 My charming husband, if you were in his talk earlier, he's the one who introduced me to WordPress, so I am a white. My mom, my grandma, my company is Love Built Life, and it's a kind of arts and lifestyle company, and basically, I just help people build a life they love. So I do a lot of mid-life coaching, which means that I just coach a lot of women over a certain age who are trying to start their lives over and start to do new things. I'm also an artist and a teacher, so I teach part-time for a Lenora University out of North Carolina. I teach D.E.I. for the web. I have been a blogger, and as you can see, I put in quotations blogger since 2005, and I'm going to tell you why as we talk, but I am a Ford VIP blogger for your Southern Ford dealers alongside my husband, who, as you'll see too, is the most prolific blogger I know. So this is 2.0, which means I've done this talk before. There are some things from the talk, but I have updated this. But for those of you who are not going to go and watch the other one, I did put a lot of the meat of it in here. But number one, people want to know is blogging dead. So we've heard this many times, blogging is dead. It's no good. People don't blog anymore, but it's not true. In 2019, when I did this talk, a Google search for how to blog yielded 135,000 people a month looking for how to start a blog, but overall, there were three million results for that particular question. In 2023, when I did it, I found that there were 600 million active blogs on the internet out of 1.9 billion websites. So that's a lot of blogging. And depending on where you are, you could be number one in that country, in that area. So people are still blogging. Actually, during the pandemic, it had a resurgence. People were talking about their time being home, being isolated. It was one of the ways that they were able to connect. So quick question before I go further. Anybody here have a blog already? One? You do? A semi-blonde? Okay. How about social media? Yeah? Okay. So the one thing you did not know when you came in here was that this is a workshop. So hopefully you have pet and paper because I am going to make you work a little bit and even better because they don't have the cameras because in my other talk, they do. So when I stop and let people work, do a little actual work, all you see is silence. So I said, I'll do this again so that people can see it. So what is a blog really? So the original, anyone know what the original blog came from? It was called a web blog. It was called WeBlog, WebBlog, and then they shortened it to blog and that's how we got blog. It was an online journal basically where people would just put their stuff online, but it grew. People realized like, oh wow, people want to see what I'm writing. So basically what a blog is is a conversational way to share your business or share your business, to give a voice to the voiceless, champion the cause, give out information, or just be your authentic self. And we're going to focus on two things in this talk. One, being your authentic self. So unless some of you are doctors or lawyers and you want to be very technical, most blogs are not technical. So when people say, well, I don't know how to write, well, the best thing about blogs is that you don't have to be a really fantastic writer. People want to just hear from you and want to know who you are. So how do you best express yourself? And we're going to talk about all the different kinds of blogs and ways you can express yourself. And they want to be conversational. So they have done studies on blogs and they have found that their best blogs and the ones that people go to the most, the average reading level for that blog is eighth grade. So when you go above that, people are not interested. It's too formal, it's too technical. Unless they're going specifically for technical, they're not looking for that. They're looking for something very conversational and easy to read. And for those of you like me, short and sweet. So you like to write a lot, which some people do, break it up so that people can read it and enjoy it. So what else can blogging do? So if you have a company, come on to your brand, you can start your brand. Increase your sphere of influence and authority. So once people know that you have a blog and you've been blogging for a while, it's almost like writing a book. A blog can help you write a book. If you write enough, like some people I know, you can actually take those entries, rewrite them and put them together in a book. There is a woman, her name is Catherine Lange, with an L. Catherine Lange and she's out of WordCamp Birmingham. And she teaches online at WordPress.tv and at WordCamps how to take your blog and actually turn it into a book, which she's actually done. So the other thing you can do is open new doors for engagement, expand your reach, provide another venue for marketing and help you make money. But why are you here? What's with your hair? It's like, I can't write. So you don't have to. I was like, yay! So ways to blog without being a writer. So when I first started my blog, I started with my art blog. I am an artist and all I would do is take a picture of the art I was doing and post it. No words. I didn't have time. So I was just like, I'll just take a picture and I'll put it out there. And I did that and I made sure that I did that on a regular basis and I would just take a picture and put it out there. And then I went from there to poetry. So I was like, well, I write poetry. So I would post poetry. Again, no comment, no anything, just putting poetry up there. And I was surprised people would come. I actually started on blogger and people would come and make comments. So people would say, oh, you're a blogger? Let me go check it out. And there would be pictures and poetry and that was it. There was not a whole lot on there. I wasn't writing my thoughts until later because actually I found that I liked it. I liked being on there. And I liked people coming in and checking it out. And I was like, well, I have a whole lot to say. Let me start writing that. But you don't have to. You can start with just images, recipes. Some