The Blogger Genius Podcast

Welcome to episode 009 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Rachelle Doorley from the blog, TinkerLab. Rachelle has been blogging for over seven years. She is an author and arts educator and helps kids and parents become creative inventors. In this episode we talk about how to build a successful course, how she wrote her first book, why she thinks it's valuable to work with other bloggers in her space, and why she's writing another book. Resources: TinkerLab TinkerLab: A Hands-On Guide For Little Inventors Art Start Challenge MiloTree  Transcript -  #008 How to Build a Successful Course with Rachelle Doorley Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:00] Hi,welcome to the show. Today I have my friend, Rachelle Doorley, from the blog, Tinkerlab. So welcome, Rachelle. Rachelle: [00:00:11] Thank you so much, Jill. I'm very happy to be here. Jillian: [00:00:15] Let me first read what it says about you on your blog. Jillian: [00:00:20] You are a maker, a teacher, an arts educator, a mom, a Girl Scout leader, a traveler, a sketchbook collector, a creativity enabler. I love it. Jillian: [00:00:40] So can you tell me how you started with Tinkerlab because we met... I was thinking about it... six years ago. And you had launched TinkerLab and you were growing it. So can you talk about what inspired you and the evolution of TinkerLab? The evolution of TinkerLab Rachelle: [00:00:57] Absolutely. I can't believe it's been six years, so that was actually shortly after I started it. So Tinkerlab's been around for about seven years now a little over seven years. So basically what it is it's a website, it started as a blog, and it's a hub for parents and educators or grandparents or after school teachers who want to support creativity in young children through art and science and tinkering. Rachelle: [00:01:27] And we do that by providing free content through our blog, and we also have a free five day art challenge where families can download art activities that are really simple to do with your kids. We also have classes both in person and online. And so we deliver this content in lots of different ways. Rachelle: [00:01:46] And you know this all started when my older daughter, I have two girls, and when my older daughter was one and a half and she started just drawing. She started making marks on paper with crayons. And up until that point I was an art educator I worked in schools... Jillian: [00:02:09] I have to interject. I have to say that you have a master's from Harvard. Rachelle: [00:02:14] Yes. OK. [00:02:16] And so I was teaching in schools and museums and I had worked with children from kindergarten all the way up through adults. When I started TinkerLab I was in the middle of training docent program at a really big local art museum. So I worked with people of all ages but I never worked with one and a half year olds before. Rachelle: [00:02:36] And so my challenge became how do I apply all this cool stuff I know about best practices and arts education to my own child's experience. And I started hunting around for ideas and found some blogs and some books that guided me. And then I realized I had to kind of put my own flavor on it and figure it out for myself. Rachelle: [00:02:54] How do I create this home tinkerer lab experience and basically turn my home into a lab? And my daughter became my key subject and then I just grew a passion for it. It became this really big thing for me and I stopped working at the art museum and really focused 100% on creating experiences for other people like me who were also looking for ways to foster creativity with their kids. Jillian: [00:03:19] What I love about your content, and you could tell me how you feel about this. Your philosophy... which is everybody can be creative. It's not about instructing kids, it's really about allowing them their creative freedom. Rachelle: [00:03:43] Yeah that's exactly right. So for the most part I really try to present experiences that are open-ended and that encourage children to think creatively and build their self-confidence. Rachelle: [00:03:54] And so by having a prescriptive art experience that says this is exactly what you have to do, and here are the five steps to do it, isn't really going to get them there. But you know something like that's not bad, it can definitely teach them skills. But what I'm really trying to get at is helping families or teachers set up experiences that really encourage children to ask big questions, to think creatively, to you know find their own passion for whatever questions it is that they're trying to pursue. And that can really be done through open ended art experiences. How she wrote her first book Jillian: [00:04:27] And then you've you've written a book that I love with pictures of your kids going through of lots of fun art experiences and now you're also writing your second book. Can you talk about how that happened? Rachelle: [00:04:43] Yeah. So I had this one and a half year old and I wanted to do art with her, and I started hunting around and finding all these resources in the process of trying to figure it out. I found some books, then I thought... I'd really love to write a book. Rachelle: [00:05:00] But at that point, I'd never written a book. I wrote didactic panels in the museum which are like vinyl things you see on the wall. And I wrote a newsletter that went out to our teachers every week, and I think that was like my introduction to blogging. I'd written papers in grad school, but I'd never written a book. Rachelle: [00:05:19] And so it became this quest for me, like I want to write a book on this topic. And I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for out there, but something that's really about how to encourage how to build and support this home environment that support open-ended creativity. Rachelle: [00:05:37] And so I just realized I can chip away at this 1 blog post at a time, and I just started building these arsenal blog posts and then over time I developed a voice, and got a lot of feedback and realized what kinds of things people were interested in learning about, and what things they weren't. And after a couple years, I had enough content to make a book, and I was lucky enough to find a publisher. Rachelle: [00:06:01] And then the book happened. It got published and now I'm finishing up my second book. Jillian: [00:06:09] Wait, so the first book is called TinkerLab: A Hands-On Guide for Little Innovators. Rachelle: [00:06:16] Little Inventors. Jillian: [00:06:18] I'm sorry. Rachelle: [00:06:18] It's funny, we actually went back and forth: should it be innovators, should it be inventors. They are both really good. And so that book is great, and I've gotten a lot of great feedback on it. And it's you know it's designed for kids ages 2 to 6 and it has all kinds of ideas in it that parents can implement right away with very simple materials and so now I'm working on two more books. Book writing thing really stuck. Jillian: [00:06:47] Although I have to say I remember a conversation after the first book, where you're like I don't know if I could do this again. Rachelle: [00:06:56] It's like giving birth. Jillian: [00:06:57] OK so what inspired you to do it again? Rachelle: [00:07:00] You know I had enough space from it, and when you start something you've never done before, you're blind and you don't know exactly what you're getting yourself into. And so having gone through it one time, and having a little bit of space, I could see that I could just be a little bit more strategic about my second book, and I could set up things in my life that would make it more doable, and not so willy nilly and Helter-Skelter. Jillian: [00:07:29] So what's the second book about? Rachelle: [00:07:32] I can't talk about it just yet. Jillian: [00:07:34] Really. OK I got it. Rachelle: [00:07:35] I'm not at liberty to talk about it, although I will say that it is a creativity book for kids who are in a little bit of an older age group, so ages 8 through 12. So moving up into a different age and it's in the world of calligraphy, handwriting, that kind of thing. But I can't say too much more. Jillian: [00:07:56] And when will it be out? Rachelle: [00:07:58] It's supposed to come out in the summer of 2018. We shall see. Jillian: [00:08:04] Yeah OK. Now can you talk about the evolution of your blog because you started writing blog posts and that turned into your book. And then you started creating courses, right. And like how did that happen? Rachelle: [00:08:22] Writing is such a fulfilling experience. And obviously I'm sticking with it and I loved doing it. It's not a huge moneymaker. And I realize that I just needed to diversify my income and figure out other ways to really get my word out, and get my ideas into the world, but also now pay my rent and keep food on my table. Rachelle: [00:08:53] So obviously I'm continuing with the book writing but my website is monetized in lots of different ways. Jillian: [00:09:01] Do my mind walking through the different ways? How to monetize your blog Rachelle: [00:09:03] Not at all, and then I'll circle back to this question. So money comes in through book writing. And then one of the nice things now is that, I've had a book that's been out for a couple of years, I still got residual checks for my book. My book that's already been out for a while. So people keep buying it and money still comes in. That's really lovely to have that passive income. Rachelle: [00:09:24] And then there is advertising on my website and that's nice. Also passive income. And I have an affiliate agreement with Amazon. And so that's a little bit of money. Jillian: [00:09:38] And that's like Amazon Associates? Rachelle: [00:09:41] Correct Amazon Associates. So you know if somebody goes onto one of the blog post and they are like, what kind of painter are you using? And they click over. Then I get a percentage for that. And let's see there's something. Oh sponsors. So if we find really good sponsors that are a good fit with our brand, then we like working with them, and they might send us products and we can review it or something along those lines. And those sponsorships can work through our blog or through our social media. So that's another way I think there are five different ways. Rachelle: [00:10:14] And so what I was realizing is that all these different ways, aside from the book writing, that we were monetizing the website, were not really in our hands. Right, so if Amazon changes their terms next week then our percentage could drop, and we could make less money, which is actually happened this past year. And the same goes for advertising, and the same goes for sponsorships rights, and money can dry up. Rachelle: [00:10:36] So I think it's really important to diversify where your income is coming from, and then realizing that I really wanted to have some products on our site. So I had been selling little products here and there, like downloadable PDFs. How she figured out what course to build Rachelle: [00:10:57] I really wanted to teach a class right. I come from a teaching background. And so I ran a beta test and kind of figured out what the class would be about. Jillian: [00:11:05] So explain what that means. One thing that I know about you is you are very close with your community and they talk to you and give you feedback. Rachelle: [00:11:19] Right. Right. Right. So feedback is really important. Rachelle: [00:11:29] So I should also say, it's like a piece of advice for those of you who don't already have a newsletter. It's super important to get some kind of pop-up or something on your website where people can sign up for your newsletter because then you can. Jillian: [00:11:43] You can use MiloTree. Rachelle: [00:11:45] Yes, and I love MiloTree. So actually this is something I wish was something I started from day one, was having a newsletter. It's ok. I have one now and I've had it for a while, but why I mention it is is because you can get directly in touch. I mean there's lots of benefits to it, but one is you can get in touch with your fans right away and you can survey them and ask them what they're looking for. Right, what do you want or what's your pain point, and how can we help you solve it? Running a class prototype Rachelle: [00:11:45] And so I ran a survey, and I've done actually a number of surveys asking different kinds of questions and just try to get to the root of it, like what people want, what's the format they want, what problems can I help them solve, and then from that data, I pulled this class together, and I ran it as a beta, meaning that it was a prototype, and I wanted to have people join me who were willing and interested and excited about the content, but also willing to be guinea pigs and help me through trouble shooting some of the problems that might exist with it. Jillian: [00:12:47] So did you charge for it? Rachelle: [00:12:51] I would recommend anyone who's running a beta, I would definitely charge them. I was actually invited to be in a beta for for free program someone was running, and they said it's free. And it's funny, because it was free, I did not have an investment in it, and I just failed to show up and it was no fault of the class the. Actually it was probably really good. Rachelle: [00:13:14] I think it's really important that people have that financial investment because then they're on the hook, and they actually want it. They're not just giving you lip-service, sure I'll do it, I will help you out of it. It's something that they actually want. So I did charge, but I didn't charge the full amount, I made it very reasonable but still enough that people, when they signed up they felt like they needed to be there. Yeah. Jillian: [00:13:37] And there is something that is true that people value things they pay for more than things they get for free. Rachelle: [00:13:44] Absolutely. Yes so I ran the beta and then because I gave them this discount, they were willing to give me their feedback. Rachelle: [00:13:56] And so along the way we had a private Facebook group and they would share their thoughts with me and I also ran this post survey at the end and got more feedback from them on what they liked and what they didn't like. Launching her online course Rachelle: [00:13:56]  And then from there, I launched the class officially and I charge more money. And oh the other thing I offered my beta class, which I think is a nice thing to do, is I offered them lifetime access, so every time I run the class they can retake it if they want to. And I think they really appreciated that and it's also really great for seeding future classes. So you know they're my diehard fans and if they want to take the class again, they'll show up and they'll give feedback to people and they'll be present. So they're that "launch party" basically, that comes along with you. Jillian: [00:14:49] Right. And I talk about this, but really to build a business you need about a thousand fans, raving fans. And there you are building that, you know, who will buy your next book, who will take your next course, who will talk about you on social media. It's like it doesn't take millions. It's actually a much smaller number than people think. Rachelle: [00:15:17] And you know it's a good reminder too that I always feel better at the end of the day when I connect one on one with someone. So if somebody reaches out to me, or they want to have a conversation and they're in one of my classes, or they've done something with me, I always have such a good feeling. It's a much better feeling than like, Hey I sent a newsletter out to thousands of people today. No one got in touch with me. It's like, oh that's nice. Did I affect anyone today? I don't really know. Can you get rich from creating a course? Jillian: [00:15:45] Right. Right. Now here's the question: Is creating of course a get-rich-quick scheme? Rachelle: [00:15:54] That's a really good question. Jillian: [00:15:56] Because I get tons of emails saying I just created this course and it's a six figure course and stuff like that. So my instinct is that that is not true. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. Rachelle: [00:16:11] I don't know if I'm well positioned to answer that question. For me it has not been a get rich quick scheme, but it is also my biggest source of revenue. So I think it just depends on what your goals are, and it depends on your niche and how much you're solving for people, and how much they're willing to pay for that. Rachelle: [00:16:34] And it probably has a lot to do with how you deliver the concept. I guess the other piece of it is your commitment. So what I can say is that I've launched the class now three times, and each time I launch it, it's a bigger. It's bigger than the previous time. And so that wouldn't be necessarily getting rich quick, but it's definitely a growth opportunity. Rachelle: [00:16:57] The only thing I see kind of happening in the class space is that it's reaching that... it's starting to reach that saturation point, which is something that's going to happen anywhere online right. You know people start getting excited about it, they hear about it, and people start selling courses on it. Rachelle: [00:16:57] And so the market is definitely getting saturated, and I think it's making it harder to get rich quick. But there are people out there who are making those six figure incomes off of their classes, and so I think it's... I think it's still an exciting place to be and to invest time into, as long as you have a passion for it, and you're excited to show up every day and commit to it and keep going with that. Lots of potential for teaching courses online Rachelle: [00:17:37] There's a lot of potential, there's a lot of potential for teaching classes, and I mean the beauty of it that I see, and I've always had this in me, is that you can reach so many people with one experience. So when I was teaching elementary school art I had a class of 30 children at a time. I was actually teaching a bunch of classes, but say just 30 kids. And I was teaching a workshop one weekend, we had 30 teachers in the room, and I was like, wait a second, all these 30 teachers in the room, each teaching 30 kids let's say. So right now I'm teaching this class to these 30 teachers and this is going to impact 900 students. And that was such a powerful moment for me when I realized I can do something one time, and have the potential to reach so many more people. And I was teaching in Los Angeles Unified School, just directly with kids who didn't have access to a lot of things, and it was really powerful for me to think that I had this ability to impact people who need it so much, who might not get it otherwise. Rachelle: [00:18:39] So you go and teach a class online and it has that same exact potential, which is exciting. So if you get excited about that potential, and you really feel like you can serve a lot of people, and you want to, I think the sky's the limit really. Right. And it's I think some people are going to nail it and should, and other people won't. Rachelle: [00:18:59] And it just kind of depends on, again, what the niche is and their passion and their commitment to it. Jillian: [00:19:05] I think that is so right on. I think the idea that if you have something inside that you want to teach other people feel that authenticity. They feel that you're an expert in your field and they want to learn from you, and that you can reach thousands and thousands of people. Rachelle: [00:19:28] Yeah absolutely. And again if it does go back to that need. So in serving your audience, finding out what they really need, and if you're just doing something that you think is fun and important, but nobody really wants it, then you're not going to make millions of dollars doing it. Jillian: [00:19:43] What was surprising? What did you find out that surprised you as you were building your course? Rachelle: [00:19:55] Well that's a really good question. Taking me back to when I was designing the course. I guess one of the things that surprised me was how far reaching it was. You know I live in California, and to see people sign up for the class from all over the world, and I know that I have a blog following of people from all over the world. Rachelle: [00:20:20] But it was kind of amazing for me to see people show up in our forum or a shared group, from Belgium and from Australia and from Portugal, speaking all different languages, but showing up in this place and showing examples of their kids doing the work, in all these different places and all the different interpretations of the same set of rules and it was also such a beautiful surprise to see the world get a little bit smaller, with all these people coming together. Jillian: [00:20:56] Yes. And I would say that every day I am running online businesses, I feel that the world is small. Rachelle: [00:21:05] It is. It is. Jillian: [00:21:07] You know and that and that especially as moms, we all want the same things for our kids. Rachelle: [00:21:15] We definitely do. Jillian: [00:21:17] So in terms it's like the nuts and bolts like social media. How do you see social media? How has it changed for you? What's working for you now? How to use social media to grow your blog Rachelle: [00:21:27] Yeah great question. Social media has changed a lot obviously since I started it, you know seven years ago. Pinterest didn't even exist when I started. And so I think it is so important to stay as much as you can on top of what's happening, what those changes are in the last year. I've had a lot of personal issues going on with my family. My mom was really sick. And so you know I just had to turn off a lot of social media. I've lost track of what's happened. Things have changed a lot. That said, when I started, Facebook was really strong. That was a place where I put in a lot of investment and a lot of time and I still think there's a lot of growth potential in Facebook, and where I'm putting all my effort right now is a trifecta of Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Rachelle: [00:22:15] And you know going back to when I started, I think what helped me probably more than anything, content is important, but it's the community, and it's not just my community, not just the people that show up for me who like my content, but it's also people who are running in the same space as me, or running in similar niches as me, whom I became friends with and we help each other. And so I'm seeing a lot of that happening on social media. Rachelle: [00:22:48] On Instagram, there are Instagram pods, where people will work together to help each other's Instagrams grow. Are there are Facebook pods, where someone will post, Hey I posted something today on Facebook, and everyone pops over and likes it or comments on it to help them out. Why you want to work with your competitors as collaborators Rachelle: [00:23:04] And so that that kind of thing is still alive and well, and I think that that kind of community support, and finding people that you love, and that love you, and that can really help you grow, and seeing yourself as part of a community. No one can grow on their own. And you know even though I largely work by myself, I know I would not be where I am now, if it weren't for the support and friendship of other people. And your social media is a big place for that. Jillian: [00:23:34] Yeah, the Internet is really big. And I always say, befriend your competitors because you can help each other. And that you are not exactly in competition with them. There's room. Rachelle: [00:23:49] Yeah exactly. No you're not. You're not. Everyone has their own spin on things, and your readers or your viewers or your listeners are going to come to you for your specific taste. Right. And what you are serving up on your menu will be a little bit different. Rachelle: [00:24:04] And you know it's like two Italian restaurants can exist on the same street because they're not identical. Jillian: [00:24:08] Exactly. And I think it also creates a feeling of abundance rather than scarcity. Rachelle: [00:24:15] Yeah yeah. And you know the other piece of it was that when I started, I had two really little kids and I was feeling very isolated, and I was looking for a community. And so to find all the other people who were doing things similar to what I was doing, my world felt a lot smaller, and I could connect with them and we could understand each other. And you know this is how you and I met we were. You know, we bonded immediately because we had you know we were both building businesses, and we both had little kids. So finding other people is so important and it just helps. It helps you get through the day. It's all about the people anyway. Jillian: [00:24:57] Moms in my preschool had no idea what I was doing being a blogger, building an online business. But to find other people online doing it was so comforting. Rachelle: [00:25:13] Yeah yeah. It can be really comforting and you can help each other too. It's like the other day one of my online friends, she shared how she does video with a certain kind of light. And I was like, that looks like a really cool light. I went and ordered it right away. And we do the same. I did the same thing back and I'll share, this is a resource that I'm working with and I really like it. Rachelle: [00:25:35] So yes, you can be a constant help to each other in a number of ways and it can be, you know, I'm having a hard day. Talk me off the ledge.Or how do you grow your newsletter list, and what's that trick that you're doing and how can that work for me too? How many hours a week do you work on your blog? Jillian: [00:25:50] And how many hours a week would you say you work? Rachelle: [00:25:54] You know, I'm really trying to be a mom first. To whatever extent I can, so I pick up my kids from school everyday and that's what my work day, it's kind of work backwards from that. So how many hours do I put in my day. It is about my week and that's about 25 hours per week. And you know, I try to leave a little bit of time in there open for meeting with a friend, or getting errands done. And so probably ends up being like 20 hours a week. Jillian: [00:26:21] Got it. So that's very doable. Rachelle: [00:26:23] I think so. It's been different at different stages. So like when I was finishing up my first book, it was very very intense and so my husband would come home early and I would go to the coffee shop and write. And so I think during that season, my hours probably went up. Right. Two or three times. And so it's seasonal for sure. Like there are sometimes things that come up and the hours go up and I have to work on the weekends. So I also run live workshops in my studio, and so sometimes like a Saturday, I'll be out for four hours, or Thursday night, I'll be out for three hours and my husband covers me so it probably averages about 25 maybe even 30 hours a week. Jillian: [00:27:09] What about your business at this moment are you most excited about? Rachelle: [00:27:14] What about it am I the most excited about right now. That's a great question. So I've been doing this for so long, and I'm still so in love with the idea of everything that I'm doing. So I feel like I'm excited about all the pieces I have been running, this online class, and I'm excited about launching another side of it. So the ways I have been doing it is with launches. Rachelle: [00:27:48] So what I mean is I'll have a quarterly launch, so I'll say it's January and I'm going to launch my online class, and then I'll do it again in April, and again in July, and again in October,. But I'm working right now and making that course evergreen. How to get people into your funnel Rachelle: [00:28:04] So I'm working on getting people into a funnel so when they sign up for my newsletter, they get some free content that gets them excited about what it is that TinkerLab is about, and that moves them through my free challenge and I could talk about that as well. And then from there they will be given the opportunity to sign up for my class. Rachelle: [00:28:04]  And so rather than run these launches four times a year, it would just be this ongoing funnel, where as people join my website, they will get the opportunity to take the class, and the class would be there all the time, and I'm doing that because we're finding that people want to take the class in February. Like well, it just started last month. I'm sorry you'll have to wait till April. But that's not when they want to take it. And then by the time April rolls around, they're on to something else. So that's not helpful to anyone. So I want to be more helpful and more useful. Jillian: [00:28:58] Explain your free course and how that rolls into your paid course. Rachelle: [00:29:03] Yeah absolutely. So the free class I run it as a five day challenge. I have a mentor named Jadah Sellner who is amazing, and she ran a website called Simple Green Smoothies, and they did these challenges, and I've followed along for years and loved how they did it. Rachelle: [00:29:21] And I was like, I really want to do a challenge, and the way the challenge works is it's like a free course. I do five days of free ART content basically. And you got essentially a menu, like a meal plan, and it gives you five activities to do with your kids over the course of the week, and it gives you a list of supplies that you buy ahead of time, or you gather ahead of time, and a lot of them are things you can find around your house, so it's not too difficult. Rachelle: [00:29:54] And then each day for five days, you set up one of the projects with your young children, and then do it and then we have this online forum, a group on Facebook where people can share what they're doing and it becomes a really beautiful community of people who are having this shared experience of creativity with their kids and feeling supported and nurtured and energized by it. Rachelle: [00:30:16] And then at the end of the five days, if they really love it and they want to continue, then they can sign up for five more weeks of it and every week for five weeks, they'll get you know more projects and the support group will continue. Rachelle: [00:30:29] And from that, I've actually received a lot of feedback from people that they want even more, so I'm thinking about, well how can I expand that and make that into a bigger program that's longer than five weeks, and so that's something that's also brewing in the back of my mind. But if you're interested in checking it out you can go to look at Tinkerlab Art Start and it'll take you to sign up for the Art Star challenge. So right now they're happening quarterly. But you know maybe by the time someone listens to this, it'll have the evergreen setup and it'll just leap you right into it and you'll get it in your inbox right away. That's the goal. Jillian: [00:31:06] Oh that's wonderful. So now if you had one piece of advice that you wish someone had told you when you were starting your business what would that be? Technical advice and theoretical advice for bloggers Rachelle: [00:31:19] So I have to have one that's a technical piece of advice, and one that's a little bit more a little more