11 UK parent blogging predictions for 2012

“You can only predict things after they have happened,” French dramatist Eugène Ionesco said. While we agree that is typically the easiest way, one of the benefits of being part of the BritMums network is that you regularly hear the thoughts, concerns and plans of one of the UK’s biggest, baddest blogging tribes.

Over the past several months we’ve been asking what you expect from the year ahead. While we may not know for certain all of these will come to pass, we’re confident it’s going to be a year when mum and dad bloggers forge ever more interesting paths and wrestle with big issues. And with all respect to Eugène, we can’t help but feel that the American computer scientist Alan Kay was onto something when he said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

1. Mum blogging will go mainstream. A couple of years ago the story was “Wow, parents are blogging” and the people doing it were mainly media-savvy or techie folk. Now that everyone from old-guard newspaper columnists to your average teen has a blog, it’s become a topic among mums at the school gate. They’ve gone from saying “What’s a blog?” to “Should I have one?” and this year will be saying, “Check out my latest post.” For entrepreneurial parents who have started a business – sometimes after leaving their job because of redundancy or other issues relating to the economy – a blog will naturally be part of their strategy for starting and supporting their small business, whether it’s home design, freelance writing or e-commerce.

2. Blogging will become more professional. This is happening no matter what topic you write about – parenting, travel, lifestyle, food. Bloggers are beginning to think about how their content presents a professional face to the world. With groups like BritMums Professional, which provides bloggers with information and opportunities about working with brands, there will be more clarity on how to work with brands in a professional and productive manner.

3. Marketing buzzwords will become more important. As brands look to quantify the benefit of working with bloggers, they will increasingly ask about their return on investment or ROI, they’ll inquire about “reach”, they’ll look to KPIs (key performance indicators) and engagement. Bloggers who want to work with brands will bone up on the lingo.

4. Bloggers will have more options – more conferences, more workshops, more opportunities to work with brands or charities or whatever floats their boat. Of course, the conference you don’t want to miss is BritMums Live!, the industry event featuring speakers like Ruby Wax and presenter Cherry Healey and workshops for beginners and advanced bloggers about WordPress, photography, social networking and getting published.

5. New bloggers will continue to change the community dynamics. A lot has evolved technology-wise from when the first blogging pioneers started several years ago. Now when people begin blogging, they have a host of tools, slick blog themes, helpful plugins and social media tools at their fingertips. They’re hitting the ground running and reinvigorating the blogging sphere with their enthusiasm and new ideas. The new blood will shape the discussions and direction this year.

6. Veteran bloggers will rethink their focus. Just like magazines get makeovers every few years, longstanding bloggers will update and adapt their blogs to reflect their changing interests and online skills. Those who started blogging as new parents will switch from “baby blogging” to write about other topics that interest them, taking their audience and influence along with them.

7. There will be less conflict. As parent blogging continues to grows and grow (last year there were 2,000 BritMums members, this year we have more than 3,000), the focus on the occasional spats will wane. And as bloggers become more motivated and, frankly, busy, most will be too preoccupied with forging their own blog path and keeping up with the latest developments to worry about minor disagreements.

8. “Mum bloggers” as a genre will continue to grow and expand and will refuse to be pigeonholed into “baby writers”. Parent bloggers are much, much more than chroniclers of their own family life. In practice, they write about everything from lifestyle to food to travel with things like politics and tech thrown in. Simply put, parent bloggers write about LIFE. As a core identity though, “parent blogging” will continue to be a valuable identity and community for finding support, advice, readers and commercial opportunities.

9. Video blogging will continue to take hold and entertain viewers. Video bloggers are a special breed of blogger, combining camera presence with technical skills. BritMums members have taken to vlogging, and together we have produced some real viewing gems (Sex After Kids anyone?).

10. The most commercially minded bloggers will gravitate toward “widgets not cupcakes” – Those bloggers focussed on generating the maximum profit with their blogs and associated skills will focus on scalebility – that is, ways to make money that don’t require their direct involvement each time. Rather than imagining their growing personal brand along the lines of cupcake-making, in which they have to bake something new each time to generate profit, they’ll create something once (like, say, an online widget or e-book) that they can market and sell over and over.

11. Bloggers not just writing for other bloggers – In the past some have criticised the blogging world for being an echo chamber, where a bunch of insiders just talk to and write for each other. That moment is well past. In 2011 77 per cent of British households had internet access and 45 per cent of Internet users used their phone to access the Internet*. While more and more people get their news, get connected and get their entertainment online, the number of blogs continues to explode. And these days blogs don’t all have that old-school, one-long-page-of-posts look. You may not even know the site you’re visiting is a blog, or you may read your favourite blogger on Huffington Post or on Twitter or read about the stories they’ve generated when they’re covered by traditional news sources like The Times or the BBC. Bloggers are part of the media landscape now and their influence will continue to grow.

What are your blogging predictions for 2012?

* Office of National Statistics

Pictures: Crystal ball photo by ausie gal; blog word cloud by Kristina B

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BritMums is the UK’s original collective of lifestyle bloggers and digital influencers, fueling the country’s most influential social content. We lead the online conversation with members who are parent social influencers creating content on topics ranging from food, parenting, travel, politics, style and more.

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