Life at Oak Grove

For the past week, I have put many thoughts on personal branding.

Not only because of this specific course titled Introduction to Social Media but because of an email I received this past week from Mom Central.

Last Fall, Mom Central Canada has decided to put a Blogger Grant Program.   Bottom line is that they are awarding grants over the next year to Canadian bloggers in their network.    The first grant program was about a post that you would like to write.     In January 2011, I learned that I was one of the ten recipients of this first grant of 250$ from Mom Central Canada.  My application was the following:

The blog post I would like to write about would be RVing with young children‚.   In it I would give tips on how to choose an RV for a young family as well as tips and tricks on travelling long distance with young children.   We ourselves are rvers and we have 4 kids ages 3 to 9.     We learned a lot over the past three years about travelling with children and how to have fun as a family.    I would also suggest some fun activities to do together on the road or while visiting a new place.

Turns out that the post was a bit longer than I thought and I decided to split it in two different posts.   If you feel like reading them here they are:

Buying an RV. Are you ready?

RVing with young children

Where am I going?   Well I knew that the new grant will open up soon and I was starting to think of the next subject I would like to write.   Imagine my surprised when I received a Mom Central  email last week – about personal branding…

The Mom Blogosphere is brimming with talented, smart, passionate and ambitious women. We feel so grateful and want to do our part in helping take Moms' personal brands to the next level: be that a broader audience, getting media exposure, becoming a spokesperson, starting a small business, or better monetizing your platform. The possibilities are endless, and tie inextricably to the vision you have for yourself. So whether $2,000 could get you media training, graphic or technical help, a site redesign, shared office space, some intern hours, new business cards, let you self-publish a book, launch a new blog, or attend a key conference - we want to pitch in to provide the support it takes to get to the next level. So tell us what inspired you in the first place, your journey to take, and what you aspire to do next - because we care, and we want to help!

We know you do what you do for a reason, with a mission and vision behind it.

We love that.

We want to jumpstart more successes to come.

We want to support YOU!

And there would be five winners of 2000$ each.

So I started thinking seriously about the personal branding.

The questions linked to the application are all geared toward the personal branding theme.   What is the vision behind my personal brand, what do I aspire to do next, how will I use the grant to better my influence and personal platform, what I have done already to achieve my goals, what are the biggest challenges in achieving the goals for my blog and personal brand,   what are the top three things I learned along the way in building my brand and platform, and more.    In total I need to write a proposition of over 5000 words!

And to spice up the competition, the votes will be done on facebook of all places!
So I decided to embark on this new adventure.   I will try it again and see what will turn out of it.   I am fortunate to have my social networking course to help me discover aspects that I can explore with the personal branding and where I could expand my influence in the blogosphere.

On a bright note, I got offered to join the Woodall’s blogger team.  The past two weeks were all about thinking about the offer and filling paperwork.   The involvement will be for a period of six months with a post per week.    I had to submit some previous work I had done before.    Apparently I would be a great voice for the Woodall’s Family Camping Blog and they have been searching for a blogger to carry the torch for Canada.

Honestly I am not sure where all this is going but I am excited of the new opportunities opening up for me.    This afternoon I will have training with Woodall’s on how to use their platform.  Should be pretty straightforward…   Soon I will be able to post my blogs on their site. 
Do you have any suggestions that you would like to share with me on how I could make my application for the grant stand up above the other ones?   Please note that this application will be for my review blog – Canadianladybug Reviews!.

Let me know I am curious!