Yesterday I spent the day at the Mum and Working Academy and Awards. Mumpreneur Inspiration was nominated in the working parent blogger of the year category,  we didn’t win but still had a great day.

There were excellent speakers at the Mum and Working Academy on topics like social media, Finance and funding, search engine optimisation,  team-building PR, legal advice and vlogging.

NatWest were the event sponsors and their regional enterprise manager gave a great session on funding and finance. As well as talking about bank finance he told us about the many great resources that can be found in the city business library. He also discussed alternative funding routes, for example grants, sweat equity, crowdfunding, government start up loans, peer-to-peer lending, pitching competitions and crowdfunding.

Natwest small business funding presentation

There was an excellent session called 42 great SEO tips for small businesses, they focused on how good the search engine optimisation was really about helping users find what they want rather than tricking Google. My key takeaway from this was to think about what people might be googling and use those phrases to make my posts easier to find.

Sarah Cressall

Claire Jones-Hughes from Claritaco Media led the session on social media she talked about limiting the number of platforms that you use, many people agreed that four was overwhelming so she suggested starting with one of them and when you feel confident with it add another. She talked about the importance of making a commitment to your social media and linking in your social media goals with your business goals.

I particularly enjoyed Sarah Cressall’s closing remarks, her enthusiasm is really contagious and she left me feeling inspired.

The awards part of the day began with a keynote address from Caroline Dinenage MP who talked about the importance of women in the economy. The working parent blogger of the year category was quite early in the program. Tired daddy received a highly commended award and the winner was honeymumster, the blog of Sarah-Jane Honeywell, who also spoke later at the awards. These are both fantastic bloggers and deserving winners as were  the many other amazing award winners.

All of the finalists received a framed certificate and everyone got a fantastic goody bag. If you’re considering attending next years event I highly recommend it.