theoretical. Is that ok? So the technical thing is that I get most of my traffic through organic search, and I wish I had known about search engine optimization or SEO earlier. So I found out about it right in the beginning. There was actually a mom in my daughter's preschool who was an expert. Rachelle: [00:31:51] She was like a consultant and I didn't even know what it was. It took maybe two years to really understand that people are finding me organically. And there's actually strategy behind that. And so I wish I had done that right from the beginning. If you haven't been doing SEO, you can be like me and you can fix it. You can go back and you can put Yoast onto your website and you can sign up for a keyword tool finder. And it's definitely doable. But I wish I did that from the beginning. Jillian: [00:32:24] So Yoast is a plugin your WordPress that helps you optimize your posts. Rachelle: [00:32:32] Exactly. So if you're on WordPress, I think maybe it's on other sites too, but on WordPress you can get Yoast. It's so great because it'll give you the greenlight if everything looks exactly how it should, and will be a yellow light if things were almost there, red if it's terrible, and it gives you all kinds of areas where you just plug things in. What is your keyword that you're trying to go after and you have to write out the description of the content, and it tells you that you need to have more keywords inside of your post, and it just guides you through the whole thing very very very simply, and makes it really easy for you to get those keywords in there and to optimize your posts the best way you possibly can. Rachelle: [00:32:32]  And then the other tool that I recently discovered, Google used to have this keyword finder that sort of changed over the years and it became less useful. But I found a new one I paid for it, but I like it a lot. It's called Mangools. I think it's spelled M-A-N-G-O-O-L-S. It's a keyword finder and it's just really comprehensive and you can actually test it for free. Rachelle: [00:33:39] I'm not an affiliate. I wish I was right now. But but you can test it for free. And I like it. I think it's obviously good enough. I decide to pay for it. Jillian: [00:33:48] Yeah I use one called KWFinder. I find them really useful. Rachelle: [00:34:05] Yeah it's definitely worthwhile. It's definitely is because you know people are searching for things and it's a great way to find people and that's how I get people in my newsletter. They come to my website and they like what they see there, and they'll sign up for my newsletter. But if they don't ever find my website, they won't sign up for my newsletter so that's important it's great. Jillian: [00:34:26] Now what is the other piece of advice? Rachelle: [00:34:29] So the other piece of advice is to think about how important it is to be in this for the long haul, and to see it having a long plan for yourself, and to make sure that whatever it is you're doing, that you can be passionate about this thing for a really long time, because burnout is so inevitable. Rachelle: [00:34:29] There have been so many moments where I just I haven't wanted to throw in the towel. But I've been exhausted absolutely exhausted. Like someone hacks into my site or my web site's overloaded and things are shutting down or there's just some kind of technical problem, and when those things come out those are the things I hate, obviously, those are the things that really get to me. Rachelle: [00:35:17] I can be techie but I'm not that techie. And so when the techie things happen, I just love what I do so much, that I'm motivated to figure it out and it doesn't burn me out and stress me out and kill me. And I can keep going, so just to make sure that whatever it is you're doing, you love it enough that when stuff hits the fan which it will, that you're still motivated to do it. Because that's the thing that's going to drive you to get through the hard times. So that would be my advice. Jillian: [00:35:49] And I totally agree. It is because you love it. Rachelle: [00:35:53] It's because I love it. Yes it is. Absolutely. You know so I went back to my mentor Jadah. She runs this program called Love Over Metrics and I just love that. That phrase says that metrics are important, and we're running businesses, so you want to quantify what you're doing, want make sure that you can put food on your table. Rachelle: [00:35:53] But the love has to come first, you know to be a love for what you're doing, and love for your audience, and just really believing in your content. And that's going to drive you and that's going to keep you happy and enabled and confidants and connected to your audience. Jillian: [00:36:38] Absolutely. Rachelle: [00:36:39] And they'll see right through you if that's not there. Jillian: [00:36:45] So OK. Rachelle, how can people find you? Reach out to you? Learn more about you? Start in your in your classes? Rachelle: [00:36:56] Yeah absolutely. So if you go to TinkerLab.com. So "tinker" like you know, tinkering in your studio. "Lab" it's all one word. T-I-N-K-E-R-L-A-B you can find my website, and if you wanted to try out this Art Start Challenge, you could just do a forward slash "art start" and loop right into that five day challenge that will hopefully be evergreen. On social media everywhere I'm TinkerLab. And so you can just search for TinkerLab or you can look for my name anywhere. Rachelle: [00:37:30] And if you wanted to reach me by email I'm Rachelle at TinkerLab.com. My name is spelled R-A-C-H-E-L-L-E at TinkerLab.com. Jillian: [00:37:40] Thank you so much for being on the show. Jillian: [00:37:43] It was such a pleasure. And I just adore everything that you're doing and I just want to support you however I can. And I love that you're running this show. It's awesome. Jillian: [00:38:30] If you’re trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart popup you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian:[00:38:52] Just a couple of things… it’s super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It’s Google-friendly on mobile so you don’t have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It’s lightning fast, it won’t slow your sight down and you can grow multiple platforms at once, so check it out MiloTree.com. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 008 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Mary Anne Kochenderfer from the blog, Mama Smiles. Mary Anne has been a blogger for nine years, has four children, and is currently homeschooling three of them. Here she shares how to be a successful mother and blogger. In this episode we talk about how she turned a creative outlet into a business, why she thinks it's a good idea for her kids to see her working, plus, her thoughts on admiration vs. jealousy. Resources: Mama Smiles MiloTree TapInfluence  Transcript -  How To Be a Successful Blogger and Mother: Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:11] Hey everyone. Today I am here with my friend, MaryAnne Kokendurfer from the blog, Mama Smiles. And I have known MaryAnne for a couple of years and it's really fun to connect with her, and I'm excited to have her on the show. Welcome, Mary Anne. Mary Anne: [00:00:30] Hi, it's great to be here. Jillian: [00:00:32] OK so let's talk about Mama Smiles. First tell me about what your blog is. How she turned her joy of everyday parenting into a blog Mary Anne: [00:00:43] The central focus is about finding joy in everyday parenting. And for me everybody's going to find that in different ways. Mary Anne: [00:00:53] The things I love about being a mom are having time with kids, like learning, creating, traveling and just exploring new things, so that's what you'll find on my blog. Jillian: [00:01:09] I want to know how you were inspired. But let's go back. So you are an educator. You have a Ph.D. in education. This is what you live in breathe. Mary Anne: [00:01:22] Yeah, well my Ph.D. is actually public health, but it was like arts programs for kids with PTSD. So it's still very education focused. And I do have a Master's in Education from Stanford so. OK. And I'd say yes I'm an educator. Jillian: [00:01:37] And you do have a bunch of kids. Mary Anne: [00:01:41] Yeah I have four kids. My youngest is 5, and I have an 8 year old, a 10 year old, and an 11 year old. Jillian: [00:01:48] Can you share the story of how you started Mama Smiles? Mary Anne: [00:01:53] Yeah. It was almost an accident. I would say I was home with two little kids and anyone who's had two kids knows that that life can get very exhausting. And I was looking for a way to focus. And I really wanted kids. I mean I was one of those women who really really want kids. I was like How is this. You know I need to I need to enjoy that. I can survive it. Yeah. Mary Anne: [00:02:21] And so I was looking for a way to focus on the things I loved about being a mom with little kids. I didn't start intending to create a business but that is what it's turned into. How her blog evolved from an outlet to a business Jillian: [00:02:43] Can you share how it has evolved? So you started it really as an outlet. Mary Anne: [00:02:51] Yeah it started as an outlet. I would say it still is because I derive so much joy from actually writing something and publishing it. Jillian: [00:03:01] What do you mean by that? Mary Anne: [00:03:05] I've come to realize I value community and I'm really lucky. I mean I have a really great local community. But I do value that that has expanded into global community. Mary Anne: [00:03:27] I work from home and so much of what I do is really valuable, like feeding and clothing and cleaning. But it all gets done within 24 hours. Jillian: [00:03:38] Yes. Mary Anne: [00:03:40] On my blog. I get to write something and it's creative and it makes me think and then it stays done. Jillian: [00:03:53] That's so interesting. I get that. I find that blogging for me gives me enough distance so that I can then reflect on what's going on in my life. Mary Anne: [00:04:10] Yes. It's like that social awareness. And I feel like it's a constant re-evaluation of what matters to me and why. Jillian: [00:04:20] So you start this blog, and you're writing about what you're doing with your children. Jillian: [00:04:27] Yeah. Then when did you say great, this is a business and I could really think about it as a business? Mary Anne: [00:04:34] I don't think I even realize. I was such a naive beginning blogger. Mary Anne: [00:04:41] I was just, I need a creative outlet so I created an outlet. Blogs are amazing because you can have zero startup costs. Right. And I started reading blogs a few months before. It's like, I could do this. And so I started writing. Mary Anne: [00:05:00] And then at a certain point, companies started contacting me and then you start to get the ad revenue, and it's like OK now, and my kids started getting older. So I'd been kind of focused on being home when they were little, and that I really wanted to continue to be home. But I have this education. Like ok, I don't want to like throw all the education out the window and spend my days doing only mundane things. Jillian: [00:05:25] Right. Right. Right. Mary Anne: [00:05:28] Not to undervalue those things at all, because they are the essence of all of our lives. Jillian: [00:05:34] Right, but I do think again and in all honesty, once you have a child, and you've got four, nobody is applauding you for packing the perfect snacks. Mary Anne: [00:05:50] No, and it's a bizarre experience to go from being this high performing person, yes, to being treated as almost a nobody which devastates me that that's how we treat mothers. And and that was another piece of it. Mary Anne: [00:06:08] There was also a kind of I hope that people can see my blog and see some of the things that stay at home mothers do with their kids, that nobody realizes are happening. Jillian: [00:06:23] Can you give an example? Mary Anne: [00:06:23] Well just things like the value of having a parent there taking her kids on a walk or a care giver. Mary Anne: [00:06:33] It doesn't even have to be a parent. I just want caregivings to be more valued. Mary Anne: [00:06:39] I hope that people can recognize what an impact they can have on the life of someone, who really has that kind of hands on attention. Mary Anne: [00:06:50] Because I think we don't realize all that goes into raising children. Jillian: [00:07:02] And one thing I think about is, I talk to bloggers all the time and there's a similarity. Especially mothers, which is it is hard to be working like we used to work before we had children, and blogging is an opportunity to be home and be entrepreneurial, and to set your own schedule, so you can put as much or as little as you want into it. But that it is a way to carve out something for ourselves. Why it's healthy for our kids to see us working Mary Anne: [00:07:36] And I think it's healthy for my kids because they see that I am working and they see the benefits of that. Mary Anne: [00:07:45] I mean if you think back like 100, 200 years ago mothers were working and children were seeing their mothers work. And then we went through the phase like in the 1950s, mothers were reduced to only the housework and the cleaning and the cooking, and again I never undervalue those things. Those are the things that keep us all alive right. Mary Anne: [00:08:10] But those women still had brains, and I felt like that got lost, like they almost weren't allowed to and this created the happy medium of like still recognizing intellect, on at least on some level. Mary Anne: [00:08:32] I think it's really important for children to see their parents working. Jillian: [00:08:35] I do too. Mary Anne: [00:08:37] I mean luckily my husband has a job where they can go see him at work too. But it's really unusual for children to be able to see their parents working. Mary  Anne: [00:08:45] I know that's like a post industrialization phenomenon. Children used to see their parents working. Mary Anne: [00:08:52] And and I think when they see us working, it helps them understand why they need to contribute positively to the household. Why they need to be responsible members of the household. And when they can't see us working, they don't really understand because they go off to school or daycare. And they are given responsibilities there. But it's still primarily like child centric. And I think that's because that's all they know. Mary Anne: [00:09:21] They think that we go off and play at work all day. Jillian: [00:09:24] Like for example, I'll be doing a craft post or recipe. And my daughter is watching me climb on my kitchen chair so that I can take a photograph of whatever I've made, and she sees the mess, she sees what goes into it. She sees the magic. Jillian: [00:10:00] She sees everything and she participates because she'll be in some blog posts and I will pay her to be in blog posts. It breaks it down for her. Like this is what work is. Jillian: [00:10:10] The truth is when you're a blogger it is a lot about that kind of stuff. Like yeah, there's the glamorous fun stuff and there's some crappy stuff, but the truth is it's not magic. No. It's a lot of work and I like my daughter to see that. Mary Anne: [00:10:33] And I think it's going to help our kids go into the workforce having had that you know, fly on the wall view, and even participate in what goes into a job. And that's been the highest cost I feel like of industrialization for families. Mary Anne: [00:10:57] I think it's so important for children to get a view of what a job is. Jillian: [00:11:01] And I would say an entrepreneurial job. Jillian: [00:11:10] The fact that we could make these little businesses from our homes, and really chart our own path. We don't have bosses telling us what to do. It's like. Well today this is what I want to do, or this is the direction I want to grow my business. Jillian: [00:11:29] And that can be scary. And it does take somebody who is motivated. Jillian: [00:11:38] But if you can put one foot in front of the other, like whoa you know for you it started as an outlet. And all of a sudden you have a business. Jillian: [00:11:48] OK so let's talk about the business side of it. So you started your blog what 10 years ago... 8 years ago. Mary Anne: [00:11:57] So I just finished my 9th. Monetizing your blog Jillian: [00:12:01] And so I like how you said that you started to find ways to monetize almost by accident, like brands reaching out to you and you figuring out that you could put some Google ads up on your blog, and you can start to make passive income. Can you explain that journey, and where you are today with that? Mary Anne: [00:12:23] So I actually have a very entrepreneurial little brother who had Amazon affiliate links way back in like 2000. So I think I started with Amazon affiliate links and then I added in the Google ads. Mary Anne: [00:12:45] And then the company started offering me sponsored posts. Mary Anne: [00:12:51] And those are still like the three main revenue stream I have and still I still mostly monetize with affiliate links. Jillian: [00:12:59] And it's mostly Amazon or do you use other brands as well? Mary Anne: [00:13:05] I would say Amazon is my top. Etsy I do alright with and then some ad revenue. I'm a little bit picky. Mary Anne: [00:13:18] I could probably have more ad revenue than I have. Well, I know I could.I try to keep the ads in conspicuous. Jillian: [00:13:28] You haven't blinged out your site with ads. Mary Anne: [00:13:31] Yeah there are ads there. But yes. Mary Anne: [00:13:35] And then I do take the occasional sponsored post but I'm pretty picky about those. Jillian: [00:13:40] What would be a brand that you would be cool working with? Mary Anne: [00:13:46] Anything education oriented, especially hands on education. Corporate banks bizarrely, but OK I think because well I am very good at budgeting and finance stuff, and apparently they picked up on that, even though it's not a topic of my blog. Mary Anne: [00:14:10] I try to research the companies I work with pretty carefully. I mean, no company is perfect, like no person is perfect right. Right. I try to stick with things whenever I'm offered and say, OK do I see value in this for my readers? Or occasionally it'll just be a cause personally just think needs awareness. Jillian: [00:14:39] So now how are you finding... Are you working with these... I don't know what you call them... aggregator companies, where they come to you, like a company works with a bunch of brands and then they reach out to you to say, hey we have this opportunity or are you reaching out to brands or are brands individually reaching out to you? Mary Anne: [00:15:03] I work with TapInfluence, it's my favorite. I do work with them. They're what you're calling an aggregator. I don't know what to call them. Mary Anne: [00:15:12] I like them because they understand what bloggers need to know to create a post. And companies don't always know, that right. Mary Anne: [00:15:21] And they also know what blogger's expect. Jillian: [00:15:29] I work with TapInfluence and I really like them. Mary Anne: [00:15:37] Yeah, I think if you can get in with them, I think they're hard to get in with these days. But they are absolutely the premier to work with. Mary Anne: [00:15:49] Then sometimes companies approach me. Mary Anne: [00:15:53] I have done very very little reaching out to companies. I know people that it works for. Jillian: [00:16:06] Well again it depends on where you want to put your focus. Like if you want to track down brands, you've got to commit to that. There's a lot of work that goes into that. Mary Anne: [00:16:22] Yep and that's that's the one thing. If you're going to go in with a clear idea of what you want, then make those expectations clear. Just like that's what I want from brands. As a blogger, do you have to do video? Jillian: [00:16:36] Can we talk about video, because I really like the way that you think about it. I feel like everybody is like video it's not just the future, video is the present, if you're not on video you're screwed. Mary Anne: [00:16:56] Yeah. And I'm not on video. Oh there you go. Jillian: [00:17:00] But this is the crazy part, you've been able to continue building your business without doing video. Mary Anne: [00:17:10] that's true. I have been able to continue building income streams and everything without doing video, and I'm not going to promise I'll never do video right. So I haven't gone into video. The main reason is that I prefer not to consume video content myself. Mary Anne: [00:17:33] And then there's the fact that video is very time consuming to produce and it requires absolute silence, which you can hear. You know how many times my girls come in this room over the course of this interview. Mary Anne: [00:17:46] But really, it's just that it's not my favorite way to consume content. I think the majority of people do seem to love video. I don't know if they always will, but that does seem to be the preferred majority right now. One thing that I think people forget is that blogs often reach niches of people, and I'm not completely convinced that my niche loves video. Most of my readers are not big screen families. Mary Anne: [00:18:22] I think we all, myself included, use screens sometimes. OK. But it's more like carefully selected screen time. As a mom reading blogs, I can read a blog and my kids mostly ignore the fact that I am reading a blog. I can't watch a video without them wanting to watch the video too. MaryAnne: [00:18:50] And I just I don't think you need to do something until it makes sense to you personally, like you don't have to do it, just because everybody else is do it. Jillian: [00:19:01] I love that because the next question I was going to ask you is given that you have been at this for nine years, what advice would you give somebody starting off? Mary Anne: [00:19:18] Pick something that you are passionate about, and that you can enjoy working hard on, that will be personally rewarding to you to work on for an extended period of time. Jillian: [00:19:33] And then how do you deal with the fact that you're online and you're in communities of other bloggers and you're see what they're doing, and you're seeing their Instagram and their videos and how you navigate what is right for you and what isn't? Do you find that challenging? Mary Anne: [00:19:54] I was literally raised to be a misfit. That was actually my mother's goal, was to raise misfits. That was frustrating as a teenager. But is the greatest gift to my adult. Being comfortable being yourself. Jillian: [00:20:17] Do you ever struggle with that, when especially if you're consuming other people's content who are in your space? How to admire other bloggers without being jealous Mary Anne: [00:20:27] I think it's really important to look at them and allow yourself to admire them. That it's OK to look and say wow, that person is amazing. You don't have to look and say, wow why am I not that person? That's been kind of life changing for me. Mary Anne: [00:20:49] No I say, I can like that person and I can just admire them and enjoy the fact that I can admire them, like we can do that with celebrities right? I mean, I can look at an actress and say, wow she's so talented and she's so beautiful. Mary Anne: [00:21:03] I think we need to let ourselves do that with the other people in our lives. Jillian: [00:21:07] I really like that because it's so hard. I understand that there are evolutionary reasons for this, that we are so self-absorbed. So I don't mean that pejoratively, I don't mean that as like a criticism of us, yet but we are so self-focused that when you're a blogger, one of the hard parts is you are home mostly by yourself. Even with kids. But it's not like you're going to an office, and it's hard not to get up in your head, and look around and see what other people are doing, and think, oh my God that's not me or I'm not doing as well. When the truth of the matter is is it has nothing to do with you. Mary Anne: [00:21:51] Right. I mean it doesn't help anything. Yes so for example you know I just moved into this beautiful house. I was in a very dark condo and it made photography so frustrating. Now there are bloggers who conquer that problem with lights and sets. Mary Anne: [00:22:13] And I didn't. I could have conquered by investing in a good light. And so I can either be like, oh my life is so unfair or I could look at all the things, all the tools I do have, what I can do and focus on what I can do, or I can problem solve. You know buy the lights, or eventually move somewhere where there is lighting. Mary Anne: [00:22:38] But it's OK for people to have things you don't have, and it's OK for people to excel at things that you don't excel at. I think that's exactly how we make space for ourselves, is by being different and I think it's all about... you can look at them and you could admire them, and you could learn from them, but that kind of jealousy slash putting yourself down never helps anybody. Mary Anne: [00:23:09] I mean it doesn't help them either. You're just hurting yourself and it usually has a neutral effect on them. Why harm yourself right now in terms of social. Jillian: [00:23:20] Again, as we're reading in the news, social media can be a good thing and also a destructive thing. Like how do you think about social media when it comes to your business? Mary Anne: [00:23:35] Yeah. I think social media is a tough one because it can be a 72 hour a day job if you let it be. Blogging happily is all about deciding where you're going to focus your time Mary Anne: [00:23:48] I just think I think blogging happily is all about deciding where you're going to focus your time, what matters enough to you to invest time, money, resources into, and then focusing on those areas and accepting that you're going to just let some things fall through the cracks. Mary Anne: [00:24:06] So unless you want to really throw a lot of money into it and hire an entire team, and supervise that team, and that's not the kind of blog I run. Jillian: [00:24:14] So what platforms are you on or do you think are important for your business? Mary Anne: [00:24:24] I think they evolve constantly. I am on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook. I'm on Google Plus, but I don't know how beneficial it is. Mary Anne: [00:24:35] I happened to have a pretty big following there. I ran with it as I was an early adopter. I think Google Plus is mainly useful because of its links to Google. It is most well organized social media site I've ever seen. People haven't gotten to it. Jillian: [00:25:00] So what about your business today are you most excited about? Mary Anne: [00:25:11] As you know, I've got three girls who are homeschooling, and I've always had an education focus on my blog, and now with them home, it makes it a lot easier to just kind of like delving into that aspect of it more. Mary Anne: [00:25:23] Ok, so I'm excited about that. I have a couple of products and ebooks I'm hoping to release in 2018 and I'm excited about it. Jillian: [00:25:38] What are they. Are they about homeschooling? Mary Anne: [00:25:41] They're about kids activities. Yeah. They're about hand-on parenting. I hate dividing into like homeschoolers versus non-homeschoolers because so much of the stuff I do as a homeschooler I did without homeschooling. It was just hard to find the time for it. Or like it can be a summer activity if your kids go to school. I am not a fan of like just mommy wars in general. I think there's room for all of us at all. I'm so much for cooperation and mutual respect than competition. Jillian: [00:26:24] Yes I'd love that. Yes. OK. So if somebody were to be starting a blog today, and I know we've kind of touched on this, knowing what you know now, what would you say they should focus on, or do, or think about? The value of creating an avatar for your blog MaryAnne: [00:26:49] Some of the best advice in terms of getting started that I've heard. I can't take credit for this, is the idea of creating an avatar for your ideal reader. Like thinking, Who do I want to reach? And then what do they want to read about? How do they want to consume this content? Are they going to watch video, or do they want to want more written tutorials? And then where will I find them and how do I connect with them? Jillian: [00:27:18] And a lot of times, and I've said this before, our avatars typically are similar to ourselves. MaryAnne: [00:27:25] Yes I agree. I mean that's the beauty of the InternetYou can find those people whom you connect with. Actually that was one thing when I started blogging. I did a lot of crafts with my kids and none of my friends in real life at the time were very crafty. Like they would come to my house and their kids would do this stuff with my kids, but they just did not get why I thought this was cool. Mary Anne: [00:27:51] I moved across the country and they're still life friends, they're amazing amazing mothers. But it was so refreshing to meet other women who understood why I thought cutting out cardboard was awesome. Jillian: [00:28:03] And that is the wonderful thing again about blogging and the Internet. You can not just be craft blog. You can be a toilet paper roll craft blog and you can find your tribe. Jillian: [00:28:48] I think that is one of the most powerful things about what we do. Not to be afraid to go niche, to niched down. Mary Anne: [00:29:00] And I am a probably broader than would be recommended if I'm trying to maximize income streams. But yes there is a lot of room to niche down. Jillian: [00:29:11] And also the one other thing I would say is this idea, like for you, having been at this for nine years, us too, we've been at it forever, is to allow your blog to evolve over time, that it can grow with you. Advice: Pick a name for your blog with room to evolve Mary Anne: [00:29:28] And another piece of advice would be to pick a name with room for evolution. Mama Smiles is could mean a lot of things. Jillian: [00:29:41] Yes I agree. I absolutely agree with that. Where if you say my blog is toilet paper roll crafts. Mary Anne: [00:29:51] Then you're stuck with the toilet paper rolls. Jillian: [00:29:53] If it's Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for 10 Year Olds. You're kind of screwed when your kid turns 11. So I love that. Jillian: [00:30:02] So MaryAnne, where can people find you? How can they reach out to you and see what you're doing? Mary Anne: [00:30:09] Now you can find me on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram as Mama Smiles, and I'm always happy to hear from readers, other bloggers. I'm very happy to connect with you. Jillian: [00:30:24] Well thank you so much for being on the show. Mary Anne: [00:30:28] Thank you for having me. Jillian: [00:30:30] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart popup you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian:[00:30:52] Just a couple of things... it's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google-friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast, it won't slow your sight down and you can grow multiple platforms at once, so check it out MiloTree.com. We also offer your first 30 days free.  

