What a month it's been so far! I've moved into my own apartment, there's been lots of unpacking going on, work at my retail job has been nutso, Inventory is coming up which means I only get one day off and have to work six days straight to get things done.
Today is my only day off and I was sitting down to do Blessing Manifesting work and I realized that it was one of the few things I wasn't stressed about this week. My work is sustainable to me, it's happy and joyful and I love it. I then decided to blog about it, because why not? I blog about all of the things I love and I thought that it might be interesting to a few of you blogging and business Goddesses. After all, I write an average of six blog posts a week, I make freebies every week, I post on social media at least three times a day, I do oracle card readings and email coaching sessions, I have a 40 hour a week night job, and somewhere in there I have a life as well. So now I am going to put on my Business Goddess cap and share with you a little (it actually turned into a lot) about what I do.
Social Media
Some people thrive on social media and others see it as a great big chore. It's hard to have an online business and NOT use Facebook and Twitter to get your message out there. I really enjoy both, although I do sometimes hit a wall with my anti-social tendencies, it's hard to just strike up conversations with strangers, even online! It's something I'm working on though because I'm sure I'm missing out on getting to know some really amazing people. If you don't like social media, don't force yourself to be social, a gentle nudge never hurt though. Out of your comfort zone is where the magic happens, right?
To me, the best way to use social media is to engage your followers and fans. If you use it purely to market whatever you're selling you won't get very far. I'm not going to be interested in following someone just to hear "Buy x and buy y." Where's the fun in that? I give my peeps a reason to come to my page every day. Daily quotes, self love tips, affirmations, inspiring pictures. All free, all just for their pleasure, because what's better than brightening someone's day just because you can?
About the quotes, self love tips, and affirmations, want to know how I do it? Up in the picture you will see hootsuite in the background, a great program that lets you schedule updates to Facebook and Twitter. Also in the picture you can see that wordpad is open. In the beginning I would spend an insane amount of time scouring the internet for inspirational quotes every few days. Then I got smart about it. One morning I opened up wordpad and spent about three hours on the internet finding quotes and copying and pasting them into it. I opened up wordpad and spent thirty minutes typing up as many Self Love Tips as I could think of, the same process was used for daily affirmations.
Every Tuesday I log onto hootsuite and input enough updates for the week, sometimes two weeks. It's as simple as opening up my word documents and copying and pasting them into hootsuite. Much easier than tracking down quotes every week and having to hunt through updates for what I posted the week before so I don't repeat myself. I get so excited when I have a week's worth of stuff ready to let out into the world.
How to get fans and followers.
Currently I have 1,479 followers on Twitter and 2,679 likes on Facebook. So how do I do it? The Facebook answer is easy: Facebook Ads, that is the secret to my success. I've invested a little over $100 in the ads that I've created and customized. It's a great way to get fans. It takes a bit of time to figure out demographics and interests and all that stuff but once you do, you can get tons of fans with little effort.
Twitter is a bit hit and miss. I follow people who sound awesome, who I think might like my message. I pretty much follow cool peeps and cross my fingers that they follow me back! One method I use is searching the tag #selflove and then following those that are using the tag. It gives us something in common right off the bat!
Blogging
Before I started this blog I hadn't written very much in years. As a teen I wrote in journals all of the time, along with lots of fanfiction. In my early twenties I blogged about my boyfriend drama on myspace and continued writing fanfiction. The big, bad, break up happened, I fell into depression and lost my will to write for a few years. Enter blog idea of changing ze freakin' world!!!! I wrote a few posts early on and then they trickled in every once and awhile. In October I went on vacation from my job and in that week I wrote something like 20 blog posts, enough for the upcoming month and I felt so accomplished. Once those ran out I tried to stuff that much writing into my weekend and it failed miserably.
I didn't want to write that much.
I tried writing each post on the day I wanted to post it and that didn't work either. Writing in the mornings after work, I was tired and just wanting to relax, so I ended up rushing through what I wanted to say or not writing at all. So writing on my days off seemed like it had to be the plan to be sustainable.
So that's what I did.
Instead of trying to cram a month's worth of blogs into two days, I decided that a week's worth might be more manageable. Six blogs wouldn't be too difficult to churn out. Honestly it was difficult, to write that much, but I did it. The next week I decided to do it again and it was much easier.
Now it's my process.
Every Tuesday or Wednesday night I sit down and write six blogs. I spend the week stewing in ideas, thinking about them, smiling to myself as I imagine what I will write about. When a great idea comes to me I save it in my phone or write it in my computer's Sticky Notes. When writing time comes I have so much bursting to get out of me that it's like opening a flood gate and the words just pour out. It usually takes me anywhere from three to five hours to write them all, and I'm okay with that. I love that. I usually write it, look it over once or twice, and then use blogger to schedule it to post sometime in the future.
Side note: I also do everything while watching tv on my computer, usually in a small window off to the side. You can see The Voice up above in the picture. I like noise, I like distractions, it helps me work more joyfully and makes everything more fun.
The bulk of my work is done in... er... bulk. Condensing most of it into Tuesday/Wednesday gives me the ability to not feel rushed during the rest of the week, I can have space to breathe and relax and not feel pressured to do anything. Don't get me wrong, I do some sort of work every single day, but I don't feel forced into doing it, which is the point of having a joyful business.
Journaling Prompts: What's your writing process? How do you make the effort you put into your business sustainable?
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