Jennifer James, an influential mom blogger in the States, has set out predictions for 14 coming trends in “mommy blogging” in America. These are trends focused on the business side of mom blogging rather than the purely creative content side.
The US has a more developed parent blogging culture than the UK, but in my experience over here we tend to catch up quickly, learn from their mistakes and take advantage of the smaller, more nimble UK digital world.
Here are the 5 trends from James’s list that I find the most interesting, in terms of the commercial development.
1. Select Mom Bloggers Will Really Make Money – Not everyone, but some will, via more sophisticated relationships with big brands.
2. The year of PR selectivity – PRs start to realise that there is variation and nuance among the blogs and the bloggers, and target specific bloggers.
3. The Cream of the Crop – Influential bloggers will continue to gather momentum and work with bigger and bigger brands, while smaller bloggers will work with small brands. Basically, companies will need to deliver results for their money. None of us like to think of blogging becoming a hierarchy. And let’s face it, some popular blogs will decline to work with brands and become commerical. For those who do want to, it’s a bit like the beginning of big blogger business.
4. The Rise of the Mom Blogger Spokesman – We’ve already seen this with the Save the Children Blogladesh bloggers: brands using “regular” mothers/bloggers to get their message out because of their authenticity and web-savviness.
5. Product Reviews Will Rule the Space – I know from BlogHer that the product review blog is in full flower over there. Here in the UK, some people do it, but it’s not massive. Expect it to grow as more and more companies experiment with it. James says reviews have another year in the US. Here in the UK, I think we’re just getting started.
Take a look at her whole list. What trends do you think will make it here from the States. Do you think any of these would improve mum blogging or make it worse?
Photo credit: Velveteen Mind
— Jennifer Howze
About Jennifer Howze
Jennifer Howze is the Creative Director and co-founder of BritMums. She blogs about family travel at Jenography.net, tweets at @JHowze and Instagrams at @JHowze. Previously, she wrote the Alpha Mummy blog at The Times and as a journalist has contributed to The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, CNN.com, Allure, SELF and Premiere, among others. She won The Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for a health article in Seventeen magazine.
grit
Tuesday 14th of September 2010
marketing to milk, i would like to see some indepth debate about the dynamics of the blog world, and not just about who said what about which product. http://gritsday.blogspot.com/2010/09/say-grits-day-sent-you.html
Jennifer Howze
Friday 10th of September 2010
Tamsin - it's not too late at all! Every day people are joining the blogging community, some to create a mini blogging empire, some to connect with other like-minded people, some just for the creative outlet. It also depends on what you mean about a blog having "legs". It's too easy to get wrapped up in your stats and obsess about who and how many people are reading. Plus, all the blogging experts say it's about getting in touch with what kind of blogging you want to do and do it.
marketingtomilk
Friday 10th of September 2010
I was just about to say the same thing. No mention of blogging for community, interesting chat, inspiring writing. Never say never, but blogging is about so much more surely. It would have bee nice for this angle to have been covered too. Also interesting question raised about whether we're being a little patronised. Do we have a say about where we are going, or are we just going to copy the US? M2M
New Mummy
Thursday 9th of September 2010
I personally think its an exciting time for parent bloggers. The thing I like most about blogging is that even though we may write similar posts or sometimes review the same products every blog is different. You can have a blog about anything you like and I like that freedom, if someone doesn't like it they don't have to read it, its as simple as that. I don't see reviewing or sponsored posts as selling out but then I do both of them myself, I think if you are transparent about what you are doing then there isn't an issue. I'm not selling myself too cheaply, I write honestly and only write about things that are relevant to my blog. I refuse to made to feel like I'm sullying the mummy bloggers name because I make an income from what I do.
Mari
Wednesday 8th of September 2010
It's always interesting to see how the blogging world will develop and to understand future predictions. I think it's up to the individual to decide to the extent they will/won't review or assocaite themselves with companies and I agree with Tamsin above - are the latecomers, too late to even have the choice of participating or not?