hey guys, Colleen here- DIYer behind LemonThistle.com, today I'm excited to be
here with some of my favorite bloggers from Western Canada and we're going to
be answering some questions that we get all the time. This is Lindi from Love Create
Celebrate. We've got Kristi from Making it in the Mountains and Christina from
the DIY Mommy. We have four different questions that we're taking on and we're
gonna put them all in a playlist for you below so you can hop around and check
those out. This video is going to be all about how to make money blogging and
the reality behind that for us. We are here on a girls weekend in Jasper and we
were talking about all the things that we get asked all the time and we thought
it would be really fun to do a collab and put it together on YouTube for you
guys so you can get to know us a little bit better and to kind of break down
some of those walls between viewers and bloggers. Before we get into money I just
kind of want to hear your guys' blogging story; when did you get started;
how did you get started and what were your goals in starting blogging... how did
you get here. My blog started more as just for fun so it was when I had to
quit my web design business and my graphic design business because it was just too
much when I had a newborn. Too many commitments and when my daughter was six
months old I really felt the need to have another creative outlet and since
I had the skills all ready to do web design and things I thought a blog
would be the perfect thing to do so I just wanted to make stuff and write
about it and it was just for fun and since then it's become a full-time
career just over the years. And you started how long ago? Nine years.
So Christina has been blogging forever. I'm like a senior citizen in the blogging world.
I'm trying to compute how many years I've been blogging and I think it's four.
I started when we lived 12 hours away from the rest of our family and so it was sort of
just a way that we were- we had bought this new house so we were hoping to do a
bunch of not renovations but things to it and we wanted to be able to share
with everyone and that just seemed like an easy way to do it and I had no idea
blogging was a career or something you could do to make money
it was just something I did to share with my family. I'm the same- When I started
I had moved away and I lived in different province than my family and stuff. I think it's three
years ago but I just did it because I want to share what I'm making with my
mom basically. I don't know. And then other people were looking at it and then all of a sudden I was like oh look, people are looking at this
random little website I started. And I had no idea people made money blogging. I really had no clue when I started.
I started- I knew people need money blogging but that wasn't my goal I
didn't want to do that. I was pregnant with my first- my twins and I was on bed
rest really early and I was bored. I went from working
three jobs to doing nothing and I knew that I wouldn't be able to go back to
working contract work like I was working and I had previously started businesses that I didn't actually like, so I thought
You know what- I'm going to start a blog. I'm going to write it while I'm on Mat leave
and then when I'm off Mat leave, I'm going to decide what I didn't hate
writing about for a year and then maybe I'll start a business doing that. It'll be great.
and then by the end of that year, people had started to ask me
to contribute. I went back to work for a little bit but it just was too
much to do both and I decided I can stay home with my kids.
I can put the time into this and make this my new job.
that took a couple years
So when did it change to a business for you guys? When did it go from being a hobby or some way to share some things to
being like okay this is a business- what was that switch?
For me me it was oh it was
about five years after I started so it's quite a while after I started when we
started building our house and I have seen other bloggers get sponsorships
from businesses to give them products to do their DIYs and so I thought I should try it- why not.
So I approached a bunch of brands and they
agreed to give us tons of material for our home so we save like thousands of
money building our home from these brands giving us- and then later I
learned oh the brands can give you stuff plus they can pay you for sharing that
stuff so it was about- I started the blog 2009 I started making money
in about 2014 and then 2015-16 started making like a full-time income from the blog.
