The first 10 subscribers

Over the past few months I’ve found myself really interested in newsletters.

Many of the blogs I used to regularly read are now sites I check out every once in a while or have just forgotten about altogether. People don’t blog (or read blogs) like they used to and the sort of blog content that worked 4/5 years back is now the sort of thing that gets posted on Instagram.

However, a newsletter is a great way to keep readers or followers updated in a way that feels personal. This blog is now in it’s fourth year and my intention is for it to expand beyond just blogposts.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking to create a newsletter. However, I currently only have one email subscriber (the majority of readers follow this blog via WordPress) so I’ll hold off for a little while. I’m waiting until I reach the first 10 email subscribers before putting out my first newsletter.

It’ll be a monthly summary with extra bits and pieces that don’t get shared on the blog. My newsletter is for all my readers but mainly those that find it hard to keep up. I think a monthly email with links to top posts, recent content and recommendations will be much easier to keep up with.

I look forward to putting out my first newsletter in the coming weeks or months. I hope you look forward to reading it, sign up below:

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7 types of people to unfollow on Instagram

I regularly update who I follow on Instagram. I do this because I understand that even if it is only in a small way, who I follow impacts me. Social media can have you invested in the lives of strangers, influence you to waste money on things you don’t really want and serve as an unhelpful comparison to judge your life against.

Here are some ideas for who you might want to unfollow on Instagram:

People you don’t know

Following people you’ve never met can lead to learning or even friendship. However it can also result in you being over invested in total strangers. You wonder if something is wrong when they don’t post for a day and keep up with their life with great eagerness but perhaps that time could be better spent doing something else.

People you don’t personally interact with

If you don’t watch their stories and you don’t like or comment on their posts then maybe you don’t need to be following them?

People that constantly want to sell you something

I recently unfollowed a bunch of fashion/lifestyle content creators. I enjoy their content but everyday I was being recommended this amazing product that was equally as good as the one they recommend the day before. And I understand that it’s part of how they make a living, I just realised it wasn’t something I wanted to see so often.

People whose content you don’t find interesting

Sometimes I come across an account that I like the images of and decide to follow. But a few months later if I’m not interested in the content or interacting with it then there’s no keep following the person.

People who make you feel bad

This may be people with more money than you, people that constantly post upsetting content or who post things you can’t afford to buy and places you can’t afford to go. They might not necessarily make you feel bad but if the people you follow don’t make you feel good, then what’s the point? Obviously there is a case for learning to not be impacted by things but the chances are whatever is on social media isn’t important enough to be the thing that teaches you that lesson.

People whose lives you’re not interested in keeping up with

Maybe there is a person you went to school with but haven’t spoken to in 5-10 years. You probably don’t interact with what they post and you have no intentions of rekindling any sort of relationship with them. Keeping up with their life is totally unnecessary because you don’t actually care.

People you don’t agree with

As much as it is good to take in views or opinions that differ from your own, you don’t need to do that on Instagram or social media in general, especially when it’s coming from strangers. You can have conversations in person, watch shows, listen to podcasts or read articles to hear other peoples views.

5 simple ways to improve your blog

Create cohesive content

You don’t have to write about a single topic but you don’t want your posst to feel like they belong to 5 different blogs.

Post consistently

It could be daily, weekly or monthly posts. Find a schdule that works for you and then stick to it.

Find your audience

You might use Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, word of mouth, LinkedIn or an event. You don’t need to spend endless hours marketing yourself but it is useful to have some idea of where to find the people your content is being made for.

Keep things simple

Make creating a blog post from start to finish as easy as possible, this could be through having content planning days, keeping a week or month ahead of schedule or having a blog post creation checklist so you always know exactly what you need to do.

Be yourself

This has nothing to do with sharing personal details of your life but instead it’s about not trying to hard to do something that doesn’t feel natural. Blogging is so much more enjoyable when you allow yourself to just be whether that is wrting about social media, reviewing designer purchases or documenting your journey to becoming a more mindful consumer.

Sister post to 5 reasons your blog might not be going as well as you’d hoped.

Why I’ll never run out of ideas

How do you come up with something to write about every single day?

Write about your interests and write about your experiences.

The origin of this blog was about picking a small moment of each day and writing about the lesson I took from it.

The small moment could be watching a film I loved as a child, going shopping, baking a cake, a conversation with a stranger or running for the bus.

When I decided I wanted to start daily blogging a little over 3 years ago, I knew I had to decide to write about something that felt easy for me. As much as I didn’t want to be someone who wrote about any and everything, I also knew that I didn’t want to be so niche that I felt restricted to the point where I’d struggle for what to write.

Even when I took a break from blogging, I was still writing, making notes and the ideas just kept flowing.

I think that’s a sign that I did well picking the content for my daily blog. In a recent post, I shared that in 2022, I’ll no longer be daily blogging but I have no doubt that the abundance of ideas I will keep flowing.

When free is better than cheap

Most people that sell things that are ‘expensive’ also give things away for free.

Maybe you do some sort of one on one coaching but you also do a free weekly podcast or YouTube video. Doing so allows you to make a living from what you do whilst also ensuring that those that can’t afford your services still have access to your work.

Free stuff also allows potential customers/clients to consume your work before deciding whether they consider your product or services to be worth spending money on.

