{"id":94062,"date":"2016-11-03T11:06:14","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T11:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk?p=94062&preview=true&preview_id=94062"},"modified":"2016-11-10T09:31:05","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T09:31:05","slug":"blogger-spotlight-sally-whittle-whos-the-mummy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/blogger-spotlight-sally-whittle-whos-the-mummy\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogger Spotlight: Sally Whittle, WHO’S THE MUMMY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sally Whittle is a full-time blogger living in Lancashire with her 9-year-old daughter Flea and their West Highland terrier puppy, Teddy. Sally launched WHO’S THE MUMMY?<\/a>, as a place to capture the true story of her life with Flea. Rather than being glossy lifestyle blog, this charming blog covers a chaotic, fun-loving family that loves to explore and make the very most of every day.\u00a0In this<\/span> spotlight Sally chats to us about working with brands, building creative partnerships, vlogging, and why the <\/span>Vuelio<\/a> Blog Rankings<\/a> help her blog to reach new audiences.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why should people read your blog?\u00a0<\/strong>What makes your blog different?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>There are plenty of glossy blogs out there that look like high-end catalogues and lifestyle magazines. My blog is not one of those sites. It\u2019s a slightly silly, completely chaotic and mostly truthful story of life as a single parent with a love of travel and adventure. I hope it reassures people that you don\u2019t have to be perfect to have a good time, and\u00a0I hope it inspires them to get out and have more fun with their children.<\/p>\n

\"sally2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you measure the success of your website?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>For me, success is all about whether the blog captures our story, in a way that my daughter can look back on in years to come. At eleven, she\u2019s old enough now that she already loves reading back about her pre-school adventures. You can\u2019t put a price on that. More personally, I love the experiences that blogging has given us as a family. Over the past year or so we\u2019ve done everything from scuba diving to testing new roller-coasters and dune bashing in Dubai. For me, that\u2019s what blogging success really is, far more than money or numbers, as nice as those things are.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>If you want to start a blog, my advice is to jump in and do it. Experiment to find your own voice and style, don\u2019t worry about looking stupid, and write about the things you would be talking about anyway, if you weren\u2019t online. Lots of people start blogging and become consumed by growing an audience and making it a career and having a niche. That sort of thing can quickly become hard work, and they can quickly become disillusioned. I tend to think, if you\u2019re having fun, blogging is something that\u2019s actually really easy to sustain.<\/p>\n

How do you work with marketers and <\/span>PR\u2019s?<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>I work with brands a lot. We love trying new things\u00a0and visiting new places.\u00a0I do quite a lot of family travel, and occasional product reviews and giveaways\u00a0\u2013\u00a0but\u00a0I only tend to do these if the brand is one that\u00a0I\u2019m genuinely quite interested in. The best collaborations are when a brand has put some thought into how we might have fun or be creative in a partnership, and generate some content that\u2019s really a great fit for my blog, and my audience.\u00a0I worked with a brand recently to make a video about stationery and they were really open to our ideas\u00a0\u2013\u00a0we had a blast making the film and it got almost 100,000 views on Facebook, because people like us wanted to watch it.<\/p>\n

How do you use social media to promote and share content? What are the challenges?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0I use social media to share posts, and generally just to chat. My favourite channels are probably Instagram, Facebook and YouTube as that\u2019s where you get the most interaction, and fewer automated updates. At the moment, I\u2019m really enjoying YouTube, perhaps because my daughter is a keen YouTuber. It is a bit depressing that she has more subscribers than me, though.<\/p>\n

What can PRs do in working better with you?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>I don\u2019t have a lot of complaints about the brands and PR people I work with. If you really want to impress me, short of sending biscuits, I\u2019d just say bear in mind that bloggers don\u2019t all live in London. We\u2019re forever being invited to things in London on a\u00a0Sunday at 10am, when it\u2019s\u00a0almost impossible for us to get there. Oh, and please stop sending me tiny things in huge boxes filled with shredded tissue paper. It\u2019s such a let-down after I\u2019ve spent 20 minutes in line at the Post Office.<\/p>\n

What was your blogging highlight?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>There have been so many blogging highlights over the past seven years, I couldn\u2019t possibly choose just one! Maybe travelling to Tanzania with Coca-Cola and seeing the work being done to help rural communities access vital energy, clean water and the Internet. That was a real privilege to see, and an experience I would never have been able to have without my blog. Some bloggers say you shouldn\u2019t ever feel lucky as a blogger, because it\u2019s a job, but\u00a0I don\u2019t care.\u00a0I feel lucky almost every day. Blogging has been an amazing experience for us.<\/p>\n