{"id":121976,"date":"2019-03-29T11:54:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T10:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=121976"},"modified":"2019-03-29T11:54:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T10:54:26","slug":"mummy-blogging-spotlight-harriet-shearsmith-toby-roo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/mummy-blogging-spotlight-harriet-shearsmith-toby-roo\/","title":{"rendered":"Mummy blogging spotlight: Harriet Shearsmith, Toby & Roo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harriet Shearsmith<\/a> is the award-winning mummy blogger behind Toby & Roo<\/a>. Consistently ranked in the Top 10 UK Mummy Blogs<\/a>, Harriet writes about family life with \u2018crazy boys\u2019 Reuben and Tobias and \u2018dictator-like\u2019 daughter Edith. With Mother\u2019s Day on Sunday (don\u2019t forget!), we caught up with Harriet to find out how to celebrate in the best way, advice for new mums and the importance of communication in collaborations. <\/strong><\/p>\n

How has your blog changed in the last year?<\/strong> <\/span>
\nI feel that my focus has moved away from my blog and more into Instagram and social media content. I have cut back the amount I\u2019m writing and trying to focus more on the style of content really resonating with me and my readership.<\/p>\n

How does social media feed into your blog \u2013 are any channels more important?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>Instagram is absolutely the most important channel for me, and the most important aspect of my career really. I think that my focus has moved across to it as a platform and I love that. I\u2019m a very visual person so it works well for me.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the perfect Mother\u2019s Day?<\/strong> <\/span>
\nOhhhh breakfast in bed, snuggles on the sofa and maybe a cinema trip or something? Definitely a relaxed one! If they could all make sure the house is spotless then that would be EPIC!<\/p>\n

\"Toby<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best thing about being a mum?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>Just having the honour of watching them develop into little people. All of mine are so different and I love that \u2013 it just goes to prove they are their own little people! It\u2019s such a pleasure to see them change and I adore being a mum to these three beauties, even when it\u2019s exhausting and overwhelming.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give new mothers?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>Don\u2019t expect perfection! It isn\u2019t going to happen \u2013 you will make mistakes and you should absolutely forgive yourself for it. I think taking each day as it comes it so important.<\/p>\n

The UK Bloggers Survey revealed Parenting as a supersector \u2013 how do you feel parenting fits in to the broader blogosphere?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>I think it\u2019s incredibly important and a vital part of blogging that I hope never disappears! It\u2019s not easy being a parent and there are a lot of times at 3am when I just felt so alone. I think from a mental health perspective, it\u2019s so important to share our experiences, as a society we lack the community or \u2018village\u2019 that our parents perhaps had, so to be able to connect around these really busy lives we lead is massively important.<\/p>\n

The Survey also revealed that bloggers post less frequently \u2013 is this your experience?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>Absolutely! When I first started blogging I posted one to two times a day, every weekday. Short, snappy little posts, and then over time I would change to one a day and eventually I have whittled it down to much longer posts three times a week. To see how my blog has evolved is really interesting to me and while I don\u2019t think that blogging is ever \u2018dying out\u2019 I do think it\u2019s evolving and taking a slight back seat to social.<\/p>\n

Do you accept PR press releases?<\/strong> <\/span>
\nI do! I don\u2019t mind press releases at all, sometimes you find something really interesting.<\/p>\n

How do you choose which PRs and brands to work with?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>PRs are usually taken care of by my team at Kameleon, however brands are all down to me. I have some things that just don\u2019t fit with me or my ideals and therefore I won\u2019t work with them. I\u2019m not a fan of diet products so I avoid them like the plague, despite being asked on an almost daily basis if I would like to try one shake, or herbal treatment, or another. I feel like a brand has to fit with me, and if I am unsure of the brand I will Google them to try and work out if there is anything I think makes us incompatible.<\/p>\n

What are the best collaborations you\u2019ve worked on?<\/strong> <\/span>
\nI\u2019ve worked on so many amazing collabs that I truly have LOVED so it would be really hard to list just one! I think for me, anything that gives me a clear idea of the client expectations but a license to be creative is perfect. I love the flexibility to go back to a client and say that this would work better for my audience if we did this, or can I do XYZ to instead of ABC. It\u2019s that communication!<\/p>\n

What other blogs do you read?<\/strong> <\/span>
\nI\u2019ve come away from reading a lot of blogs lately and I tend to focus more on social media and engaging with people on there. I do LOVE Emily Leary from A Mummy Too<\/a> \u2013 her recipes are amazing. I will be eagerly looking for recommendations!<\/p>\n

\"Reach-the-right-influencers-with-the-Vuelio-media-database\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We caught up with Harriet to find out how to celebrate in the best way, advice for new mums and the importance of communication in collaborations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":121979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,4038,6980],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121976"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121976"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121983,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121976\/revisions\/121983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}