CGM blog: These are a few of my favourite blogs

12 May CGM blog: These are a few of my favourite blogs

One of the enjoyable aspects of delivering media training is research.

In April, both of our Business Media Club meetings in Worcester and Birmingham featured blogging so I did some fresh research on blogs.

It’s easy to highlight blogs written by successful entrepreneurs that are read by millions of people – but let’s face it that’s not for most of us. Something more real has resonance.

And a successful blog isn’t always about being successful (or rich) in business – it can also be personal and about lifestyle and things that truly matter in life.

So here are some really up close and personal blogs I like. Not a perfect list…but my own current favourites.

1. BALDHIKER.COM

Wonderfully billed as ‘The ramblings of Paul Steele and friends’ I can really relate to Baldhiker and not only because Paul Steele, like myself, is follically challenged and middle-aged. It is because Paul has turned a hobby (hiking) into a lifestyle business – largely via blogging and now pucker journalism. Get this – he is paid to travel, hike and write about it – and has even developed his own Baldhiker Breaks. What’s more, he has 671,900 Twitter followers and has added food reviews to his repertoire. Oh, he’s also lost four stones in weight in the process…can’t be bad!

2. AGIRLCALLEDJACK.COM

This well-known blog was started by Essex single parent Jack Munroe in 2012 to provide ‘austerity recipes’ (meals costing less than a £1) and began in anger after a local councillor dismissed his local High Street being ruined by ‘druggies, drunks and single mums’. Now a columnist for The Guardian, anti-poverty campaigner and author of A Girl Called Jack and A Year In 120 Recipes, not to mention a winner of several awards, Jack Munroe’s blog is always acerbic, thoughtful and fascinating to read.

3. ROCKNROLLBRIDE.COM

Weddings are not a subject I have much personal knowledge or interest in but I know a mould breaker when I see one and Kat Williams is certainly that with rocknrollbride.com, which has 42,000 Twitter followers and began as a bride blog for Kat’s own wedding in 2007.

Professing to bring ‘a little haven of kick-ass weddingness…the charm and unique nature of ordinary people’s extraordinary weddings‘ it has mushroomed into a website, magazines, and public speaking gigs.

4. MONEYSAVINGEXPERT.COM

Okay, you can barely pick up a newspaper, listen to radio or watch TV without the ubiquitous face and voice of personal finance journalist and Moneysavingexpert.com founder, Martin Lewis. Lewis started his Money Saving Expert blog in 2003 for £100 – and sold it for £87million to moneysupermarket.com in 2012. However, he remains editor in chief, donated £10m to charity and £1m to Citizens Advice Bureau and is still the UK’s personal finance champion.

5. THEFUTURESROSIE.COM

This one touched my heart when I came across it. Written lovingly by thirty-something parent Thomas Bachofner as a means ‘to talk about stuff, get things out in the open, a bit like an online therapy…and to celebrate the progress of my beautiful daughter Rosie” who was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome (DS) and Complete Atrioventricular Septal Defect (AVSD).

This blog covers the ups and down, joys and pains of being a DS and AVDS parent. Moving, touching but always refreshing, I just think this sort of blog does so much to share experiences and is arguably the best use of blogging and the internet as a genuine information exchange tool.

Chris Green is an author, broadcaster and media consultant and managing director of all round communications company, Chris Green Media.