Welcome to episode 006 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Ashlee Marie Prisbrey from the blog, Ashlee Marie. Ashlee recognized that video could really take her business to the next level, so we talk about how to use video to differentiate yourself as a blogger. In this episode we also discuss how to find the video platform that's right for you. Resources: Ashlee Marie Ashlee Marie Cakes YouTube Channel MiloTree Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript - How To Use Video To Differentiate Yourself as A Blogger: Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey everyone, and thanks for coming back. I want to introduce my guests today who is a dear friend, and she is Ashlee from Ashlee Marie Cakes. We met a couple of years ago at a conference, and have been friends ever since. And she is not just a blogger. She is a YouTuber. So welcome to the show Ashlee! Ashlee: [00:00:34] Thanks for having me. Jumping into YouTube Jillian: [00:00:35] So I want to launch in. And I want you to explain how you started, how you started your blog, how you jumped into YouTube. I have to say, I remember a couple of years ago you saying to me if you don't get on YouTube you're missing out. Ashlee: [00:00:52] Yeah. Well, I actually I kind of fell into blogging an accident, but I chose to go into YouTubing, so it's kind of a little bit different as I started each one. So I took some cake classes, I found that I loved it. I wanted to start a cake business but to really be able to market a cake business, I needed a website and I couldn't afford one. So somebody told me about blogs, that it could be this free platform. So basically to get started it really was just a place for me to showcase my cakes, so that I could tell clients, just go to this website and you can see my stuff. And then I discovered food blogs. And I'm like, oh, well I have really great recipes. As long as I already have this site, I should add recipes to it. And then for a while I discover craft blogs, and I'm like, I'm super crafty like that, too and then it was a little overwhelming, and I've cut back to just food. Jillian: [00:01:40] Wait, I just have to interrupt you for one second. Ashley does not just bake cakes. Ashley is what would I call you... a cake artist. You have to go check out what she does. These are not your typical cakes. These are insane. And if, in fact, you see stuff on social media, chances are you have stumbled upon one of her cakes. Ashlee: [00:02:08] Yeah I tend to tell people when they say, oh you make cakes, you know, can you make a birthday cake? I'm like yeah sure. But I'm not quite sure you understand what I do. I carve cakes and it takes anywhere from two to seven days to create one of my cakes, and it's you know you're not getting a $15 Costco cake. Jillian: [00:02:25] Can you share which ones have gone viral on Facebook or YouTube that you are most well known for. Ashlee: [00:02:34] I do a lot of movie cakes. The Batman vs. Superman movie came out and I did a cake that from the outside just looks like a Superman fondant cake with his logo super simple. And then when you cut it away inside, the cake is the Batman Logo. And that went crazy viral on Facebook, with like a reach of 23 million in a week. It's funny how each platform is so different though, because that one did fine on YouTube but not great. Whereas my Tamatoa cake went nuts on YouTube and barely made a dent on Facebook. So I think it goes to show the different audiences that are there, and their age levels and their interest levels, because YouTube is the millennials and the younger kids and YouTube kids love me. The largest demographic there is probably 10 to 14 year old. They just watch and rewatch my Disney cake videos, whereas on Facebook it's been more of like the older nerds and geeks and stuff, who really love my stuff. Jillian: [00:03:29] I just have to say that my 10 year old daughter knows you, not because of me, but has discovered you on YouTube and watches your videos. Ashlee: [00:03:37] That's really fun. My own kids don't watch me on YouTube. Jillian: [00:03:41] OK so explain how you started, and then somebody said you should get on YouTube? Ashlee: [00:03:50] So I've been blogging for 10 years. I just had my 10 year anniversary of blogging. And around year 7 I guess I was, I go to blog conferences. I even spoke on Google Analytics and taught other bloggers how to, you know, analyze all of that stuff. And so I attended a ton of conferences, and I started noticing this trend in video speakers. There wasn't a lot but there was always one. And I honestly would say, I'm not necessarily a great writer. I don't feel confident in my writing abilities, but I've always loved the stage and I was a theater, music, dance major in college, and I've always loved performing. I think my first play onstage I was 18 months old, my mom shoved me on stage. But I've always loved that. And so I thought, oh this would be so much easier to get my cakes across, versus 40 gazillion pictures step by step, would be to just make a video. So I'm like this makes a lot of sense for me. I wonder if I could do it. And so I just kind of started taking the video classes at conferences, and then it just struck me that that I am kind of in the blogging world. I'm not one of the one percenters. I'm probably up in like the top 7 percent. But it's hard to break past that. How to differentiate yourself as a blogger with video Ashlee: [00:04:58] And the difference between the one percenters and like the 7 percent range where I'm at, is a pretty big difference, and so I needed something to break me out, something to differentiate myself, and I thought, well none of these girls are doing video, and none of them have any plans to get into video. And if I'm the first one to hop over, that will make a lot of sense. And now, of course, everybody's scrambling to get into video. And I'm so grateful that I already have like a leg up there. And yes so I just made the conscious decision that video is the future, and then the more classes that I attend and the more research that I do, and the more studies that came out, it just really emphasizes how much video is a part of he Internet now and is part of the future. And and I would say you know it's not too late, but right, don't wait any longer. Jillian: [00:05:45] But I like how you describe that. That you said, OK I make cakes I make beautiful cakes. And in this cohort of food bloggers of cake designers. How do I differentiate myself? One is because of the content you make by it. Another is making a really conscious choice to say, I'm jump onto this platform where a lot of people aren't yet, and I'm going to get a foothold and I'm going to build from there. So I feel like that was a very smart strategic move. How to find a video platform that's right for you Ashlee: [00:06:16] One it's also about knowing what you're really good at. The top food bloggers are really amazing photographers and stagers, and I have a great creative eye, but that's just not something that ever really came naturally to me. And video has really really come naturally to me. It's really been an easy process to just get in front of the camera and talk. And so it's really about playing up to what you're good at and finding those things. Now at the same time if you don't feel comfort in video I still think you can find a video platform out there that fits what you do at this point. Video is not optional. You need to do video. Yes. There's a lot of different kinds of ways to do video. Ashlee: [00:06:54] You don't have to be a YouTube cooking show to have video content you just need to find the video platform that you're comfortable with and then go for it. Jillian: [00:07:01] Can you walk through very briefly how you see that in terms of different platforms and different ways to use video? Ashlee: [00:07:08] Oh yeah, for sure. So each platform kind of has its own,within each niche even, has its own style. You know YouTube is known for being educational. About 70 percent of searches on YouTube start with "how to" the largest search engine in the world. So it's really about educating, and that's my passion. Of course I would love a client who can pay me ten thousand dollars for a cake. Who wouldn't? Buy at the end of the day, what I really love is when a mom comes to me, and sends me a picture, and says I used your tutorial, and I made this Batman cake for my son, that's what I really love is teaching other people how to do it. So I started. I was just a mom who wanted to make cakes for my kids birthdays, and so passing that on to other people is what I really enjoy. And then same thing with my recipes side of my business is I'm a from scratch cook. You know, I don't use CoolWhip. I don't use cake mixes because I feel like it's not hard to make really good food. And if I only have so many bites left in my life, then I don't want to waste it on food that doesn't taste good or is full of preservatives. For me, it's more about the flavor, than like some stance against preservatives. I just like the way it tastes. Yeah. And so I want to educate other people that it's not hard to cook from scratch. It's just a little bit more time consuming. Jillian: [00:08:23] OK so YouTube then is about educating, and that's kind of your sweet spot. [00:08:27] Yeah it is, it really is. It's great for me. And then on the other side of things, Facebook. Facebook is really pushing the idea of really trying to get video content out there. But but the Facebook audience doesn't care about being educated, they're kind of older, they're a little bit more relaxed. I mean if you're like, oh I need to change my toilet. You don't think. Let's go to Facebook. Facebook is about entertaining. Facebook's a great place to go for something short and sweet. If you want longer videos of people getting hurt you go back to YouTube. Ashlee: [00:09:01] So Facebook is not known for its long form content, they're trying to change that. But it's hard to. Just because Facebook wants something doesn't mean that the audience is right. So very interesting to see how that goes over the next couple of years. They really are rewarding longer content. But what the audience is looking for at this point over there is shorter, it's more like seeing that trailer than the movie. Jillian: [00:09:23] I love that. How would you describe Instagram? Ashlee: [00:09:26] So Instagram is all about the porn. Yes. Both styles. Regular porn. But you know like food porn for me, I mean food, right. The recipe videos the Tasty style with hands that work so well on Facebook. I put those on Instagram and they do OK but they really don't do great. What does really great on instagram is that shot of the chocolate being poured over and over. Jillian: [00:09:54] Ooey gooey. The cheesy shot, the chocolate shot. Jillian: [00:10:00] Something that you can really watch on repeat, that's mesmerizing. You kind of want to just lounge and relax and enjoy. You don't really care about necessarily being entertained or laughing or having that emotional connection like with Facebook, because you're just scrolling through. And so if you stop on something it's mesmerizing. That's what does well. Jillian: [00:10:21] And how long are your videos on Instagram? Ashlee: [00:10:24] Well Instagram, they're limited, right, you can only only be a minute. I even take off my end card like on Facebook. I'll have an end card that will say, for more, watch Ashley Marie blah blah blah. And on Instagram, I don't even bother with that. They don't really care about the titles. They don't care about the recipe ingredients. Usually for me not to take more time, I just copy and paste the same thing I put on Facebook over to Instagram just simply to have video content over there. But honestly, it would do better if it wasn't the process, if it was just those money shots at the end. Over and over and over again. A big compilation of that bite of cake. 30 different bites of cake in a row. Jillian: [00:11:04] Totally totally. I totally I'm there with you. Thoughts on livestreaming video Jillian: [00:11:10] Just before this we we're talking about livestream. So tell me your your thoughts on that. Ashlee: [00:11:17] So live streaming is also a little bit different on every platform, even from their own edited content. All the platforms are really pushing live stream right now because they've seen the trend, and what the experts are telling everybody is that lifestream is going to take over. Ashlee: [00:11:33] We kind of have this voyeuristic personality as you know, as people as the human race right now. That's why reality TV shows do so well, except reality TV shows aren't really real. Even those are pretty scripted or re filmed or they have a plot in a storyline, so people are really enjoying and jumping over to continuing this voyeuristic style and wanting to see someone's real life. And so lifestream does really well at that. Now from my content as a foodie, I'm not really sharing my kids and my life. Let's face it, my life is pretty boring. I make cake every single day. But people like seeing glimpses and so I'm still doing educational live streaming, and I'm still doing a cooking show. But within that, instead of the nice edited smooth cooking show, because I'm launching live streaming next week, people are going to get the mistakes and the messes. And that's kind of what they also want to see. They don't just want to see the perfect recipe that works smoothly. They want to see, oh you guys I just spilled that everywhere. Ashlee: [00:12:36] It's boiling and it needs the salt right now! You know people absolutely enjoy a real mess and they're really gravitating towards that. Jillian: [00:12:45] I agree and I think that that is the difference between celebrities like real like movie celebrities, and then say YouTube celebrities. There's much more of an intimacy and I think that people want that they want to connect, or feel like they're connecting. Ashlee: [00:13:02] Well and it makes things more emotional because my edited content isn't necessarily bringing out a lot of emotion, other than that's a cool cake. The livestreaming will add an element of, you can really see her personality! It connects a lot more to the audience and it makes them feel like they know you even better, which is what people want, because let's face it because our world is turned into everybody on phones. Friendships are really being lost. Yes people are looking for that and they're finding it through these live streams, that they feel like they're connecting to someone even if they're really not. Jillian: [00:13:37] And I think that they want to see your rough edges. They want to see you mess up. Because I think you're right. There's a humanizing quality to that so. Jillian: [00:13:49] So here's my next question, will you talk a little bit about how you see your blog in relation to your business, and then also how you monetize your business. How to monetize your blog and YouTube Ashlee: [00:14:00] So for me the blog is the one thing that I own and I control over every other platform. I'm subjugated to whatever their whim is at the time. And so it's my hub, it's my central hub and like the spoke of a wheel, and everything leads back to the blog whether I'm collecting emails and then being able to sell product later, and funnel it, or just that one thing that you can control. And I think it's important to have no matter what kind of influence you have, is to have that home base that you own, even if you're not really using it. Ashlee: [00:14:31] It's important to have and collect everything from all of the other platforms in that one place, and offer it whether you have a membership site, or whether you're just offering it for free and connecting, because at any given time, Facebook could shut you down. They technically control all of your content. Jillian: [00:15:12] In truth we're sharecroppers. You need to own your hub. You need to be the king of that domain. Ashlee: [00:15:22] You know that all roads lead to Rome, all roads need to where you are collecting people's emails, and then you can use that to your advantage later. Jillian: [00:15:31] So how do you monetize? Ashlee: [00:15:33] So the great thing about YouTube and blogging is that they monetize the same way, which is nice. Other social media platforms monetize differently so that you know you kind of have to learn all over again. But even though YouTube is like starting all over again, it still monetizes the same, but it's a little bit different and in the amounts that they earn. So blogging, the easiest way for everybody to monetize obviously is ads, and you can also monetize with YouTube with ads as well, where Facebook and all the other platforms don't offer that to creators. YouTube really appreciates the fact that the creators are what makes them, without it they'd be nothing. And so they they have great platforms for educating you, and they want to monetize for you, and they want to share this money with you. I really enjoy the platform for the way they treat their creators overall. OK. So ads. But too bad you don't really start making money on Youtube ads until you're really big. Because let's face it, they have to deal with the advertisers themselves and advertisers don't necessarily want to put an ad on a small channel. So it's not that YouTube's trying to withhold money from you, it's that they're still the wild west in ads. TV is still bringing in the bulk of the ad money and until advertisers recognize the powerhouse that is YouTube. That ad money is a little bit lower. Ashlee: [00:16:49] I think it's just a matter of time though before that really changes. Jillian: [00:16:53] Oh absolutely. When you see those charts about how the money is moving you see advertisers are getting smarter. Advertisers are conservative so they're not going to jump on the next new thing. Ashlee: [00:17:04] But you know, in a study among U.S. teens eight out of 10 of the top 10 celebrities were US teens are YouTube stars. So it really is if you're watching the trends it really is just a matter of time before that TV money, the billions that are spent in ads for the Super Bowl are getting moved over to YouTube. But the best part about that is if you have a business and you're selling something now it is a great time to create your own ad that you could never get on TV. But you can get on YouTube and get in front of tons of viewers that way. Ashlee: [00:17:35] I personally am not selling a product but I wish I was, just at this time of life it would be so great to have that. But anyway that's kind of a side a side option. So Yes, a lot of bloggers can make a lot of money on simply ads, and not bother with sponsored content but if you really want to make money on YouTube you need to switch over to the sponsored type content. Now affiliate is an option for both, but in my niche, as a foodie, affiliate marketing is not really huge the way it is with like fashion or deal bloggers. And then on YouTube they've changed their analytics as a company is want to do that. Ashlee: [00:18:14] And all of these platforms are becoming more mine mine mine mine mine and they don't want you leaving. And so on YouTube watch time is the most important for your own metrics. But if you are the video that brings someone onto the platform and then they stay and binge watch for four hours, that's called session time, and you get even more credit. And that will help your rankings and your internal visibility within YouTube a lot better than if you are the video that they leave on. And so I no longer have links off, like in my original videos you'll see a lot of links up to my site and to affiliates. and hey it upped my affiliate money, btt not enough to make it worth people leaving the platform and getting dinged. So in all my new videos, I no longer link off of YouTube. Now once you're huge on YouTube, go ahead and link right there if you want. That's not going to hurt you. But when you're trying to grow, I suggest not linking off site, so I feel it's not really an option in my opinion for YouTube. So it really comes back down to the sponsored content. As a blogger, you know let's say you're charging a thousand dollars a blog post, it'd be awesome if you add video to it you can pretty much double that. Curating your content for different social media platforms Ashlee: [00:19:32] But if you're offering a YouTube audience, you can make even more money because just adding video to your blog is one price point but adding that you have this whole other audience because every audience is different, people who love Facebook love Facebook. People who read blogs read blogs people who do YouTube do YouTube. Ashlee: [00:19:47] They do not crossover anymore. Jillian: [00:19:49] I completely agree and this was actually a hard lesson for me to learn at the beginning. My audiences are different on every single network. Ashlee: [00:20:08] You really have to curate your content for each platform and find a way to monetize each platform or don't bother with that platform. Jillian: [00:20:14] Exactly, and find a way to speak to the audiences on the different platforms. But one message isn't necessarily going to translate. I'm just going to say it's why for MiloTree you want to be growing all your different platforms, especially the ones that are most important to you. You can't just assume that somebody who is following you on Pinterest and sees that pin, is then going to go, Oh now I see it on Instagram. It's a totally different audience. Ashlee: [00:20:49] I used to worry about about putting the same content on all platforms, in a small period of time, and my audience going, OK we get it. You made a new cake, but then I quickly realized that they don't cross over so it doesn't matter. They don't see it, so go ahead and put it out everywhere at the same time actually. Jillian: [00:21:07] So is your goal to drive people back to your blog, or is it to keep them on YouTube because you're monetizing on your blog and you're monetizing on YouTube. So what traffic do you want to bring back back to your blog and what traffic are you trying to keep on YouTube. Ashlee: [00:21:24] Really I'm collecting people's emails, which happens on my blog because then you have newsletters, and you can sell stuff, I mean I eventually want a product line, and so I want an audience that wants to buy that, and I want to create super fans and super fans do tend to crossover from platform to platform and follow you. But that's just kind of a secondary goal. Ashlee: [00:21:43] My main goal is to grow every platform, not because it all leads back to one place but because it makes me look better to a brand, because a brand doesn't just want to buy a spot on my blog anymore. They want to buy a spot on my blog and my YouTube channel and my Facebook page and my Instagram, and as long as you're growing all of them, you look a lot better to a brand where if you're a one, if you're a one show pony, you know you only have Pinterest and that's the bulk of your traffic. Sure a brand will pay you, but they'll pay you a lot more if you're bringing them different audiences and not just your blog. Jillian: [00:22:14] I completely agree, it's a whole package. Ashlee: [00:22:17] I will say I've always focused on growing all of them, at the same time, and I have friends who grew just one platform. I will say they were so successful growing one platform that it brought up the other platforms, that they make a lot more money on that one platform than I did. If there is one platform that really speaks to you. Don't feel too bad. Super focus on it because it will bring up your other platforms as you go. Just kind of naturally because you can cross pollinate. So if there's one platform just really don't get. It's OK to drop that. Well-rounded doesn't have to be every single thing. It's just that if you have two audiences you can show people versus one, you're going to make more money, if you have three audiences you can show them, you're going to make more money. And what it really comes down to these days, is finding a good sponsor and being able to show them that you're worth working with because you have an audience that will be great for their brand. Shooting schedule for video Jillian: [00:23:09] Absolutely. This is always fascinating to me. Your schedule. How you do your videos because for the longest time you were releasing one full... what 10 minute video a week? Ashlee: [00:23:24] Sometimes longer. My most popular are like 20 minutes. Jillian: [00:23:27] OK. So could you explain how you carve out your week? Ashlee: [00:23:31] Oh it used to be so simple. I used to pretty much film like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then I'd edit the next week Monday and Tuesday, and once I started video, my life pretty much revolved around around getting that video content out there, and then of course when I finished whatever I was doing I would also take pictures and put it on the blog. But that was always kind of a secondary thought because the worst part is always when you finished a cake at 2:00 a.m., and you have to wait until the next day to take pictures because for video, it's all fake light, and for pictures your light needs to be all natural. I try to kind of finish up whatever I'm doing. You know my sweet spot for photos. Ashlee: [00:24:17] But now over the last year I had a side hustle, which kind of changes my whole schedule up a little bit, and that's been that's been a little bit of a juggle. So I started creating the Facebook hand style videos for other food bloggers. You know it's a great time to have that side business right now and it's been awesome to bring in money and support my family. But it over took it. And you never want your side hustle to overtake your main focus. And it kind of overtook it for the last couple of months, so I now just I feel like I'm finally rebalanced, and getting back to focusing on my own brand. Ashlee: [00:24:56] But hey we all do it. You know it's easy to get caught up in just making the money now. Versus this will make me money down the road. Jillian: [00:25:03] And I think there is something to the natural rhythms of things. I always say that balance is not something you stay in, balance is something you continually move through. You're always course correcting. And as a blogger, as a mom, everything is always changing. And so you go, oh I found myself here. Do I like this place? Oh wait. I think I want to move this way, and I personally love that about what we do, which is all of a sudden you were saying that Facebook and YouTube want live content. Guess where you're going to do? You're going to start making live content. So it's this continual process of finding that sweet spot. Ashlee: [00:25:44] Well and what new thing you're going to jump on, and that you're going to ignore, and then you realize you shouldn't have ignored it or right. Ashlee: [00:25:50] I feel like there is no balance. It's just jugglings. Jillian: [00:25:54] And every so often you kind of go, oh look at me. Then all of a sudden you wait, I need to be doing this. Jillian: [00:25:57] If I were to ask you what are you most excited about right now for your business. What would you say it is? Relaunching your business Ashlee: [00:26:05] I'm kind of I feel like I'm relaunching. I just re redid my logo, and I'm kicking off next week, I'm super excited about live streaming multi-camera, not my phone, really high end live streaming production out of my own kitchen by myself. To both Facebook and YouTube at the same time. So I hired a guy to turn my kitchen into a full blown streaming studio over the summer. That was my big project. We're launching next week and I'm super excited about it, and knock on wood that it's going to go as smooth as I hope it goes. Jillian: [00:26:40] And what kind of content are you going to be creating in your life streaming? Ashlee: [00:26:44] It's going to mostly be recipes. There there will sometimes that it's cakes, but my cakes are so time consuming, nobody wants to watch an 18 hour livestream of the cake slowly being built. That's definitely better for my edited content, which I'll still be doing. I'll be doing both. I feel like there's a place for both, especially with the type of content that I do. So yes, I've kind of taken the summer off, reassessing and rebalancing and get everything in place, and then I'm kinda kicking