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Any tips for how my girl and I can get started on that path? Basically like you and your wife, for the social rewards?

freehunter 8y ago
First step is to just start blogging/vlogging. Lots of people try to just do social media and personally I think it's harder that way. Do social media but link it all back to your blog/vlog. Make sure Google can find your content (which is hard when you're pure FB/Insta). Do that for a while. A few months at least, with a few dozen quality posts. Also look in your area for a local bloggers group. One blogger doesn't have a lot of power, but the groups tend to get a group invite to big social/branded events. You're probably not going to get anywhere unless you pay Facebook. $1/day is enough to get them to show your page to a wider audience. FB ads can work on Instagram too if you pick the right settings. What we do most of the time is go out to a local restaurant, somewhere we were planning on going anywhere, but write an article about it afterwards. Shop local stores, and write about them. Look for upcoming events and write about them. Share all your posts on social media. Tag businesses in them. This is all stuff we would be doing anyway, the only difference is when we get home we write about it on our blog. That makes it an easy habit to keep up. After a few months and a few dozen quality posts, start making sure people know who you are. If you want to talk to a business owner, email them directly, introduce yourself, see if you can get an interview. Now they know who you are. Keep doing that. Keep attending blogger events around you. Congratulations, you're now reaping the social status that you're looking for. This all works best if you have no significant competition. If there are other high profile blogs doing exactly what you're doing, you're going to need a niche. And just like in startups, don't be afraid to pivot or re-launch a few times. We're in the middle of a small pivot right now, we grew a big audience over the years and now we're going to try to flex some muscle to see if our audience can pitch in and help with community projects. Natural growth is slow. Keep plugging away, and keep paying Zuckerberg his pound of flesh, and you'll get there. But the day it stops being fun without any additional cash in your pocket, that's the day you might want to rethink it.
- minhazm423 8y ago
  Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to write an in depth answer. Any tips on how to blog? Or be better at it? I'm always doing things with my gf but never think to write about it, or think that id have some unique perspective or opinion to offer. How do I find my voice? How do I get better at writing? Before I even start? Meaning I know the common wisdom of just do it and you'll get better but I have this anxiety of even starting at all because of being seen as less than, or try-hard, or w/e. The idea of being watched as I perform scares me, the thought of failing publically. Maybe its a certain type of bravery that I lack? Idk Any advice appreciated. In terms of getting better at writing, and handling the anxiety of critique and etc. Thank you!
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Like you said the easiest way is just do it. "Real artists ship" and all that stuff. The good news is, absolutely no one will read your blog at first. You could have a live blog on the Internet for years and have no one actually read it. People just don't visit websites anymore. One thing you can do, open up Word and write there. Pictures and everything. Just practice, offline, where no one can see it. See if it sounds good. Write stuff you want to read, and read other blogs to see how they do it. As for the critique, unless they're correcting factual inaccuracies that you should fix, I just ignore it all. Haters gonna hate, and you should be glad someone's paying enough attention to you to have an opinion on your writing. More realistically, the people who don't like what you're doing will just not read your stuff. Negative criticism I've found to be pretty rare unless you're talking politics. And if your target audience is under 40, you're in luck: their attention span is almost nonexistent. You can get away with a good picture and 200 words and that can be your entire article. You don't need to write SAT essays for every post because no one's gonna read all of that. Save your words for "evergreen" content where people will be reading it for months/years in the future. Oh, and read blogs about blogging so you get to know and understand terms like SEO and evergreen and stuff. There's a whole culture behind crafting a post.
    - minhazm423 8y ago
      Thanks! Any particularly useful resources?

First step is to just start blogging/vlogging. Lots of people try to just do social media and personally I think it's harder that way. Do social media but link it all back to your blog/vlog. Make sure Google can find your content (which is hard when you're pure FB/Insta). Do that for a while. A few months at least, with a few dozen quality posts. Also look in your area for a local bloggers group. One blogger doesn't have a lot of power, but the groups tend to get a group invite to big social/branded events. You're probably not going to get anywhere unless you pay Facebook. $1/day is enough to get them to show your page to a wider audience. FB ads can work on Instagram too if you pick the right settings. What we do most of the time is go out to a local restaurant, somewhere we were planning on going anywhere, but write an article about it afterwards. Shop local stores, and write about them. Look for upcoming events and write about them. Share all your posts on social media. Tag businesses in them. This is all stuff we would be doing anyway, the only difference is when we get home we write about it on our blog. That makes it an easy habit to keep up. After a few months and a few dozen quality posts, start making sure people know who you are. If you want to talk to a business owner, email them directly, introduce yourself, see if you can get an interview. Now they know who you are. Keep doing that. Keep attending blogger events around you. Congratulations, you're now reaping the social status that you're looking for. This all works best if you have no significant competition. If there are other high profile blogs doing exactly what you're doing, you're going to need a niche. And just like in startups, don't be afraid to pivot or re-launch a few times. We're in the middle of a small pivot right now, we grew a big audience over the years and now we're going to try to flex some muscle to see if our audience can pitch in and help with community projects. Natural growth is slow. Keep plugging away, and keep paying Zuckerberg his pound of flesh, and you'll get there. But the day it stops being fun without any additional cash in your pocket, that's the day you might want to rethink it.

minhazm423 8y ago
Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to write an in depth answer. Any tips on how to blog? Or be better at it? I'm always doing things with my gf but never think to write about it, or think that id have some unique perspective or opinion to offer. How do I find my voice? How do I get better at writing? Before I even start? Meaning I know the common wisdom of just do it and you'll get better but I have this anxiety of even starting at all because of being seen as less than, or try-hard, or w/e. The idea of being watched as I perform scares me, the thought of failing publically. Maybe its a certain type of bravery that I lack? Idk Any advice appreciated. In terms of getting better at writing, and handling the anxiety of critique and etc. Thank you!
- freehunter 8y ago
  Like you said the easiest way is just do it. "Real artists ship" and all that stuff. The good news is, absolutely no one will read your blog at first. You could have a live blog on the Internet for years and have no one actually read it. People just don't visit websites anymore. One thing you can do, open up Word and write there. Pictures and everything. Just practice, offline, where no one can see it. See if it sounds good. Write stuff you want to read, and read other blogs to see how they do it. As for the critique, unless they're correcting factual inaccuracies that you should fix, I just ignore it all. Haters gonna hate, and you should be glad someone's paying enough attention to you to have an opinion on your writing. More realistically, the people who don't like what you're doing will just not read your stuff. Negative criticism I've found to be pretty rare unless you're talking politics. And if your target audience is under 40, you're in luck: their attention span is almost nonexistent. You can get away with a good picture and 200 words and that can be your entire article. You don't need to write SAT essays for every post because no one's gonna read all of that. Save your words for "evergreen" content where people will be reading it for months/years in the future. Oh, and read blogs about blogging so you get to know and understand terms like SEO and evergreen and stuff. There's a whole culture behind crafting a post.
  - minhazm423 8y ago
    Thanks! Any particularly useful resources?