The Blogger Genius Podcast

Do you dream of being an entrepreneur? Are you creative and long to build a business around your skills? You're going to love my newest episode. Kayla Butler and I dig into how to build a successful creative business today. I’m sure many of you are familiar with Kayla’s site, Ivory Mix, where she gives away beautiful, free stock photos for social media.  In this episode, Kayla and I talk about how she started creating images, how she grew her email list, and how that eventually turned into a successful business.  We go deep into what it means to be an entrepreneur: the struggles, the mindset, and how to be successful. I think you are going to enjoy this episode.  Before I jump into my discussion with Kayla, I want to let you all know that I have been having loads of fun over in my Facebook group.  I am in there nearly every day, chatting, going live, and helping you build your business. And the group is full of other bloggers, encouraging each other, and answering questions.  If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for? Come on over today and introduce yourself. We’re all waiting on you! Growing a Business Through Failure When Kayla first started creating content, her style was very hit or miss. Her first course was a phone photography course.  Kayla’s audience wanted an easy way to shoot photos and immediately have them available.  But her first launch did not do well. She only made about $50. Through testing and trial, Kayla has turned that first course into content that generates thousands of dollars a year.  The course is comprehensive and shows you how to edit pictures for your social media in an easy-to-understand format.  Using Tripwires to Drive Sales Kayla turned the success of her course around by selling it as a tripwire. A tripwire means that when someone signs up for her free photos, they get redirected to a “Thank You” page. On that page is the offer for the course. At just $7 for a limited time, it’s a no-brainer for most people. That $7 product brings in thousands of dollars every month.  A tripwire is not meant to be expensive, but rather something that will make a steady income from people seeing it when they subscribe to your list.  You have to know how to ask at the right moment and market your products to meet your audience’s needs at the right time.  Tripwires also contain a time-sensitive factor, in that there is a designated amount of time before the offer runs out.  This motivates the subscriber to buy the tripwire now, rather than waiting.  Why You Need to Experiment with Your Marketing Techniques After another launch that Kayla didn’t consider a success (even though she sold 30 of them), Kayla looks at all of her launches as beta runs.  This allows her to test the marketing and content to see if it’s what her audience needs and will respond to. If a course doesn’t do well, Kayla can try new techniques to make it more successful.  You need to be flexible and look at your content as fluid rather than all-or-nothing deals. Be willing to adapt to what works best for your audience.  As entrepreneurs, we think we tend to know it all, but we don’t. We have to learn as we go.  Kayla began her membership site for her stock photos. The membership was free until Kayla realized what a valuable service she was providing for her members. It then went to a monthly charge. But she has found that annual memberships serve her and the audience much better than a monthly membership. The longer-term relationship helps Kayla to get to know her people better and what types of photos they need. As Kayla began to get more members, she had to bundle her content to help manage the sheer number of clients. Members get access to new stock photos once a month for free, access to existing courses, and once a month, there is a specific training that the members have requested.  Building Relationships on Social Media When it comes to Instagram, Kayla focuses on her audience and the transformations they want to see in their lives and businesses, rather than on her products.  Most of Kayla’s viewers come from her site where they can see her stock photos already, so it is redundant to post those pictures on her Instagram page.  Her goal is motivating her audience and focusing on them and their successes.  The more meaningful social interaction you have, the more your account will grow organically.  Kayla uses hashtags to show up in searches as her following and interaction grows. The hashtags follow the topic of the day, popular hashtags, or medium-popular hashtags.  Helping Your Audience Feel Empowered  Kayla tries to make people feel empowered to decide to take their business to the next level.  Making decisions is the way to make goals happen. Kayla tries to help her audience make decisions to take the next step.  We all have to make decisions and learn from them to keep moving forward. Once you get into the habit of making small decisions and tweaking them, it gets easier and more comfortable.  It is essential to surround yourself with people who will push you to do the next thing.  Freedom to Scale Your Business Kayla believes that mistakes are good things. Through every failure or setback, you can learn something that will help you move forward.  Do not be afraid to ask for a sale. You need to push yourself to get to where you want to be.  As women, we are helpers. You have to tell yourself that offering your products, even for a price, is helping others.  You can do more to help others when you are more successful in your business. Do not be afraid to grow and have a team growing around you.  You want to be able to scale a business that can support your life goals.  Having more people on the team gives you a new vision, as well as more freedom to pursue new goals.  I hope you got as much out of my conversation with Kayla as I did. I love how she never gave up, but kept learning what her audience wanted and provided it for them.  And when necessary, she pivoted.  Think about that in your own business. What does your audience want from you? How can you provide them with even more value? Now before I go, if you haven’t seen the new snowflakes on our MiloTree pop-ups, you have to go look right now!  If you have any questions or comments, please pop over and join my Facebook group. I hope to see you there!   Read the transcript for “How to Grow a Seven Figure Business by Listening to Your Audience”   TIMESTAMP Intro 3:04 Hobbyist to Business Owner 9:03 Growing Through Failure 11:13 Using Tripwires to Drive Sales 14:50 Marketing Techniques 17:30 Successful Membership Sites 23:55 Building Relationships on Social Media  28:13 Helping Your Audience Make Decisions 37:04 Freedom to Scale TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  Even if your first product seems like a failure, try repackaging it as a tripwire.  Test all of your marketing, be flexible, and walk away from the “all or nothing” mindset. Using social media to focus on the transformation your audience wants to see in their lives allows you to build genuine relationships with them and to grow organically.  Ask for the sale. Remember that your products help people, so never shy away from asking for the sale.  Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.  

