Exciting Emails: The Podcast

In this episode Vix tackles the topic of content planning. Do you plan your content? Or do you currently create content as and when with no real direction?  This episode will get you thinking about planning your content that hits your pillars within your niche, and putting content out there with purpose. 

In this episode, Vix chats you through 4 ways that you can use the latest feature on Instagram, Guides.  Whether you're a small business, personal brand or influencer, this is a super helpful episode to inspire you to dip your toe into creating Instagram Guides.

In this episode Vix talks Instagram. The growth of the app, all it's features and her own Instagram features she uses and loves as part of her brand.  Also, listen carefully and keep track of how many times you hear Vix's phone vibrate!

In this episode Vix talks accountability, within her business life, personal life and how she uses it to move her business forward.   Want to know the most powerful ways Vix includes accountability in her business? Then give this episode a listen!

In this episode Vix walks you through her SHARE framework, explaining in detail exactly how she creates her content.  Want to get more shares and saves on your content? Then this is the episode for you!

In this episode Vix tackles the topic of how solving your audiences problems, actually solves your content problems. Resulting in no more "I don't know what to post" scenarios.  Do you ever get stuck with what content to post? Then this is the episode for you!  

In this episode Vix shares how she sold out a group coaching  program solely via Instagram stories. Are you looking to put out a group coaching program or course of some kind? Then listen to this for all the tips and advice you need to sell out!

In this episode, Vix chats through the evolution of the Grow & Glow membership. From setting up, the general running of, tips Vix has learnt over time and so much more.  If you want to start your very own membership as part of your Personal Brand or Small Business, then this is the episode for you!

In today's episode Vix is joined by Jordan Gill of Systems Saved Me to chat about productivity, sharing the tools and systems that Jordan uses and finds the most helpful to support the running of her business. 

In this episode, Vix addresses the need to change our content strategy in a post Tiger King, current Covid world.  How will you be changing your content strategy in 2020 making sure your content is still valuable, useful and still inspiring for your audience?

Today Vix will be chatting about the importance of building a story brand. What it is, how to build one, how we're changing our story behind Grow & Glow and more!  

You're probably thinking, what the hell is a SOP? Well Vix will tell you in this episode! By the end of this short bonus episode, you'll know what SOPs are they'll be productivity game changers for your business. 

In this episode Vix chats about her personal experiences regarding her recent switch up with Instagram content, sharing with you the results she's found that have come off the back of this change and why niching content works. 

Vix tackles the question Is a personal brand wanky, or do you need one'? Delving into what a personal brand actually is, shares what some of our community thinks of it, what we believe at Grow & Glow and so much more.

Vix sits down with the one and only Francesca Perks, to chat about building a community, how not sharing everything about you life is ok, and that you don't have to be present on every platform.

It's a question I get asked a lot - should you launch a course or a membership? In today's Behind The Biz episode, I'll break down the main differences so you can reflect on which one would be best for you!

There are over 17 million bloggers across the world - how can you ensure your content stands out above the rest? Employ these 5 KILLER tips and you'll be standing out above the rest in no time!

What apps and services do I LIVE by to run my business? I'll run through all of the tools I use in this episode - and hopefully there's a couple you've not thought of before!

Vix sits down with one of Grow & Glows founding members Teresa Maria, to talk about the positive impacts being a member of our community has had on her, friendships she's made and finding her niche. 

In this episode of Behind the Biz, I walk you through all of the main expenses and investments I’ve made for my business so far. I want to illustrate that ANYONE can start to grow their platforms with little to no money and scale your investment as you scale your earnings! What’s been the best investment you’ve made for your platforms so far?

Vix chats again with harlotte Moore from Studio Sonder and Girl on Film, stressing about the importance of your copy sounding like you, on keeping a bank of ideas for captions and the rules of storytelling. 

Charlotte Moore from Studio Sonder and Girl on Film walks us through how to up-level our website, blog and social media copy to talk to our audiences and push our personal brands in the most natural and authentic way.   Her insight is GOLD - listen in now....

How do I manage to make a full time income from blogging and creating resources for a community? I break it down in this episode of The Grow & Glow Show. This is a bonus episode we're calling, 'Behind The Biz' where we share the inner workings of what running an influencer and membership business is really like. I hope it's helpful!

Honestly give it 5 minutes on TikTok and those songs will be stuck in your head all day too! Yep, we’re back with an episode on my new favourite app - TikTok! So why TikTok? Everyone is 12, no one can get any business from it and it certainly won’t drive traffic or help build a brand, right? WRONG? In fact, in today’s episode I’m going to tell you why - whether you’re a blog or a brand - you need to be on TikTok! Whilst you’re listening to this episode, and thinking, alright Vix, I’ll bloody download it but then you open it up and you’re like why is everyone dancing? Why is the Washington Post doing Kardashian quotes? And you’re feeling totally out of the loop… we’ve made a free guide for you to get you started! Head to tiktokwoah.com and download the e-book for all the beginner tutorials and strategy you need! So let’s dive in on TikTok - I won’t bore you with it’s origins, you can read about that in the e-book BUT there are some things I want to share with you. Firstly, it currently has 1.5 billion registered users with that number growing rapidly in recent climes. Of those 1.5 billion registered profiles, 800 million of them are regular users. And those users spend on average 52 minutes a day on the app. Yes, 60% of those users are 16-24 (and younger I imagine) and you might not think that age group are your target audience or customer, but they will be in a year or two - and that’s why it’s so important for brand building. Also we’re looking at reports of 26-35% of users being 30+ - that is a huge chunk of audience you could be reaching. As a creator though, you might be thinking you haven’t got time for ANOTHER app to be getting on with. But here’s why I think you should spend a little less time mindlessly scrolling Instagram and a lil more time creating on TikTok… Firstly, TikTok is THE platform for under curation - some of the most popular and viral videos take less than 1 minute to make and post meaning no photographer, editor, photoshoot location and poring over blog like captions - it’s way more instant and the ability to post, go and still grow is exciting. Secondly, the REACH. With just 100 followers I created a video that has gone on to get 90k views. TikTok doesn’t work like Instagram in that reach is limited (right now), it’s super simple - make engaging content, have it shared further and wider than you can ever imagine. At 1k followers, I created a silly video guessing the gender and age of the viewers watching with amassed 7k views over night and 35k views within 24 hours, gaining me an extra 1.5k followers in a day - when was the last time you experienced that kinda growth on any other platform? But even better than that - followers aren’t THE metric to get caught up on! I’ve seen fashion influencers with under 10k on Instagram and 1-4k on TikTok do brand collaborations - SPONSORED - on TikTok. That’s because the most important metric on TikTok is ‘true reach’ aka how many people have watched your video! And to get more views, your video needs to get early likes, comments, shares and saves to boost it along - but don’t worry I go over this more in the e-book. So Ok you’re probably thinking - cool another app to collect followers on but how does this translate to traffic, partnerships or growing my brand right? Well just this month, TikTok began to roll out link in bio for all users - whilst we haven’t gotten enough data to prove that traffic can be referred from this app in a meaningful way - it means it’s coming - just like Instagram in the early days (plus we shouldn’t be relying on TikTok for traffic - that’s what SEO and Pinterest is for) So how does it help with partnerships? Well I’ve just added it on as an extra service with a package I’m working on with a brand in the next few months - more and more brands, already established on Instagram but wanting to prep their TikToks ready for their next generation of customers are turning to TikTok - that means they’ll need TikTok influencers to partner with. And how does it help grow your brand? That’s a little trickier to quantify but there are a few brands and personalities absolutely KILLING it right now. The Washington Post is now seen as the COOLEST newspaper because of their presence on the app. Local bakeries are seeing a surge in customers due to sharing their cake making skills on the app and even crafty Etsy sellers whose videos of making things have gone viral, have seen an upswing in interest and sales. On a personal note, with around 1k followers I was messaged on LinkedIn by a guy who found me on TikTok who wanted to book me to come into his company and consult on influencer marketing, digital marketing and TikTok - this kind of discovery is so exciting. But you know, maybe you’re thinking now isn’t the right time, you want to wait for more people to jump on, more people your age or in your niche, right? But like Gary Vee once said, do you want to be the first or be the best? Basically, if you’re not the ‘best’ at YouTube or Instagram, you sell have that window to be the first on TikTok - but that window won’t last. Don’t we all wish we were the first at YouTube or Instagram? We still have this opportunity on TikTok. Hopefully you can see why I love this app so much and why it’s my new favourite! I’d love to know your thoughts and experiences so far… SO go download the e-book, jump in our free TikTok Facebook group - search for TikTok Woah - and I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

Vix sits down with OG blogging queen Megan Ellaby to talk to highs and lows of her blogging career so far. From collaborating with her sister, to starting her own brand and the trolling that comes in-between. 

Did you know that theming your blog content really helps with SEO? Let me walk you through the benefits of a blog series in this week's episode, help you plan one and talk to you about how it can improve your blog's ranking.

Are you guilty of being on the content treadmill? Write, photo, record, edit, publish, promo and on again? In this week's episode I'll discuss the importance of getting strategic and taking a step off of the treadmill so you can work ON your shiz, not in it. Plus I'll fill you in on how I do exactly that, so you can have a go yourselves.

Spoiler, your captions aren't really 'shit', they're just not doing the bits you need them to be doing for you. Listen to this week's newest episode to hear about all of the terrible captions I've previously written, why they're so terrible and come away with actionable tips on how to writer better Instagram captions!

Welcome back to what was The Exciting Emails Podcast and is now THE GROW & GLOW SHOW!   The content stays the same, I'm STILL teaching you everything you need to know about launching, running, growing and GLOWING a successful blog - we've just had a sexy makeover and a whole load of new episodes to come!   In this episode I'm taking it RIGHT BACK to where a lot of you get stuck when it comes to establishing yourself online, and that's finding your niche, your USPs and the space for you to glow in.   Let's shift our mindsets and by the end of the episode, come away with fresh ideas and the motivation to stake your spot in the online world.

In this bonus episode I have some exciting news AND I interview some current Grow & Glow members to find out why YOU should join our exciting, thriving and ever expanding hub of creators!

  This is one of those blogging guru type things that I should really trademark, because I make up words and terms but actually probably shouldn’t because it’ll sound like bollocks but in today’s episode, I’m sharing my approach to content creation - how to create content that Google loves, how content that builds relationships with readers and content that brands will love. That’s all you need right? PS this is what I teach my coaching clients and you’re getting it FO FREE.. Are ya ready?     When I first started blogging, as I’ve mentioned many many times before, it was a total hodge podge of favourite lipsticks, awful date stories and dry AF holiday diaries. I had no intention. No strategy. No frigging clue.   It was only when I started having ‘working lunches’ with other bloggers, where I’d teach them the strategies that had been working for me, did I actually even realise I had strategies. Y’know those moments where you feel like you’re blagging total bullshit - omg interlude, I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and my sister and I watched How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days in our room and they dubbed the word bullshit with bullspizz or something and I’ll never forget it - so yeah you’re blagging bullspizz and then you’re like, wow ok that’s not bullspizz that’s actually informationally correct goodness? Yeah it was one of those.   I realised that the content I’d made that had performed the best and had one form of success, fell into 3 succinct categories. I then got my lil teacher brain on and wrote it all out and made it a thing which I then taught.   So lemme teach ya!   Blog content essentially needs to serve 1 of 3 purposes - sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don’t.   1 - they need to be searchable 2 - they need to be relatable 3 - they need to appeal to brands for future collars   The names I came up with were searchable, relatable and brandable and I know the last term is bullspizz but stay with me as I’m going to break down what each one means and what results you’ll get!   ÷÷ This episode is sponsored by Grow & Glow, a community for creators who want support, transparency and skills to establish and develop their online presence.   LOL obvs it’s my membership hub but I wanted to drop in and tell you a bit about how the hub can help you with content creation! Not only do we have a v fancy and useful social media planner that you can swipe, AND a huge brand database to tap into for that brand able content but we also have a thriving community of over 100 founding members all ready to become your new blogging BFFs. Doors open again in August, but I’d love to see you on the wait-list where I’ll share more info about what you can look forward to inside the hub. Go to growglow.co/wait-list to join in!   ++   The content that is searchable brings traffic to your blog from outer sources such as Google and Pinterest. The relatable stuff is what gets your audience to fall in love with you and share it amongst their followers or nearest and dearest. And the brand able content is your portfolio to show brands that they should work with you - these two last content types totally translate to Instagram too, right?   Searchable content is the stuff you SEO and keyword research to, the, eye balls. And I’m going to do a whole separate episode on keyword research so dontcha worry, I got you.   Relatable is the stuff that will let the reader get to know you. And everyone has their own scale of relatable from ‘here’s the contents of my bowels’ to ‘my real name is actually Ethel Von Burstensturg and I secretly live in a Romanian fishing village’ and you get to decide how much of yourself you want to share online. But I will say I 100% don’t believe I would’ve had the journey I’ve had so far, if I didn’t let you into my life!   And then the brand able content is the stuff you create either in partnership with brands OR where you organically feature the brands you love so you have it as a portfolio piece to show them how much they definitely need to work with you.   There’s not hard and fast rule to say - write 3 relatable, 2 searchable and 1 brand able post a month - it’s down to you, your goals and your schedule.   Perhaps you can only blog once a week and your focus is to land a collaboration with Oliver Bonas - make that your priority. Or you don’t get really any audience engagement or love AT ALL, so it could be a good time to focus on creating that content that lets them know more about you and builds relationships.   Like I said, these can cross over too! Perhaps you want to write a post on your miracle morning routine… you can make that relatable by discussing how and why you need routines, you can make it searchable by doing keyword research and formatting the post appropriately OR you can make it brandable by talking about your favourite brand and how you include it into your routine - does that make sense?   So grab your planner, paper, a pen and draw out 3 columns, name them relatable, searchable and brand able and note down some post ideas you have! Which ones can cross columns?   I’d love for you to email me, DM me or pop into the Exciting Emails Facebook group and share your post ideas!   Until next time, byeeeee

Always at inbox 3000? Can't ever seem to get a system that works for you? Feel like you could be letting those EXCITING EMAILS slip through the net? Not anymore! I bring you my super easy email system that means I ALWAYS have a clear inbox...

