As a blogger I feel like the biggest question I get and others get is… How did you get started blogging and influencing. I also have a pretty good feeling that we all have a rather different story with maybe a few similarities.
I have always loved writing. My grammar might not be the best, my vocabulary well its not huge (I spend most of my day with little people), and I ramble in real life and it comes out in my writing. I however still enjoy writing as an outlet.
So, I tossed around the idea of blogging for awhile. SO I STARTED ONE…Ha it wasn’t that easy! That first blog never received a single look! I maybe did one post… It was downright terrible.
So I took a step back and thought about why I wanted to start a Blog, what I wanted to write about, where I wanted my blog to go, and how I was going to do it. I then began spending my evenings researching the heck out of it all. Its a long dark tunnel that you can totally get lost in and overwhelmed with. I kept digging and learning about what platforms to use and where to really begin. Because lets be honest…Setting up my blog in the right place was huge and starting on the right foot was just as huge.
I also read that a NICHE was super important. I really struggled with this because I wanted to talk about ALL THE THINGS but everything I was reading said I CAN’T. I thought about this a lot and decided I didn’t care what they said. If this Blog was going to be about me and our life then I was going to write about those things. I decided that my audience meant more to me than my NICHE. In my heart I felt like my followers were going to be moms and why wouldn’t they want to read about ALL THE THINGS?
So, after a ton of research and decided who my audience was…I started my BLOG. A brand new from scratch new name and all, BLOG! I went from failing on wordpress.com to trying to look professional on wordpress.org. Let me tell you the two are totally different. .org I had to work at it and its a lot of trial and error. I first tried one of the free templates… learn from my mistake and get yourself a good professional template. I promise everything will work better.
So once I had my domain and platform I needed to customize it to fit my style. As I was customizing I was reminding myself a few things… First impressions are important. Do not publish anything until you like how it looks. I don’t have to LOVE it because I can always make small changes but there is no starting completely over, again. With that mindset and looking at a million blogs I slowly pieced mine together.
Shortly after getting it to where I was somewhat happy (still working on perfection) I wrote my first blog post. I truly wrote it thinking know one will ever read it but it sure was fun writing. However, my first blog post turned into my social media friends wanting more info. I couldn’t believe it… people actually liked what I put out there in cyber space!
Now I was researching, HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS. WHY? Because, in a nutshell the more people that follow me on social media the more likely they will check out and possibly follow my blog. I noticed that I received the most engagement on Instagram posts that were me talking about personal stuff or clothes. So I started to do those daily. It also lead me to a few more posts so if they did go to my blog, they would have more than one post to read. Then I started getting notifications that my blog was getting a lot of attention. Now, I have some subscribers (honestly just a few) but way more views and clicks.
After about a month of blogging and posting daily outfit inspiration photos on Instagram I decided to do some reevaluating on where I wanted this all to go. I was really enjoying the growth, the new social media relationships, and making myself get dressed daily to show up on social media. I have had the liketoknow.it app for a long time and love to follow bloggers that are associated with liketoknow.it. So, I decided to take a leap and apply. I have heard and read how hard it is to get accepted into rewardstyle so I didn’t think I would actually get accepted. I had to give them all my social networking platforms I am on and my Blog site to look through. A few days went by and one Polar Vrotex day, I got the email that said I had been accepted! I kid you not I cried tears of joy and was shaking with excitement. My husband saw my excitement so of course he was excited but I am still having to explain it all to him.
Now, was it easy to do all of this? HELL freakin NO! I worked my butt off! I stayed up later than I ever should have! I worked all day as a wife, mom, church volunteer, and office manager for my husbands Chiropractic Office and all night building my blog.
Getting here was only half the battle! The real work began when I got the email! I thought blogging looked easy and that being an influencer looked fun and easy! To be completely honest, its HARD! I have to plan content, I have to create content, I have to take photos, I have to edit photos, I have to link photos, I have to be active on social media, I have to deliver good relevant content to my audience, and I have to do all of it while balancing everything else. Even with all of that said… I AM LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!
So, in a nutshell… I failed once. I researched before rebuilding. I rebuilt from ground level. I worked my booty off and IT WORKED! You can do it too!
