On a perfectly warm Louisiana day, free popsicles from POPCulture moved by the dozen and a bevy of sticky children rolled in sandboxes and slid down slides.
The boys and girls sported popsicle chic—sun dresses, shorts and onesies—for the launch of Red Stick Moms Blog, one of two new local online hubs for the child-rearing set.
Both Red Stick Moms Blog and Baton Rouge Moms target the same population: mothers at various stages of giving birth to children and raising a family.
“Mommy blogs” are a specific genre of online entertainment, at once interactive support systems, event calendars, networking opportunities and news centers.
They often start off as hobbies or a fun way for moms to pass the time while the youngsters are underfoot.
But bloggers who produce strong content and click with a loyal audience often find themselves steering a lucrative and all-encompassing venture.
Take The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, an Oklahoma blogger who writes about her life raising kids on a working ranch.
Now, with a successful cookbook and a Food Network show, she’s considered one of America’s biggest online celebrities.
Local blogger Tiany Davis, who is pals with Drummond, is more than familiar with both the trials and triumphs inherent in running a large, popular site.
From her Baton Rouge home, Davis tends The Homeschool Lounge and Social Savvy Mom. She’s reached national acclaim with these global blogs.
She hopes to pour her know-how into Baton Rouge Moms.
“I knew, 10 years ago, that I wanted to have a blog for Baton Rouge moms,” says Davis. “I started buying domain names.”
Davis homeschools her four active sons, and finds the blogging is perfect for her busy and sometimes unpredictable schedule. Her husband, Troy, is a jazz drummer who travels the world.
Mommy blogger hours have to be flexible.
Life offers up volumes of material for drafting short articles that inspire and engage other parents.
Davis keeps it real.
“I share it all,” she says with a chuckle. “I post the picture of the homeschool kid trying to do his work in tears.”
Fun, right? But the work still takes a good dose of discipline. Three posts a week is a bare minimum to make it in the blogosphere. The best bloggers post once a day, Davis says.
Maggie Howes, who owns My Baton Rouge Mommy, a successful blog geared to helping locals save using coupons and deals, has been known to draft 12 entries a day.
Learning how to make money off of a blog—and balancing this with the constant demands of parenthood—can be extremely challenging.
The key to making it: forming a community, not just among readers but with other bloggers who will help you build and develop your audience.
For Baton Rouge Moms, Davis has tapped Howes and Tiffany Cruz, of the Fabulous Mom blog, as co-founders.
Davis says she doesn’t really consider herself a writer or journalist.
Entrepreneur is more like it.
As Baton Rouge Moms expands, she adds, she and her co-founders will need to know how to put on great events, too. Bringing local businesses into your strategy, she contends, is also an important part of running a city blog.
“We believe in supporting local businesses,” agrees Angela Hayden. She’s co-founder, with Ashley Ballard, of Red Stick Moms Blog. Both are fairly new to the blogosphere, but are making up for lost time by linking their blog up to the nationwide City Moms Blog Network, a firm that promotes local area blogs.
New Orleans Moms Blog, a sister site to Red Stick Moms Blog on the network, “have become our biggest supporters,” Ballard says.
Red Stick Moms Blog has at its disposal a collection of likeminded local mom bloggers who contribute to the collaborative site. Each writer tackles a separate frame of expertise for the outlet.
Examples: pregnancy and childbirth, work/life balance, education and single parenthood.
After the blog’s juicy popsicle park launch party, several mom bloggers lingered to exchange stories and tips they’ve gleaned from experiences in the mom and blogging trenches.
There was community, shop talk and friendly competition beside the playground. But the shared understanding is that there can be as many different blogs as there are flavors in a popsicle stand.
That’s why there’s so much opportunity to be found in starting a mommy blog, Davis says: Sponsors are clamoring for access to these strong, interconnected online mother communities.
If you win over the viewers of one blog, chances are, you’ll grab similar fans on other blogs in that meshed coffee shop that is the internet. That’s not always the case with traditional advertising outlets.
“Since the beginning of time, we go to our moms and our grandmothers for advice. Moms get most of their information from other moms,” Davis says. “Companies are reaching their target markets through moms the consumers already trust.”
citymomsblog.com/batonrouge
batonrougemoms.com
