So Now You’re a Blogger

So you made the big life decision that you want to be a blogger now. You probably made this decision because you follow a fantastic blogger on Instagram and read their posts regularly and said “I want to do that. I want to be like her.” So I want to challenge you. I think that its wonderful that you made this decision but I would like you to know truthfully that this path can be difficult at times. Throughout this post I would love to challenge you, give you some tips and help you reflect because my viewpoint is coming to you as a photographer, not a blogger. So here goes.

My first question to you is, Why?

Why did you decide to become a blogger?

Was it a specific person that inspired you or do you have a love for writing and hope to gift the world your great advice? No matter what your reason is, I think you should write this down. Write this down and keep it safe so in a month from now when you’re struggling for content and don’t want to continue, you can remind yourself why you started.

Negative comparison will rob you of your creative energy.

Here’s a tip for you. Please with everything in me, I hope you can try your hardest not to do this. Read on.

Please please please listen to me when I give you this advice. I hear so many beautiful, intelligent women say to me “why does she get more like’s than me?” or “do I have to do what she does in order for people to like what I’m posting?” The answer is very simply no. Being yourself will attract the people that will ACTUALLY engage with you. Let me repeat that in a different way. Be you and the people who want to follow you will because they are interested in YOU. One more thing while I’m on this subject. Don’t freak out when you loose followers. Instagram has been nuts lately and you’re going to loose followers. I will write a full post on this soon but here’s the gist. In order to gain the followers who will truly follow you, read your content and engage with you, you need to loose and weed out the ones who are uninterested. You will not please everyone, ever. Not everyone is going to love you.

Next is,

What do you want to blog about?

This sort of goes along with the “why” but what is your thing? Some people are awesome at fashion blogging, some are great chefs and have amazing recipes and some are die hard video gamers. My point here is, you can’t be everything for everyone. Don’t feel like you need to pick up a million different things in order to be the perfect blogger. Just stick to the things that make you, you and you will thrive. Im not saying don’t try new things BUT if you don’t drink coffee don’t feel the need to post pictures of coffee because everyone else is doing it. Just be you. Nothing is more revealing that when someone works with a company that they don’t use or know anything about. The followers that know you, know you wouldn’t use that product. Also, think about this. A brand reaches out to you and asks to post for trade and you are so darn excited that you accept that trade without even knowing who the brand is or what they stand for. You receive the product and post a pretty, shiny photo telling your followers they must buy this brand because you love it. One of your followers goes and buys this product and the product gives them a chemical burn. (Sorry this is so dramatic) That is on YOU because instead of posting about something you’ve tried and loved, you posted on a whim. Now you’ve lost the trust of a friend and follower who believed in you. Don’t do this. Plain and simple.

Distinguish yourself and Be different

No matter what you’re doing in life, or what you plan to be it is SO important to be different. What makes you stand out from the other millions of bloggers out there? If you don’t push yourself and find those great things about yourself that separate you from the crowd, then you WILL blend in. Being a blogger and blending in is a rough road to be on. Dare to be different and follow your own path. You will be surprised by who will follow along.

There are so many more things I would like to say here but for now Im going to leave it at that. Re-read if you need but to sum this up, please be yourself. Be crazy, authentic, genuine and fully in love with your beautiful little life because living someone else’s will never satisfy.

Blog on!

Sami Saunders