You asked for an episode about how I structure my week as a ‘full time content’ creator and HERE IT IS.   First I’m going to discuss how I PLAN my week out and them I’m going to tell you how my last 3 weeks PANNED out. With a whole load of reflection about what that teaches us about ‘flexible working’.   So if you’re ready to step inside my world, keep listening!     Early on this year I decided that batch working would be the way for me to go. I made a fancy planner on Canva and told everyone around me how I’d be structuring my week for the best.   And I actually managed to stick to it for a few weeks - I was definitely way more productive, switched off a lot more easily and felt totally on top of life.   But in this job, as much as I’d love to stick to a routine and structure, some times obstacles, opportunities and life plans tend to come through and upset it all!   When I have a week that pans out exactly as I have planned - I feel happy, settled and content with how things are moving and shaking. When they go arse over tit - sometimes for a good reason - I can feel discombobulated and out of sorts.   I also want to say, that as much as I plan weekly, I’ve also started planning around my menstrual cycle.   This is something I recommend for ANYONE who menstruates.   I’ve tracked my period for the last few months through apps and written journals. In doing this I’ve learned that the first 5 days after my period I am the most confident and energetic. Then I take a dip and around ovulation I have zeeeerrrrooo motivation or drive. I then get a bit of energy back but during my period I’m basically a right off.   So in knowing this, I take more on during my ultra productive days and virtually block myself out whilst I’m bleeding out. Sos but it’s periods - get over it.   ANWAY on a weekly basis, the dream week goes like this…   MONDAY   Wake up when Ben goes to work, have a slow morning of reading, drinking water, going to the gym and listening to podcasts.   Then head to the cafe to do all emails, planning for the week and write a blog post. I normally have an energy dip at 2-5pm so I head home and chill out between then. If I get a burst of energy I’ll turn my laptop back on and see what’s crackalacking before Ben comes home and we cook/chill together.   TUESDAY   Same as Monday basically but a bit free-ish incase I have a meeting, event or an important Wahaca lunch with my buddy Laurzrah booked in.   WEDNESDAY   This is the day when I TRYYYYY and plan/record podcasts. Although my VA Dani will attest to how much that ACTUALLY happens. The thought is there OK! I also leave this one a bit Flexi incase I need to move other days around.   THURSDAY   Is my coaching day. I’m still coaching 11 lovely bloggers so I block out today so they can book in their coaching calls or Facetimes. I am winding down the coaching and not taking on new clients when my current ones graduate, so I can leave more time for Grow & Glow but it’s such a nice day to wake up knowing I’ll be having virtual coffees with all my faves.   FRIDAY   Is my day off. Again it might be a day where I need to catch up with shit OR it’s the day where I have some self-care and actually switch off and make time for myself.   But like I said, lately these days have been a bit different, so I’m going to run through what I remember from the last three weeks to give you a bit of a flavour of how different my weeks can be.   I’ll also preface this by saying, that my anxiety has been quite bad lately and one of the side effects I get is extreme memory loss. So some of you avid Story watchers might have a different recollection than me - but I’m going by my diary, k!!!   Alright so 3 weeks ago what did I do…   MONDAY   It was the 29th April and I *think* it was the day I went to meet Debs from Bang On Style for a bit of coaching in central London. I was early so whizzed through all my emails - which I’m ALWAYS on top of because of my system. Do you want an episode on that? Let me know! We went to a Costa and ended up chatting/coaching/planning for about 3 hours.   By the time we were done, I came home and flopped on the sofa.   TUESDAY   On Tuesday it was Laurzrah’s bday lunch so I met her in Soho and took her for a Wahaca (although we probs went halves) and gave her her pressies before we had a mooch around town. I came back home around 4pm and started Jane the Virgin and watched it until Ben came back. I also started making some resources for the Grow & Glow hub and started getting really excited for launch!   WEDNESDAY   I had therapy first thing and it was a TOUGH session that completely knackered me out. I think I just went home and got into bed! Possibly titted about on Canva making downloads and resources for G&G but really took it easy.   THURSDAY   Was a coaching day so I had back to back appointments - some ran over so I had to reschedule and then I met my old school pals for a Nandos and a catch up. Our lives are so different now but I love hearing about school so much.   FRIDAY   On Friday I have nothing in the diary but I probably went to the cafe all day and caught up on emails, content creation,  content planning and Grow & Glow planning. I also had a coaching call from what I’d rescheduled previously.   That seems like a very unproductive week? Or is it because we believe working 9-5 solidly = productive? I feel like I got loads done though and everything was up to date? But looking at it like that, maybe not! Would love to know your thoughts!   The next week I spent Monday to Thursday at Alice Benham’s Gather & Grow retreat. I did so much working ON Grow & Glow whilst there - strategising, team planning, ideas flowing as well as loads of work on self confidence. I missed Ben loads but it was the best week ever. Ooh whilst I was away I also read Vox back to back - has anyone else read it?   On the Friday I had therapy and got to work on all of my new, exciting ideas.   Last week on MONDAY   I had a meeting with Oliver Bonas and then got to Supermarket Sweep in Store before meeting Laura for a lunch and then headed home to shoot different outfits and content for Oliver Bonas.   That was such a good meeting - they’re fully on board with Grow & Glow’s future and I have lots of goodness planned with them.   Nothing is in the diary for Tuesday and I forget what I did, if anything! Probably the cafe with laptop from 10-2ish, unless anyone else can remember!   I’m USELESS without my diary at the moment. I remember NOTHING unless someone reminds me. Even then I’ll often look at my diary and forget what’s in it 5 minutes later. Anxiety is fun, right!   On Wednesday I had therapy and then was supposed to drop into a press day before heading to St Pancras to meet Nati for coaching but the therapy took it out of me again so I just headed straight to meet Nati. We had a wonderful meeting and she even got a positive responses to something I helped her pitch for during our meeting!   I could’ve stopped by the press day afterwards but I was zonked. Plus I try and go to less press days nowadays unless they’re for brands I already have a relationship with or have the chance of working with. Otherwise it’s too much time out of my day!   On Thursday I had the worst mental health day I’d had in such a long time. I think it was the come down from the amazing week I had at the retreat and the pressure I put on myself to get Grow & Glow to be the best thing ever.   I was supposed to go to a press day, do a few coaching calls and then speak on a panel for LOL Mental Health week but I had to let them down the last minute because I couldn’t get out of bed. I decided to give myself a break - listen to my menstrual cycle, and just generally take care of myself. It helped a lot!   On Friday I was a bit more up and at em because I knew I was having a meeting in London with Lori and Beth - the two newest Grow & Glow members. We had a great time planning, strategising and dreaming about where we can take it and I left exhausted but excited for what’s to come!   Ben was on his stag do last weekend so I spent a lot of time at my sister’s and caught up with Grow & Glow work whilst at hers and then whilst was hannnnnnging post stag do!   This week has been slightly cray as I’ve had 7 sponsored posts come in for Instagram and the blog (whereas in April I had nada) so I’ve been darting here there and every where trying to shoot, create, edit and send for approval ON TOP of getting G&G ready for launch AND psyching myself up for the Blogosphere awards tomorrow (as I’m recording this).   So what can we learn about the week in the life of a full time content creator?   The biggest takeaway is really that no day and no week is the same. Sometimes you’ll have less brand work on so you can have more time concentrating on other areas of your business - so for me, developing Grow & Glow and other times it’ll be so cray that nothing feels like it gets completed.   Equally some days I’ll work for 2 hours and another day will be 10 hours on and off.   I also have so much appreciation for the flexibility in what I do so that when my awful mental health days or PMD days raise their heads, I can just give myself the time and space to recover. The flexibility has also allowed me to regularly go to therapy and take some time to reflect on what I’m learning afterwards.   Sometimes the lack of routine does bother me especially when I’m craving a bit of stability but it’s always the grass is greener isn’t it?   ALSO you might be thinking, ‘ok Vix but when do you sit down to schedule your pins or edit your podcasts though?’ And I have to say that the FIRST thing I did, as soon as I could afford it, when I went full time, was to hire a VA. Dani helps me with all of the admin side of things so I can really focus on working ON stuff as opposed to IN it? IYKWIM? Which makes me think I should totally do an episode on the difference between the two.   Anyway, I want to hear about your weeks and how you structure them! So jump into the Facebook group or message me on Instagram so we can chat! Until next time… BYEEEE

One of the questions I get asked the most, whenever I open up my Inbox for my Exciting Emails Clinic (sign up below the post and you can send in questions too!) is, 'how can I monetise my blog?' There are so many people, like you, out there who LOVE making content, writing posts, taking photos, pitching to brands and taking pride in your platforms but you just can't land collaborations. And 9 times out of 10, it's for the same few reasons. Therefore, I thought I'd break them down for you here! Your Content Doesn't Align If a brand comes across your blog because they thought they might want to work with you on an interiors product campaign and you've got blog posts on cookie recipes, gardening, mental health and travelling - the brand can often think that they can't quite work out who your audience is and whether that audience would align with theirs. That's not to say that lots of lifestyle blogs that cover a wide range of topics can't monetise - because they absolutely do. But this is usually because the person behind the blog has a strong personal brand that is already established and it is clear through their blog comments or their social media profiles that their audience is an established one. Your Blog Posts Aren't Optimised If a brand knows what they're doing when they're looking for blog coverage, there'll be looking for blogs that appear on Google, are SEO optimised, are well written and have clear, high-quality pictures. If you're boshing up 200 word rambles without spell-checking and a grainy, dimly lit photo from your phone, you have to ask yourself what a brand would get out of paying you to write for them. Your Traffic Is Low Some brands love to pay for content creation of a high quality - or a high DA for link-back juice. However others measure their ROI on how many visits a post is likely to get and then how many links are usually clicked and visited from that blog. If your blog isn't bringing much traffic in, the brand might worry that there will be no eyes on their campaign. You Don't Have A Social Presence At the moment, most of influencer marketing budget seems to be going into Instagram (and podcasts are on the rise too) but this means that spend on blog posts isn't the highest of priority. Therefore, if you don't have an established Instagram following to complement your banging blog, it might not be in the brand's priority list to work with a strong blogger/less Instagram presence influencer-mix. You Don't Cross And Up-Sell! You get approached for an Instagram campaign but you DON'T ask if they'd like a blog post too! Or if you get approached for a gifting campaign, you don't ask them if they'd like to sponsor a blog post where you review the product. This doesn't always work but it can - so give it a go! Here are just some of the things to bear in mind when trying to monetise your blog!

In any news article about influencers, the journalists always love to have a pop at how much we earn. It’s obvious that the general public and traditional media have an unsavoury view of influencers. Mainly due to reality TV celebs charging 5 figures for a facetuned selfie, holding up an indescript supplement and adding a ton of grain to their posts.   There’s also a huge problem with secrecy within the industry. Many creators have had their fingers burned by revealing their rates, only to be undercut by a ‘competing’ influencers.   We had a twitter chat over on #growglowchat where we discussed transparency and lots of good points were brought up. Such as, ‘why should we discuss rates? No other industry feels the need to.’ And they’re right - but if you were to Google, ‘how much does a plumber charge by the hour?’ You’re very likely to be met with millions of results that fall within a small range.   Plumbing is an industry that’s been around for hundreds of years, is regulated, has standards and not one single plumber has a monopoly over the whole market.   In the influencer industry, it’s only really been something that’s been making serious money for last 5-6 years. It’s unregulated and there are no standards that have been set. Further more, when you Google, ‘how much does an influencer charge?’, you’re met with 6836837 different results with often no rhyme or reason whatsoever.   In this episode, we’ll go over all of the contexts that need to be considered when setting your rates. We’ll go through a couple of strategies influencers use to work out their rates, I’ll share the feedback I’ve had from many influencers plus I’ll offer my experience on a way to work out rates that has worked for me these past few years!   As we begin this I just want to say how frigging overwhelming this is. I’m not an expert. I don’t work in influencer marketing. But I have been in this industry longer than the job of ‘influencer outreach’ has been around. And I will also say that generally, everyone is making it up as they go along.   PRs, Brands and Influencer outreach managers are throwing the term ‘ROI’ out like it’s going out of fashion, without REALLY understanding what it means. Because ROI in influencer marketing ISN’T about, ‘I paid them £200 and I made £100 profit on that investment.’ Because it just isn’t that simple. Furthermore, good influencer marketers understand that influencers aren’t sales people. They aren’t targeted on sales KPIs. Using an influencer for your marketing could be for a range of reasons - gaining social followers, improved brand chatter, increasing footfall to stores, improving affinity with audiences and the brands - these are difficult things to track and attribute to a single Instagram post or Story shout out.   So then how does an influencer set a rate? If they can’t say, ‘well my photo gets 300 likes, which translates to 10 follows for the brand, which translates to 1 sale and the sale = £20’ - like that makes no frigging sense. Are they charging based on follows? Sales? Exposure to their audience? It’s a MESS.   So influencers then get told by some ‘experts’ to base their rates on an hourly rate and pro rata it out depending on the work they’re doing. So let’s say you decide your hourly rate is £10 and it takes you 20 minutes to take a photo, 5 minutes to edit it, 10 minutes to write a caption, 42 seconds to post it, based on your wifi - can you see where we’re going here? A MESS.   And then what do you base your hourly wage on? Is it inline with what you can earn at Tescos or what a consultant doctor would charge?   I’m being hugely reductive here but I hope you can read between the lines and understand what I am saying. It’s complex and totally context driven.   So then does an influencer listen to those people who say to charge 1% of your following? Because I know creators with 5,000 followers who’d have to charge £50 whose production values are so much higher than a  reality TV star holding the gummies up in a selfie. That micro influencer would hire a photographer, at personal expense, buy props, spend time mood boarding ideas and then time editing. Plus putting in effort to craft the perfect caption. Why should they get so much less?   Or two influencers with 5000 followers charging £50 and one influencer’s content is a steaming pile of wank and the other’s looks like it stepped out of a Vogue concept shoot. Is that fair?   So can we agree to put this 1% notion in the fucking bin? Because no context is taken in here.   Context like: The number of followers and fans the influencer has The amount of engagement their posts generally garner The fit of the advertisement with their brand and following The number of posts you want The type of post (image, video, audio, etc.) The amount of effort needed from the influencer (do you provide the image/video or do they?) Where the ad will be promoted (will it just be on the influencer’s account? Are you cross-posting it? Are you using it in other efforts?)   In my research, I found some figures online that say…   Instagram: 1,000 per 100,000 followers (so £10 per 1000 followers roughly) Snapchat: Starts at 500 per campaign in 24 hours YouTube: Roughly 2,000 per 100,000 followers Podcast: £100 per 10,000 downloads - but I’ve also seen the same fee for 1,000 downloads   I then stumbled across Influencer Marketing Hub - Micro influencers vs Celebrities. I put my details up against Kim Kardashian’s (the default option) but beautifully you can compare yourself to ANY influencer - how lovely for our self esteem.   With these online calculators, I find them somewhere between low-balling and insulting. I’ve often gotten £50-£100 more than the top range that these calculators suggest.   So just how do you get parity?   When brands want to say,  ‘well so and so with more followers/engagement charges less than you’, we get pitted against each other by online calculators and the whole business about keeping us quiet from taking about money serves one purpose and one purpose only - to get as much as out of us for as little as possible.   I truly believe parity in the industry will be a two pronged approach - brands becoming more educated so that they only work with influencers who are right for their campaigns - not just the ones who are cheapest or who they can milk for as much as possible. And it’ll come from us as creators seeing each other as a community rather than competitors. Because when we undervalue ourselves we give less value to our peers.   If we are open about our rates so that we can put ourselves in line with each other, then brands will not be able to take advantage - intended advantage or not.   This is where Grow & Glow, my new hub for creators will hopefully help. Upon entering the hub, creators will be encouraged to share their rates and media kits so other members can access them and create or adjust their own rates in line with what their peers are charging - with all of the context. Like let’s be real - I know who my peers are who have similar engagement, similar level of content and a similar audience - so I charge in line with them. This is info you’ll be able to access when we go live.   Furthermore, Grow & Glow will be open to brands to. To be able to approach the members for opportunities knowing full well that those members will be in communication - not competition. I think it’ll be a really good thing for the industry.   But enough of me plugging that, let’s go back to discussing all of the factors that need to be kept in mind when we build our rates out.   Let’s go back to the context we discussed before like: The number of followers and fans the influencer has - if an influencer has a highly engaged and big following - they can charge more of a premium. The amount of engagement their posts generally garner - then if their posts get good, deep, quality engagement rather than bot comments, pod love or empty compliments - they can add a premium The fit of the advertisement with their brand and following - if the partnership is going to absolutely bang with their followers, because both the creator and their audience are genuine fans of the brand - they can add a premium. PS why are you doing a collaboration that you or your audience don’t love in the first place? But that’s a whole other show. The number of posts you want - calculate the amount of content - is it one grid post? Or is it a blog, grid and set of stories? Work out a package. The type of post (image, video, audio, etc.) - each type of content requires different skills and amounts of time put into it. The amount of effort needed from the influencer (do you provide the image/video or do they?) Where the ad will be promoted (will it just be on the influencer’s account? Are you cross-posting it? Are you using it in other efforts?) - does the brand want usage rights? Because fees for this need to be added on too.   Furthermore, agreeing on rates is a dance between the creator and the brand. On Sophie Milner and Millie Cotton’s amazing Keeping It Candid podcast, Chloe Plumstead said something I really respect. She said, ‘I have my rates and if the brand can’t afford it, then move along’ - I mean I’m paraphrasing but what I took from that was, it wasn’t her job to bend her fees to a brands budget. So she rarely lowers her rates in line with them.   I believe this is smart. It’s the age old saying - ‘those that pay the least, want the most.’   Setting your rates comes down to a simple calculation - what are you happy to complete the work for + the premiums you can add for context (mixed in with a little of self-awareness, I’ll come on to this) = your rates.   This is what I do! When I receive a brief, I think to myself - ok what have I charged and had accepted for a similar scope of work before - and I go from there. So say if I’ve done a collaboration for a blog post, Instagram post and set of Insta Stories for £1200, I’ll say my fee for the same package is £1200 and go from there. But if it’s a new scope of work or a different package structure, I’ll think of it like this…   So say if you’re happy with £20-£30 an hour for your time (similar to other creative and media industries) and the time it’ll take is 4 hours (£80) and then you want to add premiums on for your great engagement, high level of content quality, usage rights or whatever other contexts we discussed and determine the rate your happy with is £200 - stick with that and stand by it.   If at any point, you think it’s not enough - go higher. If you think it’s too much, after self reflection - not after low confidence, that’s different. Adjust accordingly.   I’d LOVE to give you definite figures. Or a calculation. But it’s impossible. I can only tell you what my thought process is! And you know, sometimes I’ve had set fees in my head for the different content I create and then I chat with a friend who has similar contexts to me and I see they charge more - I up my rates! And if we have the same convo and I think they’re undercharging - I’ll tell them.   So many times I’ve had friends and other bloggers thank me for these conversations because it’s helped us gain that level playing field. Community yo.   So do this dance with the brand…   They ask for your rates, you say what you’re happy with but you want to know their budget. Usually their budget will align with your rates - funny that. But if they don’t probe further. If you really believe you’ve over charged - negotiate, but if you believe you’ve asked for what you’re worth - don’t falter. If that brand doesn’t want to work with you - it’s because they can’t afford you. Someone else can.   Now ideally, I prefer the dance of asking what their budget is before revealing my rates.   And this can be annoying sometimes. Because a brand has a set figure they can use for influencer marketing and are often trying to get as many pieces as content for that budget as possible - but try and get them to value it first, so you can see if you can negotiate it, or if it’s worth it. I can’t ever see there being a set rate across the industry - due to all of the contexts that come into play - the only way forward for clarity and parity is, I believe, in transparency and communication. And you know what, if you share your rates and get undercut - then karma will get that influencer and the brand will have lost out on working with you even though you’re awesome! That’s the downside, but the upside is that we come together as a community to fight against the negative aspersions against us and work together for a fairer value on what we do. If you ever have any questions, feel free to message me or email me! I love chatting about this kind of thing. In the mean time, make sure you subscribe and leave a rating and review. I bloody love it! Chat to you v v soon. BYEEEE.