Today, my guest, Brooke Riley, and I are talking about how to grow a seven-figure business by listening to your audience. And for Brooke, that audience has been on Facebook. We talk about whether Facebook is really dead. Is it still possible to grow an audience on Facebook and actually get your content seen?  Brooke has grown her blog, Refabbed into a large DIY blog, coaching business, and online boutique in 4 years, mostly through her Facebook page, which currently has around 500K followers. Many people in our industry would tell you not to expend any efforts on Facebook; that it’s a complete waste of time unless you want to “pay to play” through Facebook ads.  And while it’s true that the algorithms aren’t favoring bloggers or businesses the same way they used to, if you go into it with a specific strategy and you focus on engagement, you absolutely can build a community on Facebook and use it to grow your business.  Today’s guest on the podcast, Brooke Riley, shares with us how she did it, and why Facebook was a great decision for her business. She also talks about how she has expanded her business from just a blog, and she shares her tips for folks just getting started.  Before we jump into our discussion though, I have to say that I have been having loads of fun over in my Facebook group.  I am in there all the time, chatting, going live, and helping you build your business. And the group is full of other bloggers, encouraging each other and answering questions.  If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for? Come on over today and introduce yourself. We’re all waiting on you! My guest, Brooke Riley, has grown her blog, Refabbed into a large DIY blog, coaching business, and online boutique in 4 years, mostly through her Facebook page, which currently has around 500K followers. Brooke has invested in her followers and built relationships with them, and now she has an audience that knows and trusts her.  Starting a Blog Even if You Don’t Know What a Blog Is Brooke began her blog as a way to document and share the projects she was completing around the fixer-upper home she and her husband had purchased in western Kentucky.  At the time, Brooke admits, she wasn’t even sure exactly what a blog was.  Even though Brooke was spending time creating content for her blog, and building relationships with her readers, email list subscribers, and social media followers, her pageviews weren’t growing as quickly as she wanted. She knew she needed pageviews for ad income.  And income was definitely her goal from the beginning. She didn’t know what types of income were typical for bloggers, but helping to provide for her family was her goal from day one. Over time, Brooke got to know her audience well enough that she was no longer 100% dependent on ad revenue. She began to experiment with affiliates and figuring out other ways to monetize. She learned what her audience really wanted from her, and that led to other streams of income. Creating Connections with Your Audience From the beginning, Brooke wrote her blog with the intention of being vulnerable and honest.  She wanted her audience to know her personally and she wanted to get to know them. Her vulnerability allowed her audience to connect with her on an intimate level.  When Brooke placed calls to action in her posts and emails, she worded them in a way that her audience would want to answer.  She also took time to respond to their replies in a way that made them feel validated and want to respond again.  Connecting with Your Audience on Facebook to Grow a Seven-Figure Business It’s one of the most popular things to say right now... that Facebook is dead for bloggers and online business owners. But Brooke hasn’t found that to be the case at all.  From the time she started her blog, Brooke focused on her Facebook page. Facebook was where she saw the most interaction and the most engagement with her audience.  Her page grew slowly, but she kept putting in the time and sharing with her followers there. After two years of working her page, Brooke realized that she wasn’t connecting with her audience on FB the way she wanted to. And it was because even though she put out a ton of great content for them, they never saw her. They read her voice in her content, but her face wasn’t something they experienced.  So, she began doing live videos on Facebook to build that connection with her audience.  Planning  a Facebook Strategy After a couple of years at this live video thing, you would suspect that Brooke has a special strategy that she uses to get as many people as possible watching.  Surely she plans out her live videos and lets her audience know exactly what day and time they will be, right? Nope.  Sometimes, she doesn’t even know what she’s going to talk about until 5 minutes before she gets on there. Brooke says it is important to know that you don’t have to follow rules that somebody else has set. You need to do what works for you and what works for your community.  When Brooke first started going live, she would go live once every two weeks or so, but now she goes live once or twice a week.  Brooke aims to post at least 4 times per day on her Facebook page. It’s not the end of the world if she doesn’t get 4 posts up, but she does try to keep it active by posting regularly.   Brooke posts things that are relevant to her audience, from her blog or other creators her audience enjoys.  Brooke knows her audience well enough that she has been able to build other revenue streams and businesses based on their wants and needs.  Creating an Online Clothing Boutique One of these additional businesses is an online boutique for her female audience that is just about to hit 7 figures in revenue.  I realize that not everybody would think to start an online boutique, so I asked Brooke to share why she started it and how she knew it would work for her audience. She shared with me that she was getting so many questions about her appearance (her hair, clothes, and makeup), that she realized she could build an additional stream of income based on that interest. Brooke was doing all of the affiliate marketing she could based on her readers’ requests, but it didn’t take long to figure out that she was onto something.  She knew she needed to capitalize on the passion she felt for her style and her audience’s love of it, so she decided to start a boutique selling the things she liked and then share those products with her audience.  Creating a Coaching Business A coaching business is something Brooke never dreamed she would do.  Brooke has a passion for teaching others how to do things. She enjoys showing her audience how to do the crafts she loves, how to dress in a way that they can express their true personalities, and even how to build an online business.  She totally didn’t see herself as a teacher, however, she kept getting questions about Facebook, growing your audience, and making money online.  Her audience wanted to learn from her and they continued asking her to teach them. Even if you think you aren’t the best at something or you don’t really know how to teach it to someone else, you have a unique voice that others can appreciate and want to learn from.  Building a Team Brooke and her husband were the only ones running the business for the first 3+ years. For the first 9 months, Brooke still had a full-time job!  It’s only been a little over a year ago that she hired her first employee.  Brooke eventually realized that she could not grow the business any larger without having outside help. There is only so much one person can do before they need outside help. Currently, Brooke has a full-time assistant whose sole responsibility is to work with her on the blog. Her husband, Brandon, came home full-time in May of 2019, and he works mostly on the boutique.  The boutique has a store manager and an additional full-time employee, as well as a part-time employee whom Brooke says is pretty close to full-time.  Brooke also hires outside contractors to handle things like Pinterest, etc.  What About Her Instagram Strategy?  Instagram is the hottest social media platform on the block for most online entrepreneurs right now.  Everyone is trying to grow their IG following and engage with their people over there, but until this past summer, Brooke had not focused on her Instagram.  Now that Brooke is spending more time on the site, her account is growing quickly.  Brooke likes that she can share even more behind-the-scenes stuff about her life with her Instagram stories. This allows her to continue to build that intimate relationship with her audience.  Advice: Don’t Be Afraid to Break the Rules Brooke says that if she looks back on where she thought her blog would go and where it has gone, those two things would not be in the same neighborhood.  Running a business is not always something you can plan for. You can’t predict the opportunities you may be presented with or where your path might take you. Sometimes you see a need that you can fill and your business is born from that.  Brooke strongly recommends that you hold your ideas loosely and not worry about “following all the rules” that other people set up. That’s a great way to lose the fun of running your business. Trying to keep up with what everybody else tells you to do can cause you to lose that initial passion that inspired you to start your business.  