In the morning, I've got to blow my own horn.

I’m going to go and pretend to be a grown up. Not a parent. Someone who has a business.

That business is blogging. Working with brands. Exploring and understanding social media. It was suggested that mainly what I need to do is list the brands I’ve worked with and how.

I need to brag.

I can brag about leading the team that designed the winning app for ThreeUK‘s Mums on the go Campaign, Family Quest. I am quite proud of that actually 😉 The app is still going strong, and has been featured in a couple of magazines as a top pick over the last couple of months, so that’s rather good. You can download it in the app store, do let me know what you think 😉

I can talk about being a Butlin’s Ambassador. I’ve got our first break booked for weekend after this one actually. We’re going to the Ocean Hotel at Bognor, and I’m getting a whole weekend off cooking. Bliss. There’s even a widescreen TV and a DVD player in the room, so I think family film night will be rather fun. Must think of something special to take advantage of the setting.

Can I mention blogging for Emma’s Diary? I hadn’t realised how ubiquitous Emma’s Diary is when I started blogging for them. But it’s reaching something like 7 out of 8 pregnant women in the UK each year. That’s a massive audience, and while they aren’t all reading my blogposts, it’s still a fairly substantial number.

I’ve also blogged for Kiddicare (must do that again actually), guest posted on Schoolgate (the Time’s education column sadly behind the paywall), as well as being a member of the Ravensburger reviewing club and reviewing books for a wide number of authors and publishers. Oh, and there’s reviewing phones with Nokia Connects – that’s a fun one. I’ve got a Nokia Lumia 800 atm that I’m looking forward to telling you all about.

The list of brands I’ve worked with is growing. I was sponsored by Photobox to attend both Cybermummy‘s – I’m looking for a sponsor for Cybher and/or BritMumsLive this year if anyone is interested. I’ve reviewed clothes, toys, household products, gifts, food items – loads of stuff.

In fact, it is time I got more professional with it all. One thing that can be a problem is the number of links out of a blog – if they aren’t balanced with authority links coming in, you can lose authority yourself. (Or so the theory goes – and it does seem reasonable.) So at the moment I’m working up a new policy on how I’ll work with brands – what type of links I’ll give for example. Advertising (that is paid or sponsored links) should be nofollow anyway – I’ve no real idea how that should apply to links in reviews – anyone? I’m guessing that as it’s a sort of benefit in kind arrangement, it does count as a sponsored link really. Be grateful for opinions though. And it would help if brands were giving links back, perhaps by showcasing reviews that ppl have done for them, or at the very least sharing them. Would that be a reasonable thing to ask for do you think?

It always surprises me to realise how much I have to learn about this thing that I’ve spent so many years doing…but also it’s quite surprising to realise how far I’ve come.