Mom Blogger Profile: Liz Thompson, This Full House

Today marks the launch of Mom Market Trends’ first in a series of monthly profiles of favorite mom bloggers. Liz Thompson of This Full House, welcome.

The big question: How do you manage to raise a family AND update your blog on a regular basis?

Good question. I try to get all of my writing done, while all 4 of my kids are in school, during the day.  Some days, this actually works.  Most times, I’m scrambling, to get things done, just like everyone else I know.

So, I now have a daily/weekly blogging schedule for each of my blogs. 

• This Full House is my personal blog: I blog here 3 times per week, which includes  video blogging on Mondays, participating in Wordless Wednesdays and devoting Fridays to writing about, you know, just being a mom. 
• This Full House Reviews is where I focus on products and the latest consumer issues:  I blog 5  times per week and run Open House Blog Tours on both blogs on Thursdays, where readers can leave links to their sites and events, every week.
• This Full House Kids is our family blogging project:  I try and give my kids the chance to talk back, once a week.

My biggest trick is that I can schedule blog posts to publish at certain times and, this way, I can get a week’s worth of writing done ahead of time for the times when the kids are home sick, on spring break, etc…  Believe me, it works and helps keep the articles and stories I publish fresh and fun to write.      

How many years have you been a blogger? What’s changed since you started the blog?

I started blogging in 2003 – back before traffic counts and SEO’s ruled the earth – as another way to connect with other moms, share stories and feel a little less disconnected with life on the outside, beyond all the poop and diapers. 

A lot has changed in 6 years. 

Today, the mom blog community has evolved and oftentimes is now approached as one rather large group of parenting experts.  It’s hard not to get caught up in it and then get frustrated when you start losing your voice, really. 

Then again, I’m not a big fan of moms being lumped into one category, or over analyzing anything (or, anyone) anyway.

In fact, I just wrote a post about how competitive blogging has become, even among mom bloggers, to the point where in just using the term “mommy blogger” or “mom blogger” can make some people cringe. 

I don’t have a problem with the term "mom blogger," because I happen to be both.  Being a mom and a blogger are two distinctions that are very difficult to begin with, on their own. Put them together and, well, it amazes me when I can put two somewhat coherent sentences together without drooling all over my laptop.

People should try to remember that and perhaps I’ll respect myself better, in the morning. 

On your blog, you’ve discussed how companies successfully and unsuccessfully market to moms. Would you like to offer some dos and don’ts for this article? Switching gears, how do you market your blog? Do you think marketing your blog is important? 

Honestly, I don’t have a problem with companies marketing to moms (it’s pretty much the reason why I started my product review blog). I’m a mom and buy a lot of the stuff we use at our house, too.  I also spend a lot of my spare time on the internet looking for products or ways to make my family’s life a little easier.   

Then, I enjoy writing about them. 

Having said that, in marketing my blog, I have to be very careful with what I choose to write about.  Because, I’m sharing information with other families, that already have precious little time to spare, like mine.

The marketers that I work with understand this, already (if they don’t, I try to remind them) and, in turn, they know that I fully intend to share the insights I’ve gained from working with companies and their brands.  Hopefully, I can give my readers some relevant and practical information that they can take home and use, for themselves.

There are more than 7 million articles on proper blogger relations (I checked, according to Google) but it comes down to answering two simple questions.

You want people to trust your brand?

Do NOT waste a consumer’s time.

You want to market to moms?

Do NOT take a blogger for granted.

What’s your favorite thing about being a mom blogger?

Phew, an easy question.  I love meeting moms (and dads) from all walks of life, really and enjoy hearing from my readers — especially, when something I’ve written (or done) resonates really strongly with a fellow blogger.   

If you’ve visited with me (even once) then you know that I am clumsy, forgetful, easily distracted and just try too gosh-darned hard to be everything, to everyone and, more often than not, end up feeling like a horrible person/mother/blogger.

 Aaaand, I’m okay with that. 

 Because, at the end of the day, I know that there will be at least one person who will be able to relate and it makes me happy to know that a self-professed dork of a momblogger (like me) made anOTHER mother look AND feel good.

Visit Liz at This Full House.