I loved going to Britmumslive where I learnt loads and went to the awards ceremony.

The MAD Blog Awards was wonderful.

We’ve even had a couple of blogging get togethers here in St Albans and the #BlogItForBabies event.

 

But there is something missing ….

The chance to chat properly with people I’ve met on twitter/blogging, without loads of noise or running after a 2yo/6yo.

So I come away with more people than ever who I haven’t had a decent chat with.

 

It’s partially my ‘fault’ because I’ve often had to bring Little Dimples with me, she dislocated her elbow at one more chilled event and I couldn’t make the Tots100 brighton party and had to cancel Blogcamp due to loss of childcare.

 

So PR peeps here’s a tip:

If you are trying to sell us Mummy / Parent Bloggers on your latest campaign, you need to look at what is ‘missing’ in our lives and make sure that the deal is a ‘fair’ one.

 

1) If the money you are offering is a touch rubbish, that’s not going to convince us, because basically you are paying us for time we could alternatively spend with our kids.

2) If the money you are offering is great, that will probably do it!  But some of us have very long term plans for our blogs, so don’t be surprised if we don’t want to do anything dubious in return; us bloggers can be very stubborn.

3) Potentially a lovely treat for the family will work, but remember that we probably don’t want a house full of tat either, and many of us actually need our expenses paid, otherwise we could do a cheaper ‘treat’ at home.  So it’s really got to be worth it for us; think time, hassle, money and energy usage vs what we are getting in return.

4) As we are ‘bloggers’ (the hint is in the title), most of us are quite capable of writing, hence, not so interested in your press releases or guest posts.

5) Being bloggers we are also quite ‘particular’, and therefore we really like it if people call us by our names, get the ages of our children right and read our About pages; we can actually get quite snarky otherwise (I’ve got to the stage where I’m not replying now).

6) If it’s a competition where you want us to write a blog post, then the reward has to be good enough to spend the time and risk not winning

7) If it’s a competition you want us to plug to our readers, bear in mind that some of our readers aren’t bloggers, so they can’t write a blog post for you; hence we some of us won’t take the chance of alienating our readership

8) Many of us are isolated (for one reason or another); hence the blogging and tweeting.  So something that we can get to easily (remember our about pages!), includes entertainment for the kids (remember their ages, school pickups and bedtime ), a safe environment where we don’t have to keep a constant eye on them, a treat for them (they also will require drinks and food every couple of hours) and a jolly good get together for us bloggers (and CAKE) is likely to be a very popular option (plus remember I mentioned the expenses bit!).

9) (Others would be more up for evenings and wine; but I’m not plugging for them, because I need more sleep first!).

10) Oh but be warned; over book, because we are a bit unreliable and several of us will have ill kids on the day.  Plus we need a certain amount of warning to get our lives in order; tomorrow wont work.

11) UPDATE: P.S. To get a good buzz going for your event and help us out, connect all the bloggers on twitter/email beforehand!

 

Make us feel loved and we will make you feel loved (although we do have that disconcerting habit of being honest, so it better be a good product or service too!).

 

My plan for 2013 is to have a lot less people on my ‘sorry we didn’t get to chat’ list!

Any one got any events that might work, feel free to read my about page and pop me a mail ;o)

Any other bloggers feeling the same?  Or is it just me (yes I know many of you would much prefer several bottles of wine and I might be a tad boring!).