Okay, I don’t know about you, but isn’t it just amazing how Brooke has been able to build such a huge community relatively quickly? Four years may not seem quick when you’re in the middle of it, but she took her blog from zero to multiple businesses and over 7 figures in just 4 years. I find that incredible!  And she did it by being true to herself and authentic. She shared the things that she loved and took her audience along for the ride. Her audience relates to her and that allows her to serve them with content and products! So, right now, click over and join my Facebook group if you haven’t already so that we can talk more about this episode. I want to hear what your takeaways are and I’ll be sharing mine. Read the transcript for “How to Grow a Seven Figure Business by Listening to Your Audience”   TIMESTAMP Intro 3:00 Brooke Starts a Blog 6:14 Starting a Blog...Even if You Don’ Know What a Blog Is 7:45 Creating Connections with Your People 9:45 Connecting with Your Audience on Facebook 15:12 Planning a Facebook Strategy 20:05 Growing Additional Businesses  25:12 Building a Team  29:40 What About Instagram? 32:14 Don’t Be Afraid to Break the Rules           TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  When starting a business, have a goal. Even if it changes, your goals will keep you passionate while you build your audience. Find ways to build intimate connections with your audience, like live video. Get to know your audience so well that you can develop products they will want to buy. Don’t be afraid to hire help; one person can only do so much. When you hire people, you can grow even more.    Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Productivity is something I am always thinking about and trying to learn more about because I know that it is crucial to growing my business. So in this episode, we're talking about how to find new productivity hacks for yourself. But let’s be honest, sometimes we, as bloggers, get bogged down in the weeds instead of doing the things that will take us to that next level.  That’s why I invited my friend and MiloTree community manager Paula Rollo back on the podcast, where we are talking all things "productivity."  We’re sharing what works for us, the things that don’t work, and where we are winging it in our own businesses.  Before we jump into our discussion though, I have to say that I have been having loads of fun over in my Facebook group. I am in there all the time, chatting, going live, and helping you build your business. And the group is full of other bloggers, encouraging each other and answering questions.  If you haven’t joined us yet what are you waiting for? Come on over today and introduce yourself. We’re all waiting on you in the MiloTree Mastermind Group! Okay, are you ready to be more productive? Let’s jump right into my discussion with Paula... Balance Is a Myth One of the biggest issues with productivity is the old comparison trap.  We think that everybody else is more productive than we are. But it’s not true.  We all struggle with the number of things on our plates, and I’ve never met a blogger who was satisfied that everything was getting done. My own mom reminds me frequently that balance is not a state that you achieve; rather it’s something you move in and out of. There will be days when you plow through your to-do list like a ninja, and days where it feels like you are walking through molasses.  So, don’t get too hung up on trying to find that elusive balance. Let’s shoot for productivity instead. When Are You Most Productive? So, rather than comparing myself to Susie Blogger over there, I need to look at my own life and how my days are structured.  When am I at my best? When do I accomplish the most?   And I’ll be honest, I am at my best from 3:30-5:30 p.m. If I have some deep work that needs doing, that is the time when I can really dig deep and focus. So, pay attention to your own rhythms. You will notice the time of day when things come easier to you.  If you are trying to get stuff done and you feel that you aren’t doing your best work, move on to something you can do easily. Save the heavy lifting for when you are in the right mindset, even if that’s late at night. Another tip is to do those easy mindless tasks when you aren’t at your best. This will give you a boost because you’re accomplishing a goal, instead of just wasting that time on social media.  Using the Pomodoro Technique  One of the tricks I use to increase my own productivity is called the Pomodoro Technique. The Pomodoro Technique is simply a system where you work without stopping for 25 minutes and then you take a 5-minute break. I use the online timer at tomato-timer.com.  You repeat the 30-minute cycle 4 times and at the end of the third or fourth round, you take a longer break.  (Tomato-timer allows you to set the length of your short and long breaks, as well as the length of your focused work session.) If you say that you are going to work for several hours straight, you may goof off for a lot of the time. You may get distracted, you may feel bad about how little work you’re doing, and you may only actually work for 25 minutes of that 2-3 hours.  But, if you can set that goal of 25 minutes and really focus, you will get more work done in those 25 minutes than you will sitting at your desk for 2 hours but wasting the majority of it. Be Intentional About Breaks Breaks are necessary when you work online. Your eyes need time away from staring at the computer screen.  The trick is to use that break time to actually do something away from the computer. If you use your break time to scroll through Facebook or Instagram, it won’t feel like much of a break when you switch tabs to get back to your work. During your break, use that time to walk around, get a drink of water, step outside for fresh air, or talk to a friend or family member. Stop to smell the roses every so often and you will find yourself more productive when you sit back down to the screen. Breaks aren’t optional; you will be more productive with well-timed and regular breaks than you will if you sit there and try to press through for hours.  Scheduling Software and Paper Planners  As someone who runs several businesses, you would think that I am the most organized person on the planet, that my planner is scheduled to the half-hour every day. And I’ll admit, a good schedule is not optional when you are a business owner. We also use  Trello in our business and we love it.  However, I want to be completely transparent and let you know that I am just like most of you and I wing it a lot.  The system that I actually use more than any is Post-Its. My desk is covered with Post-Its.  I love that they are something tangible that I can write on, and then see in front of me as I accomplish my goals.   Paula works for several clients and uses both Trello and BaseCamp. But personally, she can’t live without her Erin Condren paper planner. Working In Advance  One of the best ways to increase your productivity is to work in advance. My assistant and I use a calendar to schedule our posts for Catch My Party. We write out what the posts will be about and we schedule those a couple of months in advance. We post on that site 3 times a week as follows: New content, usually focused on a trend we are noticing An updated post A highlight of our 4 favorite parties of the week As you know, because you are reading this post, I also release a blog post every week based on the podcast for those who would rather read than listen.  This blog post also allows us to rank for SEO and it provides a place for listeners to grab any links we mention in the podcast. One thing to notice is that you may be more scheduled and more productive than you think you are. Going through this exercise showed me ways that I am being more productive than maybe I would have said I was.  When the Work Feels Hard While I’m sure that there are some incredibly organized people who seem to have it all together, most of us are still kind of winging it and that’s okay.  It’s okay to decide how scheduled you want to be and when you need to say, “Enough!”  But, if you don’t want to do something, think about what it is worth to you financially.  That post you don’t want to write? Why are you writing it? Is it because you’ve got a family that depends on the income that post will bring in? That right there might be all the motivation you need to get off Instagram and finish the post, even when it feels hard and you just don’t want to do it. At the end of the day, you are running a business. Typically, the harder you work, the more money you make.   If you want to have the freedom to do what you want, you need to put in the work necessary.  Find the System that Works for You At the end of the day, you have to know who you are and what works for you. You need to know how you function best and what type of schedule brings out your best work.  No one else can tell you what is right for your business and your mental health.  If you aren’t as productive as you need to be, ask yourself why you haven’t gotten your work done. Take the time to ponder what rhythms would work better for you.  