Tonight I have been invited to attend a media event for the 2010 Ford Taurus.  This is the first time I have been invited to an event like this.  I have been encouraged to tweet and blog about it, which I plan to be doing using the hashtag #taurustalk tonight and a full blog post in the coming days.

Since I have never done anything like this, I consulted my personal PR/Blog Expert, @JessicaKnows.  Jessica had 15 Days of Marketing last year on her blog and I have re-read these posts.  She gave me some advice through twitter, which I will be implementing.

Yesterday, I was on a blog conference call with 2 Republican US Congressmen regarding the President’s budget and a Republican alternative that will be rolled out in the next four weeks.  Since I am a political activist, it is inevitable that some of my political activity rolls over into my blog.  But, how much of that political activity needs show up in my mommyblog?  Do my regular readers care very much about the budget or similar political issues?  I have been asking myself these questions for the past few months.

For the most part, I work to keep Jen’s Genuine Life on topics related to my life as a mom, my children, activities for children, food, tips that work for me, etc.  I have worked hard to keep most of the political posts to be more related to what I am doing.  Examples of these posts include the Atlanta Tea Party, when I campaigned with Gov. Huckabee, and Campaign Until You Barf.  There have been political soapbox posts, such as who I am voting for and why, but overall not too many.  This seems to work well for this blog.  People who may not agree with me politically do not seem turned off by my occasional political posts.  While blogs are networking tools, they are also about storytelling with detailed posts and conversations.

On Twitter, it is a different story. I post tweets about my life as a mom, cooking, recipes, crafts, politics, budget, Atlanta, etc.  Basically, Twitter is a very well-rounded glimpse into my life at any one moment in time.  I do not segregate political posts to a different account.  It seems to be working fine on Twitter because I am now over 4,000 followers.  I do get people who disagree with my politics on Twitter and I am fine with that, afterall Twitter is about brief conversations and network building.

Over the past few months I have thought about the direction of this blog.  How can my political life fit in a blog?  Should my political life fit in Jen’s Genuine Life or not?  How I can earn a little more money with the blog?  Do I have time, energy, and desire to post to more than 1 blog?  Will my readers mind the occasional product reviews or outright product pitches, such as recent post for Baskin Robbins?

Right now my plan is to launch a new blog to focus on my political soapbox issues, my advice to candidates and elected officials, etc.  I can tell more about Smart Girl Politics, other emerging GOP new media leaders, Georgia politics, how to campaign, etc. on the new political blog.

I still plan to post the occasional “this is what I have done post that may be political” post but I am going to keep most if not all issue oriented posts to the new political blog.

On Jen’s Genuine Life, I will continue to post about my menu plans, observations about my children and life, and other tips and tales that my audience hopefully finds interesting.  Additionally, I think I would like to post more product reviews and affiliate opportunities on JenuineJen.  The Ford event tonight will be a test to see if these types of publicity events are things that I am interested in doing and sharing with my audience.  I have been contacted by a couple of companies for product reviews and would like to take the companies up on these reviews.  There are several contests and opportunities for bloggers earn compensation or products as compensation for the posts in return for posting about products or services.  I am researching these options and will be doing more of this accordingly.  I do not anticipate nor do I want Jen’s Genuine Life to turn into a product review blog.  Personally, I do not enjoy blogs that focus solely on product reviews.  If there is an opportunity for me to earn a little more money promoting products or services that I find useful and I think you will find useful, I am open to that.  If there is a way that I can promote these products and give my readers the opportunity to win the products, then I am interested in doing that as well.

So, readers, what are your thoughts about my plans?  The plans are not set in stone yet and I am open to your advice and would very much like to hear your opinions.

• If you blog, do you have more than 1 blog?  If so, are you glad you have more than 1 or do you wish you had stuck to just one?  Do you have time to maintain both?
  
• Do you do product reviews?  Do you enjoy doing product reviews or is it more trouble than it is worth?  Do you have advice for doing product reviews?
  
• If you are a regular reader to my blog, what types of posts do you enjoy the most?  What types of posts would you like to see more of or less of?
  
• Do you have any other ideas or suggestions for this blog?

Please leave comments below or tweet me @JenuineJen.

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