I honestly think the switch for the wasn't that long ago it was fairly
recent at another job for a long time I had a couple mat leaves and that's when I started putting effort
into the blog, I was at home with my kids like you said I needed that sort of creative outlet
I started doing more and then recently things happened with my daycare and other
things personally that just caused me to say never mind
I'm gonna stay at home with my kids now and I don't think it was till after that
when I was like I'm gonna put some push into this and make it business because even
before I considered it like a hobby when I had this other real job it was like
a side hustle -yeah it was a hobby. I think for me it was- I ended up
stumbling into this amazing group of bloggers that were some were at the same
stage as me and some were well above me and I feel like people just started
lifting me up and opening my eyes to new opportunities that this career could
bring to our lives and then we bought this house that like our first
fixer-upper. We had always had like new houses and this was our first fixer-upper where
we actually had to do some work we weren't really in a position to be a
you know I'll just move in and renovate the whole house with a contractor and
it's just started to evolve like I had people lifting me up and showing me the
way and and I just took advantage of all those opportunities and
turned them into what I needed them to be. Yeah. Mine changed not into a blogging business until not
very long ago same thing I started in 2013 and when I decided not to go back I
mean I was working contract work so it's not like I was making that much money
anyways but I thought- okay if I can make the difference between what I would pay
and day care and what I would make at work which is like $200. Like you don't
make that much money above paying for daycare for two babies let me tell you
and if I can do that in a month that would be great so I started doing kind
of social media help for businesses because I'm like well now I know how to
schedule social media that's something I'm really great at-I can help them with
their images so that's when I started making money and I didn't switch to
doing things with my own blog until it was getting- I was pregnant again and
I was like this is so stressful being on other people's timelines and I mean if I'm
gonna be home and I can't I can't be doing all this so I decided to just
take a step back and see where it went. How have you made money over the years
what are the different things that you've tried and done?
I think blogging is such an interesting interesting career because it's
constantly evolving the ways that you can make money blogging and for me it's
not just blogging anymore it's just it's a whole bunch of different avenues so I
make money through sponsored posts on the blog and still my biggest source of
income through pay-per-click ads on the blog and also through affiliate links on
the blog so that's when you post a link and people buy stuff in the link and you
get a percentage and then now with YouTube that's a whole other avenue I'm
getting paid for pay-per-click ads on YouTube sponsorships on YouTube videos
and other things like speaking engagements and products I have a pillow line and
stuff like that so I think you for blogging you do have to be really open to all
sorts of avenues if you want to be successful. And I've heard it said too
that your blog is kind of like your home base right and it's a springboard to do
the other things that could bring in income. it's not necessarily like I have to-
the end all- or yeah exactly it's really a door opener. yeah I agree
The same as Christina like the biggest thing for me has been sponsored posts
and some really great partnerships with brands and I make money from the ads on
my website. I'm just branching out to youtube so that is not necessarily a
source of income for me but- there will be- and it's a really it's a really fun
avenue to explore because I think it's a new branch of things that I can bring to
brands as well so even if it's not necessarily YouTube that I'm making
money on I feel like it's it's opening up some opportunities with brands and
sponsors you know so yeah
And I mean for me it's the same like the same sort
of base things and I I'm just at the point now where I'm starting to think
about how I want to branch out of the blog like people do- write various ebooks
or real books or people you know branch into speaking engagement and different things where they
make new forms of income. Or shops that they have. So I haven't really
pushed out that boundary yet but I'm at that point where I'm wondering which Avenue I want
to go to start exploring.
I feel like maybe I was a little bit more creative
in how to make income because my my traffic was not huge and so I thought hey why not try these
other things and so I've done- yeah managing social media for brands and
I've done managing blogger programs for brands,
I've done writing as small businesses. I wrote a wedding blog- a couple wedding blogs for a while as their business
I mean I feel like I've done a lot of different things. I've been kind of like oh- I'll try that sure, I'll try it. and if it doesn't work out- that's okay.
Let's try something else.
And it all evolved from this little sort of blog. I had a printable shop on Etsy for a little bit. And then after I started blogging for money
I guess mostly it was guest posts on other people's sites and contributor posts
on other people's sites- that was my first taste of- Oh oh my gosh I can make a
little bit of pocket change now I have an e course that I sell on
brush lettering and I have another eCourse on idea generation as well
-you're a jack of all trades- yeah- I have a store where I sell things I just feel
like I try at all but my biggest my biggest is sponsored work and
then ad income
how do you balance making money with authenticity?