Everyone has their own unique rhythms, their own schedules, so I challenge you to figure out how you function best. You get to decide what your days look like and what productivity means for you and your business. If you enjoyed this episode, I hope you’ll share with me what works for you. I go live on Mondays at 3 pm in my Facebook group and I’d love for you to join me and let’s chat all things productivity! Read the transcript for "How to Find Productivity Hacks That Work for You" TIMESTAMP Intro 1:46  Balance Is a Myth 2:48  When Are You Most Productive? 7:57  Using the Pomodoro Technique 12:00  Be Intentional About Breaks  16:54  Scheduling Software and Paper Planners 21:31  Working In Advance  25:00  Mixing Up the Schedule 30:29  When the Work Feels Hard  33:17  Find the System that Works for You   TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  Balance is a myth; some days you will slay your to-do list and some days it will slay you. Stop trying to achieve balance and focus on increased productivity instead. Pay attention to when you feel at your best and do the deepest and hardest work during those times; save the mindless tasks for when your brainpower is lowest. Be intentional about taking breaks; use break times to take a walk, talk to a loved one, stretch, or anything that involves stepping away from the screen.  If the work feels too hard and you just don’t wanna, remember why you’re doing it. Knowing that your family depends on the income can make it easier to press through.  Bonus- Don’t depend on somebody else’s system to work for you. Find the best times and schedules for your unique set of circumstances and please don’t compare what works for you with what works for others!   Now imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

As bloggers, we are always looking for new ways to add income streams to our businesses. Sponsored posts are a popular way to do just that. But first, if you haven’t joined my Facebook group, I want to encourage you to do that today! Every Monday at 3:00 EST, I go live in the group to talk about that week’s podcast episode.  I go over the highlights, what I learned, and what I think it’s important for you all to take away from the discussion. It’s a great place for you to ask questions and to share your knowledge with others. I hope you’ll join me! Now, if you’re ready to learn how to make the most from sponsored content, you’re going to love this episode. My guest, KariAnne Wood, is the creator of the blog, Thistlewood Farms. KariAnne works with over 50 sponsors per year on her blog, so she knows all the ins and outs of sponsored content and partnering with brands! KariAnne shares that working with sponsors is all about building relationships and creating win/win situations.  TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE EPISODE  Build a relationship of trust with your audience so that you know what brands you should be pursuing. Only work with brands that your audience will find helpful or pertinent.  Take the time to fully research a brand before reaching out to them. Share what you know about the brand in your pitch along with information about your audience. Keep your rates flexible so that you have room to negotiate. Think of other things you can sell to brands, such as specific and timely knowledge of social media features.  Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Read the podcast transcript for “How to Work With Brands from a Blogging Expert”

If I say the words, “social media," what comes to mind? Does it fill you with a sense of dread because you’re overwhelmed trying to figure out what you should be doing and how much?  Or do you feel confident because you love social media and it the easiest part of your business?  Whichever way you lean, I think you will get a ton of information from today’s show where we're talking about how to use social media to grow relationships and engagement with your audience. Today, my guest is Neal Shaffer, a social media strategy consultant.  Neal teaches large companies how to best use social media to grow and stay engaged with their customers. We’re talking about many different social media platforms today, hearing his insights on how to have success on each.  But first, if you haven’t joined my Facebook group, The MiloTree Mastermind Group, I want to encourage you to do that today! Every Monday at 3:00 ET, I go live in the group to talk about that week’s podcast episode.  I go over the highlights, what I learned, and what I think it’s important for you all to take away from the discussion. It’s a great place for you to ask questions and to share your knowledge with others. I hope you’ll join me! Building Real Relationships Online As bloggers, we work alone most of the time. It can be an extremely isolating lifestyle. That’s why Neal puts a huge focus on building relationships. I want to tell you how I met Neal as a great example of using online research to build those relationships.  I use an app called Bonjoro to send a personal video to everyone who signs up for MiloTree.  Recently, I had sent a video like this to Neal, as he had signed up for MiloTree. A few weeks later, I was randomly researching “social media experts” and I saw Neal’s name on a list of people to follow. I knew the name looked familiar so I went to his website and realized I had just recently sent him that video, welcoming him to MiloTree. And the rest, as they say, is history. We connected from there and here he is, on my show! All of that to say, you have to be reaching out and building those relationships with your followers and with those you follow.  Neal points out that if you follow 1,500 people on Instagram and you send just 5 of them a direct message every day, you will have contacted every one of the people you follow in a year! But don’t just message them; ask them how you can serve them. Being able to connect one-on-one is a huge step toward helping other people in the online space to remember you. The Importance of Consistency in Social Media When your goal is to increase your presence online, build relationships, and increase brand awareness, you have to focus on consistency. If you’ve been blogging for a while now and you feel discouraged, if you feel like things will never work out for you and you will never meet your goals, the first thing Neal wants you to remember is that success is often just on the other side of giving up.  Focus on what’s working for you on social media Keep track of your analytics Stay the course Don’t stop creating content and putting it out there. Go back to your "why," the reason you started your blog in the first place. What are you trying to accomplish by being on social media? If you don’t know "why" you’re using social media, you aren’t going to be successful with it.  Are Followers the Goal? Most bloggers are very good at gaining followers. It comes naturally to us. The trick is what to do once we have those followers and how to monetize them.  The main goals of online business are:  You have to have passion You have to have a product to sell You have to build a community that will want to buy your product If you want to attract people who will be interested in what you sell, you have to push out the type of content that will draw those same people in.  Focus on the platforms that give you the best returns and work on growing those. You don’t have to build every platform at the same time.  The platforms that work the best for Neal may not be the same ones that you are the most successful with. That’s okay; do what works for you.  Neal’s Instagram Strategy  Instagram requires a different strategy than other social media platforms. Neal posts a few times a week on IG but his goal is to be publishing daily.  While Neal has mostly used IG to keep in touch with people rather than using it for business, when he’s traveling and doing conferences, he focuses more on posting photos of what he’s doing.  Over the past year, he has focused on developing his own Instagram strategy, and that begins with the premise that IG should not be 100% dedicated to business.  When you have a broader reach and you post things your community will engage with, whatever that may look like, it helps your overall reach.  These days, Neal’s IG posts fall pretty neatly into 3 buckets of content: Travel - mostly international business travel Food - because of his international travel, he eats a lot of different foods and he has followers who love to engage over food Business - this includes blog posts, conferences, podcasts, etc. His business posts get the worst engagement, but by mixing it up, he can at least keep people interested in that side of it.  Neal believes strongly that you need a lifestyle focus on IG and your posts should lean heavily in that direction. Why? Because those are the posts that allow your followers to feel like they really get to know you.  A potential client is following you and they see a post that makes them feel a connection to you. Maybe it’s a shared passion or a place they’ve also been to. You posting about your passions will connect you to those people who share your passions.  Instagram Posts vs. Stories  One of the cool things about Instagram is the options available. You have a main feed filled with posts but you also have the ability to share even more with your audience by using stories.  It’s important to post to stories more frequently since they do disappear after 24 hours. Instagram now has the option of having a Creator account, which is what Neal has. This is not the same as a business account but it is public. It provides you with tools to better understand your growth and manage your IG presence.  