A question I get sent over and over again is, ‘Vix, I’m doing so many free collaborations for gifts or for ‘exposure’ and I don’t know how to turn them into paid collaborations’.   Let me tell you - there’s a lot to unpack here.   I begun taking on paid collaborations around 6 months into blogging but was that a good thing? Fuck no! The brands weren’t right. The products weren’t aligned with my audience. The fees were less than minimum wage. I didn’t have a relationship with the brand as soon as I pressed published. Neither of us knew if there was any return on that investment or if I’d done a good job at all!   I get it though, we see our favourite bloggers and influencers getting paid, being able to do the job full time and we feel like we’re sat on the otherside of a door that we don’t know how to unlock.   In this episode, I’m going to break down paid vs gifting collaborations, how to rock them and how to ask that age old question, ‘excuse me sir’, in the style of bloody Oliver Twist, ‘please can I have some budget?’   How did this all start? Seriously? Who remembers the ‘olden’ days? We used to blog about Rimmel lipsticks, Tunnocks Tea Cakes and Easyjet Speedy Boarding because we stanned. Not because they were paying us, or they’d gifted us or we hoped to work with them.   Well, I suppose the influencer industry boomed. Brands saw that by collaborating with influencers, to provide air quotes authentic promotion of their product that they’d tapped into a more organic form of marketing.   So influencer marketing became an actual department and budgets started to rise. But the actual experience, theory and knowledge of how influencer marketing REALLY works, didn’t necessarily develop as quickly as the rest of the industry did.   So influencer outreaches - who found themselves new to the role - had to hobble together approaches based on their limited experience and knowledge as well as their bosses.   In the beginning, the benefit of using influencers for marketing was simple - more influence for a lot less money.   Magazine, TV, radio and celebrity endorsements are EXPENSIVE, and in an expanding digital world, much less useful. Influencers paved the gap.   Brands aren’t stupid - if they can get the same amount of coverage to an audience 10% the size of a celebrity and pay them 1% of what they’d pay a celebrity, they’re laughing.   So how do blogger and brand collaborations work? Well there are lots of different schemes, facets and approaches nowadays but the main two, I suppose, are ‘gifted’ collaborations and ‘paid’ collaborations.   I’m going to preface this to say I fucking haaaate the word gifted. A gift is what you get from your boyfriend when you get your period or a shitty calendar from your Aunt at Christmas. It is not an item in exchange for hours worth of work poured into creating content. PR product seems a better fit!   Anyway, how these collaborations work are as follows…   Gifted   A brand reaches out to an influencer and offers a product or service in exchange or a piece of content to be created.   Paid   A brand reaches out and offers money in exchange for content creation.   Now, way back before blogging was a business - everyone had air quotes regular jobs and just did it as a fun hobby on the side, you can bet your arse we were DELIGHTED to be offered a meal out, a voucher for a high street shop or a lipstick and OF COURSE we’d make an amazing piece of content to show how grateful we are. It was, and still is, a huge privilege to work with a brand in this way - which I’ll get more to later.   But as the influencer business grew and marketeers and PRs got more savvy - so did bloggers. We started to notice that other creators were working on ‘sponsored’ content with brands and we thought - dayum, if that person can actually get PAID, maybe so can I? So hand in hand, we started to be offered paid work and we started to seek it.   Somewhere along the way - probably on Twitter - we started to see creators begin to complain about gifting because they were then doing work ‘for free’ where other creators were being financed. And suddenly, being gifted something was seen by some as an insult. Eh, I’m not good enough to be paid?   Which, by the way is a hugely multi-layered thing that I’ll get into.   And this is the first misconception I want to quash. And again it goes back to how we’re using our platforms.   Remember when we’d DIE to be gifted a Mac lipstick? It’s because we were obsessed with Mac lipsticks. Of COURSE we’d love to feature them on our blogs - we loved them.   But then we started accepting gifts for things we weren’t obsessed with, or didn’t love - in the name of being seen as a successful blogger - and so then gifting collaborations where we took stuff we didn’t love just for ‘content’ left us feeling used and unfulfilled.   Listen, I wouldn’t have gotten a single paid collaboration without doing some unpaid ones first.   So here’s the crux. Content creation - good content creation - isn’t a piece of piss thing you can do on a whim in 2 seconds and bosh it up. It takes time, energy, ideas, creativity - these things should absolutely be compensated for.   How then do we navigate this?   Should we take gifting collaborations to build up a relationship? To build a portfolio? Should we always ask for money?   Because from a brand perspective, perhaps their budgets this time only stretch to paying certain influencers but can gift to thousands. Do we say no to the gifting, even if it could start a long term collaboration?   I’m going to tell you how I approach it - is it the right way? Who knows if there is a right way, but here’s what I do.   And let’s flow chart this shit up, grab your pen paper or notes app or whatever!   Firstly I get an exciting email. My first three branches are - is this a brand I love? Is this a brand I’m intrigued by? Is this a brand that’s not for me.   Then off of, ‘not for me’ we can branch down to a bubble that says, ‘reject politely’ and we tell them thanks but no thanks and all the best - or even, if you’re feeling particularly kind, suggest other influencers who’d be a better fit - it’s what I do. I believe in karma.   Then let’s think if it’s a brand we love. So for me, my favourite brand at the moment is & Other Stories. If & Other Stories were to slide into my box with an email offering me free clothes - I’d be BLOODY ECSTATIC. But here’s where the dilemma goes in, and under the other two bubbles of brand you love and brand you’re intrigued by, you’re going to want to put, ‘is there an obligation to post - yes or no?’ And here’s where our thinking comes in.   If Other Stories said I could have free clothes but in exchange I’d have to do a post for them weekly or monthly, an obligation to post, I’d need to work out here whether to ask for budget or whether because they’re a brand I already love and spend my money with, are the air quotes free clothes good enough compensation? No one can make this decision for you by the way, it’s down to you.   However, if they were a brand I was only intrigued by, and I didn’t know if I’d post about them organically if they weren’t going to gift me something, but I am still obligated to post, it might be here that I’d start to think - hmm, maybe I need to be compensated on top of the gift.   But let’s go back to if there’s no obligation to post. In this case, it often means that brands do not have a budget for sponsored fees. They just want you to try out the product and if you like it, post about it. Of course you can ask for budget - if that’s what you want to do, but bear that in mind.   So right, you’re back at the stage where you’ve had an exciting email from an exciting brand with an exciting proposition to collaborate on content and in exchange for a gifted item you are OBLIGATED to provide content, and you’ve decided you want to ask for a fee but you don’t know how to do that? Here’s how…   Dear Sexy Brand,   Thank you so much for reaching out. I am a fan of/intrigued by Sexy Brand and would be delighted to try your product. May I just ask if there is a budget for sponsorships for the content you’d like me to produce?   Looking forward to discussing further. Vix   THAT’S IT. Don’t over complicate. Don’t over egg the pudding. Don’t say, ‘well because for instagram I usually charge x’ - the ball is in their court. You’ve asked if there’s budget. There will only be 3 outcomes here, usually.   You get ignored. Kewl. They say they don’t have budget - let’s come back to this. They say they do and ask you your fees - fab go back to them with your fees.   But at the point where they say they don’t have budget - it’s just the gifted product, you can ask yourself further questions. Are you ok with that? Would it be content you’d make anyway? Then go ahead and take them up on their offer and lay the seeds of a longer term relationship with that brand.   But if it’s pissed you off a bit that they want hundreds of pounds of work off of you in exchange for a lower-value product, then I often would reply back and say, ‘Completely understand. Happy to try the product and post about it organically, in a way I see fit, however if you’d like guaranteed coverage with your key messages relayed, there will be an associated fee.’   Here, they’ll come back to you and either say thanks, no thanks or they’ll agree to send you the item with no obligation to post.   Whatever the outcomes of the flowchart and the circumstance, one thing is clear. You are in control of your content. If you’re happy to work in exchange for gifted items, great. If you insist you must be paid for every piece of content you create - that’s on you too.   Like I said though, it’s a many layered thing. And a good portion of my paid collaborations have happened because I did unpaid, natural or organic content for that brand first.   I’d also send out a word of warning that if you’re just starting out - no audience, no brand work pieces to show off, no experience with working with brands, no return on any investment (whether that’s building brand presence or actual click throughs and sales etc) to go straight in asking for money is going to be tough.   Sometimes, working with a brand on a gifted basis, to then show them your value and what you can produce - or even to show other brands your value is worthwhile.   But again it’s all down to you. So let’s chat about it - gifted or paid? What are your thoughts? Do you now feel equipped to turn those gifted conversations into paid ones? Let me know!

One of the messages I hear from you over and over again is that you feel like the bloggershpere is oversaturated. That it’s ‘been there done that’ and that you’re worried that you have nothing original, new or extra to add, so you may as well give up. NOT ON MY WATCH. In this episode, we’re going to dive in on what makes you, you, how to stand out in the blogger sphere and of course we’re going to get practical by answering some reflective questions and then I’ll be showing you how to put it into practise. Ya ready? I heard a statistic that there are something like over 30 million blogs. That’s more diet cokes than I’ll ever drink in a life time and 1 less than the amount of Game of Thrones spoilers on Twitter. So of course you’re going to feel like your voice is only adding to noise. But that’s where you’re wrong. Ok there may be 10 million fashion blogs, who love a Celine necklace and a YSL bag but you’ve only got a ropey copy from Amazon and a Co-Op shopper to your name. Or you might feel like beauty blogs are dying and how can you keep up when you’re not being sent enough PR to give a small village in Argentina a whole new skincare routine. You might have even identified someone in your niche that walks, talks, acts and lives exactly like you and you worry that you’re not offering anything different. But trust me when I say, you are. Because as fucking cheesy as it is, ‘you are you and that is Truer than true, no one alive is youer than you’ - did you think you’d be getting some Dr Seuss up in here? What you need to do is to really reflect on your USPs. It’s to banish the imposter syndrome - I’ve got a bloody podcast episode for that! And quash the comparisonitis. It’s to become truly clear on what your niche and focus is and then have actionable and intentional steps in place to show everyone else too. So shall we crack on? First of all, I want you to grab a piece of paper, or a notes app or whatever and list 5-10 words that speak to you about who you are. We’ve done a similar exercise to this before, but this time be really intentional - what really makes you, you? For example; funny, kind, witty, sarcastic, a dreamer, deep thinker, informative, whimsical, creative And then add a few more about what you’re most passionate about creating - writing, photos, audio, video - what are you most passionate about? Then sprinkle in a couple of things that makes your content different - listicles, long form and educational, reflective and dreamy, poetic, funny, different editing style, original photography style, like talking to your best mate And now let’s look at it together. So if it’s me, my words are - writing, educational, reflective, funny, witty, chatting to a best mate Therefore I know that my writing and presentational style is funny, witty and like chatting to a mate, but that my content is either reflective (so my observational posts and those on mental health and relationships) or it’s educational - with all of the blogging content I offer up. So to me, these are my USPs, because the people I know of or who I follow that are educational, aren’t usually as foul mouthed or as sarcastic as I am plus I know my writing style, when it comes to posts on feminism, sex or mental health, is just like me chatting to you as if you were a friend - and that’s what makes it different. Now I have clarity over this - and hopefully you do too - definitely come and chat to me in the Facebook group about your content USPs once you’ve figured them out, then I need to know how to practically apply it and show it off. So here are the areas to focus on - I hope you’re ready to take notes! I will have this all written up in the show notes too if you’re driving - please don’t take notes if you’re driving; Writing Style I don’t know about you but there are some posts that I’ve tried to write that have been dry AF. It was like what I read when I’ve forgotten to take my phone to the loo and need to read the back of a shampoo bottle or something. So boring and not at all me. This is one of the easiest areas to get your USPs across. Do you have a certain catchphrase? Or slang term? A way of addressing your audience? Some references that you love and your audience would totally get too? Or is there a mutual frustration or even a dream that you and your audience share that you could refer to? Pepper them throughout your prose. What does the verb, ‘to pepper’ even mean though? Anyway, we’re going with it. Live Video/Stories You want to show that you’re different? Do it with video. If you’re not brave enough for live yet, then definitely Stories is the way to go. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy with stories and I share a picture of my bed because I feel like that’s the done thing. But what makes me different? Take some time now to reflect on what makes your stories different (i.e they’re from you). Mine are different in a couple of ways; firstly I use stories to show what my daily life is like. I lead quite an alien lifestyle to most in that I try and work less than 15 hours a week and no two days are the same. So I’ll take my followers along with awkward Starbucks encounters, observations from public transport, blogging events, my work and travels. What is different about your life? And you know what, lots of you will say, ‘nothing, I just have a 9-5, go home, feed my cat, catch up on Netflix and rinse and repeat’ BUT THAT IS OK. People are nosey. However you live your life will be interesting to people because we are a nosey breed. So share your routines. Your feelings. Something funny that happened at work. Your favourite Netflix moments - it shows a personal side to you. But we need to get intentional with our stories content too. So also have a thing. I tell my coachees this all the time and it works. Erica Davies has Sunday Styling, Hannah Gale has her HG Ten, Tay Jane Nicole had her Wednesday Wishlist, Sam from Knackered By Chaos has a Wellness Wednesday, The Mothercooker has her Motivation Monday, Dizzy Brunette has Wallpaper Wednesday. What’s your thing? Beauty? Fashion? Lifestyle? Travel? - pick something and make it a feature. You could do a hot or not, an edit of your favourite high street picks, a travel destination mini guide/review, a round up of other content from your niche. This is a great way to make your stories stand out if you feel like you being you isn’t ‘enough content’ - which is bollocks but I really relate to that feeling. Kick it Off With A Challenge So you’ve got your USPs and you’re raring to go in telling everyone just how different you are - why not run a mini challenge that’s related? For example, Sam, who I mentioned before - her blog and herself are bloody lovely, she’s Knackered by Chaos by the way, I’ll link her. During coaching we realised her USP is like wellness but not wanky - I actually think we used wellness but not woo. She’s not into the ethereal aspect of wellness - more just practical routines and wellness. She wants to quickly assert herself in this niche, so she’s going to do a challenge where she teaches willing people (hi me) who are a bit useless with self care (yep hi double me) how to introduce routines in an approachable and easy way. That shows off her USP! Look at the Anna Edit - known for her simple styling and capsule wardrobe - she now regularly takes part in the 10 in 10 (10 outfits from 10 items) challenge and encourages her followers to take part too. So could you run a challenge that shows off your USP? Pinterest Pinterest is another good way to show off your individuality. It actively encourages you to have boards that are not only related to your content niche but also to your personal interests. I think you get a really good feel for who I am from mine. There’s a mixture of blogging and social media tips, with boards on navy sofas, delicate tattoos and feminist quotes. This does make me think I need to start a potato board - I’m going to right after I finish this. It’ll be glorious. So think of your content niches - which relevant boards can you create? Now think of your personal USPs - which boards could you have? If you said you’re a poetic dreamer - have a board of poems. If you said you’re funny and sarky - get a memes board crackalacking. Perhaps your thing is alternative fashion - make ALLLLLLL the boards. You want your profile to give a well rounded view of who you are from first glance. Which reminds me about social bios and about pages - I’ve done episodes on these two things before so go back and listen but these are the perfect places to show off exactly how you stand out. The most important thing to remember, is that even if you feel like the most basic of Beckys with no discernible talents or niche areas of interest - there ARE people out there who are interested in you. In what you had for lunch. In what you’re watching. In your thoughts on who should win Drag Race *cough* VAAAANJIE*cough* - it’s up to you to gain clarity over what makes you different, and then it’s down to you to get intentional with sharing exactly what makes you different in some of the ways we’ve discussed in this episode. Come and chat to me on the Facebook group about your USPs and how you plan on standing out! Until next time, BYEEEE

