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Today, I’ve got a special episode, where I’m talking about how to find success during coronavirus. Yes, it is possible if you know how to pivot your business.
These are scary times, especially as online business owners, bloggers, and entrepreneurs.
Is 2020 the year you are finally going to start an online business and follow your dreams? Don’t be surprised if you hit rocky patches from time to time. If you want to learn how to ride the ups and downs of blogging, you’ll want to listen in to my conversation with Sue de Chiara, creator of The Zhush.
Sue and I discuss how she built her blog, and how she grew her Instagram to nearly 116K followers.
And be sure to stay tuned to the end because Sue is sharing some of the biggest mistakes she made along the way.
I always want to dig into the mistakes because those are an inevitable part of any business. Sue is very transparent and I think this conversation will be very valuable for you if you’re ready to start your own business.
But first, I wanted to share something with you. My husband and business partner, David, and I have noticed something; a lot of the listeners of this podcast want to start an online business or a blog, but they have no idea where to start.
So, if the tech required for starting a blog has been holding you back, I have great news for you!
MiloTree is now offering blog start-up services! Just go to MiloTree/BlogStart to see how we can help you.
We know how overwhelming it can be to start a business if you’re not tech-savvy.
That’s why we decided it was time to help people get over the hump of getting their blog set up so they could move on to creating content, serving their audience, and developing products.
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We can’t wait to see what you build in 2020!
In 2010, Sue started a blog where she shared how she decorated her home.
People came to her blog for inspiration, so she decided to do some affiliate marketing from it, setting up a storefront to sell the types of items she was using in her own home.
She ran the store for 7 years, which she says was “a year and a half too long.”
The business was very successful for a while. They had great press coverage and feedback, but Sue just couldn’t figure out how to scale it.
With no background in retail, and because this was the wild west days of online business, the business became more of a headache than it was worth.
However, at the same time, the blog was bringing in its own revenue and was something she thoroughly enjoyed doing.
She was afraid to shut the store down, but now, she wishes she had done it much sooner.
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With the storefront closed down, Sue began to focus solely on her blog in 2017.
She monetizes that blog through ads, affiliate links, and a few sponsored posts. She doesn’t pursue sponsored work however; if a brand contacts her and is a great fit for her audience, she will take on the work.
Sue sells packages to sponsors that include a blog post, 1-2 IG posts, and IG stories.
Sponsored work has changed a ton since she started monetizing her blog. Now, the brands are more in charge of how they want the information shared, where and when it gets the most engagement.
For our own site, Catch My Party, I’ve noticed that brands are far more demanding than in the past, and that campaigns take much more time than they used to.
If you plan to use affiliate marketing as a stream of income for your blog, you have to go into that with a strategy. If you don’t have a strategy, you won’t see the success you desire.
Sue uses Reward Style to share products with her audience. Reward Style is affiliated with so many businesses that it makes it easy for Sue to talk about things she really loves.
She also creates gift guides on her blog using sponsored content.
These gift guides are very specific. If you want your gift guides to be successful, they can’t be generalized.
Sue was a very early adopter of IG. At the time, she was just using it for fun, posting photos of her children.
But because she had a public account and was on there from the beginning, she built up a large following. It wasn’t until Sue had around 25,000 followers that she realized she could use Instagram to help her business.
*Side note – As a business owner who helps people grow their social media accounts, I know that it can be discouraging to see your follower counts drop. But you need to keep in mind that Facebook and IG are always trying to find and delete spam accounts.
So what may appear to be falling follower counts could merely be that IG has discovered more spam accounts and deleted them.
Focusing on your numbers is not always healthy for you. Your following will rise and fall naturally day-by-day. Your engaged followers are going to be there for you as long as you continue to put out good content.
And if you want your real, engaged IG followers to grow faster, definitely add MiloTree to your site.
Sue posts to her feed once a day and to stories multiple times per day. She uses a mixture of personal content, swipe-ups to blog posts, and swipe-ups to affiliate products.
Sue spends 40+ hours per week working on her blog and business. She posts to her blog 5 times per week, but 1-2 of those are usually repurposed content.
For a while, Sue had a guest poster once a month on the blog, which was a huge help, but she is now creating all the blog content herself. And she admits to hitting burnout at times.
To head off the feeling of overwhelm, she relies on an editorial calendar and an ongoing monthly series to keep the content fresh and exciting.
Sue wants everybody to understand that the most important thing for new online business owners to focus on is building an email list.
Sue says she “was asleep to that concept for too many years.” It’s important to begin building that list from day one.
Not only was Sue late to the email game, but she also only recently created a lead magnet to get folks on her list.
Sue also suggests that you focus on one area at a time. Don’t try to learn Facebook, blogging, Pinterest, and Instagram all at the same time.
Conquer one area, learn everything you can about it, and then pick the next thing to work on.
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Where are the opportunities with changing algorithms?
Should you be directing people back to your blog instead of your social media platforms? Can you adapt and adjust in the ever-changing world of online business?
That’s what my friend Camille Whiting and I are talking about in today’s episode. Camille has a blog called Friday’s We’re In Love, where she documents the dates she goes on with her husband every Friday night.
We talk about how to stay nimble as an entrepreneur in an online world that is constantly changing. Camille has a unique perspective on how to be flexible and continue to test new things in her business.
Camille has four main ways that she monetizes her blog:
Right now, Camille is focused on growing her traffic.
A year ago, Camille was working hard on her Instagram. But after seeing how the platform was changing and not serving her as well as it could, she decided to be flexible and seek out other avenues.
Camille uses social media because it’s fun to her, but she is serious about her site and using it to grow traffic.
Camille is not one of those people who wastes time whining about algorithm changes. As a matter of fact, as a user, she appreciates the algorithms and how they work to make her experience better.
The algorithm changes do act as a wake-up call for her business though. It serves as a reminder that nothing is constant. We, as bloggers, know that things change constantly.
So Camille asked herself a question: With social media changing all the time, what could she own that wouldn’t change? And the answer was email.
She’s had an email list for a couple of years but this year, she shifted toward more of an owner mentality. She realized the reach she has with her list; that her message is not limited in any way when she communicates with her email subscribers.
Camille believes in copying big companies’ strategies.
When she first started seeing blogs take off and make money from their readers, she also had the advantage of being in a group of Fortune 500 companies who were experimenting with their own websites and social platforms.
Camille got to watch these businesses spend millions of dollars just trying new things. That’s where she gets her experimental mindset.
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Big companies go above and beyond to serve potential customers; they give away freebies, etc., before they try and make a sale.
Right now Camille is trying to continue growing her audience, as well as fortify the relationship she has with her current audience, so she can make more sales.
Camille has switched up her use of Google Analytics to find out what people want to read from her, not just what she wants to write for them.
In past years, Camille would only write about her passions, but people were looking for more than just date ideas.
Camille wrote more varied content, covering the topics her audience wanted to know about.
You will see more traffic when you give people what they want.
So you must be strategic when thinking about the topics you are going to write about.
See what content is already doing well, and create more content around that topic. And be sure to include links to the other posts you have on that topic so that Google will know that you have the information searchers are looking for.
As Camille has shifted her focus from writing about whatever grabbed her attention, to writing the content that serves her audience, she has seen organic traffic growth.
You can write tons of content for very niche subjects. Take that big-picture subject and break it down into smaller pieces. And don’t feel like you’ve covered everything; there is always something else to say or another point of view to write from.
A previous guest on my show, Nate Woodbury, has a great way of thinking about creating content for niche topics.
He says that as you gain authority in small topics that all relate to each other, over time you gain overall authority in that topic.
Think of a tree as the topic as a whole. Then go leaf by leaf by leaf (smaller niche areas). Once you have a few leaves covered, begin to cover the trunk. Before you know it, you will have covered the entire tree.
Camille attributes her success to being an early adaptor to new platforms.
Video is very important on all platforms this year. Camille has had to recognize and adapt to the fact that she needs to upload videos, as well as written content, in order to grow.
Camille sees her competitive advantage as finding ways to create content that’s not easily duplicated. If somebody can easily copy your style or your content, it’s time to up your game. That’s why she’s doing much more video.