people know recipe blogs. Anyone here a foodie? Any kind of starter? Let me just say, if you are a foodie or you want to do a recipe blog or you know someone who says, hey, I'd like to start a recipe blog, let's start with the recipe. Everybody likes the stories about where those cookies came from and grandma's house and all those wonderful things. But when people are looking for recipes, they want the recipe. Put the story after the recipe. That's just a little tip. An idea blog. So what is an idea blog? Again, what it sounds like. Finding ideas, they could be yours. Or they could be others. They could be someone else's ideas. And you're just kind of putting together a compilation of ideas in one space. Infographics. And you can put your ideas behind it and say, hey, I think this is a great idea. I don't think this is, you know, let's weigh in. Let's put a poll or whatever. Infographics, those are those images that you see sometimes where it's like, you know, how many people do XYZ and they put it in a graph kind of form that's kind of cool. There are blogs where that's all it is on different topics. Your knowledge. Everyone has some level of expertise in something. I tell people, even if you know how to clean the house and you know how to do that really, really well. Or fairly well. Or maybe, let's be honest, what if you suck at it? There are people who are looking for that. Listen, people want to connect. They either want to know how to do it better or they want to know that the only person who sucks at cleaning houses. There is a woman, I forgot her name now. Sandra. I know her first name is Sandra. Her blog is Messy's Anonymous. And she just started just doing that. She said she used to be a messy and she learned how to clean her house and she decided to blog about it and it became a movement. People started going to her blog, looking it up and before you know it, she's written books. She's had meetings and she has Messy's all over the United States and the world. So you never know. Something that you're struggling with or something you're really good at that someone else is struggling with. You might be the one that changes that. Photography blog. This little thing. Okay, so I'm going to date myself for those who are younger. I have this. And somewhere in my house, I have a box of film. I don't even know if you guys know that. That we didn't have instant phone, like thousands of pictures in one place. There's no excuse. If you want to do photography, all you need is this. You can do a photography blog, just putting pictures together. Mean blogs, especially for the young folks. There's plenty of cool memes out there. Lifestyle. Right? And then others. Travel blog. People are getting paid for travel blogs. Getting sponsorship for travel blogs. You travel enough and talk about your travels before you know someone. We follow someone online. It's called Follow Me Away Travel. It's a young couple that got together. They mix travel and photography together. He takes beautiful pictures of her. And then they started getting sponsors. People were throwing suitcases. Try my suitcase. Try this. And they started sponsoring them. And they did not traditional blogging, but the kind of blogging we'll talk about further down. An adventure blog. Curation blog. Curation blog is basically, you look online, just like if you've ever been to an Etsy shop. Things that you think are lovely, pretty. And you're like a museum curator. You're going to put all those things in one place. And you can put comments or not. But this is the part I want to talk about. You do a podcast. If any of you sat down earlier with Michelle Ains, she talked about how to start a podcast. That is kind of a formal blogging. If we use it lightly, like loosely, like we did earlier, conversational, and about you being your authentic self, podcast is a great way to share your information. But then it's called what's called microblogging. So I went from regular blogging to more microblogging, meaning I moved it over to social media. On social media, I get to be myself. I get to put an image. I get to share. And I just put a little bit, because I don't like to write a lot. I could just make a little blurb about whatever it is that I put up there. Or write a longer paragraph if I want and share. So Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, these are all ways to do microblogging. Or a video log. YouTube, Venmio is the other one. Venmio, right. So Venmio and there's others. And then Reels. Reels are just an even shorter version of those videos. And those are all ways that you could blog, even if you're not a writer. So I wanted to share this from my first one, because this was one of my picture story blogs. When I started blogging, I just started writing. But this one I shared, now my daughter would die. That I had this up there. She's 15 now. But this is what I put on my website. But I did have captions underneath each picture. So in this picture I say, every morning, Brown and I go outside and we water the garden, right? And then here, and Brown likes to bring out her umbrella so that it feels like the rain is coming down on her. And together we play in the puddles. And I tell her it's time to go. And she runs away. And I took pictures of her little feet running away. And she goes in the grass to play with the dog. And that was it. That was my whole blog entry. And I was like, hey, this is kind of fun. This was long before I was speaking. But now remember it when I did this. That is so simple. Something that any one of us can do and it doesn't take much time. And it's actually a lot of fun. And without captions, it still tells a story, right? So what are some other options if you don't write? If you're not a writer, writer, I have to write everything. Anyone who knows me knows I carry around with me a notebook everywhere. I have to. Because the ideas come and I have to write it down. But these I have tons of these. So I've learned to use this. So I don't know, I think in Apple, what's it called? Notes or something? Notes, right? So in Google it's called Keep. And on Android there's an app to download. So I just use Google