Let’s rewind to a year ago - that’s right I’ve been doing this shiz full time for A YEAR, which means I haven’t been working 60 hour weeks as a teacher FOR A YEAR, but let me bring you back to that time… I was writing blog posts in my notes apps whilst walking to the train station. I was scheduling tweets on my tea break. I was replying to emails during my lunch break. And I was uploading photos and hitting publish on my train home. Guys I had to get GOOD at time management because I had NONE of it spare but I wanted to grow my blog. And I know that’s what you struggle with a lot - finding the time to keep your blog moving forward when life gets in the way and you run out of spare hours. So this episode is all about how I did it, my best time saving hacks. I hope it’s useful! First of all, I almost want to say, don’t pay any attention to me. Because I know the way I manage my time isn’t usual. I am the person to have 6 spare hours to achieve something and then rush it all whilst I’ve got a spare 2 minutes waiting for my microwave rice to ping. I have bursts of energy where I can work solidly and get 8 hours of work done in an hour and then I have energy lulls where a ten minute job will take me two days. I feel like I’m alone, but maybe you’ll tell me otherwise! Anyway, due to my haphazard time management plan, I had to get good at doing blog tasks each day to keep my blog moving forward that didn’t need hours and hours in front of my laptop. And you know, everyone thinks you need a fancy camera, a laptop, 6 hours in a cafe and a coffee IV drip to get everything done but let me tell you - I grew my blog the most when I was trying to upload a blog post, with a shitty iPhone photo, no subheadings and no SEO whilst trying to access Wordpress in my phone browser, OK. Now I know the content creator world has moved on since then but it definitely taught me a few hacks that still come in use today. So are you ready to hear them? Let’s go. Number 1 - Schedule a month’s worth of tweets Yep, it takes a solid hour or so, depending on how quick you are, to schedule 6-10 tweets a day for a month. But you’ll be glad you did. I use Buffer Pro which let’s you do that many and that far ahead. It’s about £10 a month I think and totally worth it. This means if life gets in the way and your boyfriend breaks up with you, or Take That lose another member and you need space to grieve, then at least you know that your blog posts are being promoted without you having to think of it. The difference in my daily traffic from when I Buffer tweets to when I do not is outrageous. So if you have a spare hour on the first weekend of a month - do it. Or, if you’re like me - what I used to do was use the Buffer mobile app and spend LITERALLY 30 seconds a day rebuffering previous tweets to go out that day. Number 2 - Schedule a month’s worth of pins In the same vein as above, it’ll take a good hour or so to get this going but you only need to schedule 5-10 pins a day to make a difference. And if you’re a bit Pinterest clueless and feel like I may as well be speaking Belorussian, then I’ve got 2 podcast episodes allll about Pinterest that teaches you how to do this. Pinterest is now my biggest social traffic referrer and it drips me new visitors each day without me having to worry. If you’re a more spare of the moment kinda person, like me, literally pin whilst you poo. No joke. You take your phone to the loo right? You’re in there at least 2-5 minutes right? Depending on the health of your bowels, I get it. Use those minutes each day to pin 5-10 new pins and mix in a few of your own content too. Number 3 - Airtable it up Ok this is a new discovery for me, that Dani my VA introduced me to but CRIKEY it is a life saver. I’ve created a blogging to do list ‘base’ which is essentially a sexier Excel spreadsheet where I break down all the tasks you need to do to get your blog moving forward. And I’ve broken it down day by day, weekly and monthly. It’s all there in front of you! So when you have a spare minute - dive in and look at a task you could do for that day, week or month. I’ve made the Airtable template as a free download for you, so check the show notes for it and honestly, LIFE SAVER. Number 4 - Stock images I don’t know where the memo was that said all blog photos must be taken on 83463 pounds worth of camera equipment with lighting as bright as Simon Cowell’s teeth with props that cost more than your monthly salary. Like who started that rumour? For me, your blog’s imagery should reflect your brand and that’s it. So if you’re pushed for time and need to download a stock image of the recipe you’re whacking up or a casual laptop on a bed image scenario for this month’s think piece, then bloody do it. Too many of us use the excuse, ‘I don’t have time/light/money/ability/patience’ to take photos’ as an excuse not to blog. My favourite website is Unsplash.com - it has tons of free stock photos. I also love Creative Market where you can buy sets of specifically styled ones. Honestly, let someone who knows their way round a lens take the headache away from you. Number 5 - Repurpose old content Alright, something’s happened in life, Netflix have released a new true crime documentary or there’s 16 Easter eggs to work through and you know you haven’t got time to write a new blog post. Sex up an old one! Yep. I bet you’ve got blog posts from 6 months, a year ago or yeeears ago that you still love, that still gets traffic but is looking a bit dated. Rather than spend an hour or so whacking together something new, pull that one out from the bushes, give it a lick of paint, add some extra updated or new paragraphs in with fresh information and republish it! I’m sure there’s an SEO issue with changing the date or URL etc so don’t do that but it means you can schedule it out and promote it as if it’s a new blog post. As if your 4 readers from 2014 are going to care you’ve popped it out again! You’ve got loads of new ones who might not know about it. Number 6 - Get an editorial calendar You’re probably sick of me banging on about the Wordpress plugin called WP Editorial Calendar by now but it’s such a timesaver. My friend Ghenet introduced me to it and it’s revolutionary. Install it, click on a free date, write the title for a post you want to write and BAM it’s turned it into a draft post. How quick is that? You could use the 30 mins you have when inspo strikes to get all your ideas straight into drafts instead of onto your iPhone notes and then maaaaaybe into drafts that you never look at again. Number 7 - Automated emails This is another one of those tasks that yeah, might take a couple of hours to set up, but once it is you rarely have to worry about it again. I bloody love me some automated emails. Hopefully by now you’ve set up your email list, and if you haven’t I’ve got an episode coming to walk you through it, and if you have - you can set up automated sequences. This means when someone signs up, they get automatic emails you’ve pre written. So spend a few hours getting a sequence set up so that they receive regular emails from you and in those emails you can tell them where else to follow you, which blog posts to go back and read and any other general updates. Saves you having to sit down every week to think of something new to send them! Number 8 - the 55/5 rule The most important thing with time saving is about having purpose and I’m going to get onto that in a sec. But too often we are wasting time we should be being productive by scrolling, comparing, consuming and then scrolling some more. So implement the 55/5 rule. For every hour you sit down to do some blog work, 55 minutes of that should be dedicated and purposeful with 5 minutes at the end for a bit of scrolling. Trust me you’ll get so much done. I think sometimes I can be a bit unsympathetic with people who say they don’t have time for their blogs. Because in some cases, what they either really mean is that they’re not that dedicated OR they prioritise other things. Like some people take 2 hours to get ready. I’d rather take 30 minutes and spend 90 minutes on my blog shit because I’m serious about trying to grow it. I think because I’m the type of person that will use my spare 2 minute toilet breaks to engage on Instagram, whack up a few pins or schedule a few tweets that I don’t understand why everyone isn’t like that - so please excuse the rigidity of my thinking. It’s not my fault! Haha But anyone out there who is struggling for time with their blog, I want you to reflect. If your iPhone is telling you you’ve spent 6 hours on Instagram that week, could you cut that down to 2 and give yourself 4 hours to complete every other task? If you’re finding that researching, writing, editing, photo taking and publishing posts is taking a really long time - could you look at parts of that process that you could cut down? This is where I go back to purpose. If your purpose is to grow your blog and social channels because you want to reap the rewards, how much purposeful time are you spending on it? Not umming and ahhing over which photo to use or scrolling Instagram for an hour after you’ve uploaded a new post but actual purposeful time where you’re completing tasks that will move the needle forward for your growth? And it’s absolutely 100% OK if your blog isn’t your priority. If going out, spending ages getting ready, scrolling Insta, reading the Daily Mail sidebar of shame or spending time with friends is taking up your free out of work time - that’s all absolutely fine and great! But just don’t kid yourself otherwise you know? Because if your blog is your priority, you’ll make time, and if it’s not - you won’t, and it’s fine if it’s not! But hopefully the above tips will give you something to get working on so that you can still feel like you’re working on your blog and getting it moving when you’re strapped for time. I know this is a big thing for lots of you so I’ll be making more resources and hacks to help you keep on top of your blog shiz soon. As ever, don’t forget to rate, review, subscribe and pleeeease share you listening on stories and tag me! Tell allll the time poor creatives you know to listen in! Until next time, byeeeee

I’m coming straight off the bat to say whether you’re a manifester or a non-believer, whether you believe that fiver you found stuck in the cashpoint appeared because you stroked your abundance crystal or whether you believe that positive thinking is for people who have things to be positive about - this episode is for you. Because on that scale, I’ve been at both ends. I have spent years in a negative mindset. Brought up with beliefs like, ‘bad things happen in threes’, ‘don’t jinx it’ and ‘well that’s fucked that, so everything else will go wrong.’ Sound familiar? You too? Perhaps you’ve been told that ‘positive thinking’ is a privilege for those who have a life to be positive about. And I absolutely get it. I wanted to throttle every inspirational Instagram quote I ever saw that told me to keep dreaming when I was in the midst of being cheated on, losing my home and losing my Mum within 9 weeks. I always thought, ‘well yeah it’s alright for you to say up in your ivory tower.’ Perhaps you’ve always had that mindset of feeling the pains and traumas you’ve been through and looking around at people complaining about what you deemed to be ‘less’ and thinking, what the fuck have they got to be negative about. I remember when I went back to work, teaching, a few days after my Mum passed away. I thought I was coping fine, apart from the odd teary meltdown when the kids made me a nice card. Until one of the TAs, let’s call her Cici, came in to the staffroom and cried full fat tears as I was drinking my break time full fat Coke. She announced her cat had died. And WOW the rage built up - which I now know is wrong - but JESUUUUSSSS I was fuming. Oh poor Cici with the 358582 cats when I’ve lost my MOTHER. I was this bitter and negative for a really long time. And it spilled into other areas of my life too. An unexpected bill would come out leaving me with £3.82 to live on for the week and that was it, I was going to be poor forever. My blog would get less views than before or I’d lose followers, and that was it, it’d never go anywhere, EVER. I’d be ghosted for the 68464th time and that was it, I was going to be single forever. It’s funny, I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken about this before, but I’ve genuinely never been able to imagine a future for myself up until recently. Like seriously! I don’t know if you can relate, but please let me know if you can. I grew up in a deeply unhappy household. Deeply. With the recurring message and themes of misery, settling, hopelessness, 1 thing going wrong meaning everything was wrong. And the result? I’ve never seen a future. God getting a bit choked up here - sos this is getting deep but it’s for a good reason so bear with me, OK! I’ve never imagined being successful, settled, happy, loved, grateful for anything or abundant in everything. And if you’ve heard a million lifestyle and wellness gurus you’ll know about scarcity and abundance. But I’m not going to use those terms too much as I cringe myself out to the max. But I’ve always lived a life of scarcity. And it’s SO EASY to fall into that mindset. When you’re scarce of money, like I’ve been for many years, you worry about every last penny. When you’re scarce of love, you cling onto any morsel - even if it’s toxic. If you’re scarce of confidence, the straw that breaks the camels back between mildly tolerating yourself and sheer hatred of your self is much less a straw and more a fine hair! And it’s also so easy to limit yourself to those beliefs. To see positivity and gratitude as a pursuit of the already positive and privileged. But that’s because we are taught these beliefs. We are taught that our experiences shape up, which they do, that they mould us, which they can but that we are not capable of moving on and breaking free - which we abso-fucking-lutely are. So if this resonates with you - if you’re in this mindset - WELCOME IT’S A FRIGGING PITY PARTY, right? Or we can say no. We can be kind, gentle and loving to that inner child who has been formed this way but we can encourage her that her experiences of scarcity are not a path for her future. I know this sounds like psychotherapy babble - but I am learning lots in therapy. About myself, my viewpoints, my experiences. And I’m actively doing the work I can do to break free from those constraints I have put myself under. But how am I doing that? You know me, I love to be actually practical and illustrative and GET SHIT DONE than just waffle on, you know? So let’s bring it back to blogging. And right here I’m going to tell you about something I’m developing that I hope you’ll get on board with. Later this year I’ll be launching Grow & Glow, an online space for creators who want personal and digital growth. It’s for people like you who want to put their mental health, well-being and goals at the centre of what they do online so EVERYTHING they create has a purpose. I’m so FRIGGING excited about launching it, and I’ve got a sign up form on the blog where you can register to hear more in the next coming weeks. (I haven't yet, bear with) Tell me though, does that sound like you? Someone who is perhaps time, experience, confidence or ambition scarce? Who wants to be nurtured, supported, given time, education, the help to gain confidence and reach goals? Because it bloody sounds like me!! So yep, come and chat to me about this and sign up to hear more. I’m SOOOO EXCITEEEEED. ANYWHOS back to our limiting mindsets when it comes to our blogs and online presence. Let me know if any of these sound like you. ‘I’ll never be as good as…’ ‘I don’t have the time to do x’ ‘I wish I was more confident to put myself out there.’ ‘I just don’t know how to grow.’ ‘No one reads my blog or comments or engages.’ ‘I’m sick of others doing the follow/unfollow game.’ ‘There are people out there who aren’t as good as I am but are more successful it’s not fair.’ Seriously, raise your hand if you’ve ever had these thoughts. Because I bloody have. But do you know what these statements do? They put a ceiling on us. We put a ceiling on us. It ain’t the fucking patriarchy up in hurrr, it’s us. It’s our brains. Those statements are excuses. Sos but they are. You ARE good, in your own right but you don’t need to compare. You might have limited time BUT what if I told you that there are ways round that? I’ve got a podcast coming up about it OK. Listen, I know everyone’s spare time is relative, but I grew my blog and managed to make it a full time job whilst working 60-70 hours a week as a teacher AND go out or go on dates 4-5 nights a week AND spend most of my weekend in my bed hungover or binge-watching Game of Thrones with my house OR turn my phone off at 6pm every night so I could spend it with Ben. There are ways, and I’ll show ya. And sorry if that sounded a bit dickish, ‘like yeah alright Vix but try doing that whilst also being a part time firefighter and a mother to 9 babies’ but I’m just illustrating a point, k? You wish you were more confident because you haven’t worked on the root issues of that belief that you’re worth less. I’m not confident. There are times when I absolutely HATE myself - but I’m working on it. And I’ve found areas that I am SUPER confident in that I hang on to and nourish. Let’s do that OK? You might not know how to grow because you think you’ve tried everything and it’s not working but trust me, you haven’t bloody tried everything because you’re not a know-it-all, it’s an excuse. Wow I’m really having a go but I hope you’re hearing it’s from a good place. You might think no one reads your blog, comments or engages but does at least one person? In chasing the 50,000 because you think that’s abundance you’re actually developing the feeling of scarcity because you don’t have it! Instead celebrate that one person, it’s one more than no one. And when you start being that one person’s best bud, it’ll become 2, then 4, then 8 - it’s called growth. It’s not called a miracle. I get it, I’m sick of the follow/unfollow game too but conceding yourself with other’s pursuits is a limiting mindset because the more you’re focussing on what others are doing, the less you’re focussing on working on yourself. Oh hey miss no confidence suddenly DRAGGING others to filth by saying they’re not as good yet more successful and hey you might be right but it is a limiting belief. Maybe they don’t have limits. Like there was always that one girl at school who was annoying as fuck, only cared about NSYNC and not her GCSEs but got the guy you wanted to go to prom with, straight As and all the popularity in the world. The difference? Ignorance. Ignorance was bliss. And by that I mean that people like that don’t have limiting beliefs - and more power to them - they believe they are the shit and guess what? They walk and talk like the shit too. Even if you think they’re a bit shit! So we need to draw a line in the sand and we need to stop making excuses for our mindset. We have two choices. Stay limited or work on it. I’m choosing to work on it. And it’s not easy. I really know it’s not. If you know me - you know I don’t find it easy AT ALL. But it’s a choice. So see the small wins as huge ones. Take your goal and times it by 100. Find one small thing you do feel confident in and max it. For me, I’m confident in my humour - so I choose to add it to everything I do! What’s yours? Stop comparing. You’ll never be someone else so you’re limiting yourself by doing this. Don’t look at what you haven’t managed to get done in a day, be excited about the things you HAVE managed. And you know what, OK you might not have had time to write 4 blog posts, 10 Insta captions, a novel and a screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean 6 - you may have ONLY scheduled your tweets for next week but guess what? THAT is you moving closer to your goals. Gah right, time to get off my soapbox. But I hope you’ve got some thinking to do after this episode. Tell me, what limiting beliefs do you have? And over the next few episodes, let’s work together to blow the lid off them! Starting with being time poor, my next episode is going to take that excuse out of your mouth, scrunch it up in a ball and throw it at your enemy’s head. Until then, byeeeee!

I’m going to give you a bit of background here. I probably started using proper hashtags about 6 months ago? Before that, I was just using a few that popped to mind as and when I could be bothered. Remember I am the ULTIMATE lazy girl blogger. But I began to become increasingly frustrated with my perceived lack of growth on Instagram that I began looking into different strategies to improve my reach. I’ve studied everything Instagram have EVER said about the algorithm, plus kept an eye on other bloggers with similar accounts and similar audiences to see how they’ve managed to grow and NOTHING was working. Then I remembered hashtags. Like the clueless uninfluencer that I am. And decided that it was something I could try to see if it would help. And boy has it helped. One post, one day later than the next gained me a ton of new followers and had more than 2000% more impressions JUST because of hashtags. Like literally from 83 to 3k+ From there, I decided to create, at first, a bank of hashtags for me to use for the different types of posts I tend to bosh out and It’s now a resource I sell on my shop that has been downloaded nearly 250 times! But this episode isn’t an advert for THAT, I’m just going to share some quick tips on getting the most out of Instagram hashtags, so if you’re ready, let’s crack on! Do Your Research Some hashtags are banned, some are so full of other posts there’s no point you using them, some are full of inappropriate material which means they’ll be banned imminently and some just aren’t relevant to your audience or what you’re posting. Find The Small Guys The likelihood of any of our posts showing up in hashtags with over 1 million posts in, is slim. So focus mainly on those with under 100k posts if you can and then add a couple between 100k and 500k to see how you get on. Experiment I said this in my latest blog post about hashtags but if you play around with using 4, 7, 11, 15, 30, in the caption, in the comments, different sizes (as in less than 100k posts, less than 50k posts etc) and see what works for you. Because let’s be honest. It IS a mystery. One day I could post an outfit shot, exact same time, similar call to action and exact same hashtags and it just won’t do as well come the next day. So it’s best to play around! Don’t Stress It can be really frigging frustrating when a post absolutely bangs with hashtags and then the next minute hardly makes a dent. But remember it’s not just you, everyone is experiencing this. Don’t blame hashtags I get it. We’re really proud of our content, we feel like we’ve got the caption absolutely sussed and we know we’re about to post at the most opportune time and then CRICKETS. It’s suddenly as quiet as your racist Aunt at the family dinner table when Brexit is brought up. So then it’s easy to blame the hashtags we’ve used for not giving us the exposure, especially if our impressions aren’t good from them. But we HAVE to be self reflective. Could the picture have been better? Is it really the right time to post? Have I been active on the app today? Is my caption really calling people to comment? Then once we’ve figured out some good hashtags that we want to try, we might want to think of a good way to store and access them. So here’s what I do. I’ve got my Ultimate Hashtag List, right? So, I know that at 6pm I’m going to be posting a picture of me, wearing a full length outfit, probs holding a Diet Coke and trying not to fall over because I’m wearing boots when I usually wear birkenstocks or am barefoot. So I’ll go into my list (and you can access whichever list you’ve curated or if you’ve already downloaded my list then love ya babe) and I’ll copy around 10-12 small hashtags (under 50k posts), 10 from around 50-100k posts and then a couple of others. I’ll then either paste them straight into my notes app OR there’s a handy trick you can do on your phone. Now I have an iPhone so this is what I do. I go into my settings, go to my Keyboard shortcuts and I’ll paste the tags in there and call it something like fashiontag1, then, when I type that ‘fashiontag1’ on my phone, the list of hashtags auto populates. Now this might be time consuming if we’re trying tons of different sets and experimenting BUT maybe there are 5-10 you use on every post that are related to your communities and then the rest you switch up? I dunno, anything to save time! I also have an Instagram app called Plann. Now I love Plann because it helps me organise my grid like say an Unum or Mosaico but Plann has some other cool features too. For example, Plann analyses my previous Instagram posts and it populates 3 sets of my best performing hashtags. The science behind it, I’m not sure, but if you want another shortcut to populating those sets of hashtags, it’s a good un. Ooh also, you could put a ‘competitor’, I hate that word, but you know someone who has a similar account to you, put their handle in and Plann will tell you the best hashtags that THEY use. Then you can try using those ones too! I hope this episode has been useful, essentially the thing to take away about hashtags is really suck it and see. In the least innuendo way as possible. Instagram is so frigging unpredictable at times and until we get app features where we can see exactly which hashtags are bringing in our impressions and exactly which ones are useless, then we’re going to have to find it out ourselves! If you head over to the show notes, I’ve got a free list of around 100 hashtags you can download if you want some to get you started! Otherwise I’d love to hear from you over on the Facebook group - how you’re getting on with hashtags. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t etc? And if you want more info on the database I keep, that I’m forever updating, head to vixmeldrew.com/ultimate-hashtag-list Make sure you tag me as you’re listening to this episode and in any hashtag triumphs you have as I love to see them! Until next time, BYEEEEE