When Camille learns a new skill or hops onto a new trend, she thinks about how that knowledge can serve her even if her business were to fail.
How she could adapt and move on to something else and succeed with what she’s learned?
Online entrepreneurs typically have more diverse knowledge and skills needed for their business than most people.
The more you learn, stay up to date on changes, and adapt to those changes, the bigger the competitive edge you are going to have.
What is your competitive edge? What skills have you learned in your online business that you could take to another opportunity if your online business failed today?
I’d love to hear from you on the things you’re learning. Are you an early adopter? Does fear hold you back from trying new things?
Come join me on Facebook on Mondays at 3 pm where I discuss the podcast and all my favorite takeaways.
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If I say the words, “social media,” what comes to mind?
Does it fill you with a sense of dread because you’re overwhelmed trying to figure out what you should be doing and how much? Or do you feel confident because you love social media and it the easiest part of your business?
Whichever way you lean, I think you will get a ton of information from today’s show where we’re talking about how to use social media to grow relationships and engagement with your audience.
Today, my guest is Neal Schaffer, a social media strategy consultant.
Neal teaches large companies how to best use social media to grow and stay engaged with their customers. We’re talking about many different social media platforms today, hearing his insights on how to have success on each.
But first, if you haven’t joined my Facebook group, The MiloTree Mastermind Group, I want to encourage you to do that today! Every Monday at 3:00 ET, I go live in the group to talk about that week’s podcast episode.
I go over the highlights, what I learned, and what I think it’s important for you all to take away from the discussion. It’s a great place for you to ask questions and to share your knowledge with others. I hope you’ll join me!
As bloggers, we work alone most of the time. It can be an extremely isolating lifestyle.
That’s why Neal puts a huge focus on building relationships. I want to tell you how I met Neal as a great example of using online research to build those relationships.
I use an app called Bonjoro to send a personal video to everyone who signs up for MiloTree.
Recently, I had sent a video like this to Neal, as he had signed up for MiloTree. A few weeks later, I was randomly researching “social media experts” and I saw Neal’s name on a list of people to follow.
I knew the name looked familiar so I went to his website and realized I had just recently sent him that video, welcoming him to MiloTree. And the rest, as they say, is history. We connected from there and here he is, on my show!
All of that to say, you have to be reaching out and building those relationships with your followers and with those you follow.
Neal points out that if you follow 1,500 people on Instagram and you send just 5 of them a direct message every day, you will have contacted every one of the people you follow in a year!
But don’t just message them; ask them how you can serve them. Being able to connect one-on-one is a huge step toward helping other people in the online space to remember you.
When your goal is to increase your presence online, build relationships, and increase brand awareness, you have to focus on consistency.
If you’ve been blogging for a while now and you feel discouraged, if you feel like things will never work out for you and you will never meet your goals, the first thing Neal wants you to remember is that success is often just on the other side of giving up.
Don’t stop creating content and putting it out there. Go back to your “why,” the reason you started your blog in the first place. What are you trying to accomplish by being on social media?
If you don’t know “why” you’re using social media, you aren’t going to be successful with it.
Most bloggers are very good at gaining followers. It comes naturally to us. The trick is what to do once we have those followers and how to monetize them.
The main goals of online business are:
If you want to attract people who will be interested in what you sell, you have to push out the type of content that will draw those same people in.
Focus on the platforms that give you the best returns and work on growing those. You don’t have to build every platform at the same time.
The platforms that work the best for Neal may not be the same ones that you are the most successful with. That’s okay; do what works for you.
Instagram requires a different strategy than other social media platforms. Neal posts a few times a week on IG but his goal is to be publishing daily.
While Neal has mostly used IG to keep in touch with people rather than using it for business, when he’s traveling and doing conferences, he focuses more on posting photos of what he’s doing.
Over the past year, he has focused on developing his own Instagram strategy, and that begins with the premise that IG should not be 100% dedicated to business.
When you have a broader reach and you post things your community will engage with, whatever that may look like, it helps your overall reach.
These days, Neal’s IG posts fall pretty neatly into 3 buckets of content:
His business posts get the worst engagement, but by mixing it up, he can at least keep people interested in that side of it.
Neal believes strongly that you need a lifestyle focus on IG and your posts should lean heavily in that direction. Why? Because those are the posts that allow your followers to feel like they really get to know you.
A potential client is following you and they see a post that makes them feel a connection to you. Maybe it’s a shared passion or a place they’ve also been to. You posting about your passions will connect you to those people who share your passions.
One of the cool things about Instagram is the options available. You have a main feed filled with posts but you also have the ability to share even more with your audience by using stories.
It’s important to post to stories more frequently since they do disappear after 24 hours.
Instagram now has the option of having a Creator account, which is what Neal has. This is not the same as a business account but it is public. It provides you with tools to better understand your growth and manage your IG presence.
While IG posts can be put off indefinitely, stories are more for what’s happening right now. Also, the IG audience tends to engage more with creators on stories than on posts.
Instagram is a bit different than Facebook when it comes to your followers vs who you follow.
You want to be focused on who you are following and how you are connecting with them and building relationships.
Neal is reducing his follower count because he does not want unengaged followers. He wants his content to go to the people who will engage with him.
If someone is following you and not engaging, you are wasting a follower.
Go into your app, and you will be able to sort the people you followed by the date you followed them.
Go back to your first follows, and choose 5 per day to visit their feed, send a message, and ask how they are doing. Just basically reconnect with them.
If you do these in order of when you followed them, just grab a screenshot of the last DM you sent, and the next day, pick up where you left off and keep going.
You don’t need to spend hours on social media to be able to build meaningful connections and grow your organic community.
Neal does not spend the majority of his time there. It can still be a valuable asset, but it is one that takes more work.
Facebook ads are still a great place to find your people and build community.
Neal still spends some time on the platform but it’s the bare minimum that keeps his account active. He typically posts once per day and does live streams occasionally. He also sometimes uses his Facebook lives to record his podcast.
Compared to Facebook, Instagram can have a bigger reach, simply because the sheer number of people on Facebook limits your reach.
Don’t disappear on Facebook but keep life support connected to it. Neal uses it for recording his live streams and for the ads. Otherwise, he focuses elsewhere.
Are you using LinkedIn as a blogger? Have you thought about using it? Isn’t LinkedIn just for trying to find a job or connecting with business people?
Here are a few very interesting statistics that Neal, shared with us:
Does this sound like anyone you are trying to reach or build relationships with? You want to be going after this audience.
There is one thing that never changes about social media: it never stops changing.
Algorithms change from day to day; audience engagement goes up and down based on the seasons; your content may not be applicable to every platform.
So how do you keep up with all the changes?
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Have you heard that blogging is dead, or that regular folks can’t grow large social media followings anymore?
Well, today’s guest on the podcast is a blogger and entrepreneur who shares how to grow enormous Facebook and Instagram pages.
Andrea Scalzo Yi is the owner and content creator of the blog, Raising Dragons. In under two years, she’s been able to explode her blog with some hard work and a belief in herself.
Andrea creates video STEAM/STEM projects for kids.
We talk about how she built her business so quickly, and where she plans to take it in the future.
After working in retail her whole adult life, when Andrea began staying at home with her 4 young sons, she was at a loss as to how to fill her time. She knew she enjoyed design, she had a degree in engineering, and she loved art.
So she began creating projects to work on with her sons. She considered starting a blog because she had a friend making a full-time income blogging, but she wasn’t a natural writer, and so she wasn’t sure she could make it work.
But one thing she did enjoy was making videos. And so, in 2017, Andrea bought the domain, Raising Dragons.
And instead of blogging, Andrea began posting 1-minute videos on Facebook of her sons doing the projects. These videos had no sound and were really meant for the busy parent who was scrolling and looking for something simple to do with her kids.
As Andrea began adding more and more of her videos, Facebook began sharing them to more and more people.
Friends and family were sharing them, as well, and before long, she had a video go viral.
She kept creating videos in the same style, and as of today, she has had over 20 videos go viral. One of her viral videos has over 30 million views on Facebook.
At the same time, she was posting her videos on her blog, but she didn’t even know what SEO was. So, each blog post was just the video, a short paragraph on how to do the project, and that was it.
What Andrea did was build an audience with her videos and then she began to find out how to best serve that audience.
Because the algorithms change on social media platforms all the time, bloggers have to be ready to make adjustments. But Andrea tries to stay true to her original form of content by creating and releasing 1-2 new videos each week.
Since Pinterest recently allowed video content, Andrea uploaded all of her content to her Pinterest account.
Andrea is also working to grow her Instagram account (using MiloTree!) because brands are more interested in IG, and want to see an active presence and audience engagement there before they work with you.
Andrea’s prime revenue source is sponsored content, but she only promotes brands that fit in with her STEAM content.
Andrea likes to work with smaller brands that are just getting started. She does have a business partner who helps her with the business side of marketing and brand contracts.
Brands can get different packages when working with Andrea, from a simple blog post to across the board social media marketing.
To monetize, she also takes advantage of Amazon’s affiliate program, as well.
One of the things I was most interested in talking to Andrea about was going from “end-to-end” on her phone. She basically runs her entire business from her phone. and I’m not so great at that.
To shoot her videos, Andrea uses a sunroom in her house that gets great light. Lighting is everything when it comes to video, and this room has plenty of windows.
She tries to keep activities set up in the room so that when her son wants to work on something, she can film it for content.
Andrea cuts the volume from most of her videos, adds music, and keeps them close to one minute.
When posting her videos, Andrea puts a branded watermark in the bottom corner of her videos.
Andrea is truly a one-woman show.
She has her partner that helps her interface with brands and has used a contractor to rewrite some of her blog posts for SEO purposes.
Otherwise, she runs her business all on her own.
Andrea posts her videos on YouTube but she isn’t currently monetizing them on there.
Andrea believes that her videos aren’t the best for YouTube because they are very short, do not have volume, and are designed for the busy parent.
Andrea caters to the busy mom scrolling through her social media and wants to see something inspiring. She does not cater to the person wants to dig into the meat of her projects on YouTube.
Take note – it’s perfectly okay to figure out what works for you and then jump into that. You do not need to be doing amazingly well in every single area or do everything that everybody else is doing.
Andrea has been experiencing burnout this year. Writing her book, figuring out the marketing plan for it, and creating more content for her blog, all on top of creating new video content has been a lot to manage.
So, she scaled her videos back to once a week and she’s also batching the video work.
It is okay to recognize that your business is in a new season and to change things up to reinvigorate yourself.
At the beginning of 2018, Andrea made the goal to write a book, which became 100 Easy STEAM Activities.
Andrea submitted her idea to PageStreet Publishing and they told her they were interested, but wanted to go for 100 projects instead of the 40 she had suggested.
The publisher covered the photography since Andrea’s strong suit is making video. But the photographers worked with Andrea to make sure it was in her style and fit her ideas.
If you’re a blogger still trying to figure out the landscape of blogging, and how to grow your blog into a business like Andrea, she suggests you start by focusing on providing value to your audience.
Andrea feels like what has served her well is giving people exactly what they want and how they want it, without worrying about monetizing.
You can focus on monetizing in the future, once you know what best serves your audience.
Andrea completely focused on putting out content for two years; that was her sole focus. The money and audience grew from that.
I’m so impressed with what Andrea has built with her business. She has built her audience by serving them exactly what they want and in the style they want it, which is short and sweet videos.
This is Andrea’s first foray into entrepreneurship and she’s having a blast. Can you say the same? If you need help with your blogging journey, come join us over on Facebook where I am doing live video every Monday!
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Are you wondering if you can write a book, how to get it published, or whether to sell it as an ebook? Well, you’re in luck because this post and podcast episode is about everything you need to know to write a book.
Today I am interviewing Maggy Woodley, the brains behind Red Ted Art. I interviewed Maggy previously in episode 18. Maggy just released her second book on paper crafting.
We are talking about what it’s like to write a book as a blogger. If you are thinking about writing a book, or you want to learn more about the topic, this is the episode for you!
If you want to get your feet wet in writing a book, you can always start with Ebooks. You definitely don’t have to start with a traditional print book.
E-books are good for beginners because the process is simpler.
Maggy started her career by writing individual Ebooks, as well as collaborative Ebooks.
You can create your Ebook on many different platforms, convert it to a pdf file, and then sell it on Etsy, Amazon, your blog, and Pinterest.
The most common way to publish a book is to find an agent. Maggy found her agents by talking to blogger friends who recommended agents to contact.
Maggy recommends Page Street Publishing because they specialize in publishing bloggers.
The income you earn from books will be partly determined by the size of your blog and if you are already earning money from your blog.
Maggy has a large audience on her blog, so her income from her book is small comparatively, but it is a passive source of income.
For most people, writing books isn’t done for the money. If you make money on it, that’s a good thing, but it’s not the main goal. The goal is building your credibility with your audience.
You have to be passionate about what you’re writing about if you want to finish your book. If you don’t love it, you’re going to start hating it.
Maggy’s books contain approximately 25% recycled content. That is fairly unusual for writers.
It depends on your publisher and what they will allow. Normally they will only allow about 5% pre-published content.
Some bloggers actually quit blogging while they are writing their books.
If you’re going to take three months to write a book, you need to consider whether you can fit it into your regular work schedule, or whether you can afford to take that time off to focus on writing.
Factor in the lead time of a year at the least. You will write your book, but then months will go by before it is published.
Maggy has a large presence through her blog, YouTube channel, and social media.
Her publisher will only have to do minimal work advertising her book because she already has such a large reach.
You don’t have to have a big audience in order to get published, however.
And even if a publisher does want you to sell to your audience, they will have a distribution system of their own.
What they are actually looking for is unique content and what makes you stand out. They want to see that you are passionate about helping your reader in a niche topic.
You’re not just writing a book for the sake of writing a book. You’re writing a book because you really believe it will help someone.
You have more freedom when you are publishing your own Ebook. You get to decide what goes into your book, your title, etc.
Publishers are usually quite happy for you to choose your content. Maggy’s publisher came up with her title and cover, but she liked both of those.
If you aren’t happy with something, you can always talk it out and try to agree on something that you like better. Most publishers will be happy with your respectful and helpful feedback about your work.
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Today I am talking about new strategies for making more money with affiliates with Chelsea Clarke.
Chelsea, founder of the website, HerPaperRoute, helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses through affiliate sales.
We talk about knowing your audience, talking to your audience, and selling them products that are useful for making their lives better.
If you want to know more about affiliate sales and how to make the most of them, this is the episode for you!
You may have heard that “the riches are in the niches.” If that’s true, what niche should you choose?
Chelsea says that any niche can be made profitable with affiliates. The one defining factor is you.
Do not get into a niche just because you’ve heard it makes a lot of money. You need to pick your field based on what you love, what you know about it, and what you can offer to your audience.
There are literally millions of affiliate possibilities out there. How do you choose the ones that will fit best with your niche?
First, you want to choose a high-commission product. Something that gives you $2 per sale is a waste of time when you think about how much time you’re spending building relationships with your audience to offer them products.
Promote something that is going to pay you more like $40 per sale.
Chelsea doesn’t promote Amazon products as much because their commissions are typically so low for her. However, there are people that make thousands of dollars a month from Amazon affiliates.
Amazon affiliates are a bit different than others in that they pay a commission to you for anything your audience purchases within 24 hours of clicking through your link.
If there’s a brand you want to work with, you can go straight to them and pitch yourself. Many companies want to work directly with bloggers.
There are two ways to reach out to brands successfully to build an affiliate relationship.
You can go to their website, find a contact, and send an email about how you love their product and want to review it. You can ask about setting a deal up.
Another way you can do it is to join the affiliate program first. Once you have the affiliate program manager’s contact information, you can reach out to them.
Chelsea doesn’t work for a commission of 10% or less unless it’s a very expensive product.
If she can’t negotiate for a higher commission, she knows it’s not the right product for her at that time.
There have been a few times when Chelsea will take a lower commission because she knows the product is interesting and will be helpful to her audience.
Chelsea works mainly through email. She does everything herself personally, answering all the questions that come into her inbox.
In the very first email Chelsea’s audience receives, she asks them to respond with where she can follow them on social media.
When you connect with someone on their social media channels, you get to know them and they get to know you, because chances are they’re going to follow you back. Now you have a whole new group of people rooting for you and giving you new business.
This is successful because it opens up a one-on-one conversation, where the audience gets to know the face behind the company.
The very first people who hear about Chelsea’s sales are the people on her email list.
Pinterest is Chelsea’s favorite social media marketing tool.
Taking the time to target the right keywords and getting your pins to show up higher in search will result in your traffic growing on its own.
For newer bloggers who aren’t ranking much on Google yet, Pinterest can be the key to blog growth and getting your message out there to more people.
Pinterest is a different type of SEO. You want to focus on appropriate keywords, pin to the right boards, and pin as much as possible.
You want your content to get out there.
Pinterest is a digital wall of billboard advertisements. The higher you can get, the better for your traffic.
Chelsea wants to create her own content and create her own weekly emails. Those are the 2 areas she doesn’t outsource.
But having someone for upkeep on social media is very helpful.
Your biggest expense is your time. If you feel like you need more time, outsource things that allow you to have more time to create content and focus on what’s important to you.
Chelsea has four tools that she cannot live without:
If you want to know more about Chelsea and the free resources she offers, go to HerPaperRoute.
Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more?
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube.
Sign up today!
Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, Episode #79 of this podcast featured my conversation with Angela Davis of Frugal Living NW. That episode takes you deep inside affiliate marketing and how to get good at it.
Are you working hard, spending lots of time, trying to get more followers for your blog or business on Instagram? It’s definitely smart to grow account, so you can get your content seen by more and more people, but there is an easier way.
Check out the post below to learn how to up your Instagram game without the painful struggle.
In order to build a successful online business today, you need, not just a website, but a strong presence on multiple social media platforms.
And right now, the hottest platform is Instagram.
Your customers and visitors demand you are on it. They want to be able to get a quick snapshot of what you do. They can see what images and videos you post in your Instagram feed, and your less curated and more “real” stories.
Plus, Instagram is the platform for your visitors and customers to reach you on. For many entrepreneurs, their Instagram DMs are as important (if not more important) than their email inboxes.
The goal is to be on platforms that your customers and visitors are already on. Meet them where they live, and right now, that’s Instagram.
The companies that are winning are the ones that see their business as a hub with many spokes. Their website or online store is the hub, and their social media accounts, additional selling platforms (Etsy, Amazon, etc.) and email list are the spokes.
And this is why companies big and small are spending lots of time, money, and resources growing their gold standard social media account… Instagram.
But people also waste a lot of time and make a lot of Instagram mistakes.
The best way to get traction on Instagram — to get your content seen — is to have compelling content and followers. But not just any type of followers, not followers you purchase in Russia. You need engaged followers. If your account has engagement, the Instagram algorithm rewards you and your content gets seen by more and more people.
But how do you get more engaged Instagram followers without spending a ton of time and a ton of money?
Instagram can be tough, but not with the MiloTree Instagram pop-up.
MiloTree is a pop-up app you install on your site or blog. Install it with your simple WordPress plugin or one line of code.
The MiloTree pop-ups ask your website visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and/or join your email list. You decide what platforms you want to grow and your MiloTree pop-ups do it effortlessly and automatically.
MiloTree works 24/7 on your site so you don’t have to.
The best part is that it grows those engaged followers that are the most important for your business.
Think about it this way: who better to engage with your content on Instagram than your own website visitors. These visitors have been to your site, seen your content, and liked it. And the reason they’ve clicked your MiloTree Instagram pop-up, is because they want to follow you to see more of what you do.
These are the people who will help you grow your business.
So what makes MiloTree the easiest, fastest, most cost-effective solution out there?
MiloTre gives you the highest quality followers you can ask for, and works on autopilot. Set it and forget it.
Your Instagram pop-up show your most recent feed posts right on the pop-up, so people get a taste for your content see you’re serious about the platform.
You can install MiloTree on your site in under two minutes with your WordPress plugin or one line of code, and there’s no technical or design skills necessary.
You can also grow other social media platforms from your one MiloTree account. In addition to Instagram, you get pop-ups for Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and email. You can program the order and how frequently they show.
And for icing on the cake, the MiloTree pop-ups are:
Plus, you get your first 30 days free (we only want you to pay for it, if you love it) and it costs $9/month after that.
Here’s the story behind MiloTree.
We are Jillian and David Leslie, technologists, and husband-and-wife founders of MiloTree.
In 2014, we designed and built a smart pop-up for our original business, Catch My Party, to grow our social media followers, and it worked better than we could have expected, so we decided to launch it as a separate business called MiloTree.
With MiloTree, we’ve grown our Catch My Party Pinterest account to close to 1 million followers and our Instagram account to over 157k followers, which has translated into millions of pageviews per month, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. You can even see the apps I use to manage our Instagram account.
In 2016, we began offering MiloTree to other bloggers and online entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses, and the response was immediate.
People loved how easy MiloTree was to set up, how many different platforms they could grow with it, and, most importantly, that it worked!
Currently, MiloTree helps tens of thousands of bloggers and online businesses grow their Instagram followers, as well as followers on other platforms.
Hear what some of our happy customers have to say…
MiloTree is a brilliant way to grow your audience on social media. It has definitely helped draw fans to my Instagram and Pinterest while integrating seamlessly with my site design!
– Courtney Whitmore, pizzazzerie.com
MiloTree is an easy way to grow all of your social media platforms and email list. It is super simple to install and customizable to fit with my site. I love that the non-invasive popup can scroll through all my social media profiles. I gets thousands of clicks a week on my profiles! I highly recommend MiloTree if you want an aesthetically pleasing pop-up to help grow your social media following and email list.
Stephanie – PlainChicken.com
“I’ve tried several of the leading pop up plugins out there and MiloTree is my favorite. It is easy to set up and I love being able to have more customizations. The service is excellent and they are always coming up with new ideas to help build your business.
— Alissiah Haggard, alissiahaggard.com
If you are ready to get some easy and real traction on Instagram, give the MiloTree Instagram pop-up a try and get your first 30 days free.
Today my guest is Melissa Johnson from the blog, Best Friends for Frosting. Melissa has built one of the most beautiful and successful lifestyle blogs out there.
In this conversation, we talk about the best ways to monetize and grow a lifestyle blog, what it’s like working with your husband, how to experiment with selling products, and tips for working on sponsored posts with brands.
Melissa has been at this a long time, and you can tell by all her wise advice! Listen now!
Resources:
Host 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jilian Leslie.
Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello and welcome back to the show. Before we start, I have a very quick favor to ask. Please, if you haven’t already, subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast. Pause it for 10 seconds. Just press the subscribe button on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
This will help get the podcast found, help it grow so that I can keep bringing you awesome guests.
So let me tell you about today’s episode. Today I am interviewing Melissa Johnson, and she is the creative force behind the blog Best Friends For Frosting.
Melissa is an old timer like me, when I think about her blog, it is one of the most beautiful blogs. She creates incredible content, she is the ultimate creator. So without further ado, here is Melissa Johnson.
Melissa, welcome to the show.
Melissa Johnson 1:09
Hello. I’m so excited to be here.
Jillian Leslie 1:12
So we have been kind of like friends, colleagues online, but we’ve never spoken, and it’s so fun because it feels like I’m talking to an old friend.
Melissa Johnson 1:24
Same here. I feel like it’s been so long that we’ve emailed back and forth and we’ve been Facebook friends, and it’s about time we have a call. So this is perfect.
Jillian Leslie 1:32
Totally. I don’t even know your story. Tell me how you started with Best Friends For Frosting. By the way. I’ve always loved that name. How your business your entrepreneurial journey has evolved since then.
Melissa Johnson 1:44
So I started Best Friends For Frosting, eight years ago, and it was initially a dessert blog but I learned that I was multi passionate. So about a year and a half into blogging I turned it into a lifestyle website where we cover everything under the sun whether it be entertaining, DIY, a little bit of fashion, recipes, interior design, all that fun stuff that I’m passionate about.
The way that I see the blog is that it’s all of my favorite things that I get really excited about on my little corner of the internet. So that’s what I’ve done at Best Friends For Frosting over the years, and then also we’ve expanded into product lines.
We have launched a Best Friends for Frosting Airbnb that was named after our Best Friends for Frosting Instagram hashtag, that has over 120,000 shares.
Jillian Leslie 2:29
Wow. Okay, keep going. But we’re going to have to come back and talk about that.
Melissa Johnson 2:33
Sure okay.
There’s just a lot going on. It’s been really fun. And I absolutely love blogging. So I feel like this podcast feels like a second home to me already.
Jillian Leslie 2:43
Good. Okay. So have you always been creative?
Melissa Johnson 2:46
I have ever since I was little. I love baking. I love doing little DIY projects. My mom would always take me to the craft store to get little pieces of confetti and stationary. So I have always been creative. Yes.
Jillian Leslie 3:00
Okay. And so you are the quintessential lifestyle blog?
Melissa Johnson 3:05
Yes.
Jillian Leslie 3:09
You are the ultimate lifestyle blog.
Melissa Johnson 3:11
Yes. The ultimate lifestyle blog. I guess you could say. I don’t know big words like that.
Jillian Leslie 3:18
But again, like it doesn’t matter. Because look how creative you are. You have an Airbnb.
Okay, so explain. Did you start because you’re like, I want to be a blogger, or this is like my business. How did that work?
Melissa Johnson 3:40
So my brother actually, he started blogging about, gosh, I want to say like, almost 15 years ago, he was like, an original blogger.
I remember one day I was working a job that I was not passionate about. And he came to my parents house and he had a check for $30,000 from Sprite. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I always thought I was more entrepreneurial than my brother was, I feel kind of bad saying that.
But growing up I did just because I was really organized. And my brother wasn’t as organized as me. And I just always felt like I was driven. So it’s like, oh, my gosh, if he can do it, I can do it, too.
And so he really inspired me just seeing how he monetized. And so he taught my husband and I some things about blogging. And then I just figured out what I was passionate about. And then I ended up running with it.
Jillian Leslie 4:25
That’s amazing. Okay, and you work with your husband?
Melissa Johnson 4:28
I do, we work full time together. It’s our only revenue stream.
Jillian Leslie 4:31
Wow. And did it start that way?
Melissa Johnson 4:34
No, we did not start that way. So it was just myself actually. And I’ll tell you what, my son was actually about six months old when I started blogging. And basically what happened was, at first, it was myself running a blog.
And then I was working as a marketing director for senior in home care agency. And so I was working that job while blogging.
About a year into blogging. I started monetizing. And so I was able to actually quit my job immediately from that monetization. And do that full time. My husband ended up quitting his job, I want to say about three years into it. It’s all so blurry to me.
But about three years in the blogging, he quit his job and came with me full time. So ever since then, it’s been him and I on this.
Jillian Leslie 5:14
Wow. And how do you split up what you do what he does?
Melissa Johnson 5:18
So it’s really cool. Because with him, and I, and we both have total separate zones of geniuses. So with him, he’s very much a true blue artist. He does photography, he does recipe development. It’s amazing. I really hit the jackpot with him.
And so with myself, I’m really great at marketing, branding. Um, gosh, I mean, we’re both good at a lot of different things. But we’re able to split up equally what we’re both individually good at and take those skill sets, and then blend them together and just kind of run with it. So it’s been really fun.
Jillian Leslie 5:55
I work with my husband, David, and he’s the technologist and he built all of the software and all that stuff. And I would agree, which is we have very concrete domains.
And I’ve heard this from other interviews I’ve done that sometimes when you work with your spouse, it can get kind of mucky if you don’t have those delineations.
And the people who seem the most successful are the ones that have these, you do this, I do this, we come together for this. And we kind of hand stuff off to each other. But like, I don’t have to answer to you. And you don’t have to answer to me.
Melissa Johnson 6:33
Yes, it’s so true. And its so funny you say that, because I feel like this is gonna sound horrible. I love my husband. But I feel like during our work hours, the least that we have to run into each other, the least smooth sailing, it’s going to be.
I’ll tell you all of our fights that we have revolved around business and kids, because those are the things that we’re super passionate about.
Jillian Leslie 6:55
Yeah. And for us, I would say that people say that what is for you the biggest downside of working with your husband and I always say that, it’s like, we can’t, it’s hard to turn off the business side and the parenting side, like, just to be the two of us goofy and funny.
My husband is really funny, and he cracks me up all the time. And sometimes though, when we’re like, in our work zone, we will be playful with each other. And it’s a weird, I miss you, even though I work with you.
Melissa Johnson 7:36
We’re the same way too, because you’re working. We’re in the mode, we’re in the zone, but outside, we have to have boundaries on that as well, where it’s like, okay, like five o’clock and beyond we are not going to talk about business.
We’re focusing on the kids, we’re focusing on our family weekends as well. We really try to adhere to our schedule Monday through Friday working.
It’s exciting too because our daughter, we have a two year old daughter, Claire, and she actually just started preschool a few months back. So I feel like she’s been at home with us for the past couple of years.
So it’s really exciting for us where we feel like the newness is kind of coming back, we are able to dive in deeper into our business and focus on things that we weren’t able to focus on months or even years ago.
Jillian Leslie 8:17
Okay. So when you start your blog, you start monetizing via traffic, via display ads.
Melissa Johnson 8:23
Right.
Jillian Leslie 8:23
And we both talked about how we were with the same ad network, Mode. And they went out of business and we both lost a ton of money. We’ll just say that that was very painful.
But I did feel really bonded to you. Because we’re in this Facebook group talking about it. It was we were both talking just before we got on, how it made us both sick.
I remember walking around with a stomach ache for like weeks. But it was horrible.
Melissa Johnson 8:47
And honestly, I’m an open book about it. I have been very candid about the loss in interviews and different things.
I think it is important for bloggers to realize to get their money up front versus waiting. Because I was very much trying to trust with our agency and so on. I just kept thinking, oh it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be in my Paypal. It’s all good.
And then yeah, I just remember like I was signed with them. They were the first company that allowed me to quit my day job. So I was so thankful for them. And I still a very thankful for the opportunity even though it’s crummy, what happened. But yeah, it’s crazy.
Jillian Leslie 9:21
Yes. I think it taught us a very valuable lesson, which is, the internet is a crazy place and don’t count your eggs. What is it? Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
Melissa Johnson 9:35
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Jillian Leslie 9:36
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I mean, if you’re doing this full time you’re doing this with your husband. It’s a wild ride, huh?
Melissa Johnson 9:45
It truly is.
Jillian Leslie 9:46
You gotta hold on and just like be willing to embrace change, to embrace disappointment. And there are some really cool things about it.
Melissa Johnson 9:57
Yeah, you said it so well. And I think, embracing the change in the disappointment. Everybody deals with that no matter what part or part of the journey they are in.
For myself, even right now, I’m embracing a lot of change, a lot of different things on my journey. And just because right now, I’m really focusing on growing a podcast from the ground up, and you’re probably, you probably can relate to that.
I mean, especially with MiloTree, what you’ve been growing and working on, which is so cool. I mean, it’s like, it’s kind of like you have your business, but then you’re starting new businesses and new adventures.
Jillian Leslie 10:28
Absolutely. Okay. So let’s talk about this. Okay. So you start your blog, you’re monetizing via ads, and sponsored content.
And then how did you start growing into products? How did you start growing into an Airbnb, all of that?
Melissa Johnson 10:44
So this year, we really tried to like beta test different products, because we haven’t put a ton of money behind it.
It’s more of like brands have come to us and have paid us for releasing the line, that sort of thing. So we really wanted to beta test it behind other brands. So that way that we wouldn’t lose a ton of money it into a product line, just to see how our audience reacts to the sales and all of those different things.
So that was our game plan when we release the product line, which sold out.
Jillian Leslie 11:12
Slow down. I need you to go step by step. Okay. So you decide you’re going to make a product line product, right?
Melissa Johnson 11:21
Yes. So we decided to make a product line.
Jillian Leslie 11:24
Okay, what kind of products?
Melissa Johnson 11:26
So for starters, we released a desk, a very stylish modern desk. We released the desk earlier this year.
Jillian Leslie 12:00
I have to say, it’s a little random.
Melissa Johnson 12:04
It is random. But I mean, it isn’t. Because interior design is one of our most popular category. I really wanted to test what sells would be like releasing an actual furniture product.
Jillian Leslie 12:15
Okay, got it.
Melissa Johnson 12:17
So we released the desk, but you sit and write out or work on your laptop out. And I’m actually sitting here as I’m talking to you. It sold out.
Jillian Leslie 12:27
Wow. And you did this with another company.
Melissa Johnson 12:30
We did. We had another company manufacturer it, ship it out, sell it. We took the product imagery, I worked in designing it. And that’s how the whole thing came about.
Jillian Leslie 12:38
Got it. And then was it like a rev share kind of thing where, you know, this is their manufacturing and shipping it and all that stuff. Like you get a cut of it. And they get a cut of it?
Melissa Johnson 12:48
Correct.
Jillian Leslie 12:49
Okay.
Melissa Johnson 12:52
So that ended up performing really well. And then in addition to that, we also released a product line with a company called Readable.
It’s a female founded company. They’re amazing. And they’re just doing some really cool things. They did their first collaboration with Emily Schumann, of Cupcakes and Cashmere. And they also collaboration with Band-O.
And so I’m the third one on board. And so we did a product line collaboration, which sold out to different rounds, I believe.
Jillian Leslie 13:24
What kind of product?
Melissa Johnson 13:26
So it’s actually like, it’s a box that you order. I know this is a little confusing, but it’s a gift box that you ordered, put really fun things inside. And then on the inside of the box is personalization.
You can upload your own custom photos. And a little message like Happy Birthday says, I love you, or whatever you want to write in the box. And so I designed the exterior of three different prints for the boxes. And they performed really well.
It was really fun for me, I got to work hand in hand with their designer, oversee the entire design of each box. So it was just a really cool experience.
Jillian Leslie 14:11
With you selling these products. Were you testing if people would buy from you?
Melissa Johnson 14:22
That’s exactly what we wanted to see how the sales generated. And it’s tough when you’re in the blogging industry, and you see your audience and the other side. It’s hard to know, okay, what are they going to gravitate towards the most? What are they going to be most inclined to purchase?
And so we just really wanted to test the market and see how that worked. Without totally breaking the bank.
Jillian Leslie 14:41
Totally. Wow. And it’s good. I mean, your stuff is selling. That’s phenomenal. Okay, let’s talk about social media.
Your husband takes some beautiful photos. When I think of you, I think of beautiful photos.
Melissa Johnson 15:02
That’s really sweet of you to say yes, to me and then also we’ve collaborated with a couple other photographers in Sacramento over the years as well.
And so now my husband’s doing more of the photography. He updated his camera this year. And he’s really been learning it and practicing it. So it’s been really cool.
Jillian Leslie 15:19
Okay, so talk to me then about how you drive traffic to your blog, and what social media platforms do you use? And what where have you connected the most with your audience?
Melissa Johnson 15:32
Oh, that’s a great question. Okay. So for in terms of social media, I would definitely say Instagram and Pinterest have been our most popular platforms in terms of building relationships, and really making Best Friends for Frosting turn into a brand.
I know that they’re so different but I’m such a visual person where I love that on Instagram, its so easy to be able to see things, and Pinterest it’s so easy to see things.
But when it comes to Facebook or Twitter, right, it’s not as much of a visual thing. And so in terms of like, generating traffic, Pinterest is working on a case study for Best Friends for Frosting. It turns out that they have told us that we are one of their highest engaged accounts.
Yeah, we actually we have 6.5 million monthly viewers on Pinterest and so that’s been an awesome way to grow an extension of our brand, because our readership, people learn about us through Pinterest, Best Friends for Frosting from Pinterest, and then from there, will generate more site traffic, which makes makes us able to demand higher rates for sponsored blog post.
We can also have a higher amount of traffic from our visitors from Pinterest. And then the other cool thing is that if people are feeling really inclined, they can follow us on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. So Pinterest has been a great, great part of our growth.
Jillian Leslie 16:55
Right? And do you use MiloTree?
Melissa Johnson 16:57
I do. And I love love, love, love MiloTree.
Jillian Leslie 17:02
What are you growing with it?
Melissa Johnson 17:04
So MiloTree right now I’m focusing on Pinterest, because one thing that I noticed on Pinterest for a hot minute there, was that followers weren’t growing as rapidly in the earlier part of this year, because we weren’t putting as much content.
I just saw that those numbers weren’t growing as fast as they previously were when we were pinning a lot more actively. And so I installed the MiloTree plugin and had a little pop up on my website. This is “Follow me on Pinterest.”
And I have literally grown thousands and thousands of new followers just by having that little pop up.
Jillian Leslie 17:34
What I see probably working for you is if a lot of your traffic is coming from Pinterest to your site, and then your pop-up shows up and says, Follow me on Pinterest, they already know that you’re an influencer on Pinterest. So they’re more apt to then follow you.
Melissa Johnson 17:51
Yes, that’s so true. The other cool thing about having that plugin as well, is that people will come and find us on Pinterest.
But maybe they just want to see the actual like posts. They’re trying to find us from Pinterest, go to my blog.
And today, like they haven’t even had an opportunity to say like, Oh, I’m going to follow her on Pinterest because they’re trying to find that direct content to my blog. And then that pop-up comes up. And it’s like, oh, yeah, I need to follow Best Friends for Frosting on Pinterest
Jillian Leslie 18:15
Right. I’m so glad it’s working for you. I’m so happy.
Melissa Johnson 18:21
Honestly, it’s funny, because we download a lot of plugins. And a lot of times it’s one of those things where we waste money. We buy a year subscription and it’s like, oh, this sort of works, but we’re not going to renew it.
And MiloTree is one of those plugins that I like tell every blogger, like you have to download it, it’s so helpful to grow your following, like whatever platform that you’re trying to nurture and grow have that MiloTree pop up for.
Jillian Leslie 18:43
And we want you to love it. And if you don’t, we don’t want you to pay for it. So we don’t lock you in. I mean you can buy a year subscription but you can also just pay nine bucks a month, and we’re super happy, and we we want to be part of your success.
Melissa Johnson 18:59
That’s what I’m so thankful for, recently we bought a recipe plugin. And they want a whole year up front. And I get a little commitment phobic, like I don’t want to pay all that up front. What if I end up not loving it?
And so my MiloTree it’s cool because you can spend you know that $9 a month and you get these awesome newsletters with all the business tips that you send out, to which is cool.
Jillian Leslie 19:19
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I love doing that. Again. I love connecting. That’s how we did this, was you read one of my emails. And you emailed me back and then I said, Come on my show.
Melissa Johnson 19:36
That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m so thankful to be here. This is so great to just be able to be on your official podcast. I’ve heard so many great things from other bloggers about this.
Jillian Leslie 19:47
So now for Instagram. So Pinterest is driving traffic to you. Is Instagram driving traffic? Or what are you getting from Instagram.
Melissa Johnson 19:56
So Instagram right now, we have our website like in the actual address bar on our Instagram page. But to be totally honest, I feel like Instagram is more of a place where it’s kind of like its own animal.
So it’s housing all of its own content. Now it’s doing video. Now it’s doing stories. I’m even getting to a point where I’m posting my recipes. And I’m not even saying go back to my blog on my here’s my recipe because now they’re even trying to have like that Pinterest aspect where you’re able to save your own content and create your own prints.
And so I feel like they are trying to be their own animal and a lot of ways, right. And so I especially, because a large portion of our bread and butter is sponsored posts.
I make sure to really nurture those relationships. And offer as much up front value without taking them outside the platform as possible, though, I’ll tell you, I do have like anxiety moments where I’m like, I’m going to be kicking myself because Instagram, Facebook owns it. And we don’t know what’s going to happen because we don’t own that platform.
When it comes to our blogs. We own that, we own those platforms. And you can easily search for things that a search engine on your blog posts, like, and as a search option, you cannot do that on Instagram.
I mean, it’s kind of it’s a very unique time for content creators. I have to say.
Jillian Leslie 21:12
What do you mean by that?
Melissa Johnson 21:13
Just, I mean, those spaces just constantly evolving and changing, and there’s just a lot happening,
Jillian Leslie 21:19
Right. Do you monetize more from sponsored content than traffic?
Melissa Johnson 21:25
Oh, yes, we do. Sponsored content is our bread and butter, I would say for sure. We do monetize from or traffic too. But the largest portion of our monetization is from sponsored blog posts and social shares.
Jillian Leslie 21:37
Got it. So are you constantly doing sponsored posts?
Melissa Johnson 21:42
We are. We do quite a few a month. Gosh, I mean, anywhere ranging from like, three to ten per month.
Jillian Leslie 21:51
Wow. Okay. And how do you think about it? Like, how do you think about managing your time, managing your process, so that you’re not just constantly reinventing the wheel? Like, okay, we’ve got another recipe, like, how do you how do you do it so that you can get everything done?
Melissa Johnson 22:13
It’s tough. I mean, honestly, it’s a never ending battle, because I feel like I’m always refining that process, and then eventually ends up not working for me, or something ends up just, I don’t know, it’s really tough.
I feel like it’s a never ending battle. But I am at a unique point where as much as I love blogging, I really want to generate multiple revenue streams.
So I am focusing on how to fine tune Best Friends for Frosting to run like a well oiled machine, where I’m not having to be such hands on as I currently am. And so I have that mindset right now. It’s an interesting time for us for sure.
Jillian Leslie 22:52
We also now have two businesses, so that we’re really trying to find a variety of income streams, and especially, you know, when Mode exploded in our face, like it did, you know, I think that that’s further inspired us to, to really look at how we can make money in a variety of different ways.
Melissa Johnson 23:13
Totally, I completely agree. I know, it was such a shocker. And that was a big eye opener, where it’s like, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. And so now at this point, we’re working with a lot of different agencies in terms of closing deals for sponsored posts.
Jillian Leslie 23:27
That was my question. Are brands reaching out to you? Who is your favorite agency? Like, how do you get work with brands?
Melissa Johnson 23:37
So in terms of getting work with different brands, and things the majority, a lot of them are coming to us directly, like Hey, we found you, and we’d love to work with you on this or that. And so then it becomes a negotiating process.
And so, you know, sometimes they’re not willing to pay our rates, and so it doesn’t end up working out. And so it’s just a case by case basis, for sure.
But we do work directly with ad agencies, PR agencies, and then directly with companies, a lot of companies now. In the past, they used to get companies like ad agencies or PR agencies to house in facilitate their blog partnerships.
But now companies are actually hiring dedicated people in their headquarters to handle those themselves. So I’m a little bit of everybody.
Jillian Leslie 24:21
Okay. And then how does it work? Like, are you ever racing at the last minute to get the content created?
That was always our thing, where I’d tell me husband, this weekend, we can’t have any plans, because we have three posts, we have to work on.
Melissa Johnson 24:41
Yes and it’s hard. Yes, absolutely. We’ve been there, done that so many times. And it’s hard, because, I mean, we’ve never been late, we always fully execute.
But we have had times where we have to scramble at the last minute and so that’s the hard part. I love what we do.
But there is that side things where it’s like, there’s so many steps involved, you have to generate that organic content to keep your audience staying put, and loving what you’re doing, then you have to pitch brands, create the content to support what you’re doing.
So there’s just so many different steps when it comes to blogging, and not to mention all the social media growth and all that stuff.
Jillian Leslie 25:19
Yeah, so how many new posts are you posting a week?
Melissa Johnson 25:25
Only two. We’re only doing two, we used to do about four to five, years ago. It’s just kind of to the point where I thought, you know, quality over quantity, and it’s just, I really want to, like produce things that I’m over the moon excited about that are meaningful to me, versus just scrambling together to drop a post.
Jillian Leslie 25:41
Does that include sponsored content as well, like, that would be one of the two that you’re releasing that week?
Melissa Johnson 25:46
It does. Not every single week, but a lot of times it does.
Jillian Leslie 25:50
Now, are you going back? This is the thing that we’re doing. Are you going back and updating old content?
Melissa Johnson 25:58
I should be.
I’m doing it for SEO purposes. And I have it on my list. And I’m like, Okay, I gotta jump to that.
But I’m at the season where I know I’m kind of touched on this earlier, but I tried the whole, getting an office, having employees, having a team, and then I just felt like I got to a point were just getting to the office was a pain in the, you know what, and then, micromanaging people, where managing employees was just so hard for me, because I’m type-A and I’m a perfectionist.
And so I just had a point where I just realized, it’s easier for Andy and I to do this together. So that’s kind of where we’ve been this past year.
But I’m now at a point where I feel like I’m running myself ragged in a lot of ways. I’m doing a lot of smaller tasks, whether it’s like updating a social media platform, or I hate to say it like that.
But I mean, when I’m updating Facebook or Instagram, I do have an intern update that for me, but I am on like Instagram and I myself and an intern manage the Pinterest being like, totally fully transparent.
But it’s hard because I’m trying to do everything and then it’s like factoring in growth. I mean, the strategies are just getting tougher and tougher and tougher, right?
Jillian Leslie 27:12
Yeah, they’re getting more intricate and so here’s what I would say. What we’ve done that has lightened our load is we used to post three original pieces of content a week and now we have gone to two and all we do with that third one is update a post.
Melissa Johnson 27:30
Really? Are you saying that you update it and change the date?
Jillian Leslie 27:35
Yes. Republish it, because Google doesn’t care. They don’t care that you did an evergreen post three years ago, if it’s still relevant. And you can maybe make a new collage, update text, all this stuff. Google’s happy if you publish it today.
Melissa Johnson 27:56
That’s awesome. That is really cool. I’ve heard other people talk about it. But I’d never heard it broken down that way. Where it completely makes sense.
Jillian Leslie 28:03
Yes. I used to believe that you had to feed the Google machine with new content, new content. And then actually, it was at the AdThrive conference where the SEO guy was like, it doesn’t matter in Google’s eyes.
And in Pinterest’s eyes, if you update it. It’s much easier, first of all, to update a post than it is to create a new post. All you need to do is like, right now I’m editing out photos, I realized that we had too many photos in a post or making a new hero image, or trying to really optimize the post for SEO.
So I am putting more links at the bottom of a post. So let’s say it’s a Halloween post that we’re updating, well then at the end now we’ll say, “Hey, you know, do you want free Halloween party printables?” And then we’ll do some links to our other posts. And literally, that’s how we update the post
Melissa Johnson 29:06
Yeah Google loves those links.
Jillian Leslie 29:08
So good. So right. I’m trying to provide for Google, but really, I’m really trying to provide for somebody who wants to see, you know, let’s say we do we have Halloween pretzels. And they’re cute. And so at the bottom will say, hey, do you want Halloween free Halloween printables?
Because, you know, you probably have printables at your party with pretzels. And it’s been a really successful strategy. And it’s taken a lot of the load off.
Melissa Johnson 29:36
Oh, I can imagine.
Jillian Leslie 29:37
So you could go to like, one piece of content a week and then take an old evergreen post and update it.
Melissa Johnson 29:45
I might just need to do that.
Jillian Leslie 29:49
I think that the emphasis used to be back in the day for us was like, we did four posts or five posts or seven posts. And now it’s seems like the emphasis is on quality and updating your content.
Somebody described it to me as a library, you have a library of content, and all you’re doing is just making the books ar as good as they possibly can. Like, you don’t even need more books. You just need high quality books.
Melissa Johnson 30:20
Right. And that’s what I’ve been learning more and more, even with blogging and building my business in general, is that it’s quality over quantity. And simplifying is so important.
So if you can take something in fact, it it’s better like, just think about In and Out Burger. They could have so many things on their menu, right? They, keep it very simple. Because decision fatigue.
Have you ever gone to a website where you’re gonna buy something and you love something. But then you see six things that you love, and you can’t make the choice and you end up saying to heck with it. And you leave.
Jillian Leslie 30:48
I feel that way at Zappos. Shopping for shoes. I can go through 32 pages of shoes.
Melissa Johnson 30:56
No way. No way. But if you go somewhere, like In and Out Burger, there’s like four really good things that have been perfected, and somebody put their heart and soul into it and just made it the best. I feel like that’s the way to go.
Jillian Leslie 31:07
And by the way, that’s our same philosophy with MiloTree, which is one ask per visit. So it’s not, Oh, my God. And then we’ve got all these things that we need you to do. And you get like, totally overwhelmed as a visitor versus, Hey, follow me on Pinterest.
Melissa Johnson 31:22
That’s so smart. Yeah, and it’s definitely working. Especially from my perspective, from the growth that we’ve seen on our Pinterest audience loving it.
Jillian Leslie 31:30
I’m so glad. Okay, so tell me, what about your business are you most excited about right now?
Melissa Johnson 31:41
Is that bad, that I have to think about that for a second?
Jillian Leslie 31:43
No, because I know what your life is like. I relate.
Melissa Johnson 31:51
You know, right now, I feel like I have five really good ideas in my head. And I’m having a really hard time saying and giving myself permission to say, this is where I’m going to start. And this is the one that I’m going to focus on. And so that’s been tough for me.
But I’ll tell you what I learned during that process. And I’m going to get right back to your question kind of intertwined together.
But I learned the secret to getting ahead is getting started.
So, for example, Heartfelt Success Podcast, that’s my, new podcasts that I launched, we feature celebrities and entrepreneurs.
And we talk about things that can motivate or uplift you or offer value, whether it’s social media tips, or growing your blog, or a challenge that you may have faced in your life, or motherhood or whatever it may be.
It’s a little bit of everything but I was so nervous and so scared to start that podcast. What I ended up doing was I just started sending out emails and getting guest on and recording and then you know, one thing led to another.
We had to learn different things as we were going, but we ended up getting everything going. And so I learned, you know, the secret to getting ahead is getting started.
But anyways, that’s kind of where intertwines back. I am really excited about Heartfelt Success Podcast, we have some awesome guests lined up.
So we’ve already been featured Laila Ali, and we have other guests in the pipelines that will be released soon. So it’s been fun. But yeah, that’s what I’m most excited about.
And I have four other things that I’m really excited about, but I just, I don’t know which one to go on to next. So that was my whole answer. In a nutshell, I talk a lot, I blame it on being Italian.
Jillian Leslie 33:28
I went to a podcasting conference. I love podcasts. I came home. And I said to my daughter, I’m going to start a podcast. And I think she was like, yeah right, mom.
And so in a weird way, I wanted to show her that I was going to really do this. And so I just same thing, I just put one foot in front of the other. And I remember it’s like saying, I’m really starting a podcast. And she was kind of like, whatever.
And then I kept reminding myself that done is better than perfect. And so I watched a bunch of YouTube videos to figure out how to do this. And then the literal boom, I have a podcast.
And as I was saying to you, it’s kind of messy. And I’m not the best editor. And, you know, sometimes, something will happen in the middle of it. And I go, Well, you know done is better than perfect. And so, I get it.
And I’m excited for your podcast. Because I have to say, if you out there are thinking of starting a podcast, do it. It’s, it’s not expensive. I really fun. I find it really satisfying.
Melissa Johnson 34:34
It is really fun. And yeah, that was the thing is that I thought it would be so hard. But honestly, like it’s really easy to get things rolling and going.
And the secret to getting ahead truly is getting started. I agree with Jillian, if you’re thinking about starting a podcast, just go for it.
There’s so many resources and Facebook groups, and great ways to really learn and find out how to go about it.
Jillian Leslie 34:54
Tell me if you agree with this, I think you find your voice.
Melissa Johnson 34:59
Yes, it’s true. It’s true. I said yes. And like a really funny voice. I’m like, wait, but that’s not my voice.
I know what you’re saying you find your voice, you find what you’re passionate about. And what’s really meaningful to you.
Jillian Leslie 35:15
It’s like a good way to learn about yourself, that’s what I think.
Melissa Johnson 35:19
I agree.
Jillian Leslie 35:19
Okay, so how can people learn more about you reach out to you all of that?
Melissa Johnson 35:25
So in terms of if you want to follow along, I am over on Instagram at Best Friends For Frosting. You can type in Best Friends For Frosting on Pinterest.
The website is bestforfriendsfrosting.com We are just now building a website for Heartfelt Success Podcast, so we do have the website holding page up at heartfeltsuccess.com.
And then if you go onto Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, just type in Heartfelt Success Podcast and then you can hear me talk unlimited again and we can keep in touch.
Jillian Leslie 35:53
Awesome, okay. Well I have to say friend it is so nice having known you for so long, to actually get a chance to chat with you and have all these other people listen.
Melissa Johnson 36:06
Yay! We’re so overdue. I love that our first conversation was actually recorded, so we can go back to this one day and just laugh about it.
Jillian Leslie 36:12
Oh Totally. Well, thank you for being on the show.
Melissa Johnson 36:16
Thanks for having me, this is great
Jillian Leslie 36:19
If you want to see why Melissa loves MiloTree so much. Head on over to MiloTree.com, set up your pop-up, put it on your site, and watch your Pinterest followers grow.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
As entrepreneurs, we all know we need a presence on Instagram. So I thought I’d share the 5 apps I use to manage my 157k+ follower Catch My Party Instagram account.
These are my favorite Instagram apps for scheduling, designing, engaging, and growing my followers.
Postcron is my Instagram scheduling app for Catch My Party. I love that I can use it to schedule posts for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter from the same platform.
It’s super easy to use and saves me a ton of time. While there are great Instagram scheduling tools out there, with Postcron, I only pay one price to schedule three platforms.
Canva is my go-to creation tool for making Instagram images for both my Instagram feed and stories.
Even with no design talent, I can use one of their premade templates, and look like I’ve got some skillz!
Plus it’s easy and cheap to buy stock photos (or upload my own).
I use this iPhone app to design great-looking quotes for my feed or stories. (I even use it to make fast pins for Pinterest.)
I type my text on top of an image or background. Then I use their pre designed typography styles and choose which ones I like the best.
I personally like that there are limited choices. It helps me make up my mind faster. Limitations can be helpful!
I use this app in our Instagram bio on Catch My Party. If someone clicks on our profile link, they end up on a page with all our feed posts and the corresponding links.
Link in Profile will automatically set up the link. All I have to do is add the link at the bottom of each post description.
This is an easy app to use, saves time because I don’t have to swap out my link in every post, and it does really drive Instagram traffic to Catch My Party.
By using MiloTree on Catch My Party, we’ve grown our Instagram followers to over 157k.
MiloTree is the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it app. It’s growing our followers 24/7.
Plus, because it’s installed on our blog, and it pops up on our site and asks our site visitors to follow us on Instagram, it grows the highest quality followers we can find.
These people have already been to our blog, seen our content, and liked it enough to click on our MiloTree pop-up to follow us.
My advice: seize and love these followers!
These are your most important followers because they will interact with your Instagram content and signal to Instagram that you have a high quality page.
Then Instagram will show your page to more people, which means more followers. See the beautiful cycle? ❤️
Also, if you want to give MiloTree a try, you’ll get your first 30 days FREE!
If you are wondering why your Instagram followers are not growing as fast as you’d like, check out my post on the 6 reasons you’re not getting new Instagram followers.
Also, take a look at my Ultimate Guide for Bloggers and Creative Entrepreneurs to Get More Instagram Followers. This has everything you need to know to grow your followers faster!
And see why the MiloTree app is the best tool to get you more Instagram followers.