Launching a Business From Your Blog

This past weekend I spoke on an amazing panel at the Lifestyle Bloggers Conference that was on the theme of blogging and business. What struck me as pretty remarkable about this panel was that all three of us who were speaking each used our blog for a different purpose. Christa O’Leary created her blog as part of her business website to enhance her business services. Alaia Williams started blogging with the intention of having the blog become part of her business. I started blogging without any intention of it being the stepping stone to my current career in social media.

Photo courtesy of Calvin Lee

While we each came to blogging through different means, we all knew the importance of having a blog and using it as a tool to enhance our business endeavors. I get asked all the time if every business needs a blog. My answer is usually no, but whether you need one or not doesn’t mean that adding a blog to your existing website or simply starting one as a stand-alone entity wouldn’t be helpful.

It also doesn’t mean that if you have a blog, even a very successful one, that you should turn it into a business. For those of you who weren’t at the conference, I thought I’d share my story.

The Journey

I have been blogging for a long time and when I look back on how I started, I wish I had known there was a community like this years earlier. I had given up my 9 – 5 job to stay home with my babies. It was a conscious choice that both my husband and I were in agreement with. I had 3 children before I realized that staying home and being a Mom was kind of driving me crazy. I felt that for my own sanity, I needed to have some kind of creative outlet… plus, I missed working and making money. I fell back into interior design, what I had my college degree in, and tried to be a work-at-home-mom before that started wearing thin. Juggling a business with three small children at home stressed me out even more. When I realized that I just couldn’t “do it all” I again chose to stay home with my children over building the business.

When we planned a road trip along Route 66 for our summer vacation, I decided it would be fun to take a laptop with me and write about our experiences. I was always a big scrapbook fan and this was another creative outlet for me. Little did I know that those first pretty awful blog posts and photos would launch me into something so much bigger and better than I ever anticipated.

I discovered there was an entire community of women (and men) who blogged. I also knew that if I wanted to write better and have more people follow me, I needed to do some serious learning about this new craft. That’s when I learned about blog conferences. From that first conference I attended, I started to meet people and make connections that I still have today.

It was a journey for sure. I blogged for several years before I started doing what is called sponsored posts. Those are blog posts that I get paid to write for businesses that are looking to reach my audience. Eventually, I’ll do an entirely new blog post on what exactly a sponsored post is… but let’s just say those sponsored posts are what turned my “hobby” blog into a “professional” blog. Once you get paid for doing something, amateur hour is over.

I did sponsored posts for years (still do), and other bloggers make money by advertising on their blogs: either through ad networks or paid blog buttons and banners. What the sponsored posts did for me is help me hone my writing skills and my photography skills. It also helped me land a job with Collective Bias, one of the premier networks for connecting bloggers and brands.

I was getting paid to write for different businesses AND I was working for a company helping to lead larger blog campaigns. While I loved working with other bloggers and being a mentor to them as well, I also became immersed in the social media side of it all. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest… I quickly learned how to use each platform in the most advantageous way and started helping other bloggers, friends and local businesses navigate the social media waters. I loved it.

One of the things I mentioned in my panel was figuring out what you are really good at and learning how to reach out to people who were knowledgeable about the things you aren’t. For me, I knew that there were technical aspects of blogging that I wasn’t very good at. I was a writer and social media strategist first and foremost, but learning how to design websites and set up hosting plans wasn’t really my strong suit. When I met Melissa Dell, I knew that she would be a strong alley to compliment by lack of skills. We partnered in the SoCal Lady Bloggers network, and then we partnered in starting our social media company, Social Elements Media.

The progression wasn’t overnight, but looking back there was definitely a logical path from those first blogging days to where I am now. Whether you start with a business plan in mind, or you come to it after a journey of trial and error, you CAN use your blog as an important tool to expand your income and your reach.