When a lovely follower DMed me on Instagram and said, Vix can you please do some content on Imposter Syndrome because I cannot do anything with my blog right now. I felt that on a DEEP level. So deep in fact that when I went to my therapist the next day, I spoke with her about it. And you know what, I really want to get deep in this episode because I truly believe that a LOT of us are dealing with it in some way. I told her that often, in my new job online, that is so very different from my previous job as a teacher, I have strong feelings that I’m making it up as I go along and will eventually be found out for being a clueless fraud. We spoke for an entire hour about my insecurities about being online and how I often detach myself from what others say about my work and how I feel about it. She then gave me a strategy, which I’ll share with you a bit later. But I thought first, we could look at how imposter syndrome manifests, and how as bloggers, we are often more susceptible to it. Then I’m going to get a bit personal and talk about the times I’ve felt it and what’s triggered it so lol THX FOR BEING MY FREE THERAPIST and then I’m going to share some strategies I use, moving forward. So if you’ve ever felt like an imposter with your blog, then join me and I hope by the end of this episode, we’ll all come away feeling less fraud like and more frigging kick arse like. Ya with me? Ok so my therapist told me about where the theory of imposter syndrome originated and told me to look up the book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer From the Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, by Dr. Valerie Young In it, Young breaks down 5 types of ‘imposters’ and the way these feelings affect them. You might recognise yourself in one of these archetypes or all of them. But ALL of them are relevant to us and our blogs at various stages so I hope when you hear what I’m going to say, you’ll nod along like I did to my therapist! Haha First is the Perfectionists. They set excessively high goals for themselves, and when they fail to reach a goal, they experience major self-doubt and worry about measuring up. Been there right? Can’t understand why we haven’t got 100k followers yet? Or why we’re not winning blogging awards? And when we feel overlooked again, we then doubt EVERYTHING. Then there are the ‘Superheros’. These people believe they’re fakes amongst the real-deals, so they push themselves to work harder and harder to measure up. But this is just a false cover-up for their insecurities. OMFG BEEN THERE right? We constantly measure ourselves up against others in the industry and look inwards and go, ‘what am I doing here? On this campaign? Writing this post? With these lovely DMs? I should do more and prove myself.’ Then there are the ‘Natural Geniuses’ These types of imposters set their internal bar impossibly high, just like perfectionists. Perhaps they’ve always been gifted at things - academically, artistically or whatever, and then when it comes to blogging, they find it hard. Hard to gain and audience, or nail SEO, or create engagement. These types judge themselves harshly when they can’t pick things up straight away. The next type are the ‘Soloists’ and have you ever heard something more on brand for a blogger? These types of imposters always achieve everything by themselves and then feel shame when they need to ask for help. Often as bloggers we want to keep up our ‘brand image’ of being together, professional, aspirational or whatever ALL the time and that by reaching out to someone else we are admitting we’re not as good as our Instagram caption wants everyone to believe. And finally there are the experts. They measure their competence based on “what” and “how much” they know or can do. They fear being exposed as inexperienced or unknowledgeable. I mean just imagine admitting that you haven’t got the foggiest what a keyword is! You’re a blogger, you should know it all ! Sound familiar right? But imposter syndrome is bred from lack of confidence, Which is something women experience WAY more than men. I mean, we’ve all been mansplained the offside rule even though we’ve sat through enough of David Beckham World Cup moments right? Purely for the free kicks. Not for his hair. At ALL. And blogging, historically, was a hobby that introverts took to. It might not feel that way this day and age necessarily but I know it’s true for me! I HUGELY lack confidence. Which may come as a surprise because I’m definitely one of those introverted extroverts. I love public speaking, meeting new people and putting myself out there but it’s almost always followed up with days spent in bed, google teaching vacancies, ignoring emails and scrolling Instagram, tormenting myself that I’m not good enough. So this is what I told my therapist. I said, sometimes, when I do my work online, I’ll come up against a shitty comment or subtweet and I’ll IMMEDIATELY think it’s about me. Then I’ll go in a shit spiral for hours or days and believe I’m the worst blogger in the world.  And you know, sometimes, I could have a day where I’ll get 60 amazing emails, 50 kind and lovely DMs and a ton of fabulous testimonials from bloggers I’ve worked with and NONE of it will sink in. It’ll all go straight over my head. I won’t even feel the positivity. And she told me what I already knew. That I lacked confidence. And also, that blogging and this job and this world is so precious to me that I’m afraid that if the covers are whipped off and I’m exposed as the loser that I am, that it’ll all go away. Perhaps you can relate, maybe not, I hope so. Anyway, we’ve been working lots on assertiveness and non-violent communication and she got me to try one of the techniques on myself whenever my imposter voice creeps in, so maybe it’ll help you too. In non violent communication, you often get into a headspace called ‘jackal language’ which goes something like, ‘for god’s sake, I’m useless, I’ll never get anywhere with my blog, everyone is so much better than me, everyone is getting great opportunities and nothing is happening for me so it must mean I’m shit and I should just give up.’ But you need to move from the jackal language to a place where you are only aloud to state observations. So what have you observed that has kick-started the jackal language. Here are some things I observe in blogging that you might recognise… ‘I saw x get a partnership with brand y’ ‘I saw x grow y new followers in a few days’ ‘My Instagram post on Tuesday got less likes than I imagine.’ ‘My blog post on Wednesday had half the amount of viewers as normal.’ ‘X subtweeted about blogging coaches’ Then you move from your observation to your feelings. And actually my therapist gave me a great sheet all about feelings and needs so I might try and find one and stick it in the show notes, incase it helps you. So you’d say to yourself, ‘when (observation) happened I felt…’ And often those feelings that are related to imposter syndrome are, ‘isolated, despondent, disheartened, unconfident, demotivated, rejected.’ Then you move from those feelings into what your needs are. So in relation to those feelings it might be… I need x brand to recognise my hard work. I need to be kinder to myself if the Instagram algorithm isn’t being kind. I need to see which things I am in control of and improve them and which things are out of my control. I need to understand that I can’t control what other people say or think about me, I can only control how I react. And then you make a request of yourself - on how you react. My therapist and I came up with this… ‘When I am feeling rejected/despondent/demotivated I.e like an imposter, I need to be kind to myself, acknowledge my feelings are coming from a place of low confidence and go and do something that brings me joy and makes me feel confident.’ So when I’m feeling imposter syndrome about my blog or my platforms, my new resolution to myself is to shut down my laptop, turn my phone off and go and be kind to myself. Whether that’s read through old, positive comments and testimonials. Or have a hot shower and sing the Greatest Showman soundtrack, read a book, go shopping or go for a walk. And once I’ve been kinder to myself, and I’ve given myself a break from the situation that makes me feel like an imposter. I’m often ready to come back to it with a bit more confidence. It might not work for you, so I’d love to know when you experience imposter syndrome with your blog, how you tackle it? What triggers it? How long does it take you to recover? Feel free to privately Dm or email me! Wheeew that was a deep one right? Shall I tell you a joke to lighten it up? Anyway, yep please come and chat and don’t forget to leave a rating and review as they mean the world! Speak soon pals, BYEEEE

I thought I’d do something a little different for this episode. A couple of weeks ago, I took to my Instagram Stories to ask you what your biggest struggle with Instagram is. I had HUNDREDS of replies. So I thought I’d do a quick little episode on tackling the most recurring themes. So are you ready to discuss Insta struggles? LET’S GO… Getting Annoyed With Follow/Unfollow I had so many people tell me that they were being disheartened by people playing the follow and unfollow game. I urge you to turn this mindset around. Yes we want more numbers but what we don’t want is numbers who are there to just make up the numbers do you see what I mean? Rather than be sad that someone unfollows you, count your blessings that they’re not your people and you don’t have to spend any time engaging with them. They wouldn’t have provided you any value anyway so THANK U NEXT. There’s No Logic With Instagram I knoooow it can feel like this. How you can use the same hashtags, same time of posting, similar pictures, similar captions and get wildly difference results but honestly, the ONLY thing Instagram has is logic. That’s what the algorithm is. And yes it’s bloody frustrating when you think you’ve cracked it only for it to behave bizarrely again. Like that boyfriend you had at secondary school that would buy you a twirl from the snack shop, sign your homework diary and hold your hand in front of his mates, only to send you a day card during assembly that said, ‘you’re dumped’, soon after YES THIS HAPPENED TO ME OK. But really there was logic there. That boy, wasn’t really that into me. So you need to learn HOW to make Instagram into you. By listening to what they say. I used to say this all the time when I wrote about dating. We never have to figure out what a man wants because THEY TELL YOU. That high school boyfriend called me names, sent me fake texts, cancelled my Snake score - he was telling me all along he wasn’t interested - why did the brutal day card dumping of 2000 need to be my wake up call? So let’s look at what Instagram have told us EXPLICITLY that they’re algorithm looks for… Relativeness - how related are your pictures to the rest, to your captions, to your niche, to your audience, to your hashtags. There’s no secret to why Mrs Hinch went viral. She posted her grey home solidly and cleaned consistently in her stories - and all she spoke about through captions, stories and hashtags was cleaning and her grey home. She was completely relative to her audience. Her audience are vastly, predominately women interested in cleaning. No random men from Portugal or girls there for the fashion content who aren’t interested when you post what you had for lunch. Niche accounts grow so much more quickly because of this logic! Next is timeliness - times of your posts. Sure there are apps that can tell you but honestly, you need to be looking at your ideal follower. When do they use the app? Mrs Hinch did well because she knows most of her audience are stay at home Mums or wives - so she could post throughout the day - not too early when trying to get the kids ready and not too late so they’re trying to entertain their kids and husbands, but during the day when these women had 5 minutes peace. Again that’s completely logical! And then engagement - put simply, the algorithm looks at how engaging you are - how much you comment, like and are on the app and how engaged your following is - likes, comments, saves, shares, shout outs, interactions, DMs and boosts you accordingly. So if you’re out there engaging and creating opportunities to be engaged with - logically your reach will increase! I know we all love to think the algorithm is out to get us - BEEN THERE and always slip back - but actually we need to focus more on learning it and kinda playing it rather than worrying about it! Not Being Consistent Enough One thing that is a pain, but an understandable pain with instagram, is that it does punish inconsistency. If you don’t post for a while, your reach is limited - because of what we’ve just spoken about. So how do we get round this? Well, I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m taking a few days off! I know I don’t have content that’s good enough to put out at the moment and that I don’t have enough of it to be consistent, so I’m just taking a few days off to get ahead, batch create some content, plan out my captions and hashtags so that when I’ve got a decent amount of content ready, I can consistently put it out - be engaging, be relative and be timely - in a planned way! Will let you know if it makes any difference, although I’m sure it will. So could you try this? Get ahead of yourself so you can be consistent? Not gaining followers Again for me this needs to be a mindset shift. As soon as we all stop caring about follower growth and instead focus on engaging and being engaged with by ‘our people’ the better off we’ll all be. Stop seeing Instagram as a place to grow a following. Instead see it as somewhere to build relationships, create inspiring content and start discussions. When you do this, a following will naturally grow. But if you have the mindset of chasing growth, you’ll fall into the trap of trying to do what other people are doing instead of being yourself. Let’s look at these styling videos for example. One person had the brainwave and went viral, now everyone’s doing them - even if fashion isn’t their niche. Therefore they’re turning off their followers who came for something else because they’re pursuing growth. It doesn’t work like that. When you know your ideal follower, you’ll know what content to make for that person and when you make content for that person - more people like that person will follow! Time This is a big one. And I totally get it. When I was teaching 60 hours a week I could not be arsed at alllll to make decent Instagram content. So what’s the solution? We can’t magic up more hours in a day, can we? So we prioritise and batch - in my opinion. Instagram might not be your priority as you try and grow your online platforms and that’s OK. Figure out what platforms drive the most traffic, best engagement and top comments and make that your priority. If, however, Instagram IS your top platform then you have to make time. And you can do that by batch working! For example, spend 1 hour a week writing all your captions for the following week. Spend a couple of hours making up lists of hashtags and put them into your predictive text so you only type the word xtag and a whole list is quickly populated. Spend a couple of hours on a weekend taking the week ahead’s pictures and if you don’t get enough, use some stock photography or quotes. Then spend just 10-15 minutes a day commenting on other people’s posts - doesn’t seem so daunting now does it? Not being interesting enough/having good enough content This is the bit where I’m going to have to do some tough talking I’m afraid. And only because I totally get it too. On a daily basis I only leave the house to go to Starbucks. And I could definitely fall into the trap of feeling not interesting enough - but there are TONS of ways to share your day in an interesting way. Actually I’m going to write a whole blog post on this because I feel it deeeeeply so keep an eye out. Also, I totally get it about content. My photos are shit. I’m not an Instagram model. I don’t have brand new clothes every week. I live In Streatham which is hardly the Peak District and I’m not visually creative or original AT ALL. So then we compare ourselves to others who are all of those things. ORRRRR we could look at what our USPs are and what our audience follows us for and do more of that. For example, I used to worry all the time that I wasn’t slim or attractive enough to constantly post pictures of myself and my confidence held me back. Until I realised that tons of midsize and unconfident women followed me because they related. Now I know I can post pictures of myself without worrying about my appearance because for women, like me, that’s still inspirational - if you get what I mean? Low engagement By this I presume they meant their photos weren’t getting likes, their stories not being viewed and their captions not getting comments. Which is really really defeating, I totally get it. But again there needs to be a mindset shift. You need to post photos that people are going to like - because they’re good photos, inspiring, interesting, thought-provoking or different. OR if they follow you for YOU then you’re showing YOU more. You need to regularly post stories that are worth watching - they’re behind the scenes, funny, entertaining, interactive, relatable. The more you’re watched, the more you’ll be watched - so give people a reason to watch! You need to write captions that are worth commenting on - there needs to be a call to action, or an open question, a discussion point, a relatable story - something that compels people to comment. Are you doing all of these things and not seeing results? Or are you not being reflective enough? It’s harsh but I have to give myself a telling off regularly! When I post shit pictures and they get no likes, I know that it’s because it’s shit! So then I know I need to post better pictures. Same with captions, the ones that don’t get comments are the ones that aren’t entertaining, provoking or with clear calls to action! There are a ton more but this is probs dragging on a bit so let’s leave it here shall we? Message me with more of your Instagram struggles and I’ll do a part two very soon! Until next time, byeeeeee

