BritMums Live! Reporters- Blogging for Happiness, Sod the Stats!

Sod the Stats: Blogging for Happiness

Presenters: Ellen Arnison, Kate Davis-Holmes and Annie Spratt.

Reporter: Ruth Dawkins from Dorkymum

Of the many sessions at BritMums Live, this is the one I had heard the most excited chatter about beforehand. Maybe it is a timing thing. In recent months it feels like we have been bombarded with technical information about how to swell our stats, promote our posts and bond with brands. Maybe bloggers are starting to get tired of all that, and they just want to get back to basics…

A great line-up of speakers meant that the session was a busy one. Ellen kicked off by talking about how blogging had been hugely helpful to her in the past as she lived through some difficult experiences. When she was suffering with PND, she started to blog one positive thing about each of her sons every day, as a way of cementing and building on her affection for them.

Kate talked about her experiences next, and said that blogging was a bit like keeping a diary, but with the added support of a community. That strength of community was a point that Annie brought up too; none of the speakers realised how big the blogging community was when they started, but they all see it as a hugely positive thing, especially when a few of those ‘pretend friends on the computer’ become real friends who can pop round for a cup of tea.

The three speakers agree that it can be hard not to get caught up in looking at your blog stats at some point – whether that is as a new blogger or as a more experienced one – but they also emphasised how important it is to strategically take time out for yourself away from blogging, to regain perspective and maintain your blogging happiness. At this point, Her Melness piped up from the audience with a very perceptive point, saying that when you start to equate stats with love, then it’s time to take a step back.

Ellen, Kate and Annie did a brilliant job of leading the discussion, but this session really came alive when it was opened up to the audience. It became very emotional as several people confided that having friends and family reading their blogs – and especially the comments on their blogs – had led to some important and honest discussions that wouldn’t have taken place otherwise.

It was agreed that often it is worth blogging painful experiences, no matter how much of a challenge that is at the time, both because of the support you get yourself and because reading about your experience may be useful to other people going through the same thing.

There was also consensus that the best blogging comes from the heart; that while it may be fun for a while to accept PR freebies and sponsored posts, most bloggers will eventually remember why they started to write in the first place, and will rediscover that voice stronger than ever. Nickie from Typecast recommended that when you visit a blog for the first time you go back and look at some of the earliest posts to discover what it was that originally inspired that person to start a blog, and see how they have developed.

The speakers and audience members at this session mentioned dozens of different ways in which blogging can lead to happiness – people say it has made them more observant and more thoughtful, has made them see connections in the world that they wouldn’t have previously noticed, has built their confidence and sense of self worth, has stopped them from feeling like ‘hidden mums’, has encouraged them to actively celebrate and record happy times, and has introduced them to a large and supportive community.

That is all a lot more worthwhile and fulfilling than sitting poring over Google analytics, no?

 

All About Dorkymum:

Ruth Dawkins has recently moved from Scotland to Edinburgh with her husband and 3-year-old son, and she blogs as DorkyMum. She was a finalist in the Fresh Voice category at this year’s BritMums Brilliance in Blogging awards, and she was also chosen as one of the Blogger Keynote speakers. She posts about parenting, politics, current affairs and photography, and you can always find her for a chat on Twitter or Facebook.