Yeah, that's a tough one I think blogging has evolved so much now that people are
finally kind of accepting that there are sponsorships and like readers are
accepting sponsored posts more but I think it is our responsibility to write
about things that were truly passionate about and products that we truly love that we
truly would you use I think that is really really important and I think
people can probably see right through bloggers and vloggers that share things
that they don't truly believe in.
I think that it's hard to when you start
blogging again I started I was just like someone wants to pay me to write about that.
Yeah sure, but now that I've sort of found my niche more and found my vision
and my brand and there's definitely things that I will -
there's money opportunities that I'm like oh that doesn't really fit with what I would actually
use at home so I have to say no to that.
yeah so I I think the most important thing to me the thing that's always
driving or at least in the background of all of my sponsored anything is that my
readers trust me yeah and my word counts for something and I don't want
to lose that yeah I don't. like I purchased things
because friends have recommended them and I want to be that friend that
recommends to to my audiences and I I want it to be genuine. you don't want
them to be disappointed -no on that note too there's been a couple of times
where I've had like sponsored content on my blog and then use that product or used
something that I thought was going to be great and then was disappointed
and that's a struggle - cause you have to- Like I'm not gonna lie my readers like
that's just- so I have to go back to people and say
well this was my experience and this is how- what I'm willing to do but I can't
you know say that I liked this or that it works easily or xyz
and sometimes they come to you and say we're not comfortable with you sharing that so
just scrap it yeah and I'm okay with that yeah
I actually just the other
day I was going back and work with the brand and they wanted me to write about
this and I'm like this is actually a really great topic this is something I
was going to write about anyways which for me is immediately like great fit and
I already had that post in mind yeah but then they didn't want to provide the
service. I don't feel comfortable recommending something unless I've tried it
and I know that I like it. if I'm not gonna tell a friend about it I'm not
gonna talk about it.
what is the biggest challenge in regards to blogging as a
business that you've had that's specifically in making money in blogging
I think for me the biggest challenge was what I said before was having those
sponsorships that don't if it doesn't turn out the way I envisioned it I hoped
that it would I think that yeah being authentic with my readers
being authentic with myself or my home. you know using- I don't want to promote a product
that I didn't like or that didn't work properly or that's at a store I wouldn't
shop at or whatever yeah. and learning about that balance because at
first as a new blogger you just want to do it all
Now I think for me if I'm thinking about the business side of blogging its money
management because sometimes yeah it's like most businesses like its most
entrepreneurial endeavours you're gonna have seasons where you have lots of
income and you're gonna have seasons where you have hardly income
and with blogging it's so all over the place cuz like around Christmas time you're
gonna be raking in the cash from affiliate sales and sponsorships and
then in January you're gonna have you're gonna make 5 bucks that month right
so it's like learning how to manage that income especially if you're using it to
provide for your family yeah and even where to invest like
reinvest some of that income into your blog too
yeah i find that tricky too.
it's so I think for me it's really important to me that I don't feel
like I'm coming off as I'm selling something to my readers yeah
I don't want to be my blog is not in an advertisement for people that I'm
working with it's me genuinely sharing things from my life and my home. yeah
in a natural way.
it's it's genuine it's organic it's it's my life right and I don't want
my blog to become an advertisement for someone else. It is a big struggle. And I would say for me the
communication and managing expectations not just from your readers who we love
them we want to meet their needs but for the amount of time that we put into it like
we have to see some sort of monetary return or we can't put that time in and also from
brands who want you to post like their logo and this infographic and this
that because it's like hey I value you my readers and I know I'm not
I don't want to see that I don't want to be sold to and kind of
managing that and in contracts and try to know... I mean we
want to think the best of everything that it's all going to work out but in
reality like we have to read contracts and try to put in it okay I'm going to
do this many photos and no I'm not gonna do a photo in the store that I don't
shop at. And no I'm like and you have to be really it's a business and that's hard
yeah just stay true to yourself and I think that can be really hard because -
brands do have expectations and how their money is being spent and that's fair. Absolutley.