I got a comment on my blog last week that equally fucked me off as it did make me laugh. It said, ‘stop writing all of this dry AF blogging content and get back to talking about anal and dating.’ Now if you’re new to me - this is in reference to the fact I used to blog more heavily about sex and dating. It initially fucked me off because I was upset at someone giving me internet hate. And then I was upset at the thought I was losing readers and turning people off with my change in direction. I was frustrated. I thought, why can’t that person just bugger off and get a life? I probably went on a Twitter rant about it. And another thing happened last week too. I turned down about £5,000 worth of brand collaborations, with huge, well known brands. They all seemed to come in at once and they all had one thing in common. In today’s episode I’m going to talk to you about your people. And why they matter for growing your blog. Right let’s go back to that shitty comment. It’s not the first one I’ve had like that. Since I’ve launched the podcast, offered blogger coaching and started writing more blogging content on my site, I’ve had a few. All disgruntled readers who followed me during my single days in 2016, engaged in my dating stories and silly listicles on sex and were hopefully entertained by the content I was putting out. And they’re pissed off now. Pissed off because I don’t really do that any more. Sure, when the Inspo strikes, I like nothing more than rattling off a funny post - mainly to entertain myself nowadays. Of course they could just unfollow me or read someone else’s blog but I’ve learned something about these people. They feel entitled. They’ve supported me for so long and invested so much in my journey that they feel let down that I now have a fiancé, a business and a blogging focus because when they entered me (whaaaat) I was single, in a job I was miserable in and blogged about blow jobs. And I kind of get it. I’m not serving them any more. The answer is that they should of course just unfollow me and be served elsewhere - sorry for all the innuendos but hey, it’s me. But perhaps they’re still holding out hope I’ll return to serving them with what they want. And now let’s talk about those brand deals. When I first went full time, I thought I had to take every collaboration offered to me because I was terrified about paying my rent. My previous approach to sponsored content - which was only excepting things I genuinely loved and could put my own creative spin on - went out the window a little bit because I was terrified I’d have to pick up a day or two supply teaching to cover my bills. But as the year as gone on and I’m nearly at a year of being a full time blogger, I’m less concerned with worrying over whether I should take everything that’s offered JUST IN CASE and decided to focus on finding those brands that more closely align with me, my interests and my values. The result of that is that I’m getting more and more repeat collaborations with brands, as opposed to boshing up the one offs and I can actually say no. And in some cases, I’m saying no to things I actually do really want to do, because I don’t see how it can help me serve my people. I’ll talk more about that in a sec. I cannot stress enough how important it is to find your people online. And to forget those who you don’t need to serve any more. Going back to the previous episodes on finding your niche, working out your ideal reader and working out who you are online are really key for this. Like I’ve mentioned before, my ideal reader/follower/coaching client is - a woman, in her mid twenties to mid thirties who is currently on a career path they don’t enjoy and they really want to carve out their online platforms into something they can take from a side hustle to a main income stream. They’re serious about growing their platforms and using their influence for good - I’m sorry but I’m not going to cater for wannabe Instagram models now am I? They understand that 5 minutes of fame on social media means nothing but establishing themselves as an expert in their niche will bring long lasting success. Sure, that’s probably a small subset of people compared to the hundreds that google ‘fingering’ and come across my blog every day. But it doesn’t matter. I know that everything I do needs to cater for them. So how do I do that? I create these podcasts! I write the blog posts which hopefully offer loads of value. I have the Facebook group where I’m on hand all the time for feedback and advice and I have my Membership. And my membership is another area that has really hammered this lesson home for me. Because we’ve lost members along the way. And initially I was sad about it because I worried I wasn’t doing a good enough job, or being helpful enough. That’s my confidence issues coming in to play. But as time goes on, and I learn more about serving my people - I just realised that as much as I love those gals, they weren’t my ‘ideal’ coaching clients IYSWIM? Perhaps they weren’t ready to invest time, imagination or unable to invest the money - I don’t judge them at all, I think they’re fucking amazing but equally I’m not sad about it. Because it helps me hone my ideal client. We’re full with the membership for now so there’s a waiting list - because as time goes on and I get more experienced, I’ve realised  again that I don’t need to accept anyone in because I want to be fully booked or make money - I’ve realised that I only really want to work with people who are my people. And I don’t care if that’s 5, 50 or 500! Hopefully you can see the point I’m arriving at. Finding your people isn’t about finding as many as possible. It’s serving those key few. In a world where we’re obsessed with chasing followers and growing numbers, we forget actually that those who are key in our growth are the ones who’ve been there all along. I recently joined The Coven which is a female entrepreneur membership/support group kinda thang and I had a chat with the amazing leader, Sapphire about all of this. She told me that all I need to focus on with my blog and my business is solving problems that my ideal audience face. And that’s it. So yes, I’m creating more blog content based solely on what you guys tell me through email, Facebook and comments you need help with. And yes, I’m putting a waiting list out for the membership so that I can make sure when I open it again, I only accept people who are truly my people - to join the rest of my galled (wait I can’t get away with saying that, I’m not cool enough) and yes I’ll be posting more on instagram about my work and YES I’m only going to take on brand collaborations where I feel I can either entertain you or provide you with something you want to see. And yes that may mean I lose old readers and followers who get the point that I’m not writing about blow jobs consistently any more. And I might lose Instagram followers who want to see what I had for lunch. And yes some of my members might fall away. But what’s left is that core group of people - brands, followers, friends - who are with me on this ride because they trust I’m with them. So what can you take away from this? I really really urge you to dig deep on who your ideal reader is. I urge to create content for them. I urge you to go out of your way to engage with them and be grateful for them. I urge you to reflect on the brand partnerships you’re coveting or completing and truly see whether they serve your people. And then I urge you to think about all of the ways you can serve your people! And feed back to me because I’m going to be doing an upcoming episode on all these ways very very soon! What’s been your biggest thing you’re taking away from this episode? Please email me, DM me or post in the Facebook group because I think it’s so so so important! Until next time, byeeee

Hello! I’d like to pretend that I’ve been away for a week and won the lottery or had some sort of mega exciting email but alas I’m still in the same pyjamas, on my second Diet Coke, recording this episode straight after the last one. I am on a Pinterest ROLL. Hope that’s OK with you! I could also be like, ‘loving what you guys have added to the Facebook group, your boards are looking amazing.’ But yeah no time has passed since recording the last episode and for all I know you could be making boards about Mrs Brown’s boys or red chinos. But let’s crack on shall we - I hope you’ve set up your profile, got it Businessified AF and have been pinning away. I hope some of you have seen success already with your monthly viewers going up. When I recorded this I was on 257k so hopefully I’ll have seen an improvement by the time this comes out! I would also like to say that I almost gave up on Pinterest. I was getting loads more monthly views but it wasn’t translating into traffic. HOWEVER since doing all of the bits we spoke about last episode and more of what I’m going to discuss today, my traffic from Pinterest has grown by 2200%  which sounds MEGA impressive but actually I used to get 0-1 views a day from Pinterest and now I get on average, 23 a day. Haha not massive at the moment BUT we are beginners right? And if that is the increase in a few weeks, imagine what it could be in another few weeks, amirite? SO let’s talk more about how we can really optimise our Pinning game to drive as much traffic back to our blogs as possible… ya ready? Let’s look at what makes a good pin. Good quality pictures are always a winner. No grainy and pixelated Instagram filtered bad boys are going to do the trick. It’s worth baring in mind that vertical pins do much better than square or landscape pictures. This is why all photos on my blog are now ‘portrait’ and I also ensure I use Canva and it’s Pinterest pin template to create my pin graphics. Pinterest is also looking at developing it’s featuring of video pins. Again these should be filmed vertically - like stories (which are taking over, aren’t they) so definitely something to think about! Best performing pins are often clear and inviting lifestyle looking pins and ones with attention grabbing text overlays do a great job too. In fact, what I’ll do is if you sign up to the Exciting Emails mailing list - which I’ll link in the show notes, I’ll send an email out this week with some examples of ‘best practise pins’ - would that be helpful? You can also experiment with the images! You can have multiple pin images for one blog post. So say if you’ve got a banger of a guide on Bali then do some pins of your best Bali pictures and some with text overlayed to say it’s a Bali guide - you can then use your Business analytics to see which performs best! One question that often gets asked is how many boards should you pin one piece of content to and that answer is unlimited really - as long as it’s relevant. So say if you have a chocolate cake recipe - you can pin it to desserts, chocolate, cakes etc but you wouldn’t pin it to Utility Jumpsuits. But that’s common sense right so sos for being a knob and pointing that out. If you’re going to use video for pins make sure you have text overlay as I really, highly doubt anyone uses Pinterest with the sound on. I bloody don’t! Do you??? Last week I told you I’d go through with you a way to get your cover pins looking fancy. If you’ve got a sec and can head over to Pinterest and my profile which is Vix Meldrew, you’ll see that they all look super branded and cohesive. I actually only learnt how to do this at Pinterest HQ but here we are. Firstly I was creating branded pins for all of my content anyway but even if you don’t have this and you just want it to show all your travel pins, because you’re a travel blogger, or style pins because you’re a fashion blogger - this is how. Go onto your profile and at the top right there should be a pen icon - click on it and it will say, ‘Pick some pins to feature in your profile cover’ - if you can’t find it, head to the show notes and I’ll do a screenshot. There you can select which board you can pull the pins from - remember to keep it branded to your niche if possible! Alright, another thing I said I’d talk through with you is your featured boards. They are the boards that appear at the top of your profile in a carousel. Again if you look at mine, I’ve got my blog posts and podcast episodes as 2 boards and then 3 others directly related to my niche - blogging tips, marketing tips and Instagram tips! I should just do a potato board for the LOLs shouldn’t I? Or lifestyle images with Diet Coke? Anyway, To do this you want to go back into your settings, go to your profile and scroll down to where it says ‘Featured Boards’ there you’ll have 5 slots with drop downs so you can choose your best boards! I defo recommend having one with your content in there and your other strong boards with lots of great pins. Ok now let’s look at a basic pinning strategy. Like I said, my babe Dani Tailwinds mine for me. Tailwind is an auto scheduler of pins to keep your account ticking over. I then make sure I go into the app every day and personally pin 5 or more things I like from my home and following feed. Reena at Pinterest said that you will see an improvement in your monthly views even if you just pin 5 a day. So those spare minutes on the bog, or those drawn out phone calls with your Auntie is the perfect time to absentmindedly pin a few new things each day. Don’t forget to regularly pin your own content too! New blog posts, YT videos, Insta posts etc - make sure you physically pin them yourself, either from your camera roll or from your platforms - and make sure you edit those descriptions to make them search-worthy. Ok, like I said, I’d come back to hashtags. You can absolutely put hashtags in your pin descriptions  - it’s a way to get discovered on Pinterest. The broad ones work really well like, travel, beauty, spring summer style etc but you can also pop a search term into the Pinterest search bar to see in what detail people are searching to make your hashtags and keywords even more specific - pale skin makeup, Bali travel for example A note about descriptions - don’t keyword stuff. Pretty sure I’ve done that before. People read them in sentences so write them in sentences! Just be creative in getting those keywords in. With regards to keywords - think about that when naming boards. I know it looks good to have M space A space C etc etc but it doesn’t help your boards get discovered! So think of naming your boards with words and phrases that WOULD be searched for. Again use Pinterest’s search bar to get ideas. Like now, if I type in ‘make up’ the results I get are ‘make up looks, tips, storage, tutorials’ - this means, if my blog was a beauty blog, I’d probably think about creating boards called all of these things. Reena at Pinterest also told me that they love boards with 40+ pins on so perhaps keep em private until you’ve got them looking juicy and then set them public! Another great tip is to make sure you categorise your boards, you get this option when you create a new one - it helps them get seen in the right places! Another thing I learned to do at Pinterest is to organise my boards. I had a huge Interiors Inspo one with over 700 pins but they were bedroom, bathroom, living room and bar cart pins - all over the shop. Reena showed me how to go into a board, click on ‘Organise’, select pins of the same type, press ‘Move’ and put them into a section. You could do this for your blog content too! Especially if you write across different categories. So you could have a board called, ‘Blog Posts’ and then sub sections for beauty, travel, lifestyle etc Go and have a look at my Interior Inspiration board to see what I mean! I keep saying ‘another another another’ but honestly I learned so many bloody useful tips at this meeting - like archiving boards. Rather than deleting your amazing boards of leopard print inspired outfits when it’s no longer a hot trend, archive them and bring them out again when it’s time. Really successful pinners have seasonal boards for V Day, Xmas, Halloween etc that they archive and unarchive in the lead up and when it’s relevant. Means you can keep adding to the boards each year rather than deleting and starting new ones! Which brings me to board types - those are archived ones. You can have secret ones too that only you can see - these are handy if you’re working on projects you don’t want others to know about yet. Or for engagement rings when you’ve only been dating 2 months. Sos Ben but you did get me my dream ring any who. Lastly there are group boards. These are ones that have tons of contributors and where you can all help each other out by repinning each other’s content.  A new feature that has started gathering pace in the US but less here is the new Communities feature. Pinterest want to make the platform a bit more sociable so you can now have mini forums dedicated to chatting about your interests. These are currently invite only. I have made ones for Bloggers, Instagrammers and Tips so make sure you’re signed up to the Exciting Emails mailing list because I’ll send an invite to those communities out. This also means that once you’ve been invited to a community, you can create your own too. I’m not quite sure on the best way to utilise this feature yet but I can imagine with all of the goodies I’ve seen that are coming up for Pinterest, we’ll be doing a follow up episode or blog post SOOOOOON As you probably know there’s SO much to go into with Pinterest but I wanted to give as much simple info as possible to get us all up and running! I hope this has been helpful and you now feel like you know how to fully optimise your profile, boards and pins! What have I missed? I’d love to hear more tips so defo let me know. Now let’s get onto some insider secrets that Reena let me know about! Did you know that each December Pinterest release their 100 trends for the upcoming year? This is based on what is gaining traction and what more people are starting to search for and pin. Why is this useful to know? Well, if you happen to be a vegan blogger and you can see that a trend is vegan donuts - you should bloody make a vegan donut board and write a blog post on vegan donuts - the chance of your pin performing really well, massively increases. I’ll link the Pinterest 100 in the show notes but I also want to draw your attention to the Pinterest UK blog. BECAUSE they also upload a blog post every month or so to let you know their ‘editorial themes’ or the themes they’re looking to feature. So you get ideas for new boards from the blog and then you can upload your boards to their link and if they love your board - they’ll feature it! The deadline has gone for Feb/March but soon they’ll release their themes for April/May and we can all go off and make boards relevant to the themes they’re spotlighting but also baring in mind they should be relevant to the content we make. Regardless, even if you don’t have time for that, the Pinterest blog is FULL of helpful updates, news and tips so make sure you go and have a look. Again I’ll link in the show notes. Whew, that was a LOT right? But again, I hope you’ve found it hopeful. So what can you go away and do this episode? I’d like for you to share some pins that you think are best practise. I want to see you having a go at creating pins too! I also want you to go off and optimise those boards with keywords, hashtags, sections and categories so we can all see you mean business! Don’t forget you can always chat with me on Insta or Twitter @vixmeldrew and we can carry on this convo in the Facebook group - Exciting Emails. Until then though, I’ll leave you with this mountain of homework - alright it’s not actually that much and hopefully you’re inspired to go off and complete it, and I will see you next time! Byeeeee.

