Tanja from Our Next Life is a blogging celeb these days.
Nevermind the fact that she was 100% anonymous for years, or that she’s only just begun to monetize her blog. Doesn’t matter.
She’s built up an incredibly tight-knit and loyal community of followers and proven herself as a top-tier writer (and podcaster!)
How?
She follows a simple framework of helping people with authentic, honest, and transparent content, and has put for the work necessary to build valuable (but really just organic and “human”) relationships.
She has a TON of wisdom to add (and she’s also really good in audio format…hence The Fairer Cents Podcast)
We chat about:
- What needs to be talked about in the blogosphere? What aren’t we talking about (this is good)
- Sexism in the workplace, and in blogging
- PRO TIPS for being an anonymous blogger
- How long-term relationships are possibly the biggest blogging “hack” or “secret.”
Enjoy, and see below for how to get a FREE DYEB Tee 🙂
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I’m straight-up selfish. I want to get to 50 reviews! But I’m willing to barter for them 😉
Here’s what you do:
- Head to iTunes
- Leave me an honest rating and review! 1 star, 5 stars, doesn’t matter.
- Email [email protected] and let me know when it’s done!
- Include your name, blog URL, shirt size (Unisex), and physical shipping address (so I can mail you the shirt)
This deal expires on Christmas 2017.
Listen to my episode with Tanja from Our Next Life
or listen on \\ iTunes \\ Stitcher \\ Google Play \\ Overcast \\ Spotify
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Show notes and referenced links
- Tanja’s ultra impressive bl0g: Our Next Life
- Tanja and Kara’s new podcast (it’s seriously important): The Fairer Cents
- 99% Invisible Podcast
- Revisionist History Podcast
- Tanja’s post: Financial Independence, Fight Club and the Mindless Consumer Zombie Narrative
- The Frugal Woods!
- Mad Fientist
- 1,500 Days Blog
Key takeaways from today’s episode with Tanja
1 – Relationships and community-building is a blog growth tactic, and is vital to long-term success.
How many dang times have we talked about this on the podcast?
Relationships might actually be the single biggest contributing factor to a blog’s long-term success, but only a small fraction of bloggers make this part of their strategy?
Why?
It’s hard. It takes time. Some of us are introverts.
For more actionable advice, we turn to…
2 – Twitter is the best platform for building relationships with other bloggers.
Stay on your platform for marketing, sure. Could be LinkedIn, Pinterest, whatever…but Twitter is THE place to engage with other bloggers in an easy and effective way. For most niches.
Here’s why:
- Twitter is accessible. You can tweet at any influencer at any time, and it’s totally more acceptable than emailing them.
- It’s relatively quick. Keeping engaged throughout the day might take you 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon, etc.
I agree with Tanja on this one. Twitter is my fave platform for connecting with people (and in my case, my social media platform of choice)
3 – “Do you really want to spend your time on something that feels like you’re forcing it?”
Blogging can sometimes feel like work.
We all start blogging with high expectations, and end up writing a pretty good amount. Very little marketing, very little promotion, very little designing, very little strategizing, etc.
Then we learn what we’re doing, and everything changes.
We start spending less and less time actually producing meaningful content, and start doing other stuff. Marketing and admin work.
The bad news is a lot of this stuff is important for growth. The good news is a lot of isn’t, and we CAN get back to the root of what we enjoy in blogging.
What aspect of blogging makes you happy? Brings you the most joy? For me, it’s
- the 1-2 hours I’m actually interviewing bloggers
- the early mornings where I can sit and write 3k words uninterrupted.
- brainstorming creative marketing strategies and copy
I do not like editing (can you tell?). I don’t like managing social media queues. I do not like emailing/pitching people (but I do it anyways).
Do a quick 80/20 analysis in your head, and see if you can identify just ONE task you could do a lot less of (one you don’t enjoy), and still have roughly the same output.
Working sucks. Let’s have fun blogging.
(Also, see point below for increased joy from your blog)
4 – You’ll create your best content when you’re fired up.
For me, it’s
- when I see ineffective marketing strategies in use from bloggers
- when I hear about people stuck in full-time jobs they hate
- when I encounter 20/30yr olds who don’t know what they want to be when they grow up.
I get absolutely fired up about the subjects, and can pump out some dang content on these topics.
Not only that, but my passion starts to bleed out of me, and land straight on the page. (this is a metaphor).
When we produce content we’re amped about, it shows to readers. Usually, it’ll be topics we’ve spent a great deal of time around, or have thought about a lot.
As far as I’m concerned, I also prefer to ingest content when I can tell someone is fired up. It just works.
What gets you fired up?
5 – Your readers can see through your thinly-veiled intentions. So, be honest.
Ugh. This gets me fired up.
While some niches suffer from this more than others (Hello, Tribe!)…blog readers “BS-detectors” are higher than they’ve ever been before, and are getting better.
Can’t YOU spot an inauthentic sales/marketing pitch from a mile away?
Do whatever it takes in your business to avoid this. Even if it results in short-term gains, inauthenticity or questionable marketing ploys will destroy you in the long-term.
6 – It IS possible to build a thriving online platform while remaining anonymous.
You’ll have to listen to the full episode for most of Tanja’s tips, but here are some short ideas for maintaining complete anonymity.
- Private DNS registration
- Get a separate Gmail account (including Google Analytics!)
- It’s helpful to NOT share where you live, the exact career you’re in, etc.
- Keep an eye on your photo location tags!
- Be careful on Facebook and Instagram (if you use these, use TOTALLY separate email accounts. Oh, and don’t “follow” yourself from your personal account!)
Furthermore, don’t associate being anonymous with having disadvantages. It’s simply not as true as you think.
Create a persona, and continue to be authentic. Tanja did. Go produce something meaningful for people, and you’ll get the growth you desire.
7 – Treat your readers how you would want to be treated. The Golden Rule.
Speaking of fired up…
I’m pretty sure I got Tanja fired up when I asked “What’s something you wish other bloggers would stop doing, right now?”
Her response was amazing though: Follow the Golden Blogging Rule.
Treat your readers how you wish to be treated yourself.
- If you don’t mind seeing ads, fine
- If you don’t mind seeing loads of popups, fine.
- If you DO mind, STOP IT.
Sponsored posts, spammy marketing tactics, big logos, small text, multi-colored design, etc. Whatever it is. Treat your readers the way you’d want to be treated.
For me, it’s
- brutal *%&#ing honesty,
- 18px paragraph fonts,
- no display ads,
- no popups,
- no script-led sponsorship reads,
- no promoted products I don’t actually recommend.
What topic gets you fired up? Comment below and share, and I’ll giveaway a DYEB Tee to a random commenter!
They’re 50/50 blend and oh. so. comfy.
