Video blogging made easyToday I am blogging again from the Collective Bias Social Fabric conference in Arkansas. Despite Belle being a bit of a natural behind her diary cam, I don’t often use video in my blog and so went along to the session with Danielle Smith to find out how to incorporate video more into my blogging.

First up then, why should you use video as part of your blogging? Well…

  • You can make money from it
  • You can learn new skills and reach new audiences
  • More and more people are watching videos and watching them via mobile
  • Youtube is the world’s second largest search engine
  • You get to develop your own voice, showcase your presenting talents and create opportunities in traditional media View Post
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Today I am live blogging from Arkansas! How cool is that? I am actually writing this whilst in a talk at SoFabCon from Tami Cannizzaro, Executive Director of Marketing for IBM.

The topic is essentially change. Marketing, advertising, connecting with customers – it has all changed dramatically over the last few years. More and more people are turning to social media for news and information, and individuals are looking online for reviews and recommendations. Expectations are high and companies who fail to adapt their traditional Mad Men style advertising model will find themselves left behind.

According to Tami, there are three things that you have to think about as a brand in order to create that consistently excellent customer experience.

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I have no sense of style.

Actually it’s not much of a secret.

As boyfriend said you me recently, looking a little bit afraid in case I hit him, “For quite a lot of the time I have known you you have dressed quite badly.”

He’s such a charmer.

He is right though. I really just have no concept of what looks super stylish and what looks like I have been dressed by a blind tramp. Getting asked by the team at Secret Sales then to style a couple of models in the latest trends was a bit of a challenge to say the least. I was literally given rails of clothes and two beautiful, (if not slightly stick thin), people to hang them on. View Post

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Given the success of Belle’s video tour of our hotel room last week, I thought I would share with you a little video she made about her top three favourite flowers.

She made this on a visit to Tyntesfield – a National Trust property near us. It was a lovely day and I was encouraging her to amuse herself in a nearby flowerbed while I had a little lie down in the sun. Independent play and all that. Very important you know.

She is pretty adorable.

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This is just a little thank you to Mommy.com for sharing one of my Ethiopia posts and helping to spread the word about the Enough Food IF campaign.If you’re not fed up of reading about my trip already, then check me out here.  Mommy.com features practical parenting tips, fitness advice, style trends, how-to videos, coupons and more and you can connect with Mommy.com on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
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In our house we live by the William Morris mantra – ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ That is, we often recklessly throw away things that other people would probably keep, thinking they ‘might come in handy one day’. We have an assortment of pretty trinkets cluttering up our rather small house instead of useful things like pot lids or mops.

The UK is now building the smallest houses in Europe, with an average new build one bedroom house now being roughly the size of a tube train carriage. I kid you not. This being the case, it can often be difficult to know how to furnish your home effectively, with both useful and beautiful things, to make it look less like a tube carriage with beds and more like a double page spread in a Laura Ashley catalogue.

Luckily the latest competition here at Slummy Single Mummy is here to help. I’m giving you the chance to win £150 to spend at Amara.co.uk, a website full of stylish designer homeware, accessories and gifts. From cutlery to incense sticks to garden lighting, Amara has everything you could need for a beautiful and useful home.

Here are some of my favourite things from the site, in case you win and decide to send me a belated birthday gift:

Orla Keily Abascus Tomato Bed Linen.

Orla Keily Abascus Tomato Bed Linen.

Melody rose drangonfly teapot

Melody rose drangonfly teapot

Rob Ryan faux leather coin purse

Rob Ryan faux leather coin purse

There are a few different ways to enter, and every method you use counts as an extra entry:

1. Leave a comment on this blog post telling me what essential/beautiful thing you couldn’t live without at home. Kettle? Diamante encrusted cat ornament?

2. Tweet the following – I’d love to win £150 worth of designer homeware from @AmaraLiving and @mummyblogger http://ht.ly/krzA1  #competition

3. Like Amara on Facebook

4. Follow Amara on Twitter

Just leave a comment to let me know which you do. The competition will close on 15th May 2013 and you can read the full T&Cs here.

Good luck!

As seen on ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

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It was my birthday yesterday, so to kick start my 40 things before 40 list, I did one straight away!