Hey guys! I’m back today with an episode alllll about the platform that lots of us have found very confusing - Pinterest. What are monthly viewers? How are people going viral? Why is it such a good traffic source for some and not for others and how the Jeff do we make it work for us. Well, I sat down with Reena Rai, the UK Influencer Community Manager for Pinterest and she gave me the TOTAL 401 on Pinterest so I thought I’d share what I learned with you. Currently over 250m people access Pinterest every month with around 50m of them hailing from the UK. They use it to essentially see what to do, what to buy and what to create. This means it’s an unbelievable tool to master for bloggers and online business owners a like - that’s a LOT of people seeing your content. And no silly, ‘let’s limit it to 6% of your followers’ business going on either. Now I am NOT a Pinterest expert, so what I thought I’d do is kind of like a walkthrough episode for ya so that you can get your laptops or phones out and implement some tweaks and changes as we go through OR if you’re on the go, this episode might just lift the lid on what a GIFT Pinterest is for bloggers and online business owners a like. SO if you’re ready, let’s crack on. First things first, a lot of you have come to me in the past and said, ‘oh Vix I know I should be on Pinterest but I just don’t know where to start’ or, you’ve been wondering how to generate traffic from it. TOTALLY been there myself. Now usually I would direct you to some Pinterest whizzes like Victoria from Apartment No 4, who wrote a great blog post for me all about Pinterest for bloggers - so defo go and read that. But I thought, seeing as I’ve just met with Pinterest, I can break it down for you like Reena did for me! So you’ve probably heard this a thousand billion times but Pinterest is a visual search engine. It’s like Google’s better looking sister. The me, to my twin. Haha. Jokes. What that means though is that is a platform that people go to to look for inspiration or guidance - a range of how tos, tutorials and tips. So in the same way that your brilliantly helpful and interesting content does well in Google search - that same content should also do well on Pinterest. One HUGE benefit of Pinterest, unlike other social media apps *cough*INSTAGRAM*cough* is that your followers see your content and share it widely to people who AREN’T following you. Which again means so many eyes on your content! Unlike other platforms too, Pinterest content hangs around for AGES with the average shelf life of a pin being 105 days. Imagine all the traffic rolling in from that! Not all content is made for Pinterest however. Your 3am ramblings over boys not texting you back or that Payday Edit about the New Look purse you want may not pull in the results in comparison to a travel guide, beauty tutorial, fashion cookbook, recipe or guide. This is probably why I haven’t utilised Pinterest before. I can’t seem many people looking to it for tips on snogging or what to say to fuckboys. But now I’m writing more lifestyle and blogging based content - it’s definitely something I want to utilise. I’ll give you a bit of background on my Pinterest - it ain’t me. Haha I had the wonderful Lex from Talonted Lex manage it for a month or two and she helped optimise my boards. Then I had a couple of other pals help out with getting to grips with the Tailwind scheduler - but I’ll come back to that. So if you go on my profile and see a quarter of a million monthly views (as it stands) please don’t think that makes me good at Pinterest. Haha! Anyway, now I have the wonderful Dani who works with me and she sets up my Tailwind pins BUT after my meeting with Reena, I came home and basically transformed my entire profile - and that’s what I’m going to work with you on today. So, if you’re listening to this, I hope you have a Pinterest account already set up. BUT if it’s personal, you’re going to need to convert it to business. So go ahead and pause here because you MUST do it. Business accounts give you so much more access to analytics, rich pins (I’ll explain) and a whole host of goodies that Pinterest has coming up (which I got a sneak peek into and OMFG) Once you’ve done that, I want us to walk through how to optimise your profile. GO ahead and click ‘Settings’ and your profile should come up. Fill it in but there’s one area I really want you to focus on and that’s your profile name and description. This is where you need to get those keywords in that relate to your blog or business. So for example, because I blog about blogging and I’m a blogging coach - I want to make sure my profile name and description has keywords like - blogger, blogging tips, social media strategy etc in it. Your description is totally searchable so make sure you’ve got the terms in there that you want to be found for! The next best bit about a business profile is that you get to ‘claim’ your other channels. To claim your website, you need to get a piece of code from Pinterest and then to put it into your website’s backend (that’s what she said). I’m on Wordpress so I downloaded a plugin called Headers and Footers which meant I could copy and paste the code into my header. There are tons of tutorials on how to do this for all web platforms if you get stuck. Next, you can use the APIs of Instagram, Youtube and Etsy to claim those accounts too - definitely recommended. This means that if anyone wants to pin your banging Insta content into travel Inso, fashion ideas or beauty tutorials - it all attributes back to you. This could be a great way to gain new followers! You can also upload your Insta content directly to Pinterest too and direct people to your profile. That’s the basics of your profile up and running. There are other ways to optimise it with the cover pins and featured boards but I think we’ll come back to that in another episode! You’ll also want to ensure that your blog has the Pinterest ‘Pin It’ or ‘Save’ button installed. This is where people can hover over a picture from your post and a Pinterest logo comes up so that they can save it to their board. On Wordpress you just need to enable to Pinterest plugin and link it to your business account. Again there are tons of tutorials if you’re stuck or if you have a Pipdig theme like I do it comes pre installed - but go and hover over some images on your blog to check it works! The next great thing you get with a business account is that you can enable, ‘Rich Pins’. All this means is that there are different pin types that will pull through information and look mega fancy. For example - recipe pins will show cooking time, ingredients and all the juicy diets on Pinterest. Mainly we’ll be making ‘article pins’ which is where Pinterest will give a viewer a snippet of what our blog posts are about and will encourage the Pinner to read it. To get the most out of these pins, you should make sure that when you upload a photo for your post, that you write a description of the article in the description box as this is what Pinterest pulls through. For example, I will make the graphic for this podcast episode and write in the description box something like, ‘Here’s my latest podcast episode which is a beginner’s guide to Pinterest. I discuss how bloggers can use Pinterest and how we can get the most out of our business accounts.’ I will try and put those keywords like ‘beginner’s Pinterest guide’ and ‘bloggers Pinterest’ in there so that it can become searchable within Pinterest. If you forget though, don’t panic, you can go into Pinterest and rewrite Pin descriptions to make them more searchable by including keywords and even hashtags but I’ll discuss that in a min. A key benefit of Pinterest over other platforms is the myriad of ways you are discoverable. You can use hashtags - the broader the better as they are still relatively new in Pinterest world. But make sure you put them on fresh content. Some of Pinterests feeds are chronological so hashtags will only matter on fresh content really! So, your content can be found on Pinterest in these ways - the home feed, the following feed and in related pins. You will appear in someone’s home feed if Pinterest’s algorithm deems your content relevant to what people have been pinning. SO if I pin loads of gold wedding dresses, the next time I go to my home feed - loads more gold dresses will show up - and not just from people I’m already following. Then you’ll appear in the feeds of people who follow you, when they click on the Following tab. Using the following tab is a great way to engage with people you follow by repining their stuff or commenting on their pins. GO and show the love! You also have the chance of appearing in the ‘related pins’ section. If someone clicks on a pin to view it and decides it’s not what they’re looking for, further suggestions will appear at the bottom - that could be you! I feel like there’s SO MUCH more we can cover and I already see this episode become too beefy, so let’s leave it here and I’ll continue it next week. TO summarise though, and to give you homework… Go and change to a business account Claim your website and Insta etc Put your keywords related to your blog or business in your profile description Install the save button on your blog Enable rich pins Write descriptions on your blog images And if you fancy a little challenge - why not create 5 new boards that are relevant to your content and pin at least 40 pins (mix in some of your content) and come and share them on the Facebook group - I’ll start a thread where we can give each other feedback on our profiles and boards. You could also start a board that is specifically for your blog posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, Insta images etc! I’ll come back next week and go into… What makes a good pin How to get the fancy profile cover art What the eff featured boards are and how to organise them A basic pinning strategy to get you started Some info on how to find keywords How to categorise and organise your boards Some info on the types of boards and what they’re useful for And then a few insider tips from Pinterest themselves! If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the Facebook group - we’d love to have you, it’s Exciting Emails. Or come and say hi on Instagram or Twitter - @vixmeldrew And go right ahead and follow me on Pinterest - I’m /vixmeldrew on there! Until next time, BYEEEEEEE

Helllooooo, this is going to be a suuuuper short and sweet episode today as it really won’t be me waffling on about all of the thoughts swirling around my head, it’s going to be straight to the point. What makes a good, bad and UGLY social media bio, how to craft one that’s perfect for you and why it’s so important. So let’s crack on shall we? I have had some CRACKING social media bios ‘ Puppies, Potatoes, Patridge’ I mean SO ON BRAND right? And I’ve had the classic, ‘I’m Vix, 30, I blog about dating.’ YAWNFEST but as I’ve been working with others and pivoting my blog throughout the years I’ve got a sense of what works and what doesn’t. You probably think, ‘meh no one reads it,’ or, ‘it’s fine as it is’ and I’M SURE IT IS, but what if I told you that your bios can be make or break over who follows you? Or whether a brand wants to work with you or not? Not OK with it being fine now are we? I’m going to give some examples of Instagram bios I’ve come across (names changed obvs) that just aren’t doing it for me and why. And then I’m going to give some examples of ones that are KILLING IT. But first I suggest you go back and you think about those ‘words’ we collated that sum up our online personas. If mine are honest, awkward, funny and my bio is ‘VIX, YOUR FAVOURITE BLOGGER’ FAVOURITE BLOGGER’ you’re going to have a reaction, EITHER you’re going to get the David Starr reference (holla at me if you get it) and see that it’s totally on brand with my funny/awkwardness ORRR you’re going to think, ‘wow what a jumped up prick’ which I HOPE is the opposite of my brand! So if yours are ‘wellness, grateful, grounded’ a bio that says, ‘ASOS, pizza and partying’ isn’t going to cut it - do you see what I mean? So let’s look at some examples… Sharon Twenty Something Northern Gal World Traveller & Music Lover You think - great, she sounds like me, I bet we have loads in common! But then you look at her content. It’s make up flat lays and she hasn’t been further than Barnsley since 2016. It doesn’t represent the content she’s offering people NOW. So why should they follow her? If they like music, they’ll want to see related content. And if it’s a travel brand looking for influencers to work with, they’ll want to see up to date and relevant examples of that type of content. How about… Frank, Fashion mad, Fake It Til You Make It And there’s Frank wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Who is going to be interested in this content? And what the fuck does that cheesy quote mean? I suppose what I’m getting at is that your bio must have PURPOSE. It’s purpose is to tell people just coming to your profile WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT and also WHAT CONTENT THEY CAN EXPECT. It needs to be a mix of (just like your about page actually) of personal and ‘professional’ in a way. And here’s a lil nugget I’m going to throw at you. As of January 2019, lots of Instagram users are reporting only being able to see the first 2 lines of someone’s bio - this could end up being rolled out across or not but it means we need to be as strategic as possible. So here are some formulas that work… Sarah, Style, Travel, Good London Food Forever wearing pink and listening to Pink First of all, she’s listed her main content types in the first line. If you’re interested in those, you’ll follow. Then she’s given an idea of her personality, identity and interests - less important and not exactly Marmite but enough to get a personable sense. Chloe, I write about life and I like nice clothes too - now this is actually Chloe Plumstead on instagram (I am obsessed) and that whole first line NAILS her brand. Her blog is full of brilliant life think pieces and her Instagram is mainly just her looking buff. It does what it says on the tin! So let’s have a play with yours now. And PS this isn’t just about Instagram, the same formula can be used on Twitter but instead of writing about the types of photos you post, it could be the types of tweets you send. SO for example, let’s go back to Sarah… Sarah, Style, Travel, Good London Food Forever wearing pink and listening to Pink Becomes, Sarah, blogs about style and travel, tweets about the best burger places in London and if they play Pink - bonus Do you see what I mean? Anyway, back to Instagram. If you have a business profile you can choose a category, which comes up under your name - I went with ‘Blogger’. But your name part can have a fair few characters, I changed mine to Vix Zero BS Blog BFF but I’ve seen others say Sarah, Style & Travel in their name parts. Stands out in bold too! Then in your bio, you can write it as a paragraph OR you can do a bullet point or emoji bullet list. I used to have, ‘Mid Size Clothes & Dicking About In Prose’ for the first sentence which showed I was mainly posting pictures of my size 14-16 assss and writing long captions. Now it says, ‘Blogger, Mentor & Podcast Host’ because I want people to know what I do. I might change this though when I’m making more regular types of content on Instagram because I’m pivoting (again looooolll). Then in my next bullet point, I have the @exciting_emails handle - this probably isn’t the best so I’ll be changing it soon. And probably some more information about the types of things I post, so here you could put, ‘Style, Travel, Lunch’ or whatever. Then in the last bullet point, I’d have something personal - this could be the thing that Instagram eventually cuts off so it doesn’t matter too much but it gives a new follower a more personable idea about you. I could put, ‘Puppies, Potatoes, Partridge’ here and hope for the best or you can put something like Chloe has, ‘Spotify Playlist extraordinaire’ - something funny, witty, personable AND ON BRAND - would work. Technically to get those bullet points, I THINK you have to press return or enter and the end of each sentence rather than a space and then enter if you see what I mean? But it’s all trial and error! You could also write it in your Notes app and then copy and paste it? Then to finish off I’d have a link to a landing page on your website and I’m going to go through how to create one of those in a blog post or summit, haven’t figured it out yet! So there you have it - a new bio that tells the world who you are and what you do online. Come over to the Facebook group to share yours and get feedback. Don’t forget to Insta Stories you listening and what you’ve learned - I’ll be reposting and yeah, please tell a few friends to listen in - it means the world! Chat soon my deaaaaar

We’ve spoken previously about niches and ideal readers and all that fun stuff that gives our blog a bit of direction but today I want to bring you some exercises I’ve completed recently that have reaaaaallly helped me focus in. Those are - finding the words that sum up your brand, finding your sweet spot and then translating it to branding - and I’ll go more into that in another episode and then next week, we’ll move on to creating a mission statement to sum it all up. Completing these exercises has REAAALLY gotten me motivated and now I’m using all my spare time creating content - and the results are showing in my traffic - because I’m not second guessing anything - everything feels like me! So let’s dive in shall we… Right guys, you’re going to need to take notes - so hopefully you’ve got some bits to hand. I want you to pause the podcast and spend a couple of minutes writing down words that excite you, that you love. Off ya go! Ok, you’re back haha - or maybe you never went and you just want me to crack on because you’ve only got 15 minutes left in the bath before you need another Diet Coke or your fingers go crinkly - I’M ON IT! I’ll share my words with you - funny, approachable, straight-talking, listen, inspire, strong, grow, learn, share, happy, honesty, trustworthy, awkward When I sat back and analysed why I’d chosen these words - it made sense. I like to think I’m funny. I’m always very approachable and I find that an important quality in others. I am SUPER straight-talking - I can’t stand fakeess and bullshit and I certainly don’t dish it out myself. I love to listen and learn and I also love to be listened to and to teach! I love the word strong because in everything that has happened to me over the last 2/3 years I’ve had to be very strong! And this year I really want to grow as a person and spend more time being happy. I’ve also got words like honesty and trustworthy - I am often too trusting and honest to a fault but these are characteristics I pride myself in and that I seek in others. And well, awkward, because I can be super awkward and awkward situations are the funniest to me! Now I want you to nail down those words to what your blog represents. Because they totally should align! Your blog and your channels are an extension of you, so if the words that mean the most to you are, ‘integrity, love and real’ then maybe think twice about that sponsored post for skinny teas that make you hate your body and probably shit yourself. - Do you see what I mean? With the episode show notes, I’m going to create a free downloadable resource where you can get some ideas for words if you’re stuck, plus an exercise in ‘packaging’ those words up to give you a clear brand message. So head there! I think it’s so important that we’ve been doing the work, through the podcast here, in reeeeaally nailing down our niche and who and what we are online. Trust me, when you have that moment of clarity of, ‘oh, yeah, this feels good, this feels like me’ EVERYTHING will fall into place. But now I’m going to bring you back to the episode I recorded with Cat from Gatto Web - make sure you listen to that one - where we talked a bit about sweet spots. Cat opened me up to that term and then I went away and did lots of thinking on it. She said that your brand sweet spot is the place exactly between everything YOU love and everything your reader loves. For example, your readers may be mid to late twenty something women who value honest reviews, straight talking advice and keeping it real BUT you may love everything whimsical, fantasy with a splash of magic. So how do you please both parties? And I know a lot of people only want to blog for themselves - and I totally love that. Remember there is no right or wrong way to blog! So those people may not really give a shit about what their readers want, as long as they’re happy. And I do really respect that! But as we’ve discussed over the last few episodes, and as I’m all about sharing my experiences with you - I know that way back when, when I was blogging about the guy who wouldn’t call me back, my Kylie Jenner lip kits and jeans - no one gave a shit. I’d have a few blogger pals read my stuff probably out of kindness and obligation, but it didn’t alight! Fast forward a couple of years and I started to realise what my audience liked - straight talking, honest, bare all, to the point discussions on what others were too afraid to say or too tight to share. So that’s how I framed my content! So think about that. You’ve got your words that mean the most to you - which of those would also mean the most to your readers? And if you don’t have a flipping Scooby - go and listen to the episode on Identifying An Ideal Reader, because it will really help you! I’d like for you to do another exercise now - on your phone notes or paper or whatever - and I want you to create two columns. One headed, ‘What I Love’ and the other headed, ‘What My Readers Love’ and I want you to make lists under each. Under ‘What I Love’ for example might be - beauty reviews, travel guides, think pieces and dating posts - and that might be why you’re a bit all over the place. Because you love talking about what you love! But in the other column, I want you to go to your Analytics and look at your most popular posts. I want you to look at your comments and see which ones people most engaged with. I want you to check your social media and see which blog posts got people talking the most. What do you notice? Because maybe your readers LOVE your travel posts but your beauty posts go unnoticed - you may like writing them but are you happy for them not to be as well received? Where’s the sweet spot? Another tool you could use - and maybe this is just for the LOLs is a website called SpyFu.com - you can use it to spy on competitors keywords and what they perform best with BUT you can also use it to see which of your keywords are performing best and stick that in the ‘What my readers love’ column. And honestly you need to listen to the state of mine…. (Fast forward a few seconds if you’ve got an uneasy disposition) but mine are, Dream Phone, Wide On, Cum With Your Fingers and Fingering Techniques. So you can see that my love of 90s nostalgia is a strong theme and you can also see that I used to NAIL the dating/sex blogging amirite. But let’s bring it back because fuck my life. We’ve got the key words that sum up our brand, we know who our ideal reader is, we know how to hit the sweet spot with our content - now what? Next we’re going to discuss how we can present that visually through branding! So I’ve got some homework for ya! I want you to create a Pinterest board called, ‘Exciting Emails Brand Vision Board’ and I want you to pin articles, pictures, colours, words, quotes - WHATEVER to represent what we’ve discussed today. Then come and share it in the Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/exciting_emails so we can give feedback! I also want you to come and tell me what your words are and what your sweet spot is - I’m interested! Until then though I’d love it if you could subscribe, leave a review and head over to my social channels - @vixmeldrew as I love a good natter. And I shall chat to you next time! Byeeee.