Keep on my phone. And I'm gonna tell you one of the things I do there. So it says dictate to your someone else who will type it all for you. If you're lucky enough to know someone like that, go ahead. But I am not. So I just do keep notes. And when I say plus, I can hit the little microphone and I can talk into it while I'm, you know, whenever I'm thinking of what I'm gonna write. And it'll write it out for me. And guess what? I either does. I just copy, paste it, edit it, and throws it on my website or wherever it is that I want it to be. And I don't have to write anything. I just spoke into my phone, let it write it all out, dictation, edit it. Look, instant writer. Guest writers are also another way. So if you have a particular topic and you know other people who may be interested in sharing in that topic or they're related in some way, would you mind writing on mine? Guest writers, ghost writers. Ghost writers are great because no one knows that it wasn't you, right? But as we mentioned, I'm using images and video. But then we have another one. And I'm gonna lower this for a second. So you guys can, if you don't already know this beautiful thing, this is AI. And this particular one is on chat GPT. So if you've never been on this website, any of you not been on the chat GPT website? No. Okay. It's for a trade. Chat GPT is a new AI that everyone is talking about. It's gonna take over jobs and stuff that they say, but it could, that's not alive necessarily. But what it can do also is the main thing that most people have a problem with isn't just writing. And I want you to come out of the thought that I have to be a great writer to be a great blogger. And that's not necessarily true. What you need is great content. And this thing will help you get great content. So I am really good at what I do when I'm coaching. But it is a lot of work when I have to sit down with someone and they tell me what they want to do. And especially if they're like, you know, I want to launch my business and I want to put it online. So well, the best thing to do is start making a meme for yourself online, which means going on social media to come up with content for every single client before it was like, that was the thing I hated the most. It was not that I didn't want to do this for my client, but it just took a lot of time and energy. I'm just going to show you what I did for one of my clients here using Chat GPT. I said, create many days of TikTok content for a female creator who's a gardener and makes her own brand of tea and flavored water. And within five minutes or less, it gave me 30 days of content. And I said, now include that she's 65 and how she stays healthy. And they gave me some more. And now include that she's a dog sitter and she takes care of dogs. And they gave me some more. So I was able to give my client 60 days of content, not writing it for her without telling her what to put on there, but just giving her ideas of what to put out there. And it's specific to her. So if you're sitting there and you're thinking, well, I know I want to do this and I want to do this and I want to share, but how do I do that? This tool is wonderful. Now I'm going to be honest with you. You can use this tool to actually write said content, but I don't suggest it. And I'll tell you why. I think that as a creativity coach, creativity gets more creativity. And when we use these tools and we eliminate our own creativity, we eliminate that spark within us, right? So this could trigger that spark within you, but let's do that first. I'm not saying don't ever use it to write content because I struggle with writing content of me. So with my bio when they're like, can you write a bio by yourself? No, I can't. But chat you can take it. So I'll just go into chat you can see and say, write a bio for me that was such a such conference. Okay, great. Because for me, my brain just, I can do it for you. One, two, three. I'll be like, this is what you need to put. I can see it, but for myself, I struggle. So knowing that I know that for my clients, they struggle too. So if you feel stuck, then yes, use the AI. It absolutely helps. But try your best to trigger within you that thing so that it can trigger more creativity. Because the minute you start doing one thing, you'll go, oh, you know, I can use this like this. Oh, but you know, I can also add this. That's what happens when you start triggering that creativity within yourself. So if you're going to put a blog out there to be more authentic, really push yourself. Use this as, what should I do for the next 30 days? And then use that to trigger more creativity within you. But try not to use it to actually write your content for you. Make sense? Any questions? So let me say this. I'm not like a lot of speakers. I don't like to just sit up here and speak. So I got told you this is a workshop. We're going to have you working. But if you have questions in the middle, I welcome them. OK? It's the start of the workshop. So just for yourself, right? So who are you? And I'm not going to make you write the story of me right now. But I am going to ask you for a moment to just write down three topics, three topics that you'd like to talk about. So if you were sitting and you met me in the coffee shop and you were going, man, I really would like to talk to someone today. What are those top three things? Don't even overthink it. Write three things that you really like talking about. These are your favorite subjects. So now I want you to write at least two, if not three. What are things that interest you? So maybe it's not something you've had a chance to talk about or maybe not necessarily something that you would talk about to a stranger. But you find them interesting. You find yourself going online. You're going down that rabbit hole. You're going, I'm really interested in this. You'd be surprised how many others are interested in the same thing. And I'm going to share with you later on a really interesting person who we have a lot in common. But she's also a blogger. So just at least two things that you know that you're interested in. And then I want you to think about one thing. This