Blog Puberty

Way, way, way back in August, I made the trek up to San Francisco with Tonya of Create–Celebrate-Explore…

* Bee Tee Dub. If you haven’t discovered this fantastic lady’s blog yet, YOU ARE MISSING OUT. Go there. Now. I can wait…*

Sooooo as I was saying… we made the trek up the peninsula to attend Bloggy Boot Camp in San Francisco, a one-day conference  filled with great speakers, opportunities to hug people who you once only adored from afar, and lots and lots of interesting women.

It was awesome!

The event was kicked off with hilarious vlogging queen Jessica Bern discussing some of the finer points of filming yourself for the Internet. The main takeaways were keep it short, keep it interesting, and for goodness sake, put down that snack and brush your hair.

Angry Julie tackled the topic of privacy online and blogging, giving us ten things to consider when it comes to your personal privacy. Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers Club, offered ten tips for getting maximum exposure using social media.

Momfluential spoke about “selling your site without selling your soul”. We were introduced to OpenSky by its Chief Social Marketing Officer, Ted Rubin. Then, the witty and talented Kristy Campbell encouraged all of us to find our voice and just keep writing!

The most challenging session for me was led by Linsey Krolik– twin mom, lawyer, runner, yogi, and founder of From Left to Write Book Club. Her first task for us was to write down a simple goal for our blog– something concrete and refined, a reachable goal, a clear objective.

Well, I was stumped! As she continued talking about the legal and business aspects of blogging, I just couldn’t get past that first point of defining who I am/who I want to be as a blogger.

In fact, the overarching theme of the day was staying true to your brand and who you are. Over two months later, I still have no clue.

When I started blogging in 2007, it was just a frivolous hobby and a way to avoid completely off-rampping. I had just quit my job in online marketing, so blogging seemed like a natural extension of my career.

My blog was a “secret” place where I was content to vent about my in-laws, poke fun at the sillier things in my life, take pictures of food I made, and gush about my son.

Then we moved to London and blogging took on a whole new aspect. I started a new blog, American Mom in London, and it bore my *real* name. I talked about life abroad as both a way to vent and update friends and family. Right away, people beyond my playgroup and my parents were reading.

I actually started getting emails from Americans either planning to move to the UK or already living there, looking for advice or simply to commiserate. I started getting involved in the PR community, researching posts, and attracting more and more readers.

I suppose it was the clever and straight-forward name of my blog (thank you very much), but in any case, my mission was clear. I was an American mom making my way through the UK and helping others do the same.

That is until we moved back to the States six months later… except this time to Silicon Valley, where it’s been more difficult to figure out what it is exactly that sets me apart from all the other oversharey mommy bloggers.

WHO AM I? What am I good at? What am I really interested in? What makes me and my blog SPECIAL?

I feel like I’m in junior high all over again, except this time with an even bigger and more public identity crisis. And it’s a little too late to pretend that I don’t care. I’m in and I’m in deep.

I still have no clue what the business plan is for my blog. Or even why anyone still visits me after my seemingly endless series of blogging hiatuses (hiati?).

For those of you who still do, THANK YOU! Sincerely. Thank you for continuing to love and support me.

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Another thing Bloggy Boot Camp inspired me rethink was the design of my blog.

I kept the color scheme, but made plenty of room for ads (hint! hint!) and created a… er  umm… formalized my PR and media policies. I reorganized my categories and did away with some of the clutter.

So after nearly ten weeks of pestering my husband to help me with the HTML, I rolled out my new look yesterday morning.

I figure, if my mission can’t be clean and simple, at least my layout can be.

Let me know what you think!

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For far more insightful and informative recaps from Bloggy Boot Camp San Francisco, visit BonggaMom, Nanny Goats in Panties, The Programmer’s Wife, GaGa Sisterhood, Cookies & Clogs, or My 5 Monkeys… just to name a few.

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