When I first started blogging, I wrote for myself as one big whole brain fart of thoughts, observations, musings and interests. It continued this way for a long time. Suddenly I started having regular readers who would chat to me about how they were feeling the same things and going through the same experiences and I loved the thought of connecting with people like that. What I didn’t realise at the time though was that I needed to be more aware of who these people were so that I could better help them through my content. In this episode, I’m going to talk about what an ideal reader is, why it’s important to know who yours is, how to find out who they are and then how to implement that knowledge into your blog! BEEEEFY right? Let’s get to it. So your ‘ideal reader profile’ is basically creating an image of a person in your mind. It’s the person who reads every posts, retweets you, DMs you on Instagram - they’re so bought in to who you are and what you’re about that they want to support everything you do. They do that because they relate HARD to you. Maybe they’re also roast potato aficionados HOLLAAA, or they’re buying a house like you, going through a break up like you. Or they have the same background as you. Now I’m not saying this is a real person who’s stalking you like Joe Goldberg in ‘You’ - there could be just one of them or there could be 500 - but it’s key to know who they are. It’s important to know who they are for tons of reasons. So let’s go through them now with some examples. So say, you suddenly blogged your trip to a 5 star hotel in Dubai - if your ‘ideal reader’ can only afford low budget, European travel, they’re not going to connect with those posts. Or maybe you’re a first-time Mum and your ‘ideal readers’ are young and not parents themselves yet, you’ll find a disconnect when you start blogging about babies. Whereas, if you knew your readers had a low budget for travel and you wanted to write about your Dubai trip, you could write it from the angle of, ‘here’s what I did in Dubai, but here are some low cost/cheaper ways to do it to suit all budgets’. Or, as a new Mum, you could write the posts from the angle of, ‘you guys might not get this yet BUT HERE’S WHAT’S COMING TO YA.’ Do you see what I mean? When you know who your ideal reader is, you can cater each post, story, caption, tweet, WHATEVER to that person so that they feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Not that you’re trying to pee into the wind. When a reader feels like content has been written especially for them, to help them solve a problem, or to give them specific inspiration, the bond between you is closer - this means they are more influenced by you. And I don’t mean any of this in a cynical, gross, marketing way at all. I actually mean it the opposite! How much more would you enjoy writing your blog if you truly knew that what you were writing resonated with the people who support you the most? It’s the best feeling to be THAT reciprocal! So how do you work out who this person is? If you’re an Exciting Emails Member (for £!5 a month guys and you get A LOT) you’ll have received your very first in-depth lesson on finding your ideal reader, with an enclosed work book to go through that will help you nail down who it is. If you’re not a member, first of all, seriously GET ON THAT, but anywaaaaay, here’s roughly what you need to do. You need to check your analytics to see what your demographic is. Gender? Age? Type of device? And then you need to make some serious generalisations. If your core audience is 18-21 year olds, the tone of voice and content you’re making needs to be a hell of a lot different than for an audience of early to mid twenties, and again for late twenties/early thirties and so on. As much as I, in my early thirties, would love to think of herself as hip and down with the kids, if your blog posts are littered with references to High School Musical, it’s probably going over my head. Just like when I litter 90/00s pop culture references in my blog posts about like Zack Morris and low slung jeans and the odd 20 year old that reads it goes ‘what the actual fleck are you talking about? Anyway, back to figuring out who that person is - GENERALISE. In all normal walks of life, generalising and stereotyping is the worst thing anyone can do. And it’s super non-inclusive because OF COURSE your ideal blog reader may be a career driven, 25 year old perfectionist with a boyfriend, her first home and a puppy called Carl and there might be 500 of her, but you might also have the odd one or two Keith’s, 45 who work in IT that feel a bit left out when you start banging on about which shade of pink Vaspar paint to do your home office in. But that’s where we go back to niches and things like that - trying to please everyone and be everything to everyone, means you appeal to no one. But when you understand your ideal reader, what their needs are, what they’re interested in, which references you can make in jokes about, you’ll get so much more engagement. Hopefully you’ve paused the podcast to go and sign up to be a member, to get the workbook OR you’re furiously making notes on who that person is. Come to the Exciting Emails Facebook group and tell us - who is your ideal reader? Once you’ve done that, you’re probably then thinking about how to best serve that person with your content. Well I’ve got ya! Told you this episode was a beefy one. Firstly, you create content that hits their pain points and interests. What I mean by pain points, for example is, if your ideal reader is Miss Sally that I previously mentioned, you know, just buying a house with a boyfriend and new puppy, she’s going to be Googling things like - how to buy a house, how to save money, where to buy Vaspar paint, H&M Home sale etc - well if you’ve also just bought a house, or are saving for one, or are interested in interiors - there are some blog posts you can write that will answer those questions! Similarly, that same person might be interested in Love Island, how to shop sustainably, how to read 52 books a year and show them off on Goodreads - there are content ideas there too. Then once the content is created, you speak directly to that person throughout it. You litter it with references that they’ll get. Like my Zack Morris one above - leave me a review if you also loved Saved By The Bell because I KNOW YOU DID> You make in jokes of the things you know you both like. You make them feel like you’re writing solely for them. And then you share your content where they are and what time they’re there. Are they more interested in visual content? Then Instagram is your jam. Are they more about memes and opinions? Then Twitter is where they’ll be lurking. Or are they obsessed with catching up with friends on Facebook? Make sure you keep up a page and add your posts to it! Once you’ve envisaged who your ideal reader is, creating content that engages a wider audience becomes much more enjoyable and easy to create. So tell me who your ideal reader is and how you’re going to be serving them - I’d love to know! Please also let me know any other thoughts you have on this and we’ll be chatting about it on the Facebook group. Don’t forget to follow me @vixmeldrew on Twitter and Instagram and also @exciting_emails for daily Blog tips and inspiration and I will see you next time!  

Ok so you’ve designed your website and branding to match your niche. You’ve written your about page to tell everyone who and what you’re about. Now you just need to fill your blog with content. Easy right? Well... not always. Creating content can be really frigging tough. When the ideas aren’t flowing. Or they’ve been done before. Or no one will be interested. We can get bogged down with these negative thoughts sometimes, right? Also there is a LOT of content in here that I could probably spread out to 86 podcasts, 4 ebooks and 17 courses BUT once you guys have fed back your thoughts I might go into things in more detail later on. So let me know! Anyway, What if I was to tell you, you just need to approach content creating differently? What if I can tell you how? Keep listening! Do you ever ask yourself what questions when you’re creating? I often don’t. I think, ‘ooh I want to write a post about The Hills today,’ I write it and then... air. Oh sure, then I’ll ask myself questions. Like - did I not promote this well enough? Was my SEO not good? Was it rubbish? Why isn’t anyone reading? But we really should ask ourselves questions before hitting publish. And this is what we should be asking. I’m almost flow charting it up in here so take some notes if you feel like it! At the top of my flowchart I’m going to think to myself... Who is this for? Then under that I’m going to branch off with a ‘for me’ label and a ‘for others’ label. In fact, head over to VixMeldrew.com because I’m going to make a graphic to help illustrate what I mean here! Ok right back to ‘for me’. If I want to write a blog post that’s for me, I’m going to ask myself why and these are often my answers - you can jot em down. Is it cathartic? Am I trying to express something? Get something off my chest through writing? Or Is it fun? Is it a topic I And probably I alone want to write about? Often when we’re writing for ourselves it’s just because we want to. We want to express a thought. Have a discussion with ourselves. Write about a passion that we love to show our love for it. And of course that’s absolutely fine! As long as we’re fine for it to get not much traffic, not many social shares and not much engagement. As long as we know it won’t be a great ‘performer’ we’re just happy to have it out there. But if we’re not OK with that, we might want to revisit that branch about it being for others. Then we might want some sub branches where we ask ourselves, why should people read this? These branches are questions like: Is it helpful? Does it answer a question or solve a problem? Is it entertaining? Does it make people feel good? Has it been said before? Is it well researched? And also, soz guys, but we need to ask ourselves - is it any good? I’m going to go through these questions and why they’re important we ask ourselves them. And I want you to tell me too - we’ll have a chat in the Facebook group about it - what questions do you or do you not ask yourself? Firstly, ‘is it helpful?’ If you have a piece of content that’s helpful to others they will engage. They will share it. They will see you as an authority. It will drive them to almost like, help you back for helping them. And these pieces of content could be tips, guides or advice or they could be pieces from the heart that others relate to - that helps them see a situation in a new way. They could also be reviews where you’ve helped them make a purchasing decision or book a flight or try a new product. But ask yourself, have they left with more than what they came with? Maybe your content isn’t helpful. So is it entertaining? Does it give people a laugh? Does it challenge them? Do they immediately want to tell their friends to read it so that they feel like they’re the ones making the witty observations? Does it take people on a journey? Or is it dull? Dry? A slog to read? Here you want to ask yourself, have I changed someone’s mood with this piece? You also want to ask yourself if you’re just adding to noise or if you have a unique stance. I don’t know about you but there’s nothing worse for me than reading 4 blog posts by different bloggers all in reaction to the same topic with all of the same viewpoints. But it’s OK to add your voice to a topic that is widely spoken about. But here you need to ask yourself, ‘am I saying anything different?’, ‘am I adding to the discussion?’ Or ‘am I repeating what has already been said with no new or original thoughts?’ If so, you probably don’t need to join that discussion. This is where research comes in. Which blog post on body positivity are you more likely to read and engage with? The one that says, ‘oh yeah all bodies are good bodies guys, let’s learn to love ourselves and sacrifice our femininity at the altar of Jameela,’ OR the one that details the originality of the movement, how it started, who started it, when it became mainstream, who pioneered that, who bastardised it and what it looks like today? Writing content on a topic that you have thoroughly researched and have a lot to add and discuss makes you look like the dogs bollocks to be quite honest. Poorly researched, wafer thin waffle makes it seem pointless. By all means, like I’ve always said, write whatever you want to write about - just bear these questions in mind! Which brings us to asking ourselves if it’s any good. Is it as entertaining as it could be? Is it as helpful as it should be? Does it need more thought? Does it need justice doing to the topic? And if you’re wavering over any of these questions - do you really need to post it? Could it be a Twitter thread? Or an Instagram caption? What purpose is it serving? There’s so much more we could talk about when it comes to content - and I’m going to tell you a bit about how you can get even more help with my own ‘Content Strategy’ in a sec. I want to share with you a study that was undertaken by Bloomly who surveyed 1,000 bloggers across a variety of niches. Before I do though I just want to take 5 secs to talk to you about becoming a member of Exciting Emails. If you got my announcement email then you’ll know all about the 4 different tiers and how I offer a range of affordable and bespoke coaching options. But I want to offer something more to you too. The top 3 tiers are gone, there’s a waiting list but why not sign up for an Excited Membershio? For £15 a month (cheaper than chippy tea mate) you’ll get an exclusive Facebook group, huge discounts on the shop resources - including new Presets that are out soon, the courses and the events I’ll be running next year. Not only that though, you’ll receive a monthly email with an in-depth lesson on an aspect that the podcast goes in to - but waaaaay more in-depth. For example - members will get my full content strategy, detailing how to plan and think of different types of content that will grow your audience relationships, get you more brand deals and yelp you tip those Google searches. Pretty good deal right? For the info and the application form, just go to vixmeldrew.com/membership and join me for the ride that 2019 is going to be! Anyway, back to the Bloomly survey which I’ll link in the show notes. The results showed reports that content performed so much better when it was long form (so well thought out), when it was well researched and when it was well written. So those points about us auditing ourselves and asking ourselves if it’s any good or if we’ve added enough research, thought and reflection in, really do need to be listened to. Like I’ve said before, I’ll never tell you that you can’t write a post on The Hills or your Aldi truffle addiction or that you’re not funny enough or enlightened enough. Your blog is your blog to do whatever you want with. However, if you want to be consistently creating content that converts (oh hi check me out with the alliteration) then it’s time to start asking yourself these questions. Don’t forget to get signed up for a Membership today! Right I’ll stop bugging you now, and I shall chat to you next time! Bye!

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through how to write an about page that screams ‘you’ and tells whoever stumbles across it - whether that’s a brand, a new follower or a potential loyal reader, exactly who you are and what your blog is about.   As ever, there’s a practical element so make sure you’ve got a Diet Coke, cup of tea, a snack - whatever you need and something to write on as we get cracking.   Let’s go!   Sooo many people abandon their about pages.   I’ll turn on to someone’s blog, thinking I’m there for fashion advice but their bio tells me they love writing about beauty.   It’s a page that we often forget to update. I’ve seen newly married bloggers talking about being single and their exploits on their about pages! Or parenting bloggers who have information about their single, independent lives.   You might be thinking that it doesn’t matter, that no one reads it anyway but you’re totally wrong!   I’m going to hit you with some stats…   I looked at my average page visits for the last 6 months and can tell you that 446 INDIVIDUAL people (again on average) read my about page per month.   For you it might be 5 people, or 105, or 105,000 but if it’s more than zero - IT MATTERS.   Like I mentioned in the intro - people are visiting your about page for a reason.   Perhaps it’s a brand who wants to know what you stand for and whether it aligns with their message.   Maybe it’s someone who found you on Instagram and wants to know if your blog is worth following too.   Or maybe it’s a new reader who’s fallen completely in love with your content and wants to get to know you better.   It could of course just be someone being nosey (hi that’s me, yep).   Whoever it is, they want to leave that page feeling like they know you better. But also feeling like they completely get what you and your blog is about. And if they’re also about it, they’re going to want to stick around.   So other than neglecting our about pages and not keeping them updated, what other mistakes do we make?   We’re Too Generic   Sometimes we write our about pages in a way that the internet or our favourite blogger has told us or shown us how to write them.   We want to follow the same formula because if it’s worked for others, then it’ll work for us, right? WRONG.   Because if you’re copying what others are doing, you’re telling a potential audience what they’re about - not what you’re about.   Maybe if we think we should mention what everyone else mentions then we’ll appeal to more people - but that’s the wrong way to go about things.   We need to use our about pages to really get a sense of who we are as individuals across because that’s what’s going to make us stand out!   We’re Too Niche   Alright soz for being one big ball of contradiction but there is an element of playing the game here.   If our audience come to our blog for beauty reviews but we decide to tell the world about our love for 12 hour sessions playing Risk and bingeing on medieval history documentaries - we could alienate those we’re trying to appeal to.   So if I’ve completely messed your head up - don’t worry, later on I’ll go into how we can get the balance right!   We Don’t Say What Our Blog Is About   I’ve seen sooo many about pages that are like, ‘Hi I’m Becky, 22, I like cats and cupcakes, if you want to work with me, email me.’   OK hun but why should we? Why should a brand work with you? Or read your blog? Or click on another page? You haven’t told them to!   You haven’t piqued their interests by describing the type of content you make and are passionate about. So if you’re not interested in what your blog is actually about - why should anyone reading it?   We Don’t Make The Most Of It   Hands up if you say in your about page that you love talking about beauty, lifestyle, fashion and travel but don’t link to your best beauty, fashion, lifestyle and travel posts!!!   Yeah me too!   What a wasted opportunity!   We’re Too Formal   Nothing irks me more than seeing a blog with posts and pictures that scream, ‘light-hearted, relatable and fun’ yet an about page that is drier than my vagina after looking at pictures of Nigel Farage.   Alright irked is probably not the right word, I’m overselling it - but whatever your brand voice is - knowledgeable, witty, positive, serious, intelligent, carefree - your about page needs to be written in that style too!   And we’re coming on to writing styles and finding our voices soon so it might be that you go away and zzzssh your about page up and then in a couple of months come back and add your extra sauce to it - THAT’S GOOD   So there are a few of my about page hang ups - are you ready to get to the juicy bit? Where we talk about how to write a banging one?   Before we start, I’m not going to profess that mine is amazing. But at least it’s updated! And I’m not going to name and shame anyone doing it well or badly, I’ll just use examples so here we go…   Great About Pages have…   A headline   And it could be written in third person if you’re cringe like me and hate blowing smoke up your own arse. Starting with something like, ‘Vix Meldrew is an award-winning lifestyle and mental health blogger who lives in London’ is a great way to get across the nitty gritty of details like name, blog niche and location.   Or you could greet people with a, ‘Hi, I’m Vix Meldrew, I’m an xyz blogger who lives in London’   A structure   My favourite about page structure goes something like this…   You’ll find posts on this blog on a range of topics such as; blah blah blah   I have previously worked with some incredible brands on content like; blah blah blah   You’ll find me;   Now the ‘you’ll find me’ bit is the key bit to getting your individual personality across. And not in a niche way like, ‘sitting alone in my cupboard knitting Harry Styles scarves’ and not in a fakely generic way like, ‘eating Nandos with my besties whilst we all wear ASOS’ but something that is true to you, whilst also being relatable to your audience.   So for example, if you’re a solo travel blog, yours might say, ‘You’ll find me either strolling alone across a far away beach with sand between my toes, a cocktail in one hand and me documenting it all via Instagram in my other or sat at home in London dreaming about my next solo adventure.’   Or if you’re a beauty blog, it might say, ‘you’ll find me obsessively refreshing Sephora’s new in section or trialling out that new glitter brow tutorial that’s just gone viral’ - do you get what I mean?   Have a go now! Write a 3 paragraph about page with a headline, followed by a ‘the blog posts you’ll find’ bit, a ‘brands I’ve worked with’ bit and the ‘you’ll find me…’ bit.   And make sure you come and post them on the Exciting Emails Facebook group so we can all marvel at your fantastic work.   Now here’s how to make them even better!   In the bit where you say about the types of posts you write LINK TO YOUR BEST ONES.   And in the bit where you mention the brands you’ve worked for LINK TO THOSE POSTS.   If you haven’t worked with anyone yet, don’t worry - these about pages need to be updated constantly so you can always come back and add that in once the brand work starts rolling in.   You can also use your about page to tell people to come and find you on social media.   If they found your blog before they found your Twitter - tell them to follow you there and let them know the type of stuff you talk about - whether it’s activism or reality TV. IF they’re your people, they’ll want to find you!   Likewise with Instagram - perhaps you post more of your real life over there. If people fall in love with your writing, they’ll fall in love with you and want to see more - so tell them where they can find more!   Another fun way to make your about page more unique is putting up a funny picture, or one from your childhood with a personal story - this gives people an even better insight into who you are!   Or if you’ve had any accomplishments like awards, recognition or great comments - why not put a few here for other people to see too!   Essentially your about page is a window into who you are as a person and who you are as a blogger and you want it to almost ‘advertise’ all of your best bits in a succinct and informative way.   Don’t go overboard and turn it into a 1000 word essay - keep it short and sweet - by following the structure I mentioned and just make sure you update it any time your interests, lives or topics change.   If you have any ‘About page’ questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or Instagram @vixmeldrew and don’t forget to come and tell me about how you’ve switched things up - I can’t wait to hear about it.   Until then, please leave me a review and a rating - it means the world and don’t forget to subscribe!   Speak to you all super soon, byeeeee.

Joined by the brilliant Cat, from Gatto Web, we discuss what goes into your blog design and why it's so important. As two women with our own businesses, we discuss everything from Instagram, finances, workload and blogging as well as Cat giving us the run down on some actionable things we can all do today to improve our blog design and make it more US.