one thing that you go, this is an issue I wish we could solve. This is something, man, if I knew a way to solve this or, man, this is something no one ever talks about, but they really should. Write that thing down. What is that thing that if you could share it, something, maybe something you're struggling with, and this is why it's a workshop, you can keep it private and no one's looking on each other's paper. What is that one thing that you're like, man, I really need to talk to someone. I'd love to know. I don't know if anyone else struggles with that. Write that thing down. And of course, I've gone through these slides over and over and I'm like, oh, yes, there's the error. And when you're looking for them, you're like, I don't know where it is. See, I'm not a great writer either. Who are you when you're being yourself? And you don't have to write that down because that's something you may want to think of more later, but just think about who am I when I'm just being like... So I tell people for me, and I'm around myself, being myself and being my family, this is definitely a hard bit. I'm barefoot. I got my flower dress on. I'm that flower child. I was born that way. I mean, that's just who I am. But I was also born in the hood, right? So when my kids were growing up, they would say to her, I'm like, why is your mom talking like that? And I've worked with young people. My husband and I teach, and we teach with teenagers and stuff. And my first disclaimer to the kids is like, listen, I was a child with the 80s. I say things like cool and awesome all the time. I was born in the hood. So I say yo and all that other stuff. I'm not trying to be cool and I'm not trying to keep up. But when I'm relaxed, this is how I talk. Okay? So know that up front. So you don't think I'm trying to relate. I'm not trying to relate. I'm just trying to relax. So think of that. Who is that person? Who are you when you're being that person? So just as important in knowing yourself is who are your people? Who's your tribe? One thing about me is when I was younger, I didn't remember names that I remember faces, right? Maybe some of y'all can relate to this. When I got older, I couldn't remember faces either. And the more people I met, and now that my husband and I do things around the world, I definitely don't remember faces. Except here. Wordpress. Wordcamp. This is my tribe. I can tell my husband, we hear you go, where do we meet them? And I'll be like, oh, that's such a such a, we met them at a Wordcamp Buffalo. And this is what they do. And he's like, how do you remember that? Well, this is my tribe. These are my people. I love this community. And I love everything about it. So for me, it comes like nothing. Everyone else, I'm sorry. I'm like, I'm so sorry. And I have a really unusual name. So people forget my name all the time. So I'm like, great. You probably don't remember my name. So we'll just exchange names now, right? But here is another thing. But who are your people? What do they like to do? So my people like to go to Starbucks. They love Starbucks. Starbucks is going to love me one day. One day they're going to be like, you talk about us all the time. Yes. Because my people are in Starbucks. But where are your people? Do they like to go to the park? Do they like to go mountain? You guys mountain, happy mountains nearby. Do they like to go hiking? Do they love the mountains or do they love the beach? Just think about that. Because when you're thinking about that and you're thinking about who you're talking to, you're going to remember that about your people. So you're not going to write about something that your people wouldn't do. Because you wouldn't do that and your people wouldn't do that. What are their interests? Do they like to, whatever. Whatever it is that they're interested in doing. Do they like to go shopping? Are they early morning people? Those are not my people, okay? They're not my people. But I like mornings. Mornings are cool. Those are early morning people. We were just talking about that this morning. I'm like, who starts a working day talking morning? So, those are not my people. But I was here. What do they do during the day? Where are they? What keeps them motivated? Because the more you know about those people and you write it down. And we're not talking about avatar here, right? Because this is one thing I really am feeling very strongly about. While I am a business person I don't believe in targeting anything, okay? I don't like your target market. We're not targeting people. I tell people, we attract. We don't chase, okay? So we attract people to us. We don't chase them down. We want to attract our tribe to us. We don't want to target them. We want them to say, I'm looking for something. And your blog came up. And I'd be like, oh my God, I love that. Look, she's writing about what I like. And that's so cool. And before you know it, that person is going to tell someone else and they're going to tell someone else because they're going to be out doing the thing that they love to do in Starbucks. And they'll be like, hey, you know what? We're in Starbucks. And I know this blogger that they write about Starbucks. They can find you in Starbucks and all this other stuff. And before you know it, they might meet you in the Starbucks one day. So that's what you want to know. Because the other thing about the current marketing avatar thing that they do is, you know, have you heard niching, niche down, niche. We're not trying to do that because you're, in a sense, you are. In the sense that you know who you want to talk to. This is basically what you're seeing is when I put out these pictures. Because remember what I mean? I'd be writing. But when I put out these pictures, when I put out this poetry, when I put out what I'm doing, I just almost like having a conversation with that person that I would love to have a conversation with. That I would love to be like a friend to. So you want to know who they are, right? But someone else who may not fit that may not even know that you're a nurse during the day in a vampire cosplayer at night. They may not even know they were interested