it off next week. Jillian: [00:27:14] I love it. I will be watching. Ashlee: [00:27:16] Going back to heavy posting and heavy videos, and edited, and the live streaming and everything else, and really putting my brand out there. I'm super excited about that. It's kind of been weighing on me, and I'm glad to get back on the horse. Jillian: [00:27:30] So you've been at this for 10 years? Ashlee: [00:27:37] I just had my 10 year anniversary of blogging. Jillian: [00:27:38] That's amazing. I've seen so much and so much change. If you were to give a piece of advice to somebody who is just starting out, maybe just started the blog. What would you tell them? Advice: Just start on video Ashlee: [00:28:02] The first thing I would tell anybody starting out is is find your video sweet spot. Don't wait till you put up a blog. There's too much competition in the blogging space to feel like you're going to get a good step up there before you get started in video. The only thing that's going to differentiate you is to get started in video right away. Whether it's just hands and Facebook, or or whether your personality is going to be great for live, and just kind of talking to people and answering questions, while you do what you do, or or if you feel more confident filming something and editing it and putting it out. Ashlee: [00:28:37] Just simply start in video. I would even say start in video before you even start your blog. I'm helping my brother-in-law and sister start a family blogging channel, that they just launched some kind of consulting with that, and seeing how that goes. It's different seeing it from another point of view because they still don't even have their website. I'm like you need to buy the domain right. But we're just we're starting with just Instagram and YouTube, and we're really pushing both of those platforms. And then once that grows, we're going to eventually get them a site, and start collecting everything for that. Ashlee: [00:29:11] But I would say find your video sweet spot first and foremost, and then worry about everything else. Worry about your branding and your look and your logo later. Everything's on people's phones so many people are focused on their desktop look, and I say don't bother. I remember how much time and money I spent getting my desktop to look just right, and now, what, 10 percent of my audience is desktop. Ashlee: [00:29:40] Everything needs to be mobile mobile first, so get comfortable with your personality, get comfortable with your work, and get comfortable on video. Jillian: [00:29:48] What about though somebody says I don't even know how to start. I don't know how to do any of this stuff. Ashlee: [00:29:54] Just go straight to live streaming then. And if you find that what you're doing would be benefited by some editing, then you can move into that, and then you can start to edit but start with what you have to start with... your phone. Start with natural light. Start with Insta Stories, that's an easy way to start live. Start with Facebook live. Great way to start with those two platforms. Live stream and find your voice at the beginning. The best part is you have such a small audience that you can play with them. Find not only the sweet spot that you're comfortable with, but also that the audience is looking for, because when I first started, what I thought people wanted from me turned out to be different. I used to teach analytics, so I always thought that people were coming to me for my recipes, and then it turns out they were coming for my crochet patterns, and just staying in that was a huge bulk of my audience. Ashlee: [00:30:47] Now my goal for the last five years has been to make my food audience my larger audience, and it's worked but I had no idea that my audience wasn't what I thought. And I kind of had to re-adjust and change. You can either go off of the audience you want, or you can take the audience that comes to you and change your own style. Ashlee: [00:31:04] Both work. I could have stuck with just crochet, but that just wasn't where my passion lies, so I switched over and just quit doing the crochet. Even though it was great at bringing in ad money. Ashlee: [00:31:16] And I just said no I want to do food. I'm focused more and more on this, and and bring in that audience that I want. Jillian: [00:31:24] So what I like about what you're saying is we typically want to have our ducks in a row before we start. And I love that you are saying no, jump in. Ashlee: [00:31:38] I studied video for a whole year before I launched. And to be fair, my first video is still my second most popular, but I just kick myself. If I had just started that year I would be so much bigger because I wouldn't have wasted a year when everybody else was jumping on that platform . You know, every day that you wait, there's 10-20 thousand more people getting in before you. So you just start and find your sweet spot. I look back at my first video, I'm like, oh my word. I was so dead it was so boring. And people watch these. Just start. Jillian: [00:32:22] And willing for it to suck. It's OK. It's it's really OK. Ashlee: [00:32:31] And if you find that you don't like something, don't push it, don't force it because the audience will see that. If you really don't like trying to answer people's questions at the same time that you're making a recipe, or you don't like how you make a fool of yourself because you're a control freak, like I am. Then switch over to edited. But you don't give up just because you don't like one video platform, there are so many different ways to do this. Ashlee: [00:32:55] Each platform has a different audience, so maybe you don't like the Facebook audience. Maybe you just don't like the people who are on there and how they're responding to you but maybe you love the Instagram audience, or maybe you really love the YouTube audience. Ashlee: [00:33:10] Periscope is still kind of hanging on by a thread. Maybe that's your thing. Jillian: [00:33:15] Snapchat if you're young. Ashlee: [00:33:18] And Shonduras. He's the largest Snapchatter, and he switched over to YouTube and has over a million subscribers on YouTube this year. You know once you're successful on one platform ,that will easily transfer over to other platforms, because you will feel more confident and you will know what you're doing. Don't focus on every single platform at once Ashlee: [00:33:34] So at the beginning don't try to focus on getting every single platform. I mean I get told my brother to get your name everywhere so nobody else will take it out from under you. But just f find that place that you really love, and then grow from there. Big Instagrammers are now moving on to something else. If you don't, if you hit that sweet spot and you're big in one platform, but you don't add other platforms you'll never grow past that. You hit that plateau. But if you continue to expand as you get comfortable, and as you grow, each platform will open up more opportunities, and more audiences. You'll look better to brands, and at the end of the day why are we doing this if it's not to bring in the money? My equipment is not cheap. I need to pay for it. Jillian: [00:34:15] So Ashlee Marie, please tell people how they can find you see your incredible videos, see your live streams. How how can people connect with you? Ashlee: [00:34:27] Well my web site itself is ashleemarie.com but believe it or not Ashlee Marie is a really popular name, and so it was taken on all social media. Jillian: [00:34:36] Let's spell it. A S H L E E. Ashlee: [00:34:38] Even with my weird spelling my parents thought, oh this will be a girl spelling. Nobody else got that memo. They were trying so hard to be creative. I thought oh this will be great. Nobody else will have it. Even that is taken, so I added on the "cakes." So it's AshleeMarieCakes on Instagram or Facebook. And my YouTube channel. and then it's AshleeMarieCake on Twitter and Pinterest, because they only allow so many characters. Jillian: [00:35:06] Great. And your live streaming, if people want to see what you're doing? Ashlee: [00:35:12] We're going to try Thursdays for now. We're going to start on the twenty first. Next week is Thursday the 21st, I think it's is going to be the launch day for the first one and then after that we're going to try Thursdays. We're going to kind of A/B test at the beginning just to get started, and see when the audience is interested. I'll probably do a morning one weekend an evening one week, go back and forth until we kind of find people. And then if Thursday doesn't work out, we might switch to Wednesdays. But we're going to start with Thursdays for now, and then I'm going to keep putting out edited content on my YouTube channel on Saturdays, and hopelessly add Tuesdays as well, this fourth quarter. Jillian: [00:35:50] You are a busy lady. Well, I just have to say thank you so much for all that you've shared. You're always a wealth of knowledge. In fact, when I have questions about YouTube or video, you are the first person I contact. Ashlee: [00:36:06] I'm happy to help. I really am. Jillian: [00:36:09] If you're seriously trying to grow your followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and also grow your email list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It's a popup you embed on your blog. It pops up and asks your visitors to follow you on social media. Or subscribe to your list. And it really works. It's easy to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or just add a simple line of code. It's Google-friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing popups on mobile. It is lightning fast and will not slow your site down. And if you act now you can try it out for 30 days. Free! Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 005 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest today is Kirsten Oliphant from the blog, Create If Writing. Kirsten started her first blog in 2007, and has seen her blog, business, and the Internet change so much ever since. In this episode we discuss why adaptability is the key to blogging, and also the importance of understanding "why you're blogging." Resources: Create If Writing blog Create If Writing podcast Creative Collaborations book Own Your List Email Course Create If Writing Facebook group MediaVine ConvertKit MiloTree Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript - Why Adaptability Is The Key To Blogging Jillian: [00:00:09] Hello and welcome. I am so excited to be talking with Kirsten Oliphant from Create If Writing. That's Create If Writing, That's  I - F. She is a writer, a blogger, and a podcaster, and a friend. So welcome to the show. Kirsten: [00:00:30] Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be. I'm so excited you're having a show here. Jillian: [00:00:38] And thank you for being here and for being such a good friend. To be honest, behind the scenes we are really good friends. So absolutely. I want to talk about your blog and I want to start with how did you start, because you've got a lot of titles. Writer, blogger, podcaster. So what inspired you? Starting a blog Kirsten: [00:01:00] Well, I think I sort of have a similar story to a lot of people who started blogging in 2007. And in that, you know, pre 2010, I feel like is a really different world in blogging. Kirsten: [00:01:11] I thought I didn't understand blogs. I didn't really get them. I had a friend who had one, and they seemed like, why would anyone write a blog? It's like a diary online and who wants to read that? Kirsten: [00:01:23] So I kind of thought they were really silly, but then I was living in Texas, and got pregnant with my first child, and my whole family and most of my good friends were in Virginia. Kirsten: [00:01:32] So we were doing a home birth, which everybody thought was completely insane. Ended up not having a home birth. But we were planning a homebirth, so I thought I would start a blog where people could just kind of see, you know, the baby bump pictures, as we go because they weren't seeing me in person, and also I could talk about this home birth thing, because not everybody wanted to talk about it. Kirsten: [00:01:52] I knew they all thought I was nuts because the first friend I had that had a home birth, I wanted to call the authorities. It just is like a weird thing if you don't know... Like now it's so much more known. Birth choice is more of a conversation. And so that's how it started. Kirsten: [00:02:10] And it's interesting, I have all these titles and they were really separate to me back then. It took me four or five years before I realized that blogging was writing, and I know that sounds really silly and I knew it in a way that it was because it was such a good outlet for me. Kirsten: [00:02:27] I have my master's degree in fiction, so that's kind of my background. Like I majored in English and wrote stories and I was a terrible poet. Sometimes I wrote poetry and songs, like I did that in college, but mostly it was short stories and novels. Blogging as an outlet Kirsten: [00:02:40] But having kids also just de-railed that whole thing because it's just too hard for me personally to write fiction with kids. And so while blogging was like a really good outlet, I didn't think of it as writing for a long time. And then one day it kind of hit me. Kirsten: [00:02:57] Hey if this book gets published I'm working on, or any of these books, and people come back to this blog are they going to be confused? And the answer was yes. Kirsten: [00:03:06] I would just write. It was very very personal, very very intimate, very very like post a million times a day, post about what we're eating. And I did amass a following, and it was easier to do that back then because blogs weren't everywhere, and nobody was sharing on social media. People just somehow found you. Which I don't understand how that worked, but it did. Kirsten: [00:03:29] And I am a good writer just on my own, like if I'm not trying too hard, like I still have those skills, right. But there was no intentionality to it. Kirsten: [00:03:37] And I also felt like it was so different than what I was writing, that I realized those things were just too far apart. They needed to be closer together so that's kind of I think when the shift took place, and then I kind of got derailed a little bit where I realized people were making money blogging, like with sponsored posts and stuff, and I was a mom and mommy bloggers, that's a thing, so for a while I was doing a lot of sponsored posts. Kirsten: [00:04:01] And then I think I had that realization again, like hey, like ultimately even though right now I'm not publishing novels, I'm a writer. Like do I really want posts about you know, pepperoni on my site, or diapers, or car insurance, or these things that I'm getting paid for just to have some extra money every month. Kirsten: [00:04:19] You know and I decided no. Mostly I don't. I take very very few sponsored posts now. I've had a lot of shifts over time and I feel like anyone who's been blogging along time has had those same shifts, and they may be different than my shifts. Kirsten: [00:04:35] But like right it's organic, it's changing. And I think the blogging landscape has changed so much. Jillian: [00:04:44] Yes definitely. Oh definitely definitely. Your blog is your spoke and everything else is like a spoke off of that. Kirsten: [00:04:54] Yeah and a lot of the blogging I did back then I would post several times a day, and that wasn't super uncommon. Kirsten: [00:04:59] I mean I kind of cut my teeth on gossip blogs, like I would read those and they post every five seconds, but that's because like Brad Pitt was always out to dinner, and so you keep posting pictures of him. I didn't think about the fact that like that's not like we don't need that, or real life, but now we all do that on Facebook right here, on Twitter and Instagram Stories. Creating a second blog Kirsten: [00:05:18] And then when I started Create If Writing, which is my second blog, it was because every year I did like this yearly survey and I would ask people like, OK I talk about food, I talk about parenting, sometimes talk about faith. I was playing roller derby so I talked about that. And then I talk about writing and blogging. Like what do you not want to hear? What do you want to hear? Kirsten: [00:05:36] And. Every time. Hands down people didn't want to read about writing and blogging. And I was super frustrated because I was like, you guys, how can you want to hear about everything but this? Kirsten: [00:05:47] But my audience was not people doing what I was doing. So they didn't care about writing or blogging and so I went ahead and started a new site, because I really I had an interest in it, and I had a lot of blogger connections with people who were blogging. They just weren't necessarily coming daily. Kirsten: [00:06:05] Like my main readers were not bloggers, they were not writers yet. So I started the separate site and there's some crossover but not very much. Becoming a blogging expert Jillian: [00:06:13] OK so then you've become like this authority, this expert on blogging, and monetizing and all of that, like helping other bloggers. Blogging seems like such a limiting term. Helping people figure out how to create a living online, like a satisfying life online. You teach people. Really you're a teacher, this is how I think about you. Kirsten: [00:06:49] Yeah. Which I love. Thank you. Well I could go to a really specific kind of moment and time for that. I mean I talked a little bit about writing and blogging on my blog, like I said that was one of my categories but it wasn't a big one. Kirsten: [00:07:08] I self-published my first book on Amazon when I realized that was a thing. And I wrote about how you did that, which was yet early early in the days when you could do that. And I learned from somebody else who had done the same thing. So it was mostly learn as I go. Kirsten: [00:07:26] But I was always in the room with people who were smarter than me, or more experienced in the blogging world, because I blogged in a vacuum. Kirsten: [00:07:34] For years I did not ever talk to other bloggers about blogging tips and when I went to my first blogging conference, which was Blog Elevated here in Houston, and I think 2013, and I met other bloggers, I realized how much I didn't know. I was always the person who felt like I was the small one in the room. So I went to a writer's conference in the beginning of 2015. I LOVED IT SO MUCH I started going to all these blogging conferences and social media things. Kirsten: [00:08:02] So I went to this writer's conference, and all of a sudden, I was the expert. I just went to the conference, and it was not like I'm going to go make a name for myself as a whatever. Kirsten: [00:08:16] It just happened that they had somebody speak on Pinterest and she was like really smart. But people, writers especially writers, hate the self-promotion stuff. They hate social media. Kirsten: [00:08:30] They don't like platforms, they just want to write stuff and have people read it, which you know the only way that works these days is that you have to get out there and market. And so I remember there were literally people groaning in the audience, as this woman was talking, and she showed us a slide of a spreadsheet that she had, that was color coded, and how and when she shared pins and literally there was like this like... Kirsten: [00:08:57] There is the girl next to me and she said I'm leaving. And she put her pen down and she left. So this was where I was and I would have conversations with people and they would say something, and I would be like oh... Then it was like people would gather around. It was very weird and all of a sudden I realized I had been thinking of myself as somebody who didn't know anything. And I realized I actually know a ton of stuff that I just picked up along the way right. Kirsten: [00:09:24] It's old hat to me because I was always with bloggers and not with people who speak this language, and I am a teacher. I mean I went through most of the Education Department in college. I dropped out because the only thing they would do is collaborative learning and it was one of those things where you're in the group and you're the only one who does the work. Literally that happened to me every time. And I was like I will not do this anymore. Kirsten: [00:09:51] But I love teaching I've always loved teaching and so I hadn't thought I could do it in this space. I always sort of felt limited and kind of fake. Are we a phony you know? Like that whole not feeling like an expert kind of thing, but it took me having people ask me. Kirsten: [00:10:12] And then after the conference people started following up with me, like can you help me? And so that was actually right before I got a new phone that had the podcast app. Like right there on it. Starting a podcast Kirsten: [00:10:25] And I did not know what podcasts were. I mean I heard of them but I was like I don't know where they live. Like how do you listen to them, which are really common questions people ask. Yes. And I push the button on the app and I started just listening to podcasts. And two weeks later I started my podcast. Kirsten: [00:10:42] And so I just I love the medium and I feel that was a perfect place for me to sort of start doing more of this teaching on this specific topic. And I had a lot to say. Jillian: [00:10:56] Yes. Well again the reason why I'm doing this podcast is because of you. I was inspired by you. So let's go back to your blog or your business. Now since you're not doing sponsored posts for car insurance, how do you monetize? How do you make money at what you do? Kirsten: [00:11:18] Well that was a big shift and kind of a slow one it took me stepping back from any income I was making because I did stop the sponsored posts. I did keep ads up so I have the two sites I have kirstenolipant.com, which is kind of the lifestyle blog and kind of my central hub. And I do have ads on that site, because it gets a good enough traffic to have them pay. Kirsten: [00:11:40] And so that's just like a little bit of money every month and I work with MediaVine who I highly recommend for anyone looking. They are just the best people to work with. Creating multiple income streams as a blogger Kirsten: [00:11:53] What's become interesting to me is I've tried a lot of things, like I want to see what works, and I see what other people are doing. And I just try things. I've had the luxury of that because I'm not the primary person putting the food on the table right. Kirsten: [00:12:05] I didn't have a big budget in the beginning, especially to throw into things, but I was like I can just try stuff and if this doesn't work, then we'll try something else, or we'll adapt it. So I've been able to actually build a much bigger income, like more than double with less than half of the pageviews. And I think that was the thing that really made me like, whoa. Kirsten: [00:12:35] So I have a mix of revenue streams. I have courses. I have books that I sell both on Amazon and also directly on my site with Gum Road and different integrations. Kirsten: [00:12:51] I have affiliate sales which actually have become the biggest piece consistently. It's always up and down like if I have a course launch then that month might be courses, but affiliate sales have become stable, which is interesting again with very low pageviews, very low like under 10,000 pages. Kirsten: [00:13:15] And what else? I do some coaching. I don't do a lot because one on one is so intensive that I you kind of just have to charge this big price and so I take two clients. Kirsten: [00:13:27] And yet I don't have them every month but that's fine because when I'm working with one, it's exhausting to me. It's great but it's for me mentally hardest Like if I could just make all my money creating courses. Yes. Kirsten: [00:13:39] Because I like teaching but like the one on one stuff can be really just so draining. Jillian: [00:13:43] So it looks like you have a variety of income streams, but they're all related. Kirsten: [00:13:52] Yes so they all kind of fall under like a similar umbrella. I teach people. I do a lot of teaching. I would kind of put it under the heading I guess of like platform building, so helping writers and bloggers kind of build e-mail lists is what I'm super passionate about. Kirsten: [00:14:09] So I have my main course like kind of my signature course is called "Own Your List," and it's all about e-mail. How to Make Money With the list you love. Jillian: [00:14:17] OK. Got it. Kirsten: [00:14:19] And then my biggest affiliate commission every month is from ConvertKit, who's an email service provider. Kirsten: [00:14:24] And you know, a lot of people getting started with affiliate sales only hear about Amazon. But the reality is there are so many other programs and to put a word out there about ConvertKit and why their affiliate program so amazing, is it's a recurring. Right. Right. So I make 30 percent of what people under me are paying every month. That versus the two percent or something you get from Amazon. It just doesn't even compare. Jillian: [00:14:55] What I like about what you're saying though is that I know a bunch of bloggers who are kind of grasping at all these different things, and they are they're splitting their focus in so many ways. They're always trying something new. I'm going to put Amazon affiliate links on my site, then I'm going to make a course, but I don't yet know what my course is going to be about. What I love about what you're doing, is this all it's all coming from the same core. Kirsten: [00:15:29] Yes. So definitely they all relate to each other. Jillian: [00:15:33] How do people then find you? Like where are people discovering you and how are you putting yourself out there so they find you? How to get found on the Internet as a blogger Kirsten: [00:15:43] Yeah I feel like there has been a lot more interesting with Create If Writing because again, I don't have a ton of pageviews so people are not finding me necessarily through the blog first. It's harder to track. I will say that. So with kirstenoliphant.com, I know I can look at analytics. I can tell where people are coming from because they're finding me through my site and they're finding me through Pinterest or Facebook with creative writing. Kirsten: [00:16:19] I did some guest posting for a woman named Jane Freeman who's really influential in the writing community. And so every now and then, even today someone join my facebook group, and I have those questions like: How did you hear about this? Because I started getting really interested in that question. I'm like where are people coming from? And that person came from Jane's blog, even though that was like forever ago. Kirsten: [00:16:44] Interesting right. She's an authority and it's perfectly aligned, so that makes sense. Kirsten: [00:16:51] Yes. And so I've had guest posts that were kind of a waste of time, like no traffic. I get new people. Yeah. You kind of have to really vet those places if you're going to take your time. So there's that. People do find the podcast on iTunes. Kirsten: [00:17:03] I've started doing more interviews and other people's podcasts because that way you're not having to convert a blog reader to become a podcast listener. You're already getting people who are podcast listeners who can come and listen to your podcast. Kirsten: [00:17:16] My Facebook group it's still not huge. I don't want it to be huge. It's just getting close to 5,300 people. But it has writing in the title because it's Create If Writing. Kirsten: [00:17:28] People search "writing" and now Facebook is suggesting it to them. It's kind of interesting because it's like you have all these funnels now because it's like people are coming to this group. They don't even know who I am at all. They do not know i have a podcast. Kirsten: [00:17:42] Unlike e-mail where you have a welcome series with a Facebook group, I realize I have to be much more intentional. I have be much more present because otherwise people just think it's like this random group of writers, and I'm like, no this is a group formed by one person. So people have found me there. Kirsten: [00:18:05] I'm in a lot of Facebook groups and they have promo days, which I think can be really over-used. But at the same time, I've started studying those threads, looking at what ones have all