While IG posts can be put off indefinitely, stories are more for what’s happening right now. Also, the IG audience tends to engage more with creators on stories than on posts. Growing Your Following on Instagram  Instagram is a bit different than Facebook when it comes to your followers vs who you follow.  You want to be focused on who you are following and how you are connecting with them and building relationships.  Neal is reducing his follower count because he does not want unengaged followers. He wants his content to go to the people who will engage with him.   If someone is following you and not engaging, you are wasting a follower.  Instagram DM Strategy  Go into your app, and you will be able to sort the people you followed by the date you followed them.  Go back to your first follows, and choose 5 per day to visit their feed, send a message, and ask how they are doing. Just basically reconnect with them.  If you do these in order of when you followed them, just grab a screenshot of the last DM you sent, and the next day, pick up where you left off and keep going. You don’t need to spend hours on social media to be able to build meaningful connections and grow your organic community.  Facebook Strategy Neal does not spend the majority of his time there. It can still be a valuable asset, but it is one that takes more work.  Facebook ads are still a great place to find your people and build community. Neal still spends some time on the platform but it’s the bare minimum that keeps his account active. He typically posts once per day and does live streams occasionally. He also sometimes uses his Facebook lives to record his podcast. Compared to Facebook, Instagram can have a bigger reach, simply because the sheer number of people on Facebook limits your reach. Don’t disappear on Facebook but keep life support connected to it. Neal uses it for recording his live streams and for the ads. Otherwise, he focuses elsewhere. Bloggers On LinkedIn  Are you using LinkedIn as a blogger? Have you thought about using it? Isn’t LinkedIn just for trying to find a job or connecting with business people? Here are a few very interesting statistics that Neal, shared with us: 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn 45% of LinkedIn users earn $75,000 a year LinkedIn’s audience has 2 times the buying power of the average web audience Does this sound like anyone you are trying to reach or build relationships with? You want to be going after this audience.  Keeping Up With Changes in Social Media There is one thing that never changes about social media: it never stops changing.  Algorithms change from day to day; audience engagement goes up and down based on the seasons; your content may not be applicable to every platform. So how do you keep up with all the changes? Look at your data and track your information on a regular basis Continue to show up on the platforms Learn how any changes are going to affect you Follow social media experts who share upcoming changes   Mentioned in the Episode: Jenny Melrose podcast Agorapulse Social Bee TIMESTAMP Intro 2:00 Building Real Relationships 4:20 Neal’s Journey to Social Media Expert 7:45 The Importance of Consistency  13:15 Are Followers the Goal? 21:12 Neal’s Instagram Strategy  24:42 Posts vs. Stories  27:58 Following on Instagram  29:57 Instagram DM Strategy  32:00 Facebook  33:42 Bloggers on LinkedIn  39:27 Keeping Up with Changes   TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  Connect with people one-on-one as much as possible in order to build real relationships that will help you grow your business. If you are discouraged with a lack of social media success, don’t quit! Consistency is the key to success so keep posting what your audience wants to see. On Instagram, focus on sharing more lifestyle posts and fewer business posts. Lifestyle posts help your audience get to know you better.  Find a couple of social media experts to follow so that you are always aware of any changes coming up and can prepare for them. Read the podcast transcript for “How To Use Social Media To Grow Relationships And Engagement” Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Have you heard that blogging is dead? Or that regular folks can’t build large social media followings anymore?  Well, today’s guest on the podcast is a blogger and entrepreneur who has proved what can be done quickly -- in under two years -- with some hard work and a belief in herself.  Andrea Scalzo Yi is the owner and content creator of the blog, Raising Dragons.  Andrea creates STEAM/STEM projects for kids and makes videos of her 4 sons completing them.  And she has built her entire business very quickly, in under two years. So we are going to talk about how she did it, and where she plans to take the business in the future.  Beginnings a Blog by Making Videos for Facebook After working in retail her whole adult life, when Andrea began staying at home with her 4 young sons, she was at a loss as to how to fill her time. She knew she enjoyed design, she had a degree in engineering, and she loved art. So she began creating projects to work on with her sons. She considered starting a blog because she had a friend making a full-time income blogging, but she wasn't a natural writer, and so she wasn’t sure she could make it work. But one thing she did enjoy was making videos. And so, in 2017, Andrea bought the domain, Raising Dragons.   And instead of blogging, Andrea began posting 1-minute videos on Facebook of her sons doing the projects. These videos had no sound and were really meant for the busy parent who was scrolling and looking for something simple to do with her kids.  Viral Facebook Videos As Andrea began adding more and more of her videos, Facebook began sharing them to more and more people.  Friends and family were sharing them, as well, and before long, she had a video go viral. She kept creating videos in the same style, and as of today, she has had over 20 videos go viral. One of her viral videos has over 30 million views on Facebook.  At the same time, she was posting her videos on her blog, but she didn’t even know what SEO was. So, each blog post was just the video, a short paragraph on how to do the project, and that was it. What Andrea did was build an audience with her videos and then she began to find out how to best serve that audience. Utilizing Social Media Because the algorithms change on social media platforms all the time, bloggers have to be ready to make adjustments. But Andrea tries to stay true to her original form of content by creating and releasing 1-2 new videos each week. Since Pinterest recently allowed video content, Andrea uploaded all of her content to her Pinterest account.  Andrea is also working to grow her Instagram account (using MiloTree!) because brands are more interested in IG, and want to see an active presence and audience engagement there before they work with you.  How to Monetize Your Social Media Accounts Andrea’s prime revenue source is sponsored content, but she only promotes brands that fit in with her STEAM content.  Andrea likes to work with smaller brands that are just getting started. She does have a business partner who helps her with the business side of marketing and brand contracts.  Brands can get different packages when working with Andrea, from a simple blog post to across the board social media marketing.  To monetize, she also takes advantage of Amazon’s affiliate program, as well.  Running a Business from Your Phone  One of the things I was most interested in talking to Andrea about was going from “end-to-end” on her phone. She basically runs her entire business from her phone. and I’m not so great at that.  To shoot her videos, Andrea uses a sunroom in her house that gets great light. Lighting is everything when it comes to video, and this room has plenty of windows.  She tries to keep activities set up in the room so that when her son wants to work on something, she can film it for content.  Andrea cuts the volume from most of her videos, adds music, and keeps them close to one minute.  When posting her videos, Andrea puts a branded watermark in the bottom corner of her videos.  Andrea’s Team  Andrea is truly a one-woman show.  She has her partner that helps her interface with brands and has used a contractor to rewrite some of her blog posts for SEO purposes.  Otherwise, she runs her business all on her own.  Thoughts on YouTube  Andrea posts her videos on YouTube but she isn’t currently monetizing them on there.  Andrea believes that her videos aren’t the best for YouTube because they are very short, do not have volume, and are designed for the busy parent.  Andrea caters to the busy mom scrolling through her social media and wants to see something inspiring. She does not cater to the person wants to dig into the meat of her projects on YouTube.  Take note - it’s perfectly okay to figure out what works for you and then jump into that. You do not need to be doing amazingly well in every single area or do everything that everybody else is doing. Blogger Burnout  Andrea has been experiencing burnout this year. Writing her book, figuring out the marketing plan for it, and creating more content for her blog, all on top of creating new video content has been a lot to manage.  So, she scaled her videos back to once a week and she’s also batching the video work.  