in something like that until you started writing about it. And before you know it, they're like, hold up, that's a cool blog. And I'm gonna share some cool blogs with you. So what is it that they would like about your blog? And what are they searching for? Right? So, as those come to your mind, just jot them down. Don't overthink them because you can cross out anything you want and add to it. But if you don't write it down now and you won't write it down later, I'll tell you that now. Remember what I said? We do what? We attract. We don't chase. And I put there was a picture of the butterfly because they say you don't chase butterflies, right? You have to... We still wait for the butterfly to come and sit on the show, right? So we don't chase, we attract. So who are you trying to attract to your blog? So on the business end, we talked about what a blog can do, right? But this is what really matters to a blog. This is for me, why I still continue to every once in a while that I've summed up on a blog. This has been a long time or do the microblogging for this reason. This is what can it really do? A blog can inspire other people, right? Like I said, that person who didn't even know that they were interested in the nurse by day and the cosplayer by night, but you have other things to talk about beyond that, right? So maybe you have a bit of information they didn't know they may have come to your blog because they found it intriguing, interesting, but the rest of the information, the meat of what you're sharing, that's what keeps them there, right? So you can inspire someone. You can be a voice for change. You make people feel good. This is a true story on my end. My poetry, I used to put my poetry up and I would do it just regularly and I would write a lot of spiritual type poetry and I had decided I was going to stop writing and I spoke with someone one day and she was like, hey, are you still writing? You know, I go to your blog every once in a while to see a poetry and I was like, you know, girl, I think I'm going to lay that down because I didn't have a lot on play, okay? I do a lot of stuff and she was like, no, no, no. I want you to know on the day that I was feeling really down and went to your blog and I started reading your poetry and your poem changed my life and it made me reconsider things in myself and I became a pastor and I just almost passed out. It was like, yeah, exactly. I was like, what? She's like, yeah, it just, she's like, I literally read the poem and got off my seat and got on my knees and I changed my life and I was like, okay, you just said something to me. So I say the same to you. You know, who it is by just sharing you just by being who you are, whose life you might change. So I'm going to share some blogs with you of WordPress bloggers. Okay, this is your chance to change this. This is my husband William. His blog is my quest to teach. He shares us. It's not just because he's my honey, but because literally he's not, he's not the person I'm talking to when I say, so you want to, you know, you're not a writer. If you want to start a blog, that's not him. This man is the most prolific writer, blogger I know. He spends all day, all night, every time I look at him, he's like, I'm like, what are you doing, honey? Writing a blog, writing a blog. And his blog's not little, okay? He's writing blogs. So if you want to know that kind of blogging, that's the man, okay? So that's his blog. But I'm going to share some WordPress blogs. Now she is also a writer, blogger, but this is one of those people who change people's blogs, right? So this is Carol Olinger. She is actually in the German Eiffel. And if you see here, so WordPress and it has lipidema. She has lipidema and she decided to start writing about this and just sharing her condition. You know, it's a medical condition and people just started following her. And they had the same condition. Excuse me, and they wanted to know how are you dealing with it? How are you handling it? What are you doing to help yourself? What are you doing for, you know, life in general? And she kept writing. And before you know it, she became the community manager for, what's the one with the little purple octopus? But she became a community manager for them. She got involved with WordPress. I happened to meet her because I happened to be her room emcee in, um, work at Miami. But her life and her blog inspired me to stay in WordPress and be, I was like, I was sitting there listening to her going, I don't like her. So she's my friend now. And if no other reason, she's an inspiration and you should definitely check out the blog. She's a great lady. This lady here, Aisha Adams. Aisha Adams and I met in, um, where Cam Greenville, she was a speaker, she had a blog, same thing. Her blog is Nappy Thoughts. She is another one of those prolific, but if you go to her blog, her actual website, it's not the traditional blog. So it's a lot more pictures and, but she's more about community and she asks questions. That's her blogging. Most of her blogging style is, you know, asking a question here and what do you think about this? Asking the community. And what I learned from her is that there's a difference between an audience and a community, right? So an audience is like you watching on TV or play. You're not interacting, you're just watching. But a community interacts. You interact with them and they interact with you. So when you're thinking about blogging, I want you to think about community. Who can I get engaged in what I'm doing to give me feedback and I can talk to them and I can meet them at the Starbucks one day. She started the blog. I met her in Greenville. She did her talk the following year. I spoke in Greenville about DEI. I spoke about on the table and making WordPress even more inclusive. And according to her, I challenged her to what is she going to do about DEI? She called me up and said I want you to be an instructor and teach DEI for the web at the school. So that's how I got that job was through her. And when I was saying earlier that she and I had something in common is that if you, I don't know if you can see that here, but