Is Social Media the working mum's life line?

Being a Parent
Firstly, let me introduce myself, I am 35, married and mother to a daughter (9) and son (6) like all parents I will describe my children as being extremely wonderful and special human beings and whilst this is true all the other parents among you will know that this is not the whole story.

So, wanting to be the best parent I could be, I made the decision that my working life needed to be adaptable and give me the ‘work life balance’ that would enable me to live this Brady Bunch style existence. In this vein I decided that working for myself was really the only option. I am now 8 years down the line, I have established and sold two successful businesses and I now have some experience that I wish I had had way back then.

Lessons Learnt

In an attempt to use this experience in my next venture, define what it is that I have learnt over the years and maybe see others benefit from this I thought a blog would a way forward.

There is no denying the fact that being a working mum is a real challenge and no disrespect to the fathers out there but it seems that paid work for a mother is an addition to all the other roles they play and not their primary role so finding time for it is somewhat difficult.

So first things first and one of the biggest mistakes I made, was understanding the difficulty of getting a new business off the ground. When you first get started it is so easy to get bogged down with the stuff you feel confident in, for many people that I have come across this is often:

• doing what they are good at, their skill (not looking at how to sell/market their business)


• talking to just clients they know well


• producing business plans that reflect their view; rather than some customer research


• working on their service; instead of marketing, networking and selling

So in all of this it is easy to forget some of simple, basic but  important aspects of establishing a start up.

What is often neglected is the face to face interactions that will put the personality behind your brand and use this to make yourself memorable. People buy from people, see the (AC Nielsen Report), so whatever you product or service it is important that your customers have a feel for who you are and what you are about.

With the rise in social media you can network, arrange meetings and cover a lot of ground before meeting people as well as give people an idea of who you are. It is becoming easier and quicker to build relationships, it is also a working mothers dream.

I am only touching the basics here and pointing out the opportunities so here are a few good tips to get you going. It is important to develop your confidence. Choose 1 platform, research and learn how to use it well; perhaps use 1 for a week and then move onto another. Find out from speaking to potential customers what they recommend, it starts a conversation! and you ideally want to use the same platforms that they use.

Some Introductory Guides

A starting point for Face Book:

• Six questions to ask before launching a Facebook fan page


• 10 Secrets of a Winning Facebook Fan Page

A starting point for Twitter:

• Keep It Short and Tweet: Intro to Microblogging Using Twitter


• So what the hell is Twitter anyway?

A starting point for Linkedin:

• An introduction social media (slides with Linkedin tips near end)

The use of social media platforms to give your business a personality and get people talking about it is manageable from home and is not restricted to office hours, it allows us working parents to blog, tweet and post around the kids social lives, I say kids social lives because I clearly no longer have one of my own!

So for all out there who aspire to run their own business’s, get into social media this could be the opportunity for you to get the building blocks in place. You will still be able to take the kids to school and pick them up, attend all their clubs and school events and ferry them around to the never ending stream of parties. Don’t forget that all social media platforms can be managed from smart phones so just think next time your sat watching your children run riot at the park you could be building your business profile.

Let me know some of the challenges you face with the 'work life balance' myth.

Next week I will be taking you through how to use some of these tools in more depth, look forward to connecting with you.

Alison