It is okay to recognize that your business is in a new season and to change things up to reinvigorate yourself.  Andrea’s Book  At the beginning of 2018, Andrea made the goal to write a book, which became 100 Easy STEAM Activities.  Andrea submitted her idea to PageStreet Publishing and they told her they were interested, but wanted to go for 100 projects instead of the 40 she had suggested.  The publisher covered the photography since Andrea’s strong suit is making video. But the photographers worked with Andrea to make sure it was in her style and fit her ideas.  Andrea’s Advice  If you’re a blogger still trying to figure out the landscape of blogging, and how to grow your blog into a business like Andrea, she suggests you start by focusing on providing value to your audience. Andrea feels like what has served her well is giving people exactly what they want and how they want it, without worrying about monetizing. You can focus on monetizing in the future, once you know what best serves your audience.  Andrea completely focused on putting out content for two years; that was her sole focus. The money and audience grew from that.  I’m so impressed with what Andrea has built with her business. She has built her audience by serving them exactly what they want and in the style they want it, which is short and sweet videos.  This is Andrea’s first foray into entrepreneurship and she’s having a blast. Can you say the same? If you need help with your blogging journey, come join us over on Facebook where I am doing live video every Monday!  TIMESTAMP Intro 2:31 Beginnings of a Blog  6:36 Viral Video 8:35 Utilizing Social Media  10:27 Monetizing Social Media  17:15 Running a Business from Your Phone   24:15 Andrea’s Team  26:45 YouTube  31:47 Burnout  33:55 Andrea’s Book  37:01 Andrea’s Advice  TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  Build an audience with what you know and continue to serve them the content they want in the style they want it. Don’t sweat social media algorithm changes; stay true to your content creation and trust your audience to follow you. Simplify by using less to accomplish more. (Andrea runs her entire business from her phone!) Focus on providing tremendous value to your audience and the money will come naturally from that.  Read the podcast transcript for “How to Build Enormous Instagram and Facebook Pages in Two Years” Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Are you ready to boost your blog income during the holidays, because it is not too late! This post will help you put a plan in place to increase your revenue in Q4 before the year is over. Most businesses generate the bulk of their revenue in Q4, so if you're not sure what to do first, listen to my newest podcast episode where Paula Rollo and I share our best tips for how to have a successful Q4 and grow your income! We will also be giving tips for the beginning of the year when Q1 hits and we all have some fun new gadgets to play with. Before we dive into today’s topic, I want to encourage you to head over to my Facebook group, The MiloTree Mastermind group, where I am going live every Monday to discuss my biggest takeaways from the podcast. I’m focusing on building our community and would love to have you join in! So, head over to Facebook and I’ll see you there!   Creating Gift Guides for the Holidays Gift guides are huge. I know you’ve seen your favorite bloggers sharing gift guides throughout the year and you can create one for your audience.  The thing to remember is that your gift guides need to be niched down to match your blog content.  Brands are great at the more generic types of gift guides, like, “The Top 10 Gifts for Foodies.”  Don’t try to compete with the brands on the generic guides. Instead, make your guides niched and unique. Really narrow down the focus of your guides. Think about your blog content and which posts are super successful for you, and build your gift guides off of that content. Listeners, Paula shared some truly genius ideas for content that maybe isn’t a traditional gift guide but brings in tons of affiliate sales. Listen in starting at the 5:10 mark to have your mind blown in the best way! Optimizing Existing Content for the Holidays  Okay, so you want to increase your affiliate sales during Q4 but you really and truly don’t have time to put together any gift guides.  Is there any other way to beef up your affiliate income without creating a bunch of new content? You better believe it! One easy way to boost those affiliate sales is to have a few evergreen pieces that you can switch around seasonally.  Paula has an evergreen post titled “Best Gift Ideas For Grandparents.” This post has a generic, evergreen, pinnable image. But when Q4 comes around, Paula simply switches out that image for a more seasonal image, and changes the title to say, “Best Christmas Gift Ideas for Grandparents.”  The titles of your posts can be changed to fit any holiday that the content fits with. Change out your image and update the post and you’re good to go! IMPORTANT: Check Your Blog Links  One of the worst things to happen is for a reader to click on an affiliate link on your blog and find a broken link. You can’t earn money on links that don’t work. And if you have one broken link, your reader may not bother checking any others. Take the time now to go through your top posts and make sure that all your links are not only working, but leading your audience to the sites you want them to go to. You don’t need to do this for every post on your site, but you definitely should check your most popular posts and those that already bring in some revenue. Update Your Pins for the Holidays  On Pinterest, if you update the photo of an old pin, it will automatically be viewed as new content.  You can add the new image to your blog posts if you like, but just creating those new pins will bring fresh traffic to your evergreen posts.   And here’s a nifty tip -- if you tap the price tag icon on Pinterest, you can add your affiliate link to that photo. *Note: not all affiliates allow this so check your specific affiliate programs to see if you can use your link on pins. Use All Social Media Channels  Once you’ve updated your content or created some guides, checked your most important links, and pinned new images to Pinterest, it’s time to use the power of social media.  Think about how to use each of the platforms to drive traffic to the sites you have affiliate links for.  You could put together a series on Instagram showing your "Top 10 Sensory Products for Kids," and then promote this series on your other channels to get people to come over and watch.  You could do a series on Instagram stories; you could do it through a series of emails to your subscribers; you could do a series of Facebook Lives.  Create a sense of excitement around the content you’re going to be sharing so that your audience will share it with their friends.  Selling Products During the Holidays  Have you ever thought about designing your own products? Does that sound crazy?  It’s not as crazy as you think when you use sites like Zazzle, where you can create t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc.  You can sell other people’s creations or you can design and sell your own.  Creating your own products doesn’t have to be a huge, all-consuming affair. It can be simple. Take advantage of the technology available to find new ways of creating products.  SEO Tips for Christmas and Q4 Go into your Google Search Console, look at your performance, and search "holiday," "Christmas," or any holiday-type search word.  If you enter the word "Christmas,” it will show you how many times you pop up in Google when someone searches the term “Christmas.”  This can show you opportunities you didn’t know were there. Find out where Google is already ranking you and what your readers are looking to you for. Then create more content in that vein. Scroll through your results and see what you could take advantage of for the holidays.  It’s hard to believe that Q4 is here already, so we need to dive in. If you’re not sure where to start, take one of the tips we shared today and start there. Pick the lowest hanging fruit and see what you can get done this week. And be sure to come over to my Facebook group so we can discuss this episode together. I can’t wait to chat with you! TIMESTAMP 2:46 Gift Guides  11:45 Optimize Your Existing Content  16:39 Check Your Links  17:00 Update Your Pins  20:56 Use All Social Media Channels  22:42 Selling Products  23:55 SEO Tips    TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  If you’re creating gift guides, make them niched and unique; they should mesh with your most popular content. Optimize your evergreen content with affiliate links and updated information. (Make sure every affiliate link on your most popular posts still works.)  Create new images for your evergreen posts and make new pins from them. Consider creating a series to share on Instagram, Facebook, or even to your email subscribers.    Read the podcast transcript for “How to Boost Your Online Income in Q4”   Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Are you serious about growing your online business? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