she likes to cosplay too. So here she is. Catwoman. I think that's a Pokemon one. So she was DEI, blogger, cosplayer. I was like, you're so cool. And she talks about all of that on her blog. April Ware. She's also in WordPress. She's funny. You see her little... This is directly her blog. It says scam alert, the dirty paper. Scam alert, the angry photographer. And then how you keep your eyes on the prize and she has others. But she has a wealth of information. She is another prolific blogger, but she's smart about hers, right? So she has a talk. I did not find it on WordPress.TV, but look for her if you ever see her. Where she shows that if you do many blogs, right? So maybe a small video today. So doing everything I said. A video, a picture, a small blog. At the end of the month if we just do a bunch of them, you can just make one giant one. So for SEO, that's great. If you put it all together as one. But if you just do micro ones and then put it all together as a giant one at the end of the month, that will bring people to your blog. If you're interested in this SEO kind of thing. You guys have seen this guy walking around. So he's over at Hero Press. But this, when I was talking to him the other day, I just threw this in yesterday when I saw him yesterday. This blog here is quotes from children. So cool quotes that he hears from kids. He just puts them on from the blog. And I was like, can I put that on my face? He was like, sure. So he gave me the web address that he just puts cool quotes from kids. But he also has hallway chats, Hero Press for people who WordPress has changed their life. Again, this is mostly video, podcasting type stuff, but it's changing people's lives. He gave us a great story about this. So if you see him, ask him about that. Or I guess she has that too. You know, this lady, she was featured on Hero Press, hallway chats. And this is her here. Sorry about that. Oh, yeah. No, this is to get to her talk. William was also featured on this particular one on Hero Press. And so was Carol Olinger. So this one blog site has reached out to all these people, right? So that's a good example of how one site or one blogger can change lives. This is, that's her Michelle Ames website. So this is WP Coffee Talk. If you were in her podcast talk, she talked about her podcast. This is one of her podcasts. But Michelle by herself has four or five different blogs and podcasts. She's got a lot going on, but she's also changing lives. So I'm going to share with you some of my other favorite blogs. So this is going to be hard for you to see. So this one is called catalogliving.net. So let me tell you about catalog living. And they no longer post, but it's worth just calling to see here. Okay. Catalog living is, you ever go into catalog and go, what? Why did they put that together like that? Like that's so weird. So they make fun of that, right? So on this side, you can't see, but it's a beautiful brown stone. And on the stairs, it's completely filled with boards, right? And their little caption. And all they do is take a picture of the catalog and put a caption. And that one says as an, oh, and there's an imaginary couple that live in these houses. So the couple is Gary and Elaine. Okay. So as the fall holidays officially transition to winter ones, Gary and Elaine's goers are ceremoniously shown the door to wait for their lift. That's what that one says. And the one with the boat and all the pillows, what are the boats says, since we won't be entertaining guests for a while, Gary, I've decided to send our extra cushions out to sea. So that's that caption. And they really kind of, you know, my husband tells dad jokes and I think they're funny. Okay. So I think this is very, this one. Oh, so let me tell you. So catalog living started off as a web blog, as a blog. And then they went to Instagram and to Twitter. Okay. And they stopped posting. I think the last post was in 2017. 10 years of posting. This one is called post secret. When I started while looking at post secret, basically what post secret is, is people sending postcards of their secrets. And they remain anonymous. I started looking at post secret about 2010. They are also now on Instagram and Twitter. And he's six books in. And all it is. Now this is not for children. This is for adults. There are some that are very innocent stuff, but those innocent ones up, but it's people literally sharing their secrets. And they're completely anonymous. And he made six. He's in six books now. This one says saving them also saves me is saving them is also saving me. So as a cat. And then this one says, it's on the card that says make a wish. I wish making friends was easier as an adult. And that's all it is. He doesn't write anything. He doesn't comment on them. He doesn't do anything except post their secret. That's it. So this is my confession time. So this is my confession time. If I walk by your house and you have your window open, I'm looking in. I am that person. Okay. And I'll tell you, that's really come from coming up in Brooklyn. When I lived in Brooklyn, we were surrounded by beautiful brown stones, beautiful homes. You know, I had an okay apartment, but I was always fascinated by what was going on in people's houses. They just look beautiful. And I just, you know, I didn't have a really beautiful house. So when people left their windows open, I wasn't looking to see what they were doing. Or let's see what they have. It was more in my mind, in my imagination, imagining their life. So I received like the libraries with books and all kinds of things. And my favorite was at night when those, you know, the lights would be on and family would be in there. And I'd make up stories. So I found someone else who likes homes too. And it's called hooked on houses. Now she's still posts. What she posts are famous homes, realtor, you know, postings that are unusual. So one, I didn't put it up, but there's one that they posted where the realtor took pictures and had them. It was almost like a selfie in every room. So she was taking a picture of herself in the room. And it was just weird. So she posts stuff like that. She'll post another. She