Birdalamode

Yesterday was Career Day at the middle school and I had the opportunity to speak. I want to share with you today what I shared 24 hrs ago.

It being career day I spoke on how I took my mommy blog into a business. I shared the evolution of technology and the changes I’ve experienced. And how it’s always evolving. Being an entrepeneur in the tech and social media world you always have to be on your feet and know your surroundings. I will dive deeper into that on part two. But before I do you need to understand me.

I started my blog as a diary format and sold clothes along with it. It bothered some because it wasn’t very professional. I had lots of grammer errors, terrible lighting in photos, etc. I never have wanted to come across as fake or staged. Instead I wrote as I would in my old fashioned diary.

Before my online diary went digital ie a blog. I wrote everything down with pen and paper from the time I could write. And even before then my older siblings would occasionally write things in it for me, like a scribe as I spoke. I will have to find some of those entries because they were so funny (to me at least).

One day when I was in high school my sister confessed that when I left the house and hung out with friends she and my mom would read my diary. She told me how good my entries are and how they stay up laughing about them. She also said I should be a writer. HA! I thought me a writer, I struggle! with writing and punctuation BIG TIME! And second you READ MY DIARY!!!! Gosh I got to find a better hiding spot, was my first reaction. I mean I would get detailed! My poor mother.

But, instead of hiding my diary I decided this is actually a compliment, and if I’m not getting in trouble for what I’m writing, wheres the harm in sharing? So I kept writing. I was flattered when things would come up that I wrote in my diary. I started loving that I had a “secret” audience.

In the last 2 years I realized I had a VERY! large “secret audience” on my blog and instagram. My numbers were insane. And companies started paying me for it. On the visible/ front end it appeared that my “followers” had come to a stand still. But, I soon became aware of a whole new way instagram started tracking my “secret followers”. Not who was following me, but how many were following me. Calculating how far my reach was and how many people were really following me, even though they weren’t clicking follow.

(to be continued)

(Continued) see previous post her

From Hundreds to Thousands : Hundreds of Thousands to Millions

First of all I want to say I am not a big shot blogger, I am just sharing how I run my business and how I have made a career of it.

Referencing back to the prior post, when I realized I had a larger audience than I thought. I remember when I got insights on instagram this is a screenshot of one of the first times I looked at it and found out that I had over 1,000,000 views on my instagram page in just 7! days again I don’t have great engagement on my photos, my likes are low and so are my comments so seeing that I had a million people on my profile that week was huge news to me. Its because of all of you so thank you truely for caring and sticking with me through my life journey.

*this was last year

I took a screenshot for the presentation of my stats on a pic I posted on Wednesday 

If you see above on the pic, I had about triple the amount of my “followers” seeing my picture on Wednesday. Companies have thankfully gotten so savvy and now use your insights to determine how much they pay instagrammers/bloggers.

Compare the above video to what I used to send companies in the stone ages (2 years ago)

I would send a media kit and my own pricing sheet. Its gotten so much more honest for both bloggers and paying companies.

There is so much more I discussed within my presentation, the main gist was just showing the business side of it all, after all it is career day, and hopefully this helps those who are thinking about becoming a blogger/instagrammer or for those of you looking to hire bloggers. To know what to look for, and to not take anything at face value. Like my husband has been telling me its about whats inside that counts.

Again I am far from a pro at this blogging business, but I can honestly stand before everyone today and say that I am an open book, I love my family, what I do and I am beyond thankful for this platform as it has been the biggest learning experience of my life. I have grown so much since I started, not talking followers, just as a human, my family has grown, my understanding and my compassion towards others.

If you have any advice or questions let me know.