As bloggers, it can be tricky to know how to use ads on your site, what ads you should use, and what types of content will bring you the most ad revenue.  So let's explore how to increase your income with online ads. Ad income is beneficial for bloggers because it’s passive income. I am a huge believer in finding ways to grow your income without increasing your workload. The ad company we use on our site, Catch My Party, is Ad Thrive, and it’s been a great fit for us. AdThrive is a premium ad company.  My guest today is Paul Bannister, Executive Vice President at Ad Thrive. We talk about what a company like Ad Thrive is looking for in terms of its bloggers and publishers, why ad revenue is important, what kind of content will grow your traffic, and the latest trends in the online ad business.  If you are a blogger who wants to learn more about using ads, I think this episode will be a great tool for you! What You Need as a Blogger to Join Ad Thrive Paul and his company look for bloggers who have original content, a clean site, and who view their blog as their business, not a hobby.  They want bloggers with a good history of content and a strong audience.  Ad Thrive has minimum monthly page views of 100K in order to consider working with a blogger.  If you are getting more than 100K page views a month, it will be evident that your blog is more than a hobby to you.  How Digital Ad Agencies Work  There are various types of ad networks. Some focus on connecting as many bloggers to brands as possible.  There are other ad agencies that want to focus on a specific niche, such as healthcare.  Using Google AdSense can be nice since they are a big name and you can easily add ads to your site even if your blog is small. As your blog gets bigger, an ad network like Ad Thrive can bring in ad agencies from all across the industry, not just Google-related.  Ad Thrive makes their business decisions based on what is best for the bloggers they work with. Can You Make a Living Off of Ads on Your Blog?  If you are a blogger with 100K page views, you are not going to be able to quit all your other jobs and live off your ad revenue.  Not only is it not feasible, but Ad Thrive is big on their publishers having several different revenue streams.  It is always a good idea to have several sources of income, no matter where you are in your blogger stage. Ads can be a big part of that revenue, but you need something to fall back on should your ad revenue dry up.  Your niche will also affect how well your ads do. Travel and personal finance are great niches for ad income.  How to Grow Blog Traffic  Traffic is crucial to ad income, because the more traffic you have, the more ad income you earn.  But we all know that growing traffic isn’t easy these days. *(Which is why you need a tool like MiloTree!) The best way to grow your blog traffic is to be great at something. If you understand Pinterest and do really well marketing your blog there, keep it up. If email is your jam, use your email list to the best of your ability. Focus on what you’re best at and stay in that space for a while.  Site Speed Matters  Sire speed matters, particularly for SEO. Anything you add to your blog is going to affect your site speed.  You should have the overarching view of, “What is on my page and how is it serving my audience?” So, you need to think of the tradeoff of the new content or ad that you’re publishing and how it will affect your site speed.  If your site is slow to load, the person who found you on Google search is probably going to bounce away from your page to one that loads faster.  Each ad has a slight effect on your site speed. The first ad is going to have the most impact, and after that the impact is minimal.  How to Find an Ad Network  Let’s say you’re a blogger. You have no ads on your site currently, but after listening to this episode, you’re ready to jump into the ad game. Where do you start? What should you look for in an ad network? One of the first things to do is to read reviews from other entrepreneurs who have used a specific ad company. If you know someone who has ads on their site, as them if they’re pleased with the ad agency they’re using. Checking out other sites or businesses that are using a specific ad company is a good way to get a feel for that company’s values.  There is a tool called Built With that will show you which ad networks the site is working with. Your ad network is a big revenue stream, but it is also a big part of the user experience. You want to make sure that the ad company you use matches the experience you want your readers to have. Where You as a Blogger Should Focus Your Business Bloggers wear a million hats, so it can be hard to know where you should put the majority of your focus. Paul believes in focusing on the thing you are the best at first.  Pick the content you are good at creating and create more of that.  Which audience do you completely understand? Talk to them more. Pick the revenue source that you are good at building and focus on that.  Different people are good at different things, so knowing yourself and what motivates you is the best place to start. The folks at AdThrive are very much focused on the future, whether that’s 3 months from now or 3 years down the road. Their goal is to “future proof” what they offer their publishers.  We here at MiloTree and Catch My Party recommend that if you are interested, you reach out to Ad Thrive at info@adthrive.com. Read the podcast transcript for “How to Best Understand the World Of Online Ads” Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Are you serious about growing your online business? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! TIMESTAMP Intro 4:25 Content Requirements for Ad Thrive 6:20 How Ad Agencies Work 11:15 Making A Living Off Ads  15:35 Growing Traffic  18:45 Site Speed Matters  25:20 How To Find An Ad Network  27:10 Where You as a Blogger Should Focus 29:10 The Future of Ads   TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  If you want to work with an ad agency, create plenty of original content, design a blog with clean lines, and concentrate on making your blog a business, not a hobby.  Don’t count on ad income as being your sole source of revenue; multiple streams of income is always a smart move. Grow your blog traffic by being great at something and doing more of it. When looking for the perfect ad agency, ask other bloggers who they prefer and read reviews online. 

YouTube has a huge presence online today, and it’s not just for watching videos anymore. YouTube is actually the second largest search engine in the world, right behind Google. So don't avoid YouTube. Learn how to use YouTube to market your business successfully!  With 3 billion searches per month, if you aren’t taking advantage of YouTube, you might want to consider learning how you can use it to grow your business. Nate Woodbury, founder of Be The Hero Studios, helps business owners create YouTube channels, not merely to call themselves YouTubers, but to grow their businesses and sell products.  He shares a lot of great strategies and tactics with us today. Even if you have no YouTube experience, I promise, you will learn something that you can apply to your own business. Can Beginners Compete With Existing YouTubers?  The big difference between starting a YouTube channel today vs. when it first came out is that now you must have a strategy.  It is no longer enough to create videos and put them out there. You will not gain a big following by simply doing that.  YouTube requires a lot of the same strategies as any type of entrepreneurship. You need a large dose of stick-to-it-iveness and tenacity. You have to focus on creating quality content.  Nate has his own personal YouTube channel dedicated to teaching others how to make a YouTube channel thrive. Creating YouTube Content With Keywords  It’s important to do keyword research before you begin filming because it’s much harder to go back and find keywords to fit the content you’ve already created.  Go deep, find very specific questions that people are searching for the answers to, and create videos that answer those questions.  SEMrush has a tool called Keyword Magic Tool, which is what Nate recommends to find the most effective keywords and phrases to gain traffic.  For someone serious about doing a daily YouTube channel, you can pay for a subscription to SEMrush for a month or so, and then cancel it.  Here's what you do: Look up a keyword and all your results will pop up. Then hit a button that says “Questions.” When you hit that button, it shows you the questions around that keyword people are asking.  Nate recommends picking questions that have between 10 and 100 searches per month.  The Power of Keywords for Gaining Traffic on YouTube If you are doing videos this way, you will have a smaller percentage of viewers, but they will watch your video all the way through because it is specifically tailored to their needs.  The YouTube algorithm is going to see that it is a well-performing video with a high watch-through rate, and will promote your video for you.  This is the best way to get your YouTube channel started and get traction on Google, as well.  *Looking up specific keywords also works if you are a blogger looking for content to write about.  