the comments. Which ones have the likes, and then trying to choose which of my posts I can put in that day and also how to frame it, because most people just drop a link and no one ever clicks on it. But if you are explaining it and talking in a winsome way, people will find you. Kirsten: [00:18:37] I've started speaking more at events like conferences, virtual summits. I hosted a virtual summit in 2016 and 2017. That's the Profitable Blogging Summit. And other people that we had speak, brought their audiences so people found me through the summit. Kirsten: [00:19:06] So I'm just in a lot of different places. And so even though people are not coming first through my site, and that's one of the big things I'm working on, is getting my SEO working because I feel like something was actually broken. I know how to do SEO and Google is not telling anyone about my site, so I had to hire someone to come in. Jillian: [00:19:30] The one thing I so admire about you is how much content you create. And again it's all about teaching. It's all about trying to show people the path you've walked and helping them find success on those paths. So how many hours a week are you working on both of your blogs and your podcast? Blogging schedule Kirsten: [00:20:02] Not as many as you'd think. Or as I would like, probably. So we have five kids and the oldest is nine. The youngest is nine months, so we're like in the throes of toddlers at home, like up to my neck with little ones Kirsten: [00:20:21] And so and I don't have the kind of kids -- like you hear about people who homeschool and blog. That is not my how my house is loud and insane. And there's always someone fighting with someone or doing something wrong. So it's just crazy. So I try but I don't really work when the kids are around. Which means that I work at night right now and I'm often so tired that's not even the best working time. Kirsten: [00:20:47] I'll try to add it up. It fluctuates but I joined the YMCA just to get two hours of childcare every day. So genius! It turns out that someone in a Facebook group said they did that and I was like yes, because it's $75 or something a month for all my kids. Kirsten: [00:21:07] And that's like two babysitting times if you're paying a babysitter, so I go for two hours not every day of the week but five days usually. So there's at least 10 hours, or I'm at the Y working and then at night sometimes, depending if my husband and I are not hanging out. You know sometimes I'll do like two hours of work but not every night because sometimes again, I'm just like you give me wine and give me Netflix and I can't. I can't. Kirsten: [00:21:33] My kids, there are two of them in preschool. Two are in regular school like elementary. Two are in preschool two days a week and then the baby is not anywhere. I wish it were 30 hours. I love what I do. I would work. I'd be a crazy workaholic if I could, but I am probably working like 15-20 hours. Jillian: [00:22:13] Wow. Because I think you are just so. Prolific. I love that you set your mind something and you do it and that you exude passion in everything you do. It comes through. Jillian: [00:22:34] And you inspire others like me to start a podcast. If you were to think about, when you first started. What do you wish you could have told yourself then that you know now. Kirsten: [00:22:56] Two things. One is more like a tiny technical thing and then one is like a bigger picture thing. Advice: Start your blog on WordPress.org, not Wordpress.com Kirsten: [00:23:02] So the tiny technical thing first is that I wish someone had told me when you start a WordPress blog, start on WordPress.org not WordPress.com. Kirsten: [00:23:10] First of all I used to be a Wordpress or I was a Blogger first. That was a mess to move. So I started on Wordpress.org. But to go into your settings so that your post titles do not have dates. That is like the dumbest thing but it's so important like it really does matter for SEO.You can pay someone to go retroactively do it, but when you've been blogging forever, it's a lot of redirects. And I'm just not willing to do it. Kirsten: [00:24:02] And then the more big picture thing is... I think you need to be connected and I think people do this better now than they used to. Maybe we're too connected. And so I kind of want to qualify that a little bit. Advice: Connect with other bloggers Kirsten: [00:24:15] I blogged in a vacuum like I mentioned. I did not talk to other bloggers except for like we left comments for each other. But we didn't share like hey what are you learning? Hey what's your latest tip? Kirsten: [00:24:26] Once I started doing that and once I went to my first conference and I came out and like eight of us started a little Facebook group and we would share each other's post. We would talk about things we learned. And that's when I started growing. When I started connecting with other bloggers. Kirsten: [00:24:40] But I will say now we're so connected that there are all these gamey things like Instagram pods, which can be good I'm sure. But for the most part it's creating an inauthentic engagement where every time somebody posts, you have to go like it or comment or whatever. Kirsten: [00:25:02] Brands have figured out about this and are getting frustrated with influencers who do this. So I think you have to find the kind of collaborations that work for you and I actually don't know that I told you that but I'm working on a book that's hopefully coming out at the end of September. Kirsten: [00:25:21] The hurricane here in Houston kind of put off a lot of things. And our house did not flood. It just affected like when my books are coming out. But the book is all about creative collaboration and ways to partner with people that are good for both of you. You know not just using somebody to get ahead. Kirsten: [00:25:39] Yes some people do. Yes. Yes. Kirsten: [00:25:42] But that kind of move you forward and I think that's the biggest thing. Like talking to you inspires me. There's something about the energy of talking to other people, working with other people, and learning from other people, that you will move forward so much more quickly if you can do that. Jillian: [00:25:59] Yes and I would say that for me I went to my first Bloggy Bootcamp conference I don't know how many years ago. And I just took copious notes and I was like oh my god, I didn't know this. And I didn't know this. It just took me to a whole new level. And then I would say that there is something about going to blogging conferences and meeting people and just the exchange of ideas, and also connecting with people in real life who you might have been a fan of online or maybe even in e-mails. But all of a sudden you see them and you talk to them, and you will be friends for life. And I feel like that has elevated me so much that I completely agree with what you've said. Jillian: [00:26:54] But I do also agree that today there can be so much information that you can spend your whole life in Facebook groups and still feel like you're not doing it right. And who knows where some of this information is coming from that people are saying is true. They know the truth about the Facebook algorithm. So there's also a part of me where I have to step back and go wait a second. Jillian: [00:27:20] OK I hear what they're saying. I know I could get lost in this forever, and I'm just going to have to listen to myself and my own gut. Kirsten: [00:27:29] Absolutely. And there are so many people giving out bad advice. The Facebook group so many don't know who to trust. Kirsten: [00:27:46] Parenting in this age is the same way. There's like this overload of information. My mom and I were talking about breastfeeding. She was saying that there was no one around back when I was born in 1977. We can all rewind and figure out my age. Kirsten: [00:28:03] But she said no when there was no support like breastfeeding was hard and it didn't work and so she switched straight away but like when I was struggling with my first child and like why isn't this working? I don't understand. Like shouldn't this be natural and just work. Kirsten: [00:28:18] And it's really hard. But I had the lactation consultant and I had friends who'd been there and there were a Facebook group and she was like you know we didn't have this support. The flipside is that we have too much information. If I had posted that little anecdote on Facebook, I'd have 18 people telling me what I did wrong, and what my mom did wrong. Jillian: [00:28:39] Yes. That is so true. When I had my daughter I too had difficulty breastfeeding and I found a breastfeeding support group and had it not been for the breastfeeding support group, I would have quit, because but every week I could go and it was kind of calm you know. It was just a bunch of women nursing their babies and asking the same questions over and over again. Jillian: [00:29:01] But because I had that support I was able to continue. But I agree with you that there is also the flipside of this which is there's just too much. Sometimes you have to trust your own gut. Jillian: [00:29:13] So in terms of what you're most excited about right now, would say it's your new book coming out? Kirsten: [00:29:22] I am and one of the reasons I think I probably am prolific in creating all this stuff is because I get excited about new things. I'm a bad finisher. I'm a really good starter. Kirsten: [00:29:34] So I have a lot of things that are started, no one will ever see, that you'd be shocked by. There are so many of them but I really am excited about what I'm working on at any given moment. So I'm really excited about my book. Writing a book on "collaboration" Kirsten: [00:29:48] And it was fun because I decided, because it was about collaboration, that I not only wanted to talk about kind of the attitude to go into them with, because I get pitches all the time and they're all terrible. Kirsten: [00:30:08] And so I talk about how to pitch something. Here's how to do it well. But the second half of the book is specific examples of collaboration. And I got different people who collaborate in specific ways to send me things. Kirsten: [00:30:26] I had somebody send me a paragraph or two on how it is to collaborate with another podcast co-host and somebody else that does box sets with other people, and works to get on the USA Today bestseller list. Kirsten: [00:30:40] And someone who's a YouTube or talked about YouTube collabs and what that was like. So it was fun because I collaborated on the collaboration of the book. Kirsten: [00:30:55] Only thing is that I want to get something from Vanilla Ice because I feel like anyone from my generation, when you hear the word collaborate, there's like the whole like Stop Collaborate and Listen from Vanilla Ice. Kirsten: [00:31:06] Yeah I don't think that's probably going to happen. But I have a few weeks to make it happen. So we'll see Jillian. Jillian: [00:31:14] So do you have any kind of parting advice for our audience of bloggers? Jillian: [00:31:19] Maybe people just starting out, people who've been at it for a while. But given that blogging can be you in your own little bubble. Like what would you want to say to somebody to keep them on a path. Kirsten: [00:31:33] Yeah yeah. I think one of the most important things, and this is the thing that I always kept coming back to, and I was like having those a ha moments. It's like oh no one would want to believe that this was my blog. As a writer. Advice: Love what you do and think about your "why" Kirsten: [00:31:45] I feel like you have to stick with what you're passionate about with a couple of caveats. But I think that passion will carry you through. So like I'm I always love what I'm doing, and it makes it easy. It does not feel like work. Kirsten: [00:31:59] In fact I have to tear myself away because I enjoy it so much most of the time. I need a break every now and then I burnout like everybody else. But I really love it. So that will carry through. But I hear people say all the time like do your passion and the money will follow. And I just feel like that's such a lovely statement. That may not be true. Like it's just you know we can't possibly all make livings off of what we're passionate about. Kirsten: [00:32:26] So I think you have to think about your "why" as well, because I do have friends who are blogging to put food on the table. And that looks different. Kirsten: [00:32:34] And right now we're in a season where my husband is changing his job and our life is a little bit more uncertain in terms of our financials. And so I've set up some different kinds of funnels and used things like tripwires in my email because the things that I hadn't done before have not been because I was against them but because I didn't need to, whereas now I'm like OK. I need to come up with an extra $4000 this month and next month and the month after. Kirsten: [00:32:58] How am I going to do that? Yeah where can I plug that in. So I'm still trying to put it under my passion. But I think your "why" is really going to impact what that looks like for you. So in an ideal world we would all be passionate and make money. Jillian: [00:33:13] I think that you have to be intentional about making money. It doesn't just fall from the sky. Kirsten: [00:33:21] Yes. The people that are like oh just create the content and it will come. Jillian: [00:33:24] No it doesn't work like that. You have to be strategic. Again it can fall within what you're passionate about but you need to say this I'm doing to make money. Jillian: [00:33:37] How can people connect with you. How can people find all your resources and see what a wonderful teacher you are. Kirsten: [00:33:49] Yes well mostly createifwriting.com is where you can find all those things. We're going to spell it because it's Create If Writing dot com. Kirsten: [00:34:03] And that was because I think when I was starting, I'm really into creative writing, that's where my degree is in. I have a master's in that, but I'm also into all these things. Kirsten: [00:34:15] Other writers have these writing blogs or writing tips and that is not what my site is. It's all about getting your stuff in front of an audience. Like the platform side of things. Kirsten: [00:34:26] So it's kind of like if you're writing or if you're blogging or if you are podcasting or if you have some people in my audience who are like yoga instructors, and you want to get your email list working for you. Kirsten: [00:34:37] I have a Facebook group that you can find if you search Facebook is showing people where that is not just kind of cool but that's just create if writing dot com forward slash community. Kirsten: [00:34:51] And most of the places on social media I'm Kikimojo because I started social media so long ago, that I used my roller derby name and then I have too many followers to change it. Kirsten: [00:35:01] So if you look for Kikimojo, that's me on Pinterest and Twitter and just most places that's where you'll find me. Jillian: [00:35:09] Oh this is such a pleasure. Thank you so much. Kirsten: [00:35:13] Well thank you for having me on. Kirsten: [00:35:14] It was great to have a conversation with you and I'm so excited that you started a podcast. Jillian: [00:35:18] Ah. All because of you. Info on MiloTree If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram Facebook YouTube and Pinterest plus trying to grow your email list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart pop up. You add to your blog or your site and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things. It's super easy to add to your site We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code It's Google friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing popups on mobile It's lightning fast it won't slow your site down You can grow multiple platforms at once Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 004 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Paula Rollo from the blog, Beauty Through Imperfection. In this episode, we discuss how blogging makes you braver, and what it's like first-hand to show vulnerability, and share your truth with the world as a blogger. Resources: Beauty Through Imperfection Dinner with the Rollos Traveling Family Blog Quick Blogging Tips Facebook group Izea AdThrive Mediavine Clever  Sway SEMrush MiloTree Transcript - How Blogging Makes You Braver: Jillian: [00:00:11] Today on the show. I have my friend, Paula Rollo, and she is the the blogger behind Beauty Through Imperfection. She's not only a blogger, she's also a writer, and a social media expert. So welcome to the show, Paula. Paula: [00:00:29] Thank you for having me. Jillian: [00:00:31] You are an old timer if I can call you that. Paula: [00:00:35] Sure. That's true. OK. Jillian: [00:00:37] So can you tell us briefly how you started, how you got interested in blogging, and now I was just reading something about you and it says you have four blogs. Paula: [00:00:51] So I started when I was 15. A friend of mine had a blog and it seemed like a cool thing to do. So I started when I was moving away and so I used it as a little awkward teenager would, and keep in touch with my friends. And thankfully, that blog is no longer alive on the Internet. I've never been more grateful for a Web site going down. But I've never really stopped for an extended period of time since I was 15. I love writing and just connecting with people that way. And so I've been doing it a long time now, and loving it almost all the time. Jillian: [00:01:35] And what was the inspiration behind Beauty Through Imperfection? Inspiration behind Beauty Through Imperfection Paula: [00:01:40] So I had take a break while I was pregnant with my first baby. Beauty Through Imperfection started when he was about two or three months old. I just saw a lot of perfection on social media. I think back then there wasn't this common thing where if you said Beauty Through Imperfection, people know what you're about, and that you're wanting to embrace pain, those flaws and motherhood and not shame other people. Paula: [00:02:11] But it was a tiny internet where I wasn't seeing a lot and so I just wanted to speak into that space because I was just really worried I was screwing it all up, and realize everybody else was, too. So we kind of created this little space together. It's ok to not be perfect today. And there's beauty in that today, too. Jillian: [00:02:29] Wow. I love that message because yes, as a new mother, oh my God, you know that is like a crazy crazy time. Jillian: [00:02:38] My daughter didn't sleep as a baby and I would read all the sleep books and I would feel so inadequate, that I was somehow doing it wrong and then everybody had their advice. Have you tried music? You know I just pat my baby on the back, and she just goes to sleep. I would just feel so inadequate. So I wish I had found your blog back then. Paula: [00:03:03] I wish I had my blog back. That's why I started it. That's great. Blog evolution Jillian: [00:03:07] And so explain then how your blog has evolved, as in how long has Beauty through Imperfection been around? Paula: [00:03:15] Seven years. Jillian: [00:03:17] And how have you seen it evolve as you've evolved? Paula: [00:03:23] So it has been interesting because I think I started out blogging from this space of me too, I also feel really insecure. I also am really afraid that I'm screwing up. And not a lot of help in that but just maybe a comforting voice, like you're not the only one feeling this way. Paula: [00:03:42] And I think that there's a lot of value in that. But as I've kind of grown in my motherhood and not been quite as worried about every decision all the time, I've been able to kind of speak from a different space. You know, your baby will sleep. Like somebody was actually messaging me yesterday, like will I ever sleep again? Is that a thing because it's been three days. Now I'm able to kind of speak from a space where I did sleep last night. And I know that it's going to get better, but I also know it feels really hopeless right now, and that's ok. Like it's okay to feel that helplessness. And so I kind of try to keep both both voices in there now, where I am in this with you, but also. I do have some advice to share, or some words of encouragement of, this worked for me and it might not work for you, but it works for me, you could try it, in that I've traveled down this path. Jillian: [00:04:32] I'm a little bit of I'm a little further down the path so I can look back and have a little more perspective. Paula: [00:04:37] Exactly, because I still... my youngest is 5... but I still talk about baby and toddler years a lot just because I remember how hard those times were and how much you need a friend. And it's really hard to reach out to friends in that time. So I always want to keep that as part of what I'm doing. Jillian: [00:04:54] I love that. When I think of you the word that comes to mind is brave. Paula: [00:05:01] You are so sweet. Sharing about personal struggles Jillian: [00:05:03] Because again as we live in this curated world of perfection on the internet you have been willing to share about your own personal struggles and really put yourself out there. And I have to say I feel like I read one of your pieces before I met you. And I felt this real connection to you. And then like when I saw you in real life, I'm like wow, I feel so close. Can you share about that part of your blogging and what that means? Paula: [00:05:39] Sure. So I always use blogging as kind of like a way to heal. Paula: [00:05:45] I'm a child abuse survivor. There is a lot of abuse in my history and just a lot of really just crazy messed up stuff. And so I've written a lot as a way to process my feelings and to kind of put to paper words that I didn't feel comfortable speaking out. And so that just kind of naturally progressed into my blog. And I realized that I'm being quiet, and no one knows I struggle with depression. No one knows that I've had anxiety for years. So I wonder how many other people have depression and anxiety, and they're just not talking about it, and they're just not talking about how they're healing from abuse, or different things that have happened in their lives. Paula: [00:06:32] And so I just started putting it on the Internet and it took a long time. That makes it sound very simple like just I suddenly knew how to put this into words and put it online. But it's not the case. I think my first post that I wrote about child abuse and how that shaped my motherhood was three years in the making. Like I literally drafted it out and edited it for three years, which is not something I normally do. I don't even edit most of my blog posts at all I just kind of throw them on the internet and watch what happens. Paula: [00:07:03] But that one took a long time and I really had to get to a place where I was okay with whatever backlash came from it. Paula: [00:07:10] And there was some. And that's hard, but I also like writing about these things because it gives people, even people who haven't experienced abuse or who don't experience depression and anxiety, the chance to hear what their friends are going through. And hopefully even if they respond poorly to me, I want them to have that space to have that negative reaction so hopefully they respond better to their friends in the future. Jillian: [00:07:41] Now how has the reaction been? And this is where I use the word brave, because I don't think I could handle backlash about something so personal. Reactions to personal posts Jillian: [00:07:57] Have people been kind and civil? And how have you responded to that? Paula: [00:08:08] There's been both. So and that's why when people ask me about writing really personal things I always caution them to make sure they're ready. One of my most personal pieces I've had people comment, and be like, I don't know about your alleged abuse. This doesn't seem very bad to me. We need more proof. And really? Like it's not even about you know. I didn't go into details because it was not necessary in the post. Like are you just wanting to get entertainment from my abuse? So OK. I just don't understand why I need to prove myself in a blog post. Paula: [00:08:47] It's not like I'm suing someone. We don't need proof. So I'm not sure what area of pain that person was coming from but I've definitely gotten some backlash, mainly from strangers and mainly unwarranted. I think it's really important to me that I don't hurt anyone with my stories, so I even sent one of my post about my biological dad, who was a great dad, but he messed up a bunch, and he's no longer living, so I couldn't send it to him to get his approval to post. But I felt like I had something important that other people could learn from him and so I sent it to his sister. And I said I'm wanting to publish this. Will you read it and tell me what you think and tell me if you think that this is slandering his good name or anything like that because I don't want to harm anyone. Paula: [00:09:36] And if I'm harming some people to help other people I'm just not okay with that. So I'm very cautious in the way that I write and I think that has protected me from some backlash just because I'm careful with the way that I do it. But still I get all sorts of weird comments about my life. Jillian: [00:09:56] What about the positive comments? Paula: [00:10:03] Those are amazing. People will stop me. I remember the first post I wrote about abuse, and the point of it was to talk to your kids about it, and to really empower your kids to know what kind of touching is and it's not OK, how people are allowed to talk to them. And those types of things, because that stuff wasn't taught to me as a kid. And I think it's really important to empower your kids in that way, not just shield them but to give them the ability to shield themselves, and reach out for help when needed. Paula: [00:10:31] So I wrote this post, and my blog is predominantly for women. And I don't share my personal posts just because I write a lot and that would be obnoxious, but I walk into church that Sunday, and this random guy approaches me, like I know him but I don't think he reads my blog regularly, and he comes up to me and he's like, we had a conversation with our kids last night about abuse because of your blog. This has changed us. And I really really appreciate it. And so things like that, and I've gotten e-mails like that, and I see in my Amazon listings, all these books that are purchased pretty much every single day about empowering your kids and teaching them about yes and no touching, and things like that. Paula: [00:11:13] And that's really just my favorite thing because I know that kids are being impacted and hopefully changed through it, and protected from whatever might come their way. So it's empowering I think both to parents and kids, to add in those extra layers of safety and that's just priceless. Jillian: [00:11:32] Wow. But again I feel like you are this force for good out in the world. I'm happy there are people like you writing about this stuff. Paula: [00:11:43] I hope it's doing good. I think there are a lot of silent people both happy and sad about what I write. It's always encouraging to that even the people who are maybe not able to put it into words are talking to their kids. Paula: [00:11:58] Like all of you on the Amazon Pages I don't know what they're thinking, or what they've said, but I know that they're having conversations with their kids, and that's what is really important to me. On being a social media expert Jillian: [00:12:07] That's amazing. So this is an interesting thing about you. On one hand you have this very personal blog and you're sharing tips and trying to help people. Then you also though are this social media expert. Can you explain how that came about and where you were? Because I think when I first learned about you I thought of you as a teacher in social media and blogging. And then I learned about your blog. So explain where that came about and what that means. Paula: [00:12:44] I think it means a lot of different things to different people. For me I when I started blogging, and even when I started trying to blog professionally, which was only like four or five years ago, and there weren't social media teachers back then, there weren't blogging coaches, that was not a thing. I had heard rumors that there were some bloggers making money and that's why I decided to try it. It wasn't like everyone was posting income reports and things like that. And so I've spent a lot of time failing and figuring things out on my own, which I'm thankful for. But also we really needed money in that season of life. Paula: [00:13:28] So it would have been nice to be able to read this book or just get some advice from someone on how to do something, and maybe kind of take a shortcut to not having to fail as many times. That I could have made money for our family a little bit faster. But I'm thankful for that time. But that's what kind of makes me want to be a social media teacher, a blogging teacher, or whatever term to put on it. I just want to see people succeed and I want to see people reach their goals because I think there is a lot of talk in this space about making you know 97 figures a month or whatever. Paula: [00:14:07] There's a lot of that and I support that. And I am happy with people doing that. But that's just not what I'm about. I would rather help somebody who has a meaningful message that they want to share, or somebody who just wants to be able to keep the lights on for their kids. Advice for beginning bloggers Jillian: [00:14:30] So if you were to talk to somebody who is just starting a blog, just starting out, and you were to say here are your top three ways to make money or to be thinking about monetizing your blog. Jillian: [00:14:49] What would you recommend? Paula: [00:14:54] Number one that they know who they're talking to and how they can help those people. Jillian: [00:14:59] And what do you mean by that? Advice: Know who your audience is Paula: [00:15:01] Who are you blogging to? And why? Because just putting an article out into the whole world of the Internet, anybody can do that. But how are you making a meaningful connection with someone,because that's how we do things that really matter. And also that's how people make sales as well, because people feel connected to you. People feel like they can trust you. People know that you understand the struggle that they're having. And so when you say this can help you with that struggle or that product will, they're willing to buy into that. So it's really important. On a personal level, just to know that you're helping someone, but also it is a huge part of that money making journey. It builds trust with your readers so figuring out who you want to talk to and how you can help them. Absolutely number one. Jillian: [00:15:49] A lot of people call that your avatar. I like the idea of an avatar because it typically is one person. It's that one perfect visitor to your site. That person who gets you and wants this specific content and to really identify... is it a mom? Where does she live? Jillian: [00:16:14] What does she do? What are her struggles? What are her issues? And usually that avatar tends to be someone similar to us. So it is good if your avatar is similar to you because you know your own pain points. OK so the first thing then is to really be specific about who you're speaking to and why. Paula: [00:16:40] Yes because I think pageviews and income both stem from there. All three of those things are kind of her married together. Advice: Find an ad network Paula: [00:16:51] And then I guess my advice would be to find some sort of network. Most people start with Google AdSense. And then when you have more pages you can move along. Because that's just an easy way to keep doing what you're doing but monetize it. And you don't have to stress out about chasing a brand or anything like that at first, like I'd really keep it as stress-free as possible for as long as you can. Jillian: [00:17:16] And that's passive income. So you're just like making money as you sleep. What would be your third recommendation? Advice: Find a sponsored post network to start working with brands Paula: [00:17:34] I guess that would be sponsored posts. I would sign up for three or four networks, and try to get your feet wet working with brands through sponsored content. Izea was the first one I worked with and I feel like I learned how to work with brands through that network, because they would lay out how they wanted a post to look and how they wanted me to talk about the brand and how to take the photos. Paula: [00:18:02] And so there a lot of training in that, that I've kind of implemented into how I pitch a brand myself or as I'm making my own deals, or even as I'm using affiliate marketing. It's stemming from this education that I got through sponsored post networks from years ago. Jillian: [00:18:18] And what networks do you typically recommend? Paula: [00:18:22] Izea is my fav. I like them because they're kind humans, so they're like the places I like and I put emphasis on them like they're kind, and that's why I like them. Jillian: [00:18:37] It is all about relationships. Paula: [00:18:40] It is. It is. My ad network and Izea called me when Harvey hit and checked on me, and like personal messages from campaign managers they were messaging me. Are you ok? How's your family? Can we help you? Like, wow that's amazing. They know where I live. They know what's happening and they care. So that's the thing I care about. And also they help me pay the bills. Jillian: [00:19:07] First of all, what ad networks do you use? Paula: [00:19:11] I use AdThrive for my travel blog and Beauty Through Imperfection. And I'm on MediaVine for my food blog. Jillian: [00:19:18] OK and we use AdThrive for Catch My Party. Paula: [00:19:22] I love both. I really don't have complaints about either. I wasn't big enough for AdThrive, which is why it's a MediaVine. But I'm really enjoying my experience there as well, so I like having my hands in both. Jillian: [00:19:39] So what other sponsored content companies do you work with or do you recommend? Paula: [00:19:48] Clever is another one of my favorites. I worked with them quite a bit. Clever and Sway are probably the ones I work with more than anyone else. Jillian: [00:20:05] Now if you're small like you're just starting out, would these companies want to work with you, or is there usually a threshold? Paula: [00:20:14] Some of them do have a threshold before they'll even accept you. Paula: [00:20:20] And I feel like they're always changing, so I don't remember the numbers now, but the way I did my blog was I kind of waited until I was at 30k to 50k pageviews before I started pursuing things like this. Paula: [00:20:33] And the reason for that is you can get the odd sponsored posts or brand that might want to work with you when your blog is smaller, but you're going to spend so much time and effort finding that brand, that you could have been pouring that time into churning out awesome content and creating great things for your readers that would push you over that hump, where it's much easier to get sponsored content and the brands are kind of seeking you out a little bit more. Advice: Build your audience before reaching out to brands Paula: [00:21:02] So I would go ahead and sign up for them but maybe don't pour hours and hours and hours of work into that until you're about 30k to 50k pageviews a month because it'll just be a lot easier that way. Jillian: [00:21:17] Yes I would agree with that. And again I think as bloggers we have two scarce resources: money and time. And you always have to be thinking in terms of both of those. So if you're going to make fifty dollars from doing a sponsored post is that worth your time? It might be worth that if you're making two hundred dollars. Because it's probably the same amount of work. So that's always something to keep in mind. Advice: How to reach out to brands Jillian: [00:21:51] Now you mentioned reaching out to brands. Yes. How does that work? Paula: [00:22:02] It works in a lot of different ways. I use Twitter a lot to just kind of talk to brands and get on their radar if they're active on Twitter. It's one of the only things Twitter is good for. Jillian: [00:22:15] I totally agree. Brands are listening and they're listening predominantly on Twitter, like it's the most direct way and these are their social media people who are listening. So it kind of directs you to the right person. Paula: [00:22:32] So I'll do tweets for brands. Take a photo of us at some place that I want to work with. I'll respond to them and I'll retweet them, all things that I do charge money for. But if I'm wanting to create a big ambassadorship relationship with a brand, then I'll do that stuff for free on Twitter to get their attention. I wouldn't do a huge blog post or anything for free but a two second tweet. Paula: [00:23:01] And then if I am successful on Twitter then I'll usually direct message them and say I love their brand and it's been fun chatting with them. Who's the right person to e-mail with a marketing request or with a blogging partnership idea? If you can get the correct email, that is 90 percent of the work that you need to do. I mean finding those emails is really really hard sometimes. If that doesn't work or I don't have enough time to do that, then I will just go to a Web site of somebody I work with, and I will search and search and search until I find that marketing person, and then I'll pitch them, and I'll tell them what I want to do, and I'll tell them short and concise who my audience is. You're going to go back to the avatar you created. Brands care a lot less about who I am than they care about who I'm talking to. And so I can tell them I talked to a 100k moms with kids in this age range and they're all interested in whatever their product is, or they have this problem and this is how I'm going to tell them that your product solves that problem. That's a lot better of a pitch than just I enjoy your product. Paula: [00:24:23] And I'm in your target audience and I have a hundred thousand people that want to buy a product. They just don't realize it yet. Jillian: [00:24:33] I like the way you outlined for the brand what you can provide to them so they don't have to do the work. So it's not a huge back and forth. Jillian: [00:24:49] To say up front this is what I can offer you. Do you even put I'd like to do a sponsored post with you, and this number of shares, and I charge this much money. Or do you keep it more open ended? Paula: [00:25:05] I keep it more open-ended because they might have a product launch that I wouldn't know anything about. Jillian: [00:26:02] I've found that if you can get them on the phone it's a great way to close the deal. Paula: [00:26:02] As terrifying as it is, I hate talking on the phone. But it does work. Advice: How to drive traffic to your site Jillian: [00:26:08] So as a social media marketing expert, how are you driving traffic to your blogs? Where would the low hanging fruit be? Paula: [00:26:27] So I do try to keep a good balance. I feel like when I first started out, again this was years ago. So Pinterest was super easy back then. Like you just pinned something and watch your real time analytics go up and it was glorious. And that's not the case anymore, but I still have strived to keep things a bit more even. Instead of getting 90 percent of my traffic from Pinterest, when they change their algorithm I think we all realize that that was a really bad idea to have 90 percent of our traffic coming from anywhere. Paula: [00:27:03] And so now it's kind of split more into thirds, or maybe I guess quarters. So Facebook, Pinterest, and search are my highest. And then there's just this other quarter of random other stuff. So I try to make sure I'm maintaining all three of those things, and to be honest like Facebook is a weak point for me. I don't enjoy putting in all the work that it takes to have a really successful viral Facebook page. I know how to do it, but I don't like it, so I don't focus there as much. As far as growing my own page, and what I do there, when I realized I was really weak in that area, was I partnered with other bloggers who have a great solid Facebook strategy, and they have this huge page, and I offer them my services for free in exchange for shares. Paula: [00:27:51] My Facebook was really weak, my Pinterest is really strong. And so instead of waiting the year or even a few months that it would take for me to grow my Facebook page, I kept doing the things that I love doing, which is writing and connecting with my fans in other ways. And I work for other bloggers and take advantage of their Facebook pages. I mean I say take advantage. It sounds so mean. But I use their powers to get traffic to my site while giving them something in exchange for most of them. Like I said, I know the strategy, I just don't want to spend 10 hours a day doing it and honestly those bloggers don't either. So they're happy for me to come in and take one or two of those hours a week, in exchange for shares, and that kind of rounds out the weak point for me. Jillian: [00:28:42] And that will drive significant traffic to your site. The power of Facebook. If you can corral it and get it can work for you. It's amazing. But I've mentioned this previously, Facebook drives traffic to our site, but nothing but not like these super Facebook people. Paula: [00:29:05] Right. Exactly. And I knew I'm never going to be a super Facebook person myself, because I don't want to pay someone to do that. I know some of the strategies just aren't really in line with what I want for my page. And so I don't do it, and I don't compromise on that. But you find a work around. I'm able to use someone else's page to get the traffic, and then keep my Facebook page how I want it to be. Everybody wins. Everybody is getting what they want out of the deal. Thoughts about video Jillian: [00:29:40] What about video? Are you making video? Is video a part of your business and how do you feel about the idea? Paula: [00:29:49] I agree with everyone that videos is the future and it's a really big deal. But I'm a writer, and I love writing, and and this is a long time coming, like for a long time my identity and who I was was tied up in the success and failure of my blog, and getting more page views and growing. And a couple years ago, I just hadn't realized like why am I wanting to be bigger and bigger and bigger? This is kind of ridiculous. I'm at a good size and I'm happy at the size that I am. And I would love to be making ninety seven figures a month. Sure. That would be great. But what am I sacrificing to get that? I'm sacrificing my happiness. I'm sacrificing time with my family. I'm a person that does have high anxiety and I've had depression for like 12 years. And so there are times when life hits me like a truck and I can't work. And that's just not realistic for a site that has five million pages a month. I'm just throwing out massive numbers because we all just think bigger. It doesn't matter how big you get. You want to be bigger. And so I stopped all of that. And this is related to video I promise. How to run a business while dealing with anxiety Paula: [00:31:05] So I kind of stopped trying to chase those things and I'm more focused on maintaining what I have. My blog is our family's only income now, so I can't just put it aside. I can't just take a week off. like I can't do any of those things, but I have maintained now our family budget and a little bit over that, every month for about two years, and that's all I want to do. I am not striving super hard to make double my income. It's really hard in this industry because we can double our income. And what other industry can you do that in? You can't work harder at another job and double your income. And so it felt really wrong to not do that, to not jump on the next big train that's going to make your things go viral, and that's going to grow your page and all of that. And I followed that for a while, and finally realized like no, I'm not I'm not going to do it. And so video is kind of tied to that for me because it's something I hate doing. Paula: [00:32:08] When it comes to the editing process I hate it. And I don't want to hire out that much of what I'm doing. I like keeping things close to home. And it was just too much at this point in my life. At this point I didn't want to do it. I didn't enjoy doing it. The thought of it stressed me out. I'm just going to maintain what I'm doing and continue loving what I'm doing and continue paying the bills and then having just a really low key life that I actually enjoy. Jillian: [00:32:39] I think as mothers, especially as you were talking about how you go through these different stages. And my daughter now is 10. And it's amazing because I never thought this would happen, like I never thought that she could be as independent as she is or she can even help me with things, like she says she's going to be editing my podcasts. That hasn't happened yet, but she knows how to use Garage Band. Jillian: [00:33:10] So it's like you go through these windows with your family as your family grows, where eventually you might be able to take on more, or take or less depending, but there's something to recognizing that the way it is today, it will not be this way in a year and it will definitely not be this way in five years. Jillian: [00:33:32] And to be able to kind of roll with that. If you've been at this a long time, like we have, we've seen a lot of changes in the world of social media and the Internet and stuff, and you've also seen a lot of changes over the last let's say five years in your family. So you kind of think the better you are at uncertainty the more successful you will be. Paula: [00:33:55] Yes I agree completely. Jillian: [00:33:58] So if you were if you were to give one piece of advice to bloggers starting out today, that you wish you had known, what do you think it would be? Advice: You're not your business Paula: [00:34:12] Well I kind of hit it a little bit a second ago, and this is very personal to me. It just. You're not your business. And so succeed or fail, that doesn't define you and I did not know that when I started, and this is a very personal business. You're putting your life on the Internet even if you're a food blogger, you're putting your family's recipes on the Internet for people to hate or people to love. And when everybody is loving you that can feel really good. But I think that's just as dangerous as when everybody's hating on you. And so I've really learned to hold what people say loosely. The good things they say about me are held just as loosely as the bad things because what matters is what people in my real life think about me. What matters is that I'm being a kind person to the people around me and I'm doing things that I believe in. And pageviews don't always reflect that. And pageviews don't reflect your heart. I think one of the most popular, as far as people emailing me and saying this post changed my life is the greatest thing I've ever written, that post I think got 250 pageviews on it. Is like nothing for my blog, and I still remember the things that people said about it and it was beautiful and it was wonderful. But getting that next million billion pageviews is not what it's about. And it is not where your woth is found. Paula: [00:35:44] And so being able to hold loosely to those things has helped with my anxiety, and I know that not everybody has anxiety about blogging. I wish the message that I had when I was starting out is that you're a lot more than this, succeed or fail. Jillian: [00:36:01] I love that. And I would say, you show me a blogger and I will show you somebody who has blogging anxiety. It's like they come hand in hand again. Paula: [00:36:12] And you're right because there is a personal piece to this. You are putting a part of yourself out on the Internet. And again you have to be intentional about how much of yourself you're putting out there, and understand what the ramifications are for that. Paula: [00:36:39] And it's hard and it's wonderful and it's awful all at once. Jillian: [00:36:43] Absolutely. Absolutely. And what about your business right now are you most excited about? Plans for a new blog series Paula: [00:36:51] Well I am not doing it yet, but I have plans for a new series on Beauty Through Imperfection. I've been in just a funky spot for a while because I still write the things that I care about for new moms and stuff, but I am in a new season of life and I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate that new season, and what I care about personally. Like for me what I care about into my blog without losing its voice, and so I'm starting this new series. It was supposed to launch this fall and then Hurricane Harvey hit and that just kind of threw our whole city into madness. So I'm hoping for next spring. Jillian: [00:37:32] Was your house OK? Paula: [00:37:34] Yes. Our house was fine. But like within walking distance there was five feet of water. So it's just our grocery stores are still gone like it's just crazy here. Paula: [00:37:45] I've been thinking about this project for a while, and so it's going to be called Beautiful Perspectives, and I'm going to have people hopefully just write about their lives and write about their struggles and their challenges and and hopefully cover places that I can't cover as just a pretty average person. So I want to bring in people who are not like me, and people who I have questions about and this may actually incorporate some video interviews that are going to be pretty low key and unedited. But my goal is just to break down walls between people and maybe walls you didn't even know existed, and just make me get more comfortable to approach people who look different than you and act differently than you, and live drastically different lives. Paula: [00:38:29] And I'm really excited about it because that's what I care about in my real life, and I'm finding a way to incorporate that into my blog. And I don't think it's gonna be a huge income generator or anything like that, but that goes back to being able to let go of those things and maintain that income and now I can do something that might reach a couple of hundred people, but it's reaching them with something that I care about. Jillian: [00:38:53] And I would say that when we go towards stuff like that, you don't know where it's going to lead. It could be a book. Who knows? But if you could trust that voice inside to say I'm not sure how I'm going to monetize this but at least I'm going to try it out. It feeds your soul and it makes that job easier. Paula: [00:39:25] Right. Because the things that I write about to pay the bills are not things I love. But they're important and they're helping people and that's fine. But I'm able to add the soul feeding thing that I love. And that's what I'm excited about. I'm not really excited about my next paycheck. Paula: [00:39:47] How this will maybe just impact a couple of people like I said, that post reached 250 people, but I think it reached them with something that I want to be my legacy or the thing that I'm remembered for. Jillian: [00:40:05] Is there an online tool that you use for your business that you can't live without? Advice: Using SEMrush to improve SEO Paula: [00:40:13] Yes. And I will say it's expensive and I don't do expensive, but SEMrush is something that I've gotten in the past year and I'm kind of obsessed with. It's an SEO tool, and has just so much that I feel like I've been using it since May, and I still have barely scratch the surface with the data it's giving me. Paula: [00:40:34] But it tells you every back link to your site. It tells you what page you're ranking on in Google for any search term. And it's just nutty the amount of information. And it makes it really nice because I can kind of scroll through and look for... oh on page 2 of Google with this random search term, I'm going to create more content around this. And so that's been a game changer for me. Like I said I have Facebook, Pinterest, and search. Search used to be not even on my radar and the past few months, it's now number three. And like substantially number three. Not like a huge margin of error. It's matching Facebook now as far as what I'm getting in traffic, which is a first for me. And I genuinely owe that to SEMrush, which is obnoxiously expensive but worth every penny. So proud that. Jillian: [00:41:31] OK. We'll be linking to it in the show notes. It's been recommended to me so many times. But because you just said that, I am going to sign up. Paula: [00:41:40] Well I took a class at a conference at Tbex this summer and it was the most comprehensive and actually helpful thing on SEO that I ever attended in my life. I literally walked up to the woman and said, Will you coach me? And she said I don't do coaching. And I was, Let me rephrase. How much to buy an hour of your time? Paula: [00:42:00] I don't spend money. I'm very thrifty and this was worth it. I really trusted her recommendation because she knew what she was talking about with SEO and it's been really helpful. Jillian: [00:42:12] Well that's terrific. I love it. I literally going to get off this call and go sign up because it's been recommended to me over and over. Paula: [00:42:20] I had never heard of it, and now I see it popping up everywhere. Jillian: [00:42:27] And I do believe that when you hear a recommendation from a variety of people, you have to check it out. Jillian: [00:42:35] OK do you have any parting pieces of advice for bloggers. And then also how can people connect with you? Paula: [00:42:46] I say keep it fun and keep it realistic. I think there's a lot of information out there about specific paths to success or specific formulas, and I'm not saying those are not accurate, but make sure when you're adopting a formula, that it fits with your lifestyle and it fits with your personal goals, and it's going to be something you enjoy. So I think bloggers come and go really really quickly, and I think that the pain point that makes people quit, is that they put too much on their plate too fast, in order to try to follow what some very successful blogger said is the formula. It's not that that formula is wrong. Is it right for you right now in this moment, or do you need to focus on something else and move into this space at a slower rate because the space is always going to be here. There's like this urgency in the blogging community but we're here to stay. This is an awesome industry we're in. It's marketing and marketing is forever. So you have time to ease in and find your voice and find how you want this space to work for you. So take your time. Jillian: [00:43:57] I love that. I love that. Now let's go through all of your sites and how people can reach out to you and connect with you. Paula: [00:44:10] Beauty Through Imperfection is my main blog. That's the one I always joke that pays the bills. And then I have some others that I'm building slowly because I can't sit still. And so my food site is Dinner with the Rollos. My travel site is Traveling Family Blog. And then I have a Facebook community that is free, just join us if you want to. And that's Quick Blogging Tips. And I try to keep those tips under five minutes, something you can implement today. So it's super easy. Paula: [00:44:43] Teeny tiny improvements to your blog. And then you can always reach me on email, it's just my name, paularollo@gmail.com. And most of my social media handles are just my name as well. Jillian: [00:44:53] Are the tips that you're giving in your Facebook group, are those you jumping on live, or are they written tips? Paula: [00:45:04] They're mainly written tips. Again I'm a writer. I have been jumping on lives a little bit more, I'm trying to do that a little bit more because at least that doesn't have to be edited, so I can just talk. I've been doing that a little bit more especially now that school's in session, thank goodness. I'm trying to do some more live video in that group too. Jillian: [00:45:25] Well thank you Paula. Thank you so much for being here. Paula: [00:45:30] Thank you for having me. This was a really fun chat. Jillian: [00:45:35] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest. Plus trying to grow your e-mail list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart popup. You add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things, it's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google-friendly on mobile, so you don't have to worry about showing popups on mobile. It's lightning fast, it won't slow your sight down,and you can grow multiple platforms at once. So check it out. MiloTree dot com. We also offer your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Amy Locurto has been successfully blogging for almost ten years, and has seen so many trends come and go. In this episode, we discuss how to experiment and find new revenue opportunities as a blogger (selling products, affiliate sales, brand partnerships, membership sites), so you can stay in it for the long haul. Transcript - How To Focus On Your Strengths As a Blogger: Resources: Living Locurto Living Locurto Fun Club MiloTree Intro: [00:00:11] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here is your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:11] Today my guest is Amy Locurto from Living Locurto. She is a blogger, a graphic designer, and an entrepreneur. Welcome to the show, Amy. Amy: [00:00:22] Hi, Jillian. I'm so happy to be here. Jillian: [00:00:25] So Amy and I, gosh, we've known each other for a lot of years. Andwe are friend in real life, and what I love about you is how you put it out there... about your business and about everything. Amy: [00:00:43] Yes, I'm an open book. Jillian: [00:00:47] So let's talk about Living Locurto. I know you have been at it for a long time. So how did you start it? And briefly how has it evolved over time? Amy: [00:00:59] Oh, OK well, first of all, let me give an overview of what Living Locurto is about, for those of you that have never visited my blog. It's a DIY lifestyle, party and food blog, that features fun recipes, crafts, home decor, and travel. I love to travel, so I mix that in with my fun creative ideas. So it's very whimsical, it's bright. And, you know, we have a lot of bad things going on in life, and I want my blog to just be a place where you can go and find fun and cute things, and get away from it all. So that's kind of how I started it. I started in 2008, so I wanted this to be a fun place to go. I've stuck with that this whole time. Jillian: [00:01:43] I will say, that Amy makes some of the most creative food crafts out there. Amy: [00:01:52] Oh, thank you. Yeah, I started blogging in 2008, and that's when D.I.Y. there was basically just DIY, and parenting blogs, and there weren't a lot of food or party decor blogs at the time. And back then D.I.Y. meant home decorating. I love to decorate but that wasn't my passion. So I'm like, how am I going to do this? How to keep up with these bloggers. I don't even like to shop, you know. But I would always make things, so because I work with really corporate clients all day long, in my graphic design firm, I use my blog as a creative outlet, to share fun and creative things that I was doing at home with my kids, and back then, I was designing things for them, such as birthday party invitations and decor and homemade gifts for teachers. Lunch bag tags, chore charts, and things like that. So I started sharing those printables on my blog and that's when everything really started to take off. Jillian: [00:02:56] And you were one of the first bloggers to really promote printables. Downloadable files that people can print out themselves. And anybody can DIY with printable. Creating a printables business Amy: [00:03:10] Yeah, we used to call them downloads back then. And at the time, there were four to five other professional graphic designers doing this, and we all knew each other we had our own little tribe. It was really fun to have a group of friends all over the world who could understand my passion for doing these over-the-top birthday parties and creative designs. My real friends in real life thought I was crazy. Amy: [00:03:40] And you know it was funny because the five girls that were really... I remember, there was one girl and she had freedownloads.com and or something like that. She was like... I just wanted to be like her. I don't know what happened to her. But there are so many of us that went on to do other things and there's a few of us still left that do do this blog thing. Amy: [00:04:02] Now how did you start monetizing your blog? Did you open an Etsy shop or how did you start thinking about money? Amy: [00:04:11] I started my own shop. I thought what is this? Etsy. I'm not going to give them a percentage of my profits. Amy: [00:04:18] I found a way to charge for my downloads on my own blog. And so I thought I'll test this out. If they love it so much and they're sharing it all, they'd probably be willing to pay for it, right. So I had a really popular free download that I turned into a $0.99 download and you would have thought I was like a horrible horrible person in the world, trying to sell a digital product. Amy: [00:04:48] People just thought well why? Why would you do tha? And I thought well why not? I spent a lot of time designing this and you like it. So you buy it. And people did. And then I opened a store from that. I just started a whole new website called Printables by Amy. And so I kind of jumped on that wagon. You know, I think about six months into my blog, I focus mainly on my shop and collecting emails and things like that. So I could sell my products. And I'm glad I did, because now I still have that shop. It still brings traffic to my Web site. It's in Google. And if I had started on Etsy I don't think it would have been as lucrative. Jillian: [00:05:36] And are you still getting sales? Amy: [00:05:39] Yes. Still to this day. It was all evergreen product birthday parties, it's still there and I used those for a lot of other things. I still use those designs and they're super cute. It's party packs and little downloads and decorations for birthday parties. Jillian: [00:06:04] I love the you saw this opportunity and you jumped on it and then you said, I'm going to start monetizing Why not? And you did and that it is still bringing you revenue. Amy: [00:06:15] Yes it does. It's pays the bills. That was just a chance that I took because I thought why not? It doesn't really cost anything to do this, so if I'm going to make some money, I'll make some money. And so that's how I made money back then, because the ad revenue was pretty much nonexistent back right. Because people didn't understand what a blog was, so nobody was advertising on our Web site. So we had to contact businesses and talked them into putting an ad in our sidebar. Jillian: [00:06:48] I remember that. So, today how do you monetize? You've got your printable business, you've got your graphic design firm, but let's kind of put that aside. How do you make money doing Living Locurto and all of your online ventures? Amy: [00:07:11] My main source of income on living Locurto comes from my ad revenue and my client work. Working with brands Amy: [00:07:16] So yeah I work with several brands and I create unique content for them, or I work with them to promote a specific product on my own blog and my social channels. Jillian: [00:07:28] So this is like sponsored content? Amy: [00:07:30] Yes. Yes. Jillian: [00:07:32] Did they contact you? Did they contact you directly? Amy: [00:07:37] Yes. I've been very lucky with that. I have an "about" page on my website that says "work with Amy" and it gives a whole rundown, kind of like my press kit or media kit, right online so they can see how they can work with me, what I'm doing now, what I'm looking for. Amy: [00:07:56] And are we a good fit? Contact me. And people find me through that. Jillian: [00:08:02] That's great. Amy: [00:08:02] I have reached out to a few brands that I've met at conferences and things like that, just to tell them a little more about me. But it's not like I said, I've got this idea... It was just more of an introduction. So I've been really lucky in that way. I don't I don't do a lot of pitches. I try to make everything very very open and honest on my website so they know that I do want to work with brands. Jillian: [00:08:32] And what would you say is the ideal brand that would work with Amy Locurt? Jillian: [00:08:38] Mmm well, I do a lot of work with movies. promoting movies and that is super fun because they're usually fun movies. Amy: [00:08:46] Like I just did a promotion for the Lego Ninjago movie. And I do a lot of work for food companies. I've worked with Coca-Cola. I've worked with so many brands. so yeah, anybody that wants to do something fun and creative, mainly food companies. I think that works really well with me, or entertainment like the movies or something for kids. That's kind of my audience. Jillian: [00:09:17] Got it. So now let's talk about social media, and you make some awesome videos. Tell me about it and you are also a YouTuber. Amy: [00:09:30] Kind of. Jillian: [00:09:31] So can you talk about your social media strategy and how it's evolved, and how video today fits into that? Amy: [00:09:41] OK. I'm glad you asked this because I had to really think about this when you sent me the questions. I'm like when did I get on YouTube? I and I had a look back. Getting started in YouTube Amy: [00:09:50] I got on YouTube over eight years ago, because I needed a place to upload a video for some Photoshop tutorials that I was doing because, mind you, I've been a professional graphic designer for many years and I started in the business thing when I was in college was right. That was back when Photoshop just came out. So I had to teach my professors how to use Photoshop. So I've always been the Photoshop guru, so I started doing tutorials for another blog I had years ago. Amy: [00:10:21] It was a photography blog, and I just needed a place to upload as well. I forgot about it because I embedded the video in my blog and then I went back, I think like a year later, and I saw that those videos weren't getting mega views from people on YouTube. I'm like oh my gosh, I didn't even think that people would find me on YouTube by just searching Photoshop tutorial or something. And that's when I was like oh gosh, this is where the direction of the Internet is going. And yeah, I got to do the things I'm doing on video, so that's when I really dove in, and you know, I got got a camera that would be better for video and jumped in had first to learn everything I could about video. I think I really started trying to grown my YouTube channel Living Locurto about four or five years ago. Amy: [00:11:19] And do you monetize on YouTube? Amy: [00:11:23] Well I mean I have ads over there, but the way to monetize there is I think, work with brands. And so that's what I've done in the past. Jillian: [00:11:36] So a brand will come to you and say, Will you make a video? Amy: [00:11:40] Yeah, well I think for YouTube, I mean that's a whole nother ball of wax. But you have to have a company that represents you over there. And so for me, I'm in a company I'm with a company called Kin Community. So they reach out to brands and if a brand wants to work with me, they'll contact me through Kin Community. That's how that works. Facebook strategies with affiliate links Jillian: [00:12:09] Can you share then how you think about video? Tell me about Facebook for you. And how how important Facebook is and how you have evolved in your strategy with Facebook. Amy: [00:12:24] Well I evolved with Facebook because I was over on YouTube and I saw the difference between the video views on Facebook versus YouTube and it was just astronomical. Like I don't get millions of views on a video over on Facebook, versus ten thousand on YouTube, which for me 10,000 you know is a lot at the time. But there's just my people on Facebook, and YouTube is a much younger audience, so I just thought I need to be where my people are. So I've started focusing more on Facebook. So it's very important just because that is where my audience is. Amy: [00:13:05] So yeah it's very important, whether you get traffic there or not, that's how you can promote anything to anyone. But it's really confusing and then you figure out something, and then they change it. That's the beast of blogging is Facebook. Jililan: [00:13:31] How often then are you posting? Is it video? Is it posts? What are you doing on Facebook? Amy: [00:13:38] On my Facebook page I try to post at least once an hour and sometimes even more than that. But there were days I slack off. You know, you can't do it all. And there's some days I'm gung ho about it. And I think my page would grow a lot more if I actually focused just on it. But I do too many things, and that's what we we do as bloggers, so there's a lot of people that have grown their Facebook pages because they focus solely on that. Jillian: [00:14:10] Does Facebook drive a lot of traffic to your blog? Amy: [00:14:15] It does. It does. It drives a lot, but it's not one of my top traffic drivers, but I'm not saying it doesn't drive any traffic, because when I look at it, I just see it in comparison to maybe Pinterest. So Pinterest is a whole lot more. But you know I looked today, and I thought, wow that is a lot of traffic from Facebook. Like I should look at that as a win. It's not a loss, and just because it's not the highest traffic coming over, it's great traffic, and you can also promote product there and I can also promote products and use affiliate links. That's a great way to make money. Jillian: [00:14:58] So let's just unpack that a little bit. Go through how you put an affiliate link on Facebook. Amy: [00:15:11] Well you can use any kind of company. There's all kinds of affiliate companies but let's take Amazon, for example. If you saw a product that you were talking about, that you liked, you can share a photo of it and say hey, you guys, tried this, like an instant pot or something. So just put your affiliate link in there, but you have to disclose that it's an affiliate link so you can say you know underneath underneath the description somewhere an affiliate link or or something just to disclose, and then if they click the link you know a cookie gets put on their computer. They might buy it, but they might come back that night buy something else, like cat food and then you'll get a percentage. Amy: [00:15:55] Then you can also put a shop on your Facebook page. They've got a section if you've got a business page which most bloggers do. There's a shop area there, so you can go in and you can add a photo and put your affiliate link in there. And you can have a whole shop of affiliates stuff. There's a lot of different ways to use it. I have one Facebook page where I don't even have a blog I just share affiliate links over there. It's just a little community it's a small Facebook page, but it's really active page. I don't even have a blog for that yet. You know, it just kind of took off. Amy: [00:16:42] But for now, I'm just putting in affiliate links. So am I making money. Jillian: [00:16:46] That's amazing. I will say you are. You are the queen of finding ways to monetize. Amy: [00:16:52] Well it's by accident too, like I think that as a blogger or an entrepreneur you have to find creative ways. You can't put all your eggs in one basket. You need to find creative ways to do things, so when I saw people years ago sharing my printables like bananas, I thought sheesh, there's only about four or five of us doing this. And so I rang them up, and I said well let's charge, let's start charging. And so we all did. And so we kind of started something new, and then eventually everybody started doing free printables. And so then you have to rebrand somehow and find another way to monetize. So there's always something creative, but I think that I like to give myself a time limit. Like I say I'm I'm going to try this. for one month and see what happens. And if it's successful I'm going to keep doing it, if it's not move on. Jillian: [00:17:54] We just did something where we were trying Amazon products on Catch My Party to see if how that works for us. Ultimately, it didn't work very well but, what we said, my husband and I, were going to try this. We're going to see. And then we looked at our results, and it wasn't giving us the results we wanted. But then we said, OK how else could we test this? So we've come up with other ideas to see if we can make it work this way or that way, putting products here or there. So I love that idea because you don't know, people think they want a magic bullet, and the truth is it might be a magic bullet for you, but it might not be for me, and the only way I'm going to know is if I test it, too. Amy: [00:18:44] And I tell people this all the time. I set my expectations very low. It's rare to have a product I'm going to launch. I don't say I'm going to sell five hundred of these in one day. I say, if I sell ten, that's a winning day for me because really that's probably going to be pretty easy. And then that makes me feel better, and I don't feel like a loser, because the day before, I had sold nothing because I didn't have anything to sell. Jillian: [00:19:14] I love that attitude. Amy: [00:19:17] Don't be hard on yourself. Jillian: [00:19:19] That's the thing, I think that as bloggers there are always people who are bigger than you, who are more successful, and who are also writing about how successful they are and you always have to take that with a grain of salt, because usually they're trying to sell you a product on how they got so successful. Amy: [00:19:36] Yeah I love that. I see about 50 of those at my Facebook feed every day. Jillian: [00:19:41] Me too. It can't help but wear on you. And I always have to tell myself, like when you were saying, like 10 sales is a serious win. Amy: [00:19:55] Yes. Amy: [00:19:56] And I know we look at Facebook and think, oh we're get crappy traffic from Facebook. But really, Facebook is free, and if you're getting any traffic from there, that is a win. Even if you're getting only, you know, 25 clicks, that's better than no clicks. Amy: [00:20:12] So we had to kind of change our mindset and we can't compare ourselves to others, because their success is totally different than where we are. Like let's say they might have their husband, like you got your husband working with you. My husband would never work with me. I'm doing this on my own. I don't even know what I'm doing and I've got kids. We're busy, so I work when I can. I have some friends that don't have children then they can work all day. Yeah I get so much done, and I have to remember that, like oh gosh, you know, they're single and they're just very organized and with it. Like I've got A D D. I'll run around. I see a squirrel and I run. Blogging schedule Jillian: [00:20:59] How many hours a week do you think you work on your businesses? Amy: [00:21:07] A lot. I don't know. I mean I go in waves. I've established my businesses, But in the beginning I probably worked way too much. I missed out on a lot with my babies when they were little. Amy: [00:21:24] I have mom-guilt over some of the stuff that that I did, because I was building. I built a graphic design firm and then the blog started. Amy: [00:21:35] And that was just new territory so you didn't know what you're doing. I think now after about eight-nine years I got to have a grasp on it and it's pretty steady. Amy: [00:21:44] So I can calm down and I can I take days off. But then like three days later I will work three days straight and then I'll take a week or so but I'm never... I don't ever just stop. Amy: [00:21:58] I'm always dabbling here and there, especially you know on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest... social channels. I'm always on. But I try to not look at it when I'm on vacation. But so I go in waves. Amy: [00:22:13] I might work all day one day and then a couple of hours the next. Jillian: [00:22:19] I think that's one thing that I also like about what we do, which is our time is our own. Jillian: [00:22:28] So you were sharing with me last night, like, oh you're going to be up late working, but nobody is putting a gun to your head. You might have a deadline with a brand or something, but it's not like your boss is saying I need this on my desk tomorrow. It's oh my god I'm inspired, or I need to get this out or whatever. There are times, same thing, where I'm working late at night and then there are other days where I'm spending the day with my daughter, or I'm working on something really different. And I personally really like that. I like that flexibility. Amy: [00:23:05] I love it. Yeah I've been working on my own since I was 25 and I won't tell you how old I am now. Amy: [00:23:11] It's been a lot of years. Jililan: [00:23:13] So what about your business are you most excited about? Launching a membership site Amy: [00:23:19] I'm glad you asked me why. That's what I was working on last night. So today, after we talk, I'm going to launch what's called "The Living Locurto Fun Club."It's actually sort of a revamped version of the membership section of my web site that I started about three years ago, and I shut it down and now I'm I'm reopening it. I've had so many so many of my readers asked me, are you going to open up your membership site again? which basically the Fun Club is a revamped version where you get exclusive content just for you. Jillian: [00:23:58] So let's step back for just a sec. A membership site is your visitors, your audience, they pay you a monthly fee and then they get access to exclusive content or printables or things like that, or are able to you. What do you offer? Amy: [00:24:16] What I'm offering are my printable designs. So I've got wall art, really fun. Well I've got invitations, calendars, planners, all kinds of stuff, holiday, Elf on the shelf ideas, and I've just got a plethora of really fun designs that you can download. You have access as a fan club member to a certain amount of designs all at once and then once a month during your membership you'll get some new designs. So it's kind of a fun surprise every month. You don't know what you're going to get. And then in the middle of that I've got discounts to my shop and other fun freebies that I do. It's a fun club. Amy: [00:25:01] And do people have more access to you? Amy: [00:25:05] I'm not in this. I mean yeah they'll probably be talking to me if they're e-mailing me. But it's basically just a section on my Web site that's just for certain people. It's ad free it's it's quicker to get to everything. It's just it's an easier way to access. And it's just exclusive content. This is content that's not anywhere else. It might be in my shop but if it's in my shop it's going to cost a lot more. Like you'll probably get it if it's in my shop for let's say $15. It will be only 50 cents if you get in my fun club it's just a perk. Jillian: [00:25:48] And so it's going to be living on Living Locurto dot com. Amy: [00:25:53] Yes. It's just another section on my blog. You know like have a category. That's what it is. Advice to new bloggers: Settle down Jillian: [00:25:59] So if there was one piece of advice you wish you knew when you just started, what would it be? Amy: [00:26:11] I have to think about this, it's a hard one. There are a lot of thing. Amy: [00:26:15] I wish somebody would have explained to me to settle down, to stop the hassle. Because the reason why you are creating this business for yourself is so you can have the time to do the things that you want to do. So I wish somebody would have told me, you might look back and regret some of the things that you do, so settle down, and focus just on you know one path. Stay on a path. Amy: [00:27:01] It's easy to get distracted so pick one main goal and stick to that, and then move on to that next and give yourself... Don't be so hard on yourself and give yourself time to enjoy the life that you're creating from this business that you're creating. Amy: [00:27:19] You know have fun to play. Amy: [00:27:21] I don't think I did enough of that when I was younger. Jillian: [00:27:24] I love that. I think the thing that keeps coming up in our conversation is this idea of mindset, and how you frame it, because being a blogger can be fantastic and it can also be awful. And you could have the same Facebook traffic in both scenarios. It's like how you how you tell yourself the story of your own life in your own success. Amy: [00:27:51] Yeah. And I think a lot of people worry too much about the following, like oh, I'm not as successful because I don't have as many Facebook followers, or whatever it is, and that's not true because it doesn't really matter anymore. I mean it is just certain brands, but if you want to work with brands, if you have a hundred really engaged people that's really all they care about. It's just kind of how you look at it, and how you sell yourself to the brands. And I think that's more important then than the following. It's kind of what's your talent. What's your what's your mojo. Amy: [00:28:32] And so you sell yourself in that way, and not worry about what other people are doing so much. Like I said just enjoy and focus on your strengths. My strength is graphic design and creating really unique things. Amy: [00:28:49] Brands know they're going to get something that's different and it might already be out there in some form, but it's going to be very different, the way I do it. Jillian: [00:28:58] My favorite, just off the top of my head. You did these Curious George cupcakes I'll remember forever and also you made the cutest Oreo Minnie Mouse Christmas cookies. Amy: [00:29:13] That is still going crazy and it's not anything new. Amy: [00:29:20] But I put my spin on it. My Amy Locurto creative spin and I turn these Oreo cookies, that look like Minnie a Mickey Mouse, but I decorated them for Christmas. And it was like why hasn't anybody done this before? And I've done it for every holiday now. And yeah they're just really cute. And it's a no bake idea. Kids can do it. Any mom can do it any dad can do it. So that's the kind of stuff that. So I pride myself that I can create a simple little twist like that for a brand. And they love it, you know, and I can't get down on myself. I can't be hard on myself. My photos might not be the best or my videos might not be the best. As long as what I'm creating is really cute. That's all that matters. Jillian: [00:30:09] And I think you take that into every area of your business. That little twist on something. We're going to do printables and then we're going to charge for them. We're going to take it and we're we're going to try doing affiliate links this way. I just feel like you take that, again mindset, into every area of your business and you find creative solutions. Amy: [00:30:38] Yeah you have to try and do something to stand out. And like I said never give up. Learn from your failures. You know what not to do next time, like what you said when when you were putting up your affiliate links and they didn't work. I mean you learn, you're like yes, try this, and I failed a ton, but that was the only way I could learn to find the path that would work. Jillian: [00:31:04] Yes. Yes I totally agree. I do. So Amy Where can people find you and connect with you? Amy: [00:31:13] Oh well. Living Locurto and it's spelled just the way it sounds. L O C U R T O. I always laugh. I was into Ricky Martin back when I started my name... Living La Vita Locurto. So that's we're living Locurto came from. Living my creative life now, but it's just Living Locurto everywhere, on Pinterest and Facebook and Instagram and my blog is Living Locurto dot com. And then my Fun Club is online now. I'm going to be promoting it soon. It's Living Locurto dot com backslash club where you can learn about that. Amy: [00:31:54] So yeah I'd love for you guys to join and come visit. Jillian: [00:31:58] I love it. Amy thank you so much for being on the show. Amy: [00:32:03] Well thanks for having me Jillian. You know I love you. Jillian: [00:32:06] I love you. Jillian: [00:32:09] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram Facebook YouTube, and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart pop up, you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things. It's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google-friendly on mobile, so you don't have to worry about showing popups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your site down. And you can grow multiple platforms at once so check it out. MiloTree.com. We also offer your first 30 days free!  

Dayna has a successful blog, an online store, and is an author of multiple books. She started each one separately, and only later figured out how they all fit together. In this episode we discuss how to build a multi-brand business and find the throughline.

My guest is Kyndra Holley of Peace, Love, and Low Carb. Kyndra has struggled with her weight her whole life, and by documenting her journey into low carb eating, she has created both a successful food blog and business. In this episode we discuss the steps she took to grow her business, how her path wasn't always straight, but lead her to where she is today. This post is brought to you by MiloTree, the smart popup you embed on your blog or site to grow your social media following on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, plus your email list. Try it today and get your first 30 days free! Transcript - How To Turn Your Personal Struggle Into a Successful Business: Resources: Peace, Love and Low Carb Peace, Love and Low Carb cookbooks MiloTree Lulu AdThrive Jillian: [00:00:11] Hey! Today my guest is Kyndra Holley from Peace, Love and Low Carb. As a low carb eater myself, I have to say I was immediately drawn to her content, and I'm so happy she's here today to be on the show. So welcome. Kyndra: [00:00:32] Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Jillian: [00:00:35] I want to start by asking you how you started, and really what inspired you. What's the story? Because I know there is a story behind Peace, Love, and Low Carb? How a personal struggle became a business Kyndra: [00:00:49] I usually start by saying it kind of happened by accident, which sounds strange but I didn't say I'm going to build a business, a brand, and start a blog, and write books. Kyndra: [00:00:58] I just was a girl who really struggled with her weight her whole life. And I stumbled upon low-carb through a friend that I worked with. She was like, "Hey I heard about Atkins. Let's do it." And so I was like, "OK, I'm in. She started her blog by photographing what she was eating Kyndra: [00:01:13] And from there I just kind of started photographing everything that I was eating and I made it my mission to recreate all of my favorite comfort foods as low carb versions instead of giving them up. Kyndra: [00:01:25] And I just started taking pictures of them with my phone. Facebook was getting really huge and I started a Facebook page. And meanwhile, I was blogging but I had it set to private setting like a diary, so I hadn't even unlocked that people. I was kind of documenting my weight loss journey on my blog. Jillian: [00:01:46] What year was this? Kyndra: [00:01:48] I started my blog in 2011, but my first go around with low carb was much earlier than. Jillian: [00:02:06] So then you made your blog public? Kyndra: [00:02:08] I just kind of started sharing what I was eating and what I was cooking for John and me. And then from there it just took on a life of its own. Jillian: [00:02:15] That's so impressive. And one thing that I love about your site, is how you have a very strong point of view. And you've been able to really build a business around that point of view. And can you share how you... you're not just a blogger, you're also an entrepreneur and you sell cookbooks and meal plans and how did you start to think about that and build out those other lines of business? Kyndra: [00:02:44] You know I'm a chronic researcher, and I'm just an entrepreneur by nature. You know, I joke and I say that I came out of the womb ready to build a business. And for me, it's all research and passion based. Kyndra: [00:02:58] So once I decided to make a go of this and this is going to be my career, I just completely jumped in and I started researching everything. Snd then I thought, hey, I can compile these ideas into a meal plan. People need that. You know trying to provide solutions for the questions that I get every single day. Jillian: [00:03:15] I love that you are solving people's real problems. And where would people be reaching out to you? Was it on social media? Were they e-mailing you? Where were they connecting with you? Kyndra: [00:03:26] Oh geez. Everywhere. Comments directly on my blog. Even e-mail. Social media. Any spot that has an inbox. Mine was getting blown up. Jillian: [00:03:36] Interesting. So what was the first product you built to support your blog? Her first self-published recipe book Kyndra: [00:03:44] The first time, I self-published a book. I didn't even try to get on with the publisher. I just said I'm going to do this. I have a really great friend who is a graphic designer, and I said, "Would you be willing to do this with me?" Kyndra: [00:03:57] And he said yes, and I just self-publish a full length recipe cookbook. Jillian: [00:04:02] Were these recipes that were living on your blog, or did you develop the recipes for the book? Kyndra: [00:04:07] Some were on the site, some of the ones that were popular and were starting to get traction. I put them in the book and then I made a lot that were exclusive just to the book, as well. Jillian: [00:04:16] And then where did you start selling it? Kyndra: [00:04:19] I signed up through Lulu. It's a place where you can self-publish. And then I added it to Amazon. I'm just kind of used those channels and it's kind of harder to open up for wider distribution. And I just really was winging it all. And in hindsight I could have done it better. I mean that's kind of how it always goes right. Jillian: [00:04:42] And then how did you promote your first book, like how did you get sales? Kyndra: [00:04:48] Well, I got really lucky timing-wise because I like to call it the glory days of Facebook. Kyndra: [00:04:52] Before Facebook started adding all of these algorithms, I literally just posted and then within an hour, hundreds would sell because at the time, Facebook showed your post to all of your followers. And so I really didn't need to do much beyond that. It was kind of like just this really sweet spot in Facebook history. Jillian: [00:05:14] Yes. And then that inspired you to go on to write other books to build other products? What was that evolution like? Kyndra: [00:05:23] So from there, after that, that was kind of the only product that had for a while. I did some other smaller kind of niche books, like one just for side dishes. Again kind of solving problems, you would say. Kyndra: [00:05:36] Yeah, I can cook a steak, but what I serve with it that's low carb, you know? But then I went into a period where I really focused on the business of blogging. Treating her blog like a business Kyndra: [00:05:47] If you treat something like a hobby it's a hobby forever. So I believe that if you want to do something as a business, you treat it like it's a business while it's still just a hobby. Jillian: [00:05:57] Absolutely. Again it's all about mindset. Absolutely. So what did that shift look like for you, or how did you take what was a what somebody might say is like a small side hustle, and actually say, no, I'm going to pull this front and center. Kyndra: [00:06:12] You know I was still working full time in restaurants. Kyndra: [00:06:16] I have almost a 20-year background in the restaurant business, which I do think really helps me be successful in my own business, but I just again, I just started researching everything. If I didn't know it. I looked it up. I'm a person who if you ask me something and I don't know the answer, you can rest assured the next time somebody asks that question, I'm going to give them a whole dissertation about it so that you know. Kyndra: [00:06:41] So I just really kind of started looking into how to monetize and just totally fine tuning my craft, learning, growing, and in the beginning, I was even doing all the HTML coding for my site and I had no background in it. Jillian: [00:06:57] I love that. Now let's talk about what your revenue streams look like currently. Where do you make money? Kyndra: [00:07:08] They're all over the place. I am a firm believer that you don't put all your eggs in one basket, so I make a lot of money from the digital products that I sell through my site, and that just goes straight to me, affiliate programs with brands and companies that are aligned with my mission and vision and use their products. Jillian: [00:07:30] So what's an example then of an affiliate product that is on your site that you support? Monetizing through affiliate marketing Kyndra: [00:07:37] It can go a couple of different ways. So Amazon is a big affiliate program. So in my recipes, like take for example, I have a flourless chewy chocolate cookie recipe that has just gone crazy on my site. I like the products that I use, for example, the exact chocolate chips that I use, the only flour that I use, and then that brings in a small portion of revenue. People buy through those links. Jillian: [00:08:01] And with Amazon. It's really just they need to click over to Amazon and then if they buy a TV that day, so you make an affiliate fee. Kyndra: [00:08:12] Yes absolutely. And that's really great around the holidays, as well as people Christmas shopping. Jillian: [00:08:17] That's a good tip! Ok ok so you're also making money through affiliate sales. Kyndra: [00:08:26] And then a lot of times I'll do brand partnerships. They have their own affiliate programs built in. So if I have a, you know, a brand that I really like, I work a lot with a company called Low Carb Foods. And again they're just a small family-based business that they're really providing solutions, so they're putting out low carb products with clean ingredients that are diabetic friendly and I like them as people, I like their products. Monetizing through brand partnerships Kyndra: [00:08:52] So you'll see links to those I'll do it on my Instagram Stories or on my blog. But then another avenue with those brand partnerships is sponsored posts. So I'll say here is a package that you will get. I will do a review of your product on my site. Ill feature it in a recipe and it will go out in my newsletter. Do social media blasts. And then there's a package ready for that. So it's another revenue stream outside of their affiliate program. Jillian: [00:09:22] Now are you reaching out to these brands or are these brands reaching out to you? Kyndra: [00:09:26] You know, this is that's kind of funny because that was a real learning curve as well, as I grew this and it kind of goes with the lesson of never to sell yourself short. So in the beginning, I was reaching out to companies and was saying, here is the traffic on my site. Here is what I can give you in terms of exposure. Kyndra: [00:09:42] Please just send me your free product. So I valued myself by just letting them send me a free product and then promoting it all over the place. Kyndra: [00:09:52] And so these days it's more of filtering opportunities that are coming through me. And then there's a series of questions that I go through like, a mental checklist when I get these e-mails of brands and companies that would want to work with me and partner with Peace, Love, and Low Carb. Jillian: [00:10:08] Got it. So in the beginning we were reaching out to them and you were selling yourself short by just accepting product. And then over time, as you became more established, brands started reaching out to you. And you would then say great I'd like to work with you. Here is my package. Kyndra: [00:10:25] I have a media kit on my site, and it has several different options for ways to work together, as well as an option to set up a custom package. Jillian: [00:10:33] And do you have the pricing on your website? Kyndra: [00:10:36] You know I didn't used to. But then I thought it's not something to be ashamed of, my social clout and all my stats are there across all social channels. Why not go ahead and put the pricing on there. Then it kind of cuts down on the e-mails to take a look at the pricing, and they say hey I would never pay that. Or I only send free product. They don't e-mail and so it's less to filter through. Jillian: [00:10:56] I like that. I like that. OK. I just want to say a couple things that I notice that I think are really special about what you're doing. One, you are a food blogger but you're a niche food blogger. And I think that that has probably worked to your advantage because I know exactly what I'm going to get. If I'm a brand and I work with you,and I make low-carb foods, you're my person. I want that. So I think that again I always say this, the internet's a really big place, and if you can find your niche and go deep into it, and be authentic, I feel like you have a leg up. Like you have a leg up over your general food blogger. Now your cakes might not perform as well as those gooey delicious fondant cakes, but you've been able to really carve out a place for yourself on the Internet. So I just have to call that out. And that everything you've been able to build off of it, all comes from people who are really looking for low carb solutions. Kyndra: [00:12:12] It's a blessing and a curse. So for a while as you know, my own lifestyle changed and I tried different things. I really felt locked in because I actually had low carb in the title, and that kind of dietary climate wasn't always what it is. Kyndra: [00:12:27] Now there's a very big uptake in low carb in Paleo and it's great to see someone who is kind of at the forefront of that movement because my blog is heading into its seventh year. But in the beginning people poo-pooed low carb so much. Yes. And then when Paleo got really huge, you know a lot of the Paleo influencers were kind of bashing low carb as well. And so I kind of went through this period where, gosh, why you get so specific. Kyndra: [00:12:53] Now that people have caught on and we're kind of moving away from the fat phobic society that we've been in, now I'm able to say I stuck true to my mission for all of these years and it paid off. Jillian: [00:13:06] Yes. And again who knows. Like there is tremendous uncertainty in picking a name. and it might go your way. Like you were saying you were on Facebook at the exact time where you could sell books. So again sometimes you get lucky, like you with Facebook, it was the perfect time to be selling cookbooks on Facebook, but a lot of times also you make these opportunities for yourself by making a decision, seeing if it works, and if it's not working pull up and try something else. Jillian: [00:13:36] So let's go through the other income streams that you have that we haven't touched on. Monetizing through ads Kyndra: [00:13:43] OK. So obviously there is ad revenue from this site. That's a big one. Jillian: [00:13:48] And who and what ad network do you use? Kyndra: [00:13:51] I use AdThrive. And they they've been amazing for years. Jillian: [00:14:09] And we are big fans of Ad Thrive as well. Kyndra: [00:14:11] And some of the other ones is partnering with other bloggers to help promote their products through their affiliate programs. So it's still a form of affiliate marketing but it's kind of like a rising tide lifts all boats. Jillian: [00:14:23] I love that. I love that. So somebody will come to you who you probably know through social media and being in your niche and says, I have this new cookbook. Will you promote it and you get a cut of the sales. Is that how it works? Kyndra: [00:14:41] Yeah absolutely. And I always believed that there's enough room for all of us and that if you're coming from a place of authenticity and nature and passion that it doesn't matter if someone's doing something similarly to you. So for example I sell meal plans but I push other people's meal plas as well, because mine might not be right for them. Kyndra: [00:15:01] But this other blogger might have mealplans that worked for some of my audience so I don't believe that in order for mine to be successful I have to not promote others. Jillian: [00:15:11] I love that. And again this is something I work on in my own life which is mindset, and this belief that you see the world through lenses. And one of those lenses is scarcity. And one of them is abundance, and we're constantly switching between these two. But when I notice myself seeing the world through scarcity, there's just not enough whatever that is. I really say, whoa I'm going to try to take these glasses off and put on the abundant glasses and see what the world looks like. Kyndra: [00:15:46] I love them so much, and I feel like you're speaking right to my heart there because when you come from a scarcity mindset or even a poverty mindset, then it is so hard to see the other side of that and to dig yourself out of that hole, because the tendencies that come along with that run so deep. And I'm so happy to hear you say that because that is kind of something that I try to do. I think that I operate from a place of abundance or manifesting what I want in my life, by pretending I already have it, like fake it til you make it. I don't like the words "fake it. Jillian: [00:16:22] I have a daughter and I say that to her all the time which is "fake it til you make it." I say to her be an actress. Pretend as if it's already happened. My daughter's ten and she loves being an actress. But there is something about embodying the feeling of success. So you understand how that feels. Kyndra: [00:16:50] Yeah it's like saying dress for the job you want or the job you have. Jillian: [00:16:55] I love it. Yeah. Absolutely. So let's talk about social media for you and your journey through social media. What is driving traffic to you? You have a nice social media followers. How has that worked for you? Social media marketing strategies Kyndra: [00:17:15] Social media is a blessing and a curse because it can be a very an evil place to be. There's a lot of mean people hiding behind computers. However, it is the primary traffic driver to anybody who is trying to run any kind of website, blog, business, brand. Even if you're just in the business of marketing. So my top two referrers are Pinterest and Facebook. And so I started Facebook very early on, as soon as I started my blog. So I grew very organically and pretty fast on Facebook and then Pinterest just kind of changed the landscape for referrers, like with traffic referrals for food bloggers, especially, like give you food blogging, like mommy bloggers or even crafters anything DIY at all. Even the projects that people say they're going to do that they never do. They like to look for them. Same with recipes. Jillian: [00:18:09] Yes definitely. And Pinterest is a huge traffic driver for us too at Catch My Party. I love Pinterest. Yeah. And so today. So how active are you on those platforms? [00:18:23] I'm extremely active on those platforms, so I run the Facebook page for my blog. And then I also run a group that's kind of a recipe sharing group but it's more of a support group. And I just call that Peace, Love and Low-Carb Friends. It goes along with my blog. And so I'm active in there, interacting with people and they're sharing their stories. And then I'm also on Instagram where I do a lot of Instagram Stories and sharing recipes on there. And I would say Instagram is actually probably my favorite social media platform. Jillian: [00:18:52] Are you getting traffic from Instagram or is it really about brand building? Kyndra: [00:18:57] I am using a site called Linkinprofile. Jillian: [00:19:00] We use that! Kyndra: [00:19:00] It's a paid subscription that I was happy to pay for, to try out, because it was a small amount to pay and a low risk to see if it worked. Kyndra: [00:19:21] So I like to post something on Instagram with the link and then go into my Google Analytics and watch the traffic flow and kind of gauge. is this successful. Is this third party that I'm using something I want to continue to use? And it's been great. Sending newsletters Jillian: [00:19:38] Now do you send newsletters? Kyndra: [00:19:42] I do send newsletter. Jillian: [00:19:44] OK so how often and what is your newsletter about? Kyndra: [00:19:48] You know I probably send them more than my readers would like. I just get excited so I usually send one out every time I have a new recipe on my site, or just something that I want to share, or one of my books is on sale, things like that. Kyndra: [00:20:02] But usually it's kind of a curated post. So it's not just one recipe. The title might be you know, "Low Carb Lasagna," but within it you're going to find some other recipes that you could pair with that, or other recipes that are doing well on the site at the time. Jillian: [00:20:16] Got it. And are you reaching out to your subscribers once a week twice a week? Is it on a Monday or is it whenever you feel like it? Kyndra: [00:20:27] Like every two to three days and sometimes less, sometimes more. Kyndra: [00:20:33] I try t go with just what's going on. What do I want them to know, what do they need to know. Jillian: [00:20:45] Got it. Now as a food blogger, does video fit in? And if so, how does that work for you? Creating video and live video Kyndra: [00:20:54] Video is huge right now across all social media and all of the new algorithms are really giving video preference. And I'm in the process of wrapping up another full length professionally published cookbook, and working on the manuscript for a second one that is also coming out very soon, and I haven't had the time to dedicate to video. I actually just recently hired it out to do some of those kind of Tasty-style overhead shot videos. Jillian: [00:21:22] Then are you posting those? Are they like 30-second videos? Or one minute videos or are these longer videos that you can also use on YouTube? Kyndra: [00:21:40] They are the shorter one minute or less video so that I can post them on Instagram, because on Instagram it has to be less than one minute.And then having a square format and then a full frame format, that I can post it on YouTube because I'm also trying to work on building YouTube now. Jillian: [00:21:57] Great. I love that. And also did you say or am I making this up, that you do live video. You do. You do Instagram Stories. Kyndra: [00:22:06] I do. I do Instagram Stories, and from time to time I do Instagram Live, but I want to start doing more cooking demos. So a lot of times I'll just set my phone up in my kitchen and I'll show the step by step but on Instagram stories you have 20 seconds. And then on Instagram live you have 30 minutes. Kyndra: [00:22:23] I had an idea to do a Friday cocktails with Kyndra. Since I'm writing a drink book and just fun things like that where it's another way to connect with my audience. And in more of a full format then here's 50 seconds of a set up video. Jillian: [00:22:41] And how do you prioritize, because you have your fingers in a lot of different pots. Kyndra: [00:22:48] You know, people ask me all the time if I have a secret clone. If I have a twin and I don't talk about it. It's my own fault sometimes. I don't really have an off button, but I love what I do. So I've had friends that have said almost in a negative way, I would never want to do it because I didn't want to work that much. Kyndra: [00:23:06] And I can't really take it personally because I think, I love my job. If I have too much time off, I start just seem to get back to it prior to running my own business. I was a clock puncher. I want to go to work for someone else and so from them I said I can see why they think all you do is work. But for me I think I get to do this like I wake up every morning and I don't ever say, oh, I have to do this. I get up and I say, I get to do this! Jillian: [00:23:33] Don't you love when you're waking up in the morning, or right before I go to bed. And I have an idea that I become really excited about and then I start... sometimes it's hard to go to sleep because I'm like OK if I do this, and this, like here's what I need to do. I can make that happen. Kyndra: [00:23:53] Yes I'm very much the same way. I want to capture the ideas that I have. If you were to look inside my Evernote, I have it across so many devices. It's like a digital scratch pad that I would probably look like a lunatic. Life as an entrepreneur Jillian: [00:24:07] How many hours a week do you work on your business. Kyndra: [00:24:11] Honestly gosh a lot. Kyndra: [00:24:16] Well over a 40 hour work week. Especially right now because I'm working on these books. But the other side of that is that I have so much time freedom when I want to. So if I want to say, I'm here, I'm going to work tonight, I'm going to work till 2 in the morning and I'm not going to work tomorrow to make up for it, I can. Or, we just got back from a two week vacation in Hawaii, and then we're leaving again in two and a half weeks, and so there's a lot of freedom with it. But it is a lot of hours and I feel like probably the amount of hours as a surgeon right now. Jillian: [00:24:45] For us, I work with my husband. It is a lot of hours. But again, having that freedom to be with my daughter if she's sick, I can take care of her and when she's watching a video, I can go do a couple of emails. And then when she's better, I can refocus and dig in. Kyndra: [00:25:11] Exactly. And so for me, and I'm sure you can relate to this too. Kyndra: [00:25:17] Everything that I do now, every minute that I put in, every idea that I have, the output is a direct correlation to what I put in. Whereas if I'm working for someone else, why would I to work harder than I have to? I mean I get paid the same. And so now it's the harder I work, the more I follow through with my ideas, the more money I make and the better lifestyle my family has. Jillian: [00:25:40] I couldn't agree with you more. Again the hard part is in being an entrepreneur is that there's a certain personality that can really thrive, and you have to be a self-starter. You have to be willing to try stuff, you have to be willing to trust yourself. You have to work with yourself more than against yourself. Jillian: [00:26:01] But if you have that personality, I think there is nothing better. Kyndra: [00:26:06] Yeah, I definitely am a Type A personality and it has suited me well. I'm a person who's I'm just not afraid to take risks. And I think part of that was all the years that I spent in the restaurant industry, because I could literally go do it anywhere in the world and I could pick it up at any time. So a little bit I have a safety net, but I've just been a person who has been sure enough in my resolve to see things through. I've never been afraid to take a leap of faith because what's the worst thing that happens. Kyndra: [00:26:35] It doesn't work out. Big deal, you do something else. Jillian: [00:26:38] I love that. I love it. Now what one tool do you use in your business that you couldn't live without? Kyndra: [00:26:50] I'm just a list maker and I kind of use redundancy, and I use Evernote. I use it to write everything down. But organizationally I think that Evernote is probably my favorite thing I use right now. New cookbooks books on the horizon Jillian: [00:27:05] And what about your business. What are you most excited about at this moment? Kyndra: [00:27:12] I'm really really excited about the new books that I have coming out because I feel like I poured myself into these. The books that I have coming out, it kind of reads like a personal journal with 150 recipes in it. I'm very connected with my readers right now. They know that I'm not just a robot behind the screen. They feel like they know me. Kyndra: [00:27:38] They can tell me all the names of all of my dogs and I've just really opened up and I'm just very very excited to put this product out into the world because I feel like every single page is just oozing with me, like the essence of me. Jillian: [00:27:54] So you're putting some vulnerability in this one. Kyndra: [00:27:57] Oh so much. Yes so much. Jillian: [00:28:00] Is that scary? Kyndra: [00:28:03] It is. But I think that if even one person read my story and felt less alone in this world then I've accomplished what I set out to do. Even if it was only one person. I'm very big on human connection and making people realize that they can do things and that they are enough. And so being vulnerable and sharing my story helps even one person say, you know what? I'm not alone and I am worthy. Then mission accomplished. Jillian: [00:28:31] Oh I love that. What one piece of advice do you wish you had before you started all of this? The importance of SEO Kyndra: [00:28:41] I wish I knew more about SEO in the beginning. So part of blogging and running a successful blog, and writing it as a business is staying ahead of curves and trends, and constantly researching and being constantly on your game. Kyndra: [00:29:01] It's not a profession where you can rest on your laurels. But it's also like constantly chasing a moving target. Algorithms change. Pleasing the Google gods... It can make or break you. And they constantly change the game and you have to stay ahead of it. And so in the beginning, I was just trying to lose weight in writing recipes. I wasn't focusing on keywords or making sure that I was doing all the right things to get traffic there. Kyndra: [00:29:32] So here I am, almost seven years later, and I'm going back and redoing a lot of those earlier posts. Some of them didn't even have lead ins written to it, where there would be keywords to get people to come through. Jillian: [00:29:42] Interesting. And also going back and redoing those posts, I'm sure just gives you even more SEO bump. There's some mixed reviews about whether you should leave posts alone or whether you should revive them. Kyndra: [00:29:56] And I think reviving some with... I'm constantly working on my photography Also I'm self-taught in every area of this whole blogging and business. So I am really going back and redoing the photos, making them SEO friendly and it's a lot of fun but it's also really rewarding to see people visiting posts they may never have visited. Jillian: [00:30:18] I'm of the school going back and adding new photos and freshening up those posts does help with SEO. Kyndra: [00:30:26] Yeah I am inclined to agree as well. Jillian: [00:30:29] So given that you're very active on social media. Do you have any advice for people trying to grow their social followers or how to think about social media. Kyndra: [00:30:42] I do for sure. Kyndra: [00:30:43] In fact, I'm kind of a junkie and one of my favorite quotes ever is by Theodore Roosevelt. "Comparison is the thief of joy."It is very easy to get stuck in a shame spiral where you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. But the thing I think that's important to remember is if you're going to spend any time on social media as a business owner, as an influencer, or just someone who really likes to hang out there, is to remember that you're seeing perfectly crafted images, videos, status updates go by and that you're really only seeing the highlight reel of someone's life. Kyndra: [00:31:23] And on the other side of that I always try to show quite literally all the good, the bad, the ugly, the bad days, the good days, the fluctuations in my weight to show people... you're not alone. That likely what you're seeing is just perfectly crafted boosted tidbits of someone's life that seems perfect. They could be falling apart behind the scenes, their business could be falling apart, you know, life could be falling apart, so don't measure your worth from a business or personal standpoint. Don't buy anything you see on social media. Jillian: [00:31:56] Oh I love that. And in fact that's one of the reasons why I've started this podcast. I notice I keep hearing this message over and over again. Kyndra: [00:32:08] It can really tear you down. I mean we're hard enough on ourselves on a daily basis, let alone letting the seemingly perfect life or business of others let you feel back about yourself. Jillian: [00:32:21] OK. So for somebody just starting out today in the world the way it is today, and the landscape, what is the one thing you would say to them to get a leg up? Kyndra: [00:32:34] I would say don't do it for the sake of doing it. Kyndra: [00:32:38] There has to be a real passion behind it because it will take everything you have to make it successful. I think that a lot of people misunderstood blogging and they thought oh that's so cute. Kyndra: [00:32:51] She sits at home and she's like oh she's adorable. Kyndra: [00:32:54] Her husband must make a lot of money you know. It's a business and I'm the breadwinner for our family, and I treat it like a business. But it started from a genuine place of passion. Kyndra: [00:33:05] So I don't think you can just see an opening and jump on it and say OK I'm watching all these bloggers six figures, multi six figures, I'm going to start a blog. You have to have something to say, you have to be passionate about something or it just won't work. Jillian: [00:33:17] I think that is absolutely true. I always say you have to know what your "why" is. "Why" are you doing this?. Because this is a long slog. It's not lightning in a bottle. It has so many different moving parts. So if you don't love it and if you're not guided by your why. I think you're in trouble. I don't think it will work. Kyndra: [00:33:46] And you know I think it's important to have realistic expectations and it's very much one of those if you build it they will come. But there's a lot of building before they come in. I've cried so many times. I lost sleep in the beginning when I was just really taking a vote of confidence in myself, when I just said I can do this and I'm going to do this. Kyndra: [00:34:06] There was a time when we were trapped in payday loan cycles and I just kept plugging away, like I just refused to stop. And then here I am now with you. We were like saying oh my gosh, how are we going to pay the rent this month. OK well they won't shut off the electric. We can float that for 45 days. And I just can't get it. I just know I relentlessly. I never stopped. I love that. Jillian: [00:34:32] Tell me, Kyndra, how can people reach out? First of all tell me how can people find out more about your web site, your products, where they can find you on social media so that people can say hello and see what you're all about. Kyndra: [00:34:50] The simplest, easiest way is just going to be typing in Peace, Love, and Low Carb into Google, or even just my name. So I have a lot of points of contact but that first search, every result is going to be me. So will you spell your name because it's an unusual spelling. It is. I said mom everybody's going to spell it and pronounce it wrong my whole life. So it's Kyndra with a y. And then my last name is different as well. And that is H O L L E Y. Jillian: [00:35:27] Then what about your Facebook groups or if people are wanting to explore low carb, what would you say? Kyndra:[00:35:37]  I'm Peace, Love, and Low Carb across all channels. So if you type in low carb into Facebook, you'll find me. Also on Instagram on Pinterest on Twitter and on YouTube. Jillian: [00:35:52] Oh I have to say thank you so much. I have learned so much from you. Kyndra: [00:35:57] Well thank you for having me.

Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. In this first episode, Jillian Leslie tells you about her background, explains why she's starting this podcast, and shares what bloggers and entrepreneurs will get out of it. So if you're trying to grow your online business, please subscribe to this podcast! And if you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram Facebook YouTube, and Pinterest, plus your email list, take a look at how MiloTree can help you. It is the smart popup you add to your blog or site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! EPISODE #000 TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast With Jillian Leslie Hey, welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I'm your host Jillian Leslie. I'm also the founder of MiloTree with my husband, David. For those of you who don't know, MiloTree is a smart popup you add to your blog or your site, and it pops up and asks your visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, or join your email list. And it's smart because you configure it how you like, and it can grow multiple platforms at once. OK to give you a little backstory. My husband and I started our first online company called Catch My Party in 2009. So yes, we have been at this a long time. Since 2009, we've grown Catch My Party into the largest party idea site on the web, and I have been busy blogging ever since. One of the ways we grew our site was to grow our social media followers, and we did this by building our popup for ourselves.  And it was only when it works so well did we launch it as a separate company. And we named it MiloTree after our favorite tree in Hawaii. So what is this podcast all about? Well, I created it because I think blogging is such a powerful way to build a business. But I also think blogging can be a little lonely. A lot of times you're trying stuff because someone told you to, and you don't know if it's going to work. And I think there's an element of flying blind when you're a blogger. So with this podcast, I wanted to interview other bloggers who have had success, and I want to ask them how they got started, and their strategies, even their failures. So this is a podcast where I want to learn the truth about people's businesses. I want to know how they monetize, what their income streams are, what social platforms are most important to them, what products they sell. Because no blog is the same as any other.And I also want to ask these bloggers how they balance everything in their lives. How many hours a week do they work. My goal is to give you real takeaways that you can apply to your own business, and I want to give you inspiration and insights. But I really want to give you ideas and a-ha moments that you can incorporate. And also I want this to be real. There are too many people telling you that they went from zero to seven figures in seven months, and I have to say don't believe them, because one thing I've learned in my journey as a blogger and entrepreneur is there are no magic bullets but... There are smart people finding smart ways to build businesses. And that's what I want to share. I think of this podcast as a co-creation between you and me. So if there are things you'd like me to ask my guests. or ideas you have for episodes please reach out. I read every email and respond. I'm jillian@milotree.com and please subscribe to this podcast. I promise you will learn something new and important in every episode. I look forward to taking this journey with you!