiple income streams in place so I’m not just relying on one or two sources for my online income. Sure, right now sponsored work and ads bring in a nice chunk of change. And compared to this time last year, I would definitely say that I feel successful. But I still feel like I have room to grow and that there’s so much more that I could be doing.
I cannot begin to tell you the amount of money that I’ve spent on courses for blogging related stuff. I put myself on a spending freeze for the third quarter and I think it’s done a lot of good. It’s also really made me think about the areas that I really want to work on in terms of blogging and what I already have fairly good knowledge with. Or what I feel comfortable with.
Stuff like SEO, I feel like I have a good working knowledge of. However, I also know that there’s room for improvement and that there’s always something new to learn.
So to work on my SEO skills and my writing skills, I enrolled in The Complete Sticky Blogging System and Sticky Blogging SEO both offered by the incredible Kelly Holmes. I should probably go back and revisit the strategies outlined in How I Went From 17k to 350k+ Monthly Page Views in 9 Months by Lena Gott. And there’s a blogging course that I have my eye on.
I also need to finish another blogging course that I started over and I have a ton of things to go through from the Blogging Concentrated Stack.
So the educational side of my blogging career is seemingly never-ending and I’m more than okay with that. I just need to find the time to set up my own stuff and finish these courses.
And have I mentioned that I also want to set up my shop on this blog, Etsy, and Teachers Pay Teachers? Suffice it to say I have a lot going on and some days, I just wonder if those 24 hours are going to be enough. Sometimes it seems like it just won’t be and sometimes maybe I’ll have to sacrifice a little sleep.
I have goals and I have plans- both blogging related and beyond the blog. These all tie into my plans for my online business empire that goes beyond just being a mommy blogger. So while you can call me a mom blogger, a mommy blogger, a family lifestyle blogger (which is what I prefer), or a professional blogger (though I think more of a wannabe) – there’s so much more going on.
Kori
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