Technical Strategies for Videos  Nate says don’t stress about overall production quality, but rather, focus on content quality. You don’t need an expensive camera to do YouTube videos. Lighting is the most important piece to think about when videoing your content. Simply film a selfie video facing a window, and as long as you’re delivering high-quality content, people are going to love it.  Nate plans his videos to be 10-12 minutes. Keep in mind, the longer people watch your video, the more YouTube will promote it.  Let your audience know beforehand what your video is about and what you’re going to cover. This tells your audience that watching through to the end is worth it.  And then, instead of summarizing your video at the end, direct your audience to another video that will be related to the topic of this video.  Monetizing Your YouTube Channel Ad revenue can become a livelihood but you need millions of views to earn big bucks from YouTube. Normally your YouTube income will just be the icing on the cake of your other incomes. If you have a huge platform on YouTube and high-quality videos, YouTube will promote your videos because YouTube wants to make money, and therefore, you will make money.  It takes time, you have to be able to wait until you have a big enough audience to sell your products.  Once you have thousands of followers, and once you are a YouTube partner, you can get your website approved to be able to guide followers off of YouTube to your personal site for sales.  One-third of Nate’s links on his videos lead to his personal website, one-third go to other YouTube videos, and the final third lead to social engagement.  How Many Videos Per Week?  You can succeed on YouTube at a gradual pace of one episode a week.  However, YouTube does like it when you post five or more videos a week. Think about it; they want people to come back to the platform every day for videos.  Nate went from 500 views per day for one video a week, to 10K views a day for five-plus videos a week, in just four short months.  There are four ingredients to ensure that you get as many views as possible for your videos:   Keyword research 10-12 minute videos A 45% viewer retention rate Patience for 4 months  YouTube Thumbnails  Thumbnails have become more and more important because people see so many videos in a search result, and you want your thumbnail to stand out.  To figure out the best type of thumbnails to use, you’re going to have to test your ideas. TubeBuddy has an AB split test that you can use to see how your thumbnails are working comparatively. Don’t repeat the title of your video in your thumbnail. Use that text to build curiosity and pique the searcher’s interest. The word "clickbait" can have both good and bad connotations, so use your text carefully and if you can deliver on your text, do it.  If you want to start a YouTube channel, let’s review what Nate talked about today: Use keywords and do keyword research Make tons of videos Go for a length of 10-12 minutes Optimize your thumbnail so people will be intrigued and click Plan a CTA Building a YouTube channel is strategic but it is not rocket science. You need the nuts and bolts in place and once you have a solid foundation, you continue to build, build, build! Nate has a special offer for my Blogger Genius listeners; if you go to his website at Be The Hero Studios, you can grab his step-by-step blueprint for doing keyword research before filming.  Have you built a YouTube channel? If so, share your best tips and tricks with us. Let us know what has worked for you and what hasn’t.  Getting social media followers and email subscribers shouldn’t be that hard… Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog risk-free! Are you serious about growing your online business? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Read the podcast transcript for “How to Use YouTube to Successfully Market Your Business” TIMESTAMP Intro 5:58 Can Beginners Compete With OG’s?  8:47 Creating Content  With Keywords  13:35 The Power of Keywords for Gaining Traffic 22:31 Technical Strategies for Videos  29:12 Monetizing YouTube  36:42How Many Videos Per Week?  42:08 Thumbnails  TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, so if you aren’t taking advantage of that to grow your business, you should consider starting a channel. You absolutely must do keyword research before filming videos. Our favorite keyword research tool is SEMRush. (Do you have an affiliate link for SEMRush?) Expensive equipment isn’t everything but lighting is, so film all your videos facing a window with daylight streaming in. You won’t get rich quick on YouTube, but if you’re willing to be patient, it can become a valuable income stream. 

Are you wondering if you can write a book, how to get it published, or whether to sell it as an ebook? Well, you're in luck because this post and podcast episode is all about everything you need to know to write a book. Today I am interviewing Maggy Woodley, the brains behind Red Ted Art. I interviewed Maggy previously in episode 18. Maggy just released her second book on paper crafting.  We are talking about what it’s like to write a book as a blogger. If you are thinking about writing a book, or you want to learn more about the topic, this is the episode for you! The Process of Book Publishing  If you want to get your feet wet in writing a book, you can always start with Ebooks. You definitely don’t have to start with a traditional print book.  E-books are good for beginners because the process is simpler.  Maggy started her career by writing individual Ebooks, as well as collaborative Ebooks.  You can create your Ebook on many different platforms, convert it to a pdf file, and then sell it on Etsy, Amazon, your blog, and Pinterest.  The most common way to publish a book is to find an agent. Maggy found her agents by talking to blogger friends who recommended agents to contact. Maggy recommends Page Street Publishing because they specialize in publishing bloggers.  Is Writing a Book a Good Way to Make an Income? The income you earn from books will be partly determined by the size of your blog and if you are already earning money from your blog.  Maggy has a large audience on her blog, so her income from her book is small comparatively, but it is a passive source of income.  For most people, writing books isn’t done for the money. If you make money on it, that’s a good thing, but it’s not the main goal. The goal is building your credibility with your audience.  You have to be passionate about what you’re writing about if you want to finish your book. If you don’t love it, you’re going to start hating it.  Repurposing Old Content for Your Book Maggy’s books contain approximately 25% recycled content. That is fairly unusual for writers.  It depends on your publisher and what they will allow. Normally they will only allow about 5% pre-published content.  Some bloggers actually quit blogging while they are writing their books.  If you’re going to take three months to write a book, you need to consider whether you can fit it into your regular work schedule, or whether you can afford to take that time off to focus on writing.  Factor in the lead time of a year at the least. You will write your book, but then months will go by before it is published.  How to Use Your Built-In Audience to Sell Your Book Maggy has a large presence through her blog, YouTube channel, and social media.  Her publisher will only have to do minimal work advertising her book because she already has such a large reach.  You don’t have to have a big audience in order to get published, however.  And even if a publisher does want you to sell to your audience, they will have a distribution system of their own.  What they are actually looking for is unique content and what makes you stand out. They want to see that you are passionate about helping your reader in a niche topic.  You’re not just writing a book for the sake of writing a book. You’re writing a book because you really believe it will help someone.  Do You Have Autonomy in Publishing  You have more freedom when you are publishing your own Ebook. You get to decide what goes into your book, your title, etc.  Publishers are usually quite happy for you to choose your content. Maggy’s publisher came up with her title and cover, but she liked both of those.  If you aren’t happy with something, you can always talk it out and try to agree on something that you like better. Most publishers will be happy with your respectful and helpful feedback about your work.  Getting social media followers and email subscribers shouldn't be that hard...   Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog risk free! Are you serious about growing your online business? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!   TIMESTAMP Intro 2:50 Tips To Grow An Email List 7:45 A Simple Start 10:57 Building a Journey for Your Subscriber 14:47 Segmenting Your List 23:35 Broadcast Content 26:57 Connecting Email to RSS Feed 29:48 Formatting For Email 33:16 Subject Lines 39:16 Pruning Your List 43:21 Parting Tips     Read the podcast transcript for “Everything You Need to Know to Write a Book”   TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  To be successful at email marketing, you must become an aggressive email acquirer. Set up a “forever series”; a 10-post email series around one evergreen topic. Segment your list to build a loyal audience. Spend time writing attention-grabbing subject lines and editing your emails to be as short as possible. Prune your list every 3-4 months.