On the other hand you could have it so that nothing is free but instead is either cheap or expensive. However, I’ve found that overtime free stuff can help build trust. Whether it’s buying a book written by someone who has a free podcast or paying for a membership on a site run by someone who regularly shares useful information on social media.

When the stuff is free you take what applies or works for you and pass on the rest whereas if you pay, even if it’s a small amount you’re likely to be much more critical and judgemental.

The thing that has made me buy what a person is selling is when I’ve gotten great value from what stuff I haven’t even paid for. I’d have been much less likely to buy the more expensive stuff if I was already paying for the podcast, blog posts or newsletter etc.

Creators and consumers

One thing I have observed over the years is that there is a very clear difference between being a creator and being a consumer in the online space.

It is first worth noting that all creators consume and all consumers create. However, the title you choose or align with most is based around what you do the most but also how you do it.

Secondly, you don’t have to have a big number of followers, make money or work with brands to be considered a creator, it’s more about the intention behind what you put out.

It could be someone with 237 followers sharing photos of what they eat at home each day, where they spend time and care on the presentation of each meal, in order for it to look visually appealing. It could also be someone with 52,375 subscribers making fashion videos that give their audience outfit inspiration.

For creators, I think it is important that you are creating more than you consume otherwise you end up getting swept up and spending your time in a way that does not benefit you.

The benefits of creating free content

Many of us regularly post free content and some people also use that to lead people to their paid services.

Sometimes the easiest way to get someone to value what you want them to pay for is by offering them something amazing for free. They’ll either be so enticed that they want what you have for sale because they think it’ll be even better or they’ll be willing to buy something that you offer just as a means of compensating you for all your great work that they’ve consumed for free.

Some types of free content are: Podcasts, Youtube videos, Blog posts, Instagram posts and Newsletters.

90s baby show is a free podcast that also share the podcast visuals on YouTube. They have a patreon where they upload new content each month.

Stacey June is a former podcaster who has had various free podcasts and regularly shares does content on Instagram. She also runs an online self-care club that has a monthly fee.

Both have been able get people to buy from them based on what they offer for free. If someone doesn’t know who you are, as in what you do and the services you offer with some visible examples of your work then it can be hard to get them to buy from you.

3 small ways to change the way you use social media

Social media plays a significant role in many peoples lives. However, when used in certain ways it can come with negative implications such as wasting time, unnecessary feelings of jealousy and distracting you from what you really care about.

Here are 3 small ways to avoid or at least reduce those negative implications whilst still using social media:

Set a timer for how much you can use it
It could be 1 hour a day or it could be 15 minutes. If your aim is to regain more time try and figure out how much time you spend on the app before it begins to take you away from things you’d be better off doing.

Regularly update who you follow
Every few months I update who I’m following and unfollow the accounts I’m no longer interested in seeing. It could be a content creator who shares amazing photos but is always trying to sell me something, someone I went to school with 10+ years ago who I haven’t spoken to since and rarely interact with or someone I came across a few months ago whose images don’t interest me as much as I thought they would.

Use your phone to post and your desktop to browse and interact
I’ve found that I spend much less time browsing on Instagram and twitter when I’m on my laptop compared to my phone. And so if you’re able to, try just using your phone for posting and do everything else from the big screen.

5 Reasons your blog might not be going as well as you’d hoped

Your content isn’t cohesive

If your content varies greatly, it doesn’t allow you to appeal to any set of people as an audience. As good as it may seem to have mass appeal, if you want to build an audience the best thing you can do is start small.

You post inconsistently

If your reader know that you put a new post out every Sunday they will come to expect it and even look forward to it. If you say you’ll post every Sunday and sometimes you do but other times you post on tuesday or you skip a week, readers may lose interest because you’re no longer showing up in the way that you said you would.

You haven’t reached the right audience

Seth Godin has said many times, you’re either not reaching the right people or you’re not making good enough stuff. You’re content could be outstanding quality but it’s important that the right people find your work as that is why you created it in the first place.

You make too many changes

If the colours, logo, and layout of your site are constantly changing, readers won’t come to recognise it. This means readers won’t be able to establish that sense of familiarity when they visit your site, it will feel like something new each time you change something.

You don’t stand out

Obviously there is no way to be totally unique and often people copy the stuff that they’ve seen work for others in the hopes that they will achieve the same success. However, if the look of your site and content that you post is exactly the same as 1001 other people, what incentive is their for readers to choose your site over another?

If you’re a regular reader you may notice that there are things on this list I’ve done or even continue to do. The purpose of this list is to offer some ideas because sometimes when things aren’t going well we get so overwhelmed that we don’t even think of reasons why.

Once you identify the reasons things aren’t going well, you can put a plan in place to overcome them.

The content and the audience

I recently read an article about how much various influencers get paid. The majority of the people were twenty something but the numbers of followers ranged from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand.

What I’ve found to be interesting is that when paying an influencer to create content you’re paying for 2 things: the content and the audience.

In my opinion, even if you don’t have a high following the money you get paid to create content should make sense. If you’re spending hours to come up with a concept, style the shoot, take the photos and edit them, what you earn should sufficiently compensate that plus more for your audience.

And with that in mind it makes it a little bit easier to figure out how much you should ask for and what to say no to.