Blogger Spotlight: Jo Addison, Kiddie Holidays

Travel and experiencing new places has always been a passion for Jo Addison. During her twenties, Jo and her husband travelled to places such as India, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. And even though she is now a mother of two young children, Jo shows no signs of stopping. For families with young children, Jo’s blog Kiddie Holidays is a vital resource where they can access advice, travel guides, and child-friendly places to stay. In this spotlight, Jo explains why she decided to start her blog, how she measures the success of her blog, and how she likes to work with PRs.

Can you tell us a bit about Kiddieholidays, and what made you start your blog? I started Kiddieholidays after the birth of my son. We wanted to take him on holiday when he was about ten months old, but I struggled to find somewhere to stay which was baby friendly, but which also didn’t cost the earth. It was then that I decided to set up a blog to advise and inspire parents about taking babies and toddlers on holiday.

How do you measure the success of your website? One of the most important metrics for me is page views measured through Google Analytics.
I also look at reach and engagement for my social media channels.

What’s your favourite blog and why? I love travel blogs such as The Travel Hack and On The Luce. I particularly love their content and inspiring photos. Travel and holidays is a great thing to write about so there is always the opportunity to be creative with your writing, and I think these guys have nailed it.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog? Make sure you have a niche. There are loads of bloggers out there, and new ones being set up every day. Think about how yours is going to be different and what it is going to offer the reader.
Don’t get too hung up on social media to start with. You can spend a lot of time trying to increase your Facebook fans and Twitter followers, but if it doesn’t generate much traffic to your site there isn’t a lot of point. Just focus on writing killer content.

How do you work with marketers and PRs? I work with a great bunch of PRs and marketeers, who work with me to promote their accommodation or attraction to the baby and toddler family market. This may involve showcasing their product to my readers, doing live social media posts and writing articles about why their destination is a good place for families with preschool children to go on holiday.

I get a lot of requests to work with PRs and marketeers but only work with companies which I think will be of interest to my readers.

How do you use social media to promote and share content? What are the challenges? The challenge is the expectation that you have to be on social media channels all the time and share every tiny detail about your life. Like most bloggers, I schedule posts on Twitter and Facebook, but I have young children myself so I want to savour all the moments with them rather than constantly being on my phone. I use Tailwind to help with Pinterest, which is a great tool. I also take part in Twitter chats and linkies.

What can PRs do in working better with you? 

I like to build long term relationships with the PRs I work with, so for me it’s about how we can work together over a longer period of time rather than just one project.

I also like working with PRs who are happy to listen to my ideas about how we can work together. They know their product well and I know my reader well, so it is great when we can collaboratively come up with a plan about how best to promote their product or service.

What has been your blogging highlight? I’m a bit of a stats geek so I love looking at my Year On Year figures on Google Analytics and seeing just how much they have increased!

What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? Pinterest keeps growing, and is a great way to drive traffic to your site especially for travel bloggers. Also, I think Facebook Live is a great tool for connecting with my audience – this is something I want to do more of.