Hey there, fellow blogger. Keep Going.
Have you ever started a business expecting overnight success because maybe you heard that some friend or acquaintance of yours has a similar business and are successful? I did. And it was a disaster.
Some years ago, while I was on a trip to Florida, a friend of mine told me of a mutual acquaintance who had started a successful mommy blog over in England.
"She has thousands of followers," my friend raved. "She blogs about her life as a stay-at-home mom and the adventures she shares with her children."
And if you think that that was the motivation for my first blog, you'd be absolutely correct. It was.
Now friends, to be fair, writing has always been a personal passion of mine. It's been my dream ever since I was a little girl binge reading Enid Blyton fantasies and Nancy Drew detective novels.
Still, until I had heard of my friend's blog, I had satisfied myself with either working with the local media in my country, writing corporate speeches, or dallying every now again with books of stories I wanted to tell without a proper assessment of what people wanted to read. So, suffice to say, I enjoyed middling success as an entrepreneur.
But then I heard of my friend and her success and I thought, ah ha, maybe I could do the same. After all, I reasoned to myself, I too have kids and they are hilarious.
And so, I ran off to WordPress, started a random blog, and then paid for the website's name from GoDaddy or BlueHost or some such site, I can't remember.
I then wrote my first blog and waited for my followers to come streaming in, tripping over themselves to read my amazing content and to vote me into a life of blogging success. And would you be shocked to know that that did not happen? I was. I was flabbergasted.
And I'll say this: when you build fantasy castles for yourself and try to move into them, reality can be like a bucket of ice water sometimes. At the end of week one, I was doused. I had three followers. I was one of them.
Suffice to say, the website was never monetized. But I understood the errors I made along the way.
I had a great dream, but there was no planning.
There was no market research.
There was no risk assessment.
There was no realism and taking into account the fact that the person or people who made it put in a lot of work, and that their success may not have been overnight.
Sometimes, particularly in the world of content creation, people work in the trenches for years, sometimes keeping their dream as a side hustle until they could maintain it full time.
I didn't think of that when I started my blog. I'd only heard of and seen my friend's success, and before I pushed off and unfurled my sails, I didn't think to reach out to her for support and guidance on making it from one stage to the next.
Persons who blog and are successful at it aren't just great writers. Great and well structured content is important, of course, but successful bloggers understand the importance of:
Networking and relationship management
Nurturing a strong support system
Advertising and marketing
Setting and working towards SMART goals
Consistency
Understanding and meeting the needs of their target audiences.
And so, friends, years have passed on since those first days venturing into this arena. If you're new to this field, just hopping on and seeking to blog, I hope that my words can provide you with some clarity.
And to be clear. This doesn't mean that you should dash your dreams of success. I'm still here writing, aren't I? I've simply had to learn some tough lessons along the way.
And so, maybe you won't be cashing in and driving that Lambo you've always craved next week, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't still write. Focus first on finding your niche though, focus on understanding your audiences, put a lot of elbow grease into the planning stages. Be consistent. And don't beat yourself up if you don't get 1,000 followers or make $100 on your first day, week, or month.
As Lauryn Hill once said in her hit song, Everything is Everything, "Tomorrow, our seeds will grow, all we need is dedication."... And a good product. And an interested market. And a good marketing plan. And... you know the rest. Patience.
