Everyday Baby Steps

This week's Friday Feature Profile is Jessica Smith.  Chances are, you've heard of her.  Her personal blog is Jessica Knows.  When she says she knows something you need to know, she means it!  Jessica is a wealth of knowledge on all things social media.  She is the Chief Mom Officer for Wishpot, a social networking site aimed at helping new moms find the best baby and child essentials.  Jessica learned about this fabulous career opportunity from being an active member of the Twitter community.  Through her networking and connections on Twitter, she was also noticed by Walmart and invited to be a part of their 11 Moms campaign.  And all of these great things have happened to her in a very short amount of time.  I couldn't wait to talk to her and find out exactly what Jessica knows.

How long have you been blogging?

I've had a few blogs on and off over the past few years, but never reallyl got totally into it until this past year.  My New Year's resolution was to do a post every day in January so that I could make it part of my life and make it a habit.  In about March or April my husband and I started talking about my going back to work full time, and I really didn't want to because I enjoyed staying home with my son. So we said, "Let's figure out if I can do what I used to do 9 to 5 from home and make a pretty good income.  I didn't really have a set plan of what I was gonna do.  So I started a blog, Moms Group Manual, in May.  I was basically reviewing all the sites that allow moms to connect with each other online and women's organizations that have websites. When I was pregnant, I'd researched all that stuff because I wanted to connect with other moms, and all my friends were still in the happy hour every Thursday stage.  I didn't really know any moms.

Tell me about your amazing experience with Twitter.

I got on Twitter last fall but really didn't get why I'd want to follow these people I didn't know and why they'd want to follow me. Then I started twittering when I started Moms Group Manual because I wanted to read other moms' blogs and learn from other people and connect with other moms who were into this web stuff like i am.  Twitter just kind of clicked with me.  It's fair to say that I'm probably a Twitter addict at this point!  A lot of people ask me how I use Twitter for everything.  I say, "Just be yourself!"  There's no rules.  If you're there to learn, tell people you're there to learn and they'll teach you.  If you're there to network, let people know because there are people that want to network too.

What happened next was Max Ciccotosto, who's @wishpot on Twitter was following me.  Then I tweeted one day that I was looking for a marketing and development job because at this point, we'd given me six months to see if I could do something at home that would be competitive with what I was doing outside the home, minus childcare.  He DM'd me, and two days later I had a phone interview.  He had my resume, then I was Chief Mom Officer.  I had to submit my resume and talk about my past experience.  I had eight years of doing marketing and business development.

What a cool title - Chief Mom Officer!  Can you talk about that?

I'm so glad you asked that because Max Ciccotosto was a single male at the time, and wanted to be marketing to moms. So he hired a mom and gave her the title.  I think that's pretty darned smart.  He came up with the moniker.  I've taken that moniker, and I'm trying to turn that into a concept so that other companies follow Wishpot's lead.  (Check out Jessica's efforts here.)  He came up with that and asked if I would be comfortable with it. At first I wondered if people would take it seriously.  It's for their baby channel, and it's perfect in hindsight.  So I'm glad I took that risk.

How has blogging changed your life?

It's changed my life at so many levels.  Not just professionally.  Yes, I have this amazing job as Chief Mom Officer, and it's a total dream job.  But there's so many moms that I feel such a genuine connection with and whom I would pretty much do anything for. So in a way, it's changed my life not because of just the success that I've gotten.  Things are happening with me that four months ago I couldn't even have fathomed.  But being able to create a serious business network with moms and make deals happen and give publicity, I think there's some people out there that underestimate the power of mommy bloggers!

Amen to that, Jessica.  Jessica Smith is definitely an example of the power of mommy bloggers and just what we can accomplish, as well as how influential we can be.  Jessica's newest venture is a partnership with the company Care.com.  You can read about it at Jessica/Care.

*By the way, check out the new Wishpot badge in my side bar.  I'm a Wishpot Mom Expert.  Click on it to see all that Wishpot offers!