HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU'RE READY TO START A BLOG

The story of how I started blogging…

Before I dive in, I wanted to share my story of how I started to give you a peek into what it looked like first hand instead of spout random steps to take.

The amount of times I’ve been asked “Tanna how did you know you were ready to start a blog?” is A LOT. The short answer is I just did it. The long answer? It honestly wasn’t a cool thing back in 2013. People weren’t really making money like they are now when I started. I started my blog as an outlet and resource for my friends who kept asking me for fashion advice. I felt like I was saying the same things over and over again to them so I decide to just write it all down in one place and then send them a link! This was my WHY! Finding your WHY for your space on the internet is the MAIN THING to think about it. Of course you can grow and evolve your space as I did from fashion tips to social media tips, recipes, and travel guides but really having that why being the main focus is how you’ll be successful. Okay we put it out there. The word successful… Something that’s always kind of haunted me when writing on my little space of the world wide web. What it success? How do you value that? To me.. success is feeling completely content and happen with what I’m doing with my platforms. NOT a value of money. This was hard because when I started I was still putting in hours and hours of time writing and taking photos for my blog but I was a full time college student who then graduated and became a full time marketer at an agency.

Numerous people thought I was CRAZY for spending this much time on something that wasn’t bringing in money because they valued success by money.

I valued success by being happy with what I was creating, remember? Oooof my dad especially didn’t understand it because he’s a businessman raised by a businessman and success = money. My dad berated me (especially when I was in college because I was still dependent) about how I needed to spend less time on something that doesn’t even bring in money. Y’all he literally told me to focus on school only and not to blog anymore.. Jokes on him I lived in a different city and after he told me that I made it my motivation to study hard, blog harder, and grow my community. <—— that’s a biggie. Remember that. GROW MY COMMUNITY. That semester I actually landed my first paid collaboration and made the dean’s list at my university. Suck it dad! haha nah it’s all fun and jokes now. My dad is still kicking himself for ever saying that to me. We’ve definitely grown since then. BUT the entire point of that was I was focused on my blog and then the paid collaborations came because my passion was showing through in my writing, photographs, and genuine connection with others. PS: that paid brand collaboration was like $100 and not even genuine to me at the time. I certainly learned my lesson since then to only work with brands I truly love and believe in.

So if you’re wanting to start a blog to make money…

I hate to break it to ya but it takes A LONG TIME. Typically it comes when you’re not even thinking about it becoming a business most of the time. One big tip is that you must have your passion and niche. It’s hard to just become a content creator because you wanna make money. I’ve been doing this since 2014 and JUST now in 2020 started making a decent income. I don’t say this to scare you. I just want you to know it takes A LOT OF WORK.

Questions to ask yourself to determine if you’re ready to start a blog:

Is there a topic individuals keep coming to me for that I’m passionate about?

This could be makeup advice, travel tips, recipes, life advice, health & wellness, professional coaching, etc.

Do I want to commit to posting something at least once a week?

At least once a week is pretty normal. Sometimes I post more than that, sometimes I post less but in the beginning you’re really trying to push out content. I was posting just about every other day when I first started. I was reviewing products, talking about life, and sharing fashion tips.

Do I want a space to share with others a build an amazing community?

If you said hell to the yes then blogging is for YOU! I definitely didn’t ever imagine people coming to my blog and finding inspiration or seeing me as relatable but it’s honestly amazing. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Common misconceptions of having a blog:

You need to be a professional writer.

LOLZZZZ! You guys. I am dyslexic af… and grew up hated writing. Probably because I’m dyslexic af and didn’t get diagnosed until college. All my english teachers told me I wrote too conversational and that’s not something I would be able to do in the future. Welp.. jokes on them because my entire blog is all conversational writing and exactly how I would be talking to you if I were right in front of you. Make your blog YOU! If you want to write super proper and it feels good for you to do so… DO IT. Nothing is holding you back. For me, I felt most relaxed writing in this manner.

You must be a professional photographer.

You don’t! I have been taking photos since I was 12 on a Nikon hot pink digital camera, but that doesn’t mean I’m a professional. I had always wanted to take beautiful photos for the internet to see since I had a Myspace page. Remember Myspace?! LOL! Anyway, I hopped on Youtube and taught myself EVERYTHING. I asked for cameras for Christmas from my parents and then saved up my money to buy an upgraded DSLR camera that I now use to take all my photos.

You need to be a graphic designer.

Oh hell nah. You definitely don’t have to be a graphic designer. Y’all ever heard of Canva before? LOL! It’s such a great resource for designing pretty much any graphic. Additionally can create a lot of cool things over there and then post them as images on your site to make it look for official and professional. I’m also self taught in Photoshop and learned everything from YouTube videos.

You need to be a website designer.

No way no how! There are so many companies you can pay to design a beautiful website for you OR you can teach yourself! I’ve had a blog on Blogger, Wordpress, and SquareSpace and was able to create beautiful websites by watching YouTube tutorials.

You need to already have a following on Instagram.

Like I said before, I started my blog before I ever started an Instagram page so this is definitely not true. You can actually reach a lot of people by having a website from Google searches. Additionally, you can post pins on Pinterest directing people to your blog. That’s where most of my audience on my blog comes from. Be sure you check out my freebie, “3 Secrets to Using Pinterest to Drive Traffic”. I’ve been able to grow my Pinterest views from 5,000 monthly views to 500,000 monthly views and I’m driving those individuals to my blog!

One final thing I want to touch on is that all your social media accounts aren’t truly yours. If you have followers on Instagram and then Instagram dies tomorrow… where are your followers going to go to find you? My followers know I actively post on my blog too and even subscribe to my email list. This is a HUGE reason to start a blog and drive your Instagram audience to your blog!

Why blog posts are way better than Instagram posts

The longevity of a blog post is WAY longer than an Instagram post.

With the Instagram algorithm ever changing you never truly know how long an Instagram post will live. Typically, in the marketing world, we like to say it lives for about 24 - 48 hours max. A blog post, however can live for YEARS! I still am getting traffic to blog posts I published from 2 - 3 years ago. You can also be consistently posting pins on Pinterest driving traffic to your old blog posts which significantly helps boost them.

Blog posts allow for more personality.

What I mean by that is you can create a blog post with multiple images, videos, gifs, colors, words, etc. This can’t all be on Instagram. They cap you at a certain number of images and really don’t allow you to take your audience on a journey like a blog post can as your readers scroll.

Blog posts allow for linking to products, shops, websites, and more!

This is HUGE! We all know Instagram only allows you to link in your bio or if you have 10,000 followers you can link in a 24 hour story and save it to a highlight. A blog post allows you to link numerous things and then again remember that your blog post lives longer than an Instagram post and if you’re continually posting about it (Pinterest pins& working on SEO), it can be generating views & clicks which can also be generating you money if they’re affiliate links or RewardStyle links.

If you do get into monetizing your social media platforms… blogs pay more!

I always get the most money from my blog post collaborations. Typically it will be a full blog post as the main deliverable for the brand + shares on my other social media platforms for an extra fee. You can charge a lot for blog coverage because of the amount of people it can reach plus the amount of content you can put into a blog post vs. an Instagram post.

If I haven’t sold you on creating a blog yet… I don’t know what to do! haha! I promise you, it’s one of the best decisions I ever made. Know that it’s not ever going to be perfect. My blog is still far from my idea of perfect but it’s come a long way since my Blogger days in 2014!

You’ve got this! I’m rooting for you to start that blog!

Let me know if you have ANY questions!

XOXO

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