posted a Victorian house and every single room in the house had porcelain dolls, every single one. So it was like either one doll standing in the corner or five dolls just looking at the camera. And it was just creepy. So she'll post stuff like that. But then she'll post stuff like this, famous houses from TV shows and what they look like on the inside for real. So last year, the last time I did this, I did the full house. And then this year I found this one. I love this movie Cheaper by the Dozen. I loved this house. It turns out Kat Von D. You know, Kat Von D is the tattoo artist. She's a tattoo artist. She owns the house and she just put it up for sale. So if you're interested in looking at what the house looks like on the inside, it's all hooked on houses. So this is the part where I ask you, what's stopping you? Is it imposter syndrome? Lack of confidence? Choosing a topic? Now you should have some topics in mind. You don't know your why. So why is it that you're not doing it? I want you to think about that. Like, why am I not doing it? Because honestly, it's free. It doesn't cost you anything to start a blog. If you don't want to do a WordPress site, sorry, there are free sites like bloggerworkpress.com, just put it up there. And then if nothing happens, I'm going to just do it just to do it. Not necessarily for traction at first, just to kind of get your feet wet. Because once you do it enough, you're going to be like, I like this, whether people are looking or not. So like I said, you don't need technical skills. There's plenty of sites that are free and everything's built out for you. So I tell people if you argue this this Pope by Richard Bach, anyone know who he is? I love, he's one of my favorite authors. He wrote Jonathan Livingston Segal. And this one is from Illusions. I forgot what the rest of it is. Something from a Woodluck and Messiah. But one of my favorite authors, and he says, argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours. So your turn. This is the last part of your workshop. Just list five blogs. Just be happy. Five blogs that you're going to start right now. But if I were to start a blog today, I could start a blog on, I don't know, my motorcycle collection. We have a friend who, he does video logging of cars that he, not cars. Yeah, cars, cars that he buys and he repairs. And he just says, I bought this car and I did this to it. I said, doesn't do anything else. He doesn't write about it. He puts up his camera and he's like, I bought this car and look, this is what I did. And he has following. So just five things. Five things that today, if I were to start a blog today, I could do it on that. I surely could. So sometimes you're going to feel stuck and even chat. GBT is just not enough. When you feel stuck, there's some things that you can do. I recommend writing down 100, not today, but write down 100 things that inspire you, make you smile. When you think about it, it makes you happy. I told him he wanted mine, Starbucks. My husband knows. He gives me little Starbucks cards and he's like, here you go. But I have other things. I love magazines. My grandchildren, even them laugh makes me smile. Write 100 things that just you just like to do. So that when you're feeling stuck, you just go and do it. It's going to release something. Because when we feel stuck, when we feel writer's block, or whatever it may be, something is overloading our system. And we need to release it. We need to let it go. And the best way to let it go is to find those things that inspire us. So taking a walk in nature, that's one of mine. Walk where there are people. And just watch people. And remember everything that we talked about, right? Are these my people? Is this my tribe? Is there someone here that needs to hear what I'm about to say? And just think about that while you're looking at them. Learn about new cultures. Because the other thing about us as Americans, we think very American, right? We think, okay, I'm writing a blog and it's only Americans. But you'd be surprised how many people outside of this country are interested in the very same things that we're interested in. And we met a young man who started a video log and he was shocked. His people were not from here. He had a huge following in Italy. He said, that's how I grew. And he grew into multi, you know, I don't even know, multi-thousand followers or whatever, but it was, it started in Italy for whatever reason, they latched on to what he was doing and it blew up from there Being a tourist in your own city, look at your city in a new way, decide you're going to try a new restaurant, so go to that park or do whatever in a way that you've never done it before and write about it. I made a decision, I told them, I don't know when that's going to happen. We live in Jacksonville, Florida. We have more parks acre per acre than any other city in the country. And when I tell you parks, like this can be the park, and it has a sign. So I told them I said, I'm going to go and I'm going to take pictures of the parks and say what's good about them and what's not good about them and let's make that a thing. So you can do that with your own state, your own country, the world, travel and throw a party in front of with your friends, take a little selfies, laugh, all of that will stir stuff up. It'll make you say, you know what, I'm ready. Now you can go back to your list because you're loose and you got all that off and you can say, you know what, let's give this a try again. I put down here Pura Vida. We've been to Costa Rica three times because of WordPress and they have that saying, it means pure life. Everything is Pura Vida. How's your family Pura Vida? Your brother, Pura Vida. How you doing? Pura Vida. That's the thing and I like that. Everything's Pura Vida. So who's ready to take that lead? Who's going to write a blog now? If you decide to start a blog and you want to share with me, I'm at Little Bit Life anywhere you go. You can hashtag me, at me. I just want a fair warning. If you find an inner writer in you and you write those big paragraphs and I go to your blog and see them, I'm not ready. So if you do that, break