But I feel like we need to juggle- first of all I feel like I know my audience best I pay really
close attention to what they respond to and what they like and I try to give out
good content that they can relate to I feel like I'm the expert of my audience and
so I want to make sure I'm staying true to myself and what keeping my audience
what they need while still getting a brand what what they're expecting right.
what's one thing that worked really well or that you want to focus on more?
For me it's been video so I started I started writing tutorials on my blog nine years
ago and now within the last three years I started building my YouTube channel
and I never ever would have thought that that would have been something that I
would focus on or something that did both for me because I feel like I'm very
self conscious of how I speak sometimes how I look and stuff and there's so many
younger people on YouTube it's such a different audience but it's been such a
cool thing to try and I think there's a really big audience on YouTube
ready to see some more home decor DIY like real life stuff that's not on HGTV
that's more of raw on YouTube and it's good
and I've been able to get lots of brand interested in YouTube and video and stuff
like that so I think that's something that I have been successful with over the last
couple years but I want to keep growing. I do know like a big I talked to you
guys about this I've got this vision from where I want to take my blog this
year and I'm really clear about it or it's been a while since I feel like that
happened so I'm really excited to make some changes and to a really hone
where my blog going so.
yeah yeah we talked about a
lot cuz we're both in that where I was saying I'm just sort of found a vision
and changed some things about my blog and changed about what I'm sharing
and I'm really happy with where it is right now and just trying to see where I
want to branch further from there.
I think alot of that is trial and error
because you don't really know what's going to work for you until you do it
and until people respond yeah like I always -when I started my blog I wanted
to make baby clothes right and now I am doing decor videos and people love them.
at one time in life I posted a recipe
and we were just talking about how yummy that was last night
I would say for me one thing that I've always focused on that's worked really
well for me is the teaching aspect of blogging if I'm gonna post a tutorial I
want to give detailed photos and instructions and real like avoid this
because I did that and that's always worked really well for me I didn't mention
actually do workshops as well- and that brings in some income- so i just try it all, i just like to try it all. but one
thing when I want to focus more on it's not necessarily the teaching but the
sharing because I've had their time with home decor being like well how can I
share that that's just an idea yeah right so how can I break them into
more posts but just to like let you guys in more on my thought process and you
guys have really inspired me to do that like here's my vision for the room
okay here's my update and I've always been like no unless it's finished and done
and I can do the whole start to finish in one post I'm not going to do it.
Alright so my question for you guys now that this is done
If you are a blogger what's the one thing that you found
either challenging or that it's helped you in
your success? and if you are not a blogger what's one thing that you didn't know
from this video? hopefully you learned something. I hope you guys like this
video if you did please make sure to hit that thumbs up button and you can
subscribe to my channel for more DIY and decor videos and I hope that you
subscribe to all of us and enjoy all our videos.
check out the playlist
for the rest of these Q&A style videos we have one on authenticity and
blogging; home decor- finding your home decor style; and managing work-life
balance while you're working from home. see you guys next time
youtube YouTube let's do youtube. be authentic
no pressure. be authentic.
For more infomation >> Melania Trump and Hillary Clinton: What do these two first ladies have in common? - Duration: 10:32. 
For more infomation >> एरिया 51 में एलियन है ? | What is Area 51 ? Secrect of AREA 51 in HINDI 2018 - Duration: 4:49. 
For more infomation >> Archbishop Angaelos & Archbishop Justin Welby - What do we mean when we pray 'Thy Kingdom Come?' - Duration: 6:18. 
For more infomation >> What's Inside? BOSE 301 Series 1 Loudspeakers Look inside UnderCover Loa Bose 301 seri crossover top - Duration: 10:23. 
For more infomation >> Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump: What do they think of Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels? - Duration: 3:26. 
For more infomation >> What Are You, Human? - Duration: 2:05. 
For more infomation >> What does protosyntactical mean? - Duration: 0:40. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét