Social media series vol 1: blogging and becoming an influencer

The anticipated post you all have been waiting for is here and if you didn’t read the title, I’ve decided I’ll be turning this into a whole series about social media! In no way am I a social media consultant or a pro at this. I have a love for it and being able to help as many people out as possible. This whole post is about what I’ve learned over time with blogging and being a social media influencer. My full year of blogging will be in September and I can’t believe I’ve grown and learned all I have. I’m anxious to see where I’ll be at in 3 months.  This post is suuuuper lengthy but I wanted to make sure I had everything down. I have the influencer section first, followed by the blogging section. I did my best titling every section I talk about, so feel free to skip around 🙂

If there is anything that I’ve learned from blogging and being a social media influencer is that there is not a single part of it that is easy. You have to have patience and a lot of it. You have to be willing to learn….and continue to learn because coding makes absolutely no sense and Google is your best friend. You have be able to give because blogging and being a social media influencer isn’t just about you. You have to be willing to also invest. And the biggest one to me is you have to really want this to want to be successful.

If you are new to blogging and this whole social media thing I hope this in some way helps you out! As always, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without your support, so, thank  you for making this possible! If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to send me a DM on Instagram or comment down below!

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Influncing

getting into influencing 

This was by far the most nerve-racking part for me when becoming a social media influencer and blogger. I love staying in my bubble of people and wanting to do this really pushed me out of my comfort zone! Working with brands is awesome! It not only helps you grow as an influencer, but it also gets your name out there to be noticed by other brands to potentially want to work with you!  As much as I would love to be getting paid every single post and upwards of thousands of dollars for it, it’s not going to happen right off the back. I feel very fortunate to have worked with some brands that I love. I have also worked with a few that I haven’t cared much for. You definitely learn as you grow.

What originally got me into influencing was Laken being a brand rep for the cutest baby boutique in my home town, Sweet Tea & Caviar. In exchange for a hefty discount I had to post images tagging the boutique. If you scroll far enough down my Instagram you can see the time when I was posting of just Laken and their clothes! At that point I only had an Instagram and about 1.8k followers, all from high school and from meeting people in Lawrence. I actually started reaching out to smaller companies for trade. The companies would send me items in exchange for an instagram post or two.  From there I started signing up for influencing websites that help match you with brands with paid collabs/trades. Some of these influencer sites have a requirement to join based on your social stats but it’s worth checking out anyway!

Here are the influencer sites I have used: Massive Sway, Social Native, Socialix, Ambassadher, MuseFind, Hashtag Paid, Obvious.ly,

 

growing a following

Engage. Engage. Engage. I can not tell you this enough! Since Instagram changed their algorithm (you can read more about it here) you will only see posts that you engage with and what you like. Basically Instagram is trying to make your feed personalized to you. It’s not just us small accounts that are hurting with the change either! Amber Fillerup Clark(my all-time favorite blogger) tweeted something along the lines of how she found if comical that some of her posts would get 380k likes while the others would only get 35k likes. That’s a huge number difference!! Leave a cute compliment on someones post, like their pictures, reply back to their Instagram story! If you want engagement you’re going to have to give it.

Along with engaging, it’s important to be consistent. Here is an article talking about ideal times to post on each social platform! Here is an article from Huffpost talking about the best time to post on Instagram.  I’ve read multiple articles over the past few months saying how crucial it is to be consistent with posting and to post 1-2 times a day. I wish I could find the article that talked about the importance of it because it was so interesting. If I find it I’ll link it in my insta story and on here for you all!

Something that is a little trick when it comes to growing is to find accounts that are similar to yours and send them a message asking if they are part of a small messaging group on Instagram and ask to join! I have met so many moms and amazing bloggers this way. I have built a crazy amount of relationships from all over the United States. It’s crazy what this little app can do.

creating a media kit

I was so clueless when it came to what all you needed when starting to collab! I had no idea what a media kit was. I went about five months without even having one and towards the end was when I really started to get paid collabs with companies. A lot of companies will ask you to send over your media kit. You can tell a company over and over again that you’re reliable, but having a Media Kit shows how structured and organized you are. To me it also is a way of saying hey, I’m really serious about this.  I recommend making one right away and updating it as you grow, that way you always have something on hand you can send to companies even if your numbers are little! Most companies want to see your stats. They want to know how many monthly visits you get. Sometimes they’ll even get into the specifics of male to female ratio on a post and age!

A media kit also gives a brief summary of who you are and what you do. It also shows what a company can expect with each thing. I only post via Instagram and blogging, so I only offer rates for those two things. If a company asks me if I’m interested in posting to my Twitter or Facebook I usually will. On my media kit I have my Pinterest stats added. I post almost all my photos on pinterest and get a lot of traffic that way!

Here is a little glimpse of my Media Kit! I’ve never been satisfied with how it looks so I will probably be making a new one soon haha. If you’re interested in creating a media kit and have no idea where to start you can totally Pinterest search “Media Kit layouts”. A lot of the posts on Pinterest will take you to a website that will sell media kit templates! If you aren’t super tech savvy a template is the way to go!

 

How much do you charge

I’m not going to say how much I charge now, but when I first started I felt weird asking for money and started really low. Like $30 low. Over time I got over it and significantly raised my prices. I work my butt off for this blog and my Instagram and deserve to get paid my worth and time. Don’t ever sell yourself short when it comes to charging. It takes so much work taking pictures, editing, and putting blog post together. Heck, I worked on this post for almost two weeks!

If you’re interested in finding out what your posts are worth there are a ton of sites out there that can help. I can’t remember the site that I used but this one is sponsored by Instagram and tells you why you should charge X amount.

what I use to take my pictures

I get asked this question a lot and it truly depends what I have on me at the time and if I’m in a time crunch! I take almost all of my photos with a tripod! This is the one I use and love. Kyler will help out and take some of my pictures if he isn’t at work but I try not to take up the time I have with him taking pictures. When we go somewhere I usually just take my phone unless I know we’re going to a place camera worthy. I have the iPhone X and the picture quality is amazing! I’m not a huge fan of portrait mode because it look like someone did a really bad Photoshop job trying to blur the background haha. I still use my Canon Rebel t3i (I think the t6i is the newest version) from years ago and have just switch up the lenses. My favorite camera to use is the Canon G7X Mark II.

Just to show you how amazing the iPhone X quality is, I’ve added a pink line through all the recent photos on my Instagram taken with my phone.

Something that is really looked over when it comes to anything social media is that you don’t have to have nice things to be successful. There are so many YouTubers that made it big by just using their phones to film to edit. Use what you have available and rock it! The best time to buy a camera is during Black Friday when bundled deals are available. I got my Rebel T3i on Black Friday in a bundle and saved close to $600.

how I edit my photos

I currently use my own preset form adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is worth every penny in my opinion. If you don’t know what a preset is, it’s a one click photo edit system. I’ve had some interest in people wanting my preset. I have no idea how to sell them but if that’s of interest to any of you reading this please leave a comment below letting me know! Lightroom is also available on iPhones and Androids. If you’re curios about Lightroom and what it is you can read about it here.

If you’re looking for an alternative to using Lightroom there are a ton of free apps available. The ones I use to use were VSCO and Afterlight.

finding time  to blog/take pictures

I get asked this question quite a bit. Blogging takes a lot of time and having a little one all while doing this makes it harder. I give major props to those bloggers juggling three+kids and doing this full-time. I take full advantage of nap time! I put my phone away and just write away. If I don’t get Laken to take a nap that day I usually end up staying up until 2am or wake up extra early to get some work done. I don’t have an assistant or do daycare so I try to use my time wisely.

When it comes to pictures I usually wake up early to take them. Of course it all depends what I’m needing to shoot for that day, too. I try my best to take as many pictures I can per day so I have a lot of back up images to use! It takes a lot of weight off of me knowing that I don’t have to run around tying to get content. Lots of bloggers and social media influencers do this! It’s the best kept secret 😉

 

Blogging

why I started blogging

I would absolutely be lying if I said I started blogging for the fun of it. A part of me did join for that, but the other part of me knew the money side of it! I am a stay-at-home mom 4 days a week and I really needed a hobby other than going to Target and TJMaxx on the daily. After I had Laken I was intrigued by all these mommy influencers getting free baby clothes and how easy it seemed getting paid collaborations. You post a picture on Instagram featuring said product and you get paid for it. THAT IS CRAZY(and so simple, right?!)! Just to clarify, I was super wrong on it being simple. haha.  I never imagined this small side hobby would turn in to something I love.

 

who influenced me to start blogging

Holy crap, you guys!!! I started this blog because of people like you having blogs! I would have never had the guts to pull the plug and just start this out of nowhere. I’m putting all of me on the internet for whoever to see and that’s a big deal! Whether they know it or not, it’s super important to me that I share with you all who influenced me because I truly wouldn’t be where I am at without them as inspiration. If you aren’t already, I highly recommend checking them all out!

The queen of all bloggers: Amber Fillerup Clark of Barefoot Blonde // Rachel Parcell of Pink Peonies // Lauryn Evarts of The Skinny Confidential   // Lynzy of Lynzy and Co // Courtney Shields of BYOBEAUTY // Julia of Lemon Stripes // Aspyn Ovard of Aspyn Ovard and so many more!!!!

 

choosing a domain name

 The first step that I took was creating my domain name, i.e. www.kendraraymer.com. I created my domain name here. You can also check out Who Is for looking up names and more options. Sometimes .com isn’t always available and the other options can be .net, .info, .club, etc.  I think I ended up paying $12 a year for my domain. The price varies on each site and I’ve seen some domain names as low as $7 a year.

Regarding names, some people are super creative with their names and for them it flows but if I tried doing something outside of the box, I feel like it wouldn’t sound the same. haha. For what I wanted, I went with using my first/last name because I didn’t know if over time I would ever want to change what I wrote about. I encourage any of you creating a domain name to make it something that is all about you. Make it something that makes you happy and something you want to see every day.

 

a platform and a host site…what’s the difference?! do I need both?!

Before getting any further, let me tell you my experience and why it is so important if you’re wanting a grow a successful blog that you have both a web hosting site and a platform and to really know everything about your platform. Okay, so, no one ever told me that you needed both a web hosting site and a platform…specifically a web hosting site BEFORE your platform. That would have made life so much easier! I’m not even trying to be dramatic about it because I spent a good amount of $$ getting everything set up! Because I knew nothing of a host site I went straight for the platform. I went to wordpress.com, bought the pro package and started setting up my site. I was on YouTube watching how-to videos on how to set up my layout. I was on cloud nine. I had successfully posted three blogs thinking I had finally figured this whole thing out. I then wanted to add an affiliate link my site and all of a sudden I was at a stand point. I couldn’t figure out why my page didn’t look like the how-to videos I was watching to insert my affiliate link. I then quickly realized I had no more room to upload photos or even type up blog posts. I was stuck! I had spent three whole months perfecting my page and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong!!! I literally cried about it to Kyler I was so upset about it.

After doing quite a bit of research I ended up finding out  that there was a wordpress.com and a wordpress.org(more about this in the next section below). My immediate thought was that I had just spent all this money only to figure out that I was using the entirely wrong platform. I found this blog start-up page on WordPress that led me to Blue Host, the host site recommended to use with the platform wordpress.org. Because I had done everything backwards, I was out of a blog for almost three weeks! I was on the phone with Blue Host’s customer support every single night for hours at a time transferring information. I had no access to my blog for about a week because of this and they told me that there was a chance that I may lose my domain entirely if the data didn’t transfer correctly. They were absolute angles to me and I will forever stay with Blue Host because of it.

Trust me when I say learn from my mistake and DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!  I was so excited to post pictures that I dove into starting a blog without reading anything.  I don’t want anyone having to go through what I did. Below I have a little summary of what a web hosting site and a platform site is. I’ve also linked some awesome options for you all to look into!

web hosting: Web hosting will store all of your website files – code, text, images, video, etc, on servers. When someone goes to your website, the server will send information via the internet to their computer so they can access the site.

host sites: Blue Host, Go Daddy, A Small Orange

web platform:  A platform contains all of the starter files you will need in order to launch your website. It’s a software/service that you use to publish your content onto.

platform sites: wordpress.com(free option), wordpress.org, Squarespace, Linktree, Blogger(free option)

 

 why I have wordpress.org & not wordpress.com

 Not sure if any of you are like me but the appearance of my blog on every device was super important to me. I actually would go to other blogger’s sites and look at it on my phone, computer, and iPad. I loved the look of wordpress pages because there was such a variety on every device.   If you’re not someone who is super tech savvy I would maybe suggest checking out platforms that offer free options(mentioned above).

As you read above in my whole story I started on wordpress.com. WordPress.com has free hosting up to 3gb of storage. Anything more than 3gb requires a paid hosting upgrade. WordPress.com doesn’t require a background in web building and is much easier. Within a few clicks you can have your blog up and running with all the available free layout options. You don’t have to worry about web security or maintenance which is ideal if you’re a low maintenance person. There are some plugins available but you are really limited to what all you can do. If you’re someone who doesn’t plan on doing a whole lot this option would totally be for you!

After I made the switch to WordPress.org, I quickly realized that I could never go without it.  It was a little more pricey but it is totally worth it for all that I want and need. You can totally customize it yourself or have a web designer come in to help. There are some themes available with this option but the set up isn’t as quick. If you’re in it for the long haul I would totally recommend this option.

finding your blog layout

Having a good blog layout is super crucial. I know that a lot of platforms have their own layouts and there are usually a handful of free ones. The more advanced ones have more options when it comes to customizing. You usually have to pay for those layouts and those prices can vary from $30 to hundreds of dollars. The very first layout I looked at and loved was of course $600! I quickly said no to that. haha.  You want to make sure your layout is compatible with your platform. Most layouts will say underneath if they’re compatible but I’ve come across a few that haven’t. My layout is from PipDig and is the tundra theme. Mine was $59 which I thought was pretty reasonable.

Some other layout sites: Theme Forest, Just Free Themes, Colorlib,

Finding your niche

It is so important to want to write about what comes natural to you. It’s also really important to be yourself in your writing and posts. Write about what makes you happy.

 

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xx-Kendra