it up into small pieces, make sure you have an image but I'm just giving you a fair warning. But if it's, you know, light and small writing, yes. I would definitely love to look at it. Thank you so much. You can follow me at lovebuildlife.com. Like I said, I love the life. My husband is my question, teach.com. Like I said, this is the most prolific blogger I know. So if you have questions on how to be a prolific blogger, because I'm going to do as I say, not as I do person. If you look at my blog, you'll be like, she is not a blogger. And he's also at my question, anywhere you go. Thank you. I'm not talking literally. Anything? But I'm doing a video blog and I want to do it on, I want to put it on YouTube and I want to do it also on my site, which is actually the blog. Anything else or would you stay away from YouTube or? Oh, absolutely use YouTube. Do you know that YouTube is the number one search engine in the world? It's not Google, it's YouTube. Would you embed the YouTube link into the page on the blog or would you have the actual video embedded in the on the site? Would you have the actual video? Give people the option to watch it on your blog or to go off site. So if it's there, they can watch it there, but if they like it then they'll go, yeah. When you put it in there, there's usually a link that you can go to YouTube and then it'll open up YouTube so that they can watch it there. Because if they like it, they're going to go to YouTube. And they'll be like, oh, I don't like this. But they may not want to. So people are kind of funny about leaving sites once they're on it. So make sure that they can scroll down and watch more. Because everyone knows how... Most people know how YouTube works. In order to get more content, they got to follow and subscribe and do all that other stuff. So they know if I want more from you, I'm going to have to go to YouTube and subscribe. But in the meantime, I'll be here. That's me. If I'm on your site and I see you have video, I'll just keep scrolling there and watch it from there. I don't really want to jump off because I don't know what YouTube is. I'm telling you, I just don't like all that. So we'll have it there. But I know if I like your content and I want to see more, I'm going to have to go to YouTube and subscribe from there. So definitely have a look. So a way we can do that from our site? Huh? So a way we can do that from our site? Like take maybe emails or send an email the last day. We just posted another video. There's plugins and stuff. If you do a regular WordPress com.org type site, then you can have a subscribe to my emails and let people know like a new video is up so they don't have to subscribe. It's like, oh, you can come to the site and there's a new video up. I think MailChimp, if anyone's used MailChimp there's like an automation that will send it out that you can say let them know there's a new video up and they'll just send it out and then people can keep going back to the site if that's what you're trying to do or something along those lines. So yeah, you can do it specifically from the site not from the YouTube but just don't underestimate YouTube. So I would ask for both. Like subscribe and do the email so you can have both ways and I say that mainly because you don't know who's going to come from YouTube because I don't know about anyone else but if I like what you're doing now I'm looking. I want more. I'm like, okay, this is cool. What else do they do? Oh, they have a website? You can have your link underneath your YouTube. I'm going to go to the website and see what you've got going on on your website because if your YouTube is good who knows what you've got going on over there. So make it have you ever heard of Superfans? That's what you want. A Superfan is not like a fan. A fan is like, oh, yeah, and then they go about their life. A Superfan follows you everywhere like anything you put out there like yes, more, you know what I mean? They're like, oh, I'm selling t-shirts down. Yes, I won five from one for me and everyone in my family. That's a Superfan. They're not obsessed but in a sense they are. They want to know more and you just don't know who that could be. So you want people who you're not being anyone else. So it's not you're going to change up. You're just being you. You're just changing yourself. Yeah, when you start and you develop a follow-up after a while the more content you create you'll find that they enjoy your content but you find that you want to create stuff more that they would like and enjoy as opposed to you creating stuff to share with them. Right. It's like, okay, you for example, you like taking cupcakes and you do everything around cupcakes but then one of your followers asks you what do you like pizza and you're like, yeah, this is okay and I would like to see what you can do with pizza then you make that transition to doing stuff. Even if you mess up, it's like this is what I do with pizza and they might like the idea that you mess it up or that you do different things with pizza because you're doing something that you enjoy writing about but then the more followers you get they're going to want to know how you can expand yourself to facilitate them as well. Absolutely. He makes an excellent point there because once you have people following you they like what you're doing and that's exactly what they're going to do they're going to be like, hey, that's great can you do this? Can you do the other thing? Oh, I'd love to see you do this and guess what, that's content and they'll give you content. I loved what Michelle said this morning that podcasts are really blogs. I never thought of it that way. And that's why I didn't even know she said that but yeah, that's why I put it up there because blogs used to be just to write them but now it's anything it's just basically you're going to be giving out this information in a way that people can consume it that's comfortable for them. I'm a reader but I don't like reading blogs I like reading my books but I don't like reading blogs but there are ways to even turn your blogs. It's time. Yes. All right. So thank you guys so much. Thank you.