Pretty good going I thought. It will make up for the fact that the other 39 get done in the last six months before my fortieth.

Normally when my mum asks me what I want for my birthday, I am less than helpful. “Just buy me something exquisite and charming,” I say. She tends to look doubtful. This year though I knew exactly what to say. “I’d like to have lunch in a Michelin star restaurant please,” I said. It sounded a tad on the grabby side, but better than asking for a holiday to Iceland I thought. Plus that way we could have lunch together. Quality Mother and Daughter time and all that.

So yesterday lunchtime we set off to Casamia in Westbury-on-Trym. I put on my best shoes specially and even brushed my hair. It was all very fancy. View Post

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In my work, (and it really is work Boyfriend, I don’t care what you say…), I use social media a lot. Possibly a little too much, judging by the weird night I had this week where I dreamt in Twitter updates. Whenever I am talking to brands and bloggers though, there is one question that comes up a lot – how exactly are mums using social and how does it influence their buying patterns?

“Do we really need to worry about bloggers and online reviews and what not?” some brands will ask, looking sort of anxious and hopeful at the same time.

“Yes,” I say. And not just because otherwise I would be out of a job.

I came across this infographic today from Diffusion PR which I think gives a really interesting snapshot of exactly how mums are using social to research their buying decisions. 40% of mums it says have read a post, comment or review online and then decided to purchase the product because of what they have read. View Post

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Last weekend Belle and I had a little weekend away together in London. With work and school, the weeks get very busy and we really enjoy taking time out every now and again to spend some quality time together.

Quality time. How wholesome I sound!

This time our trip was extra lovely, as we had been offered a room in the Cavendish Hotel, just off Piccadilly Circus. I had already been to the Cavendish once for afternoon tea, so was very excited about getting to spend the whole night there.

Belle has a thing whenever we are away somewhere, of wanting to spend as much time as possible in whatever our accommodation is. If we are at a festival for example, she is always nagging me to let her go back to the tent. I don’t know why, she just seems to like being in something. View Post

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Quite often, when writing a guest post or feature, I am asked to include a line or so about myself. It normally goes something like this:

Jo Middleton is a freelance writer, blogger and mum of two daughters, living in Bristol.

There we go. That’s me.

But is it?

Sometimes I want to argue ‘how can I possibly sum up all that I am in one sentence?’ but then part of me worries that if I were given a freer rein, that I wouldn’t know what to say. View Post

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I don’t need to say any more than that do I?

Personally, I’m a massive cocktail fan. Mostly I don’t actually like the taste of alcohol, so any alcoholic drink that I can actually enjoy for the flavour is great for a start. I also love the glamour of it. Sipping a cocktail from a Martini glass makes me feel like a Bond girl, even if I am at home in my pyjamas.

(Not that I would drink cocktails at home in my pyjamas. Gosh no. Who would do that? *ahem*)

Recently I was given the not really very arduous task of testing out the new pre-mixed range of cocktails from Tails Cocktails. The idea behind them is that you can get all the fabulous flavour of a freshly mixed cocktail, but you don’t need to worry about tossing it all up in the air Tom Cruise style and dropping it on your head. (I am quite clumsy). They come in miniatures, or large bottles for taking to dinner parties as a fancy alternative to a bottle of wine. View Post

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I’ve got Bee here again today, wearing some lovely new clothes…

Its 2008. I’m 12. My much cooler friend Lauren walks into our geography classroom. Instead of the usual tween gossip mag filled with brand new information about the Jonas Brothers, she’s carrying a catalogue.

“It’s the new Joe Browns catalogue”, she says, “It came in the post this morning.”

“Oh yeah, cool” I say, acting like I know what she’s talking about. I then find out that Joe Browns is a super cool clothes website where Lauren gets most of her clothes. Being 12 and spending most of my money on Maltesers I’m not known for my amazing fashion sense. I stare at the catalogue wistfully as Lauren points out all of the things her Mum has agreed to buy her. I imagine that if I owned a t-shirt or even a hair clip from Joe Browns, I’d immediately be transported to the Cornish coast where I would surf, have long blonde windswept hair and listen to Jack Johnson while drinking coconut smoothies with a group of beautiful friends laughing around a camp fire. View Post

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