 Hi everyone, I'm Elayna and I'm your trainer for the next few minutes. How was your lunch? Awesome. Yeah, I'm very pleased with the lunch options here at War Camp Miami, so really cool. So how many of you want to have a blog or have a blog? Awesome. Well, we're going to be talking all about blogging and I want this to be a very interactive session. So I want you to ask any questions that you may have. I want you to tell me what your concerns are because my purpose here is not to go through the PowerPoint, it's to actually know that I contributed to your blogging journey. Is that okay? Yeah. Awesome. I mean, you're free to tweet and to Facebook and all of that. You can take pictures, so there's no limit on that. Before we get started, I want to give you a definition, let me see if this will work here. Apparently not. Okay. There we go. I want to give you a definition of blog and bolt because I wanted to use a very awesome title for this session. So I called it taking your blog from blog to bolt. And what I mean by blog is lacking action and who can read the last one? Hopeless. Yeah. And I don't really think that any blog whatsoever is hopeless. I think that we can feel hopeless because we don't know what the next step is. So hopefully this session will help you in that area. Now who can volunteer to read what bolt means? You? Okay. You're a beautiful lady here. Stand up so they can see how beautiful you are. Underbolt says business opportunities, reads, and generos. Generos. Woo! So this session is all about getting credibility, visibility, and profitability. If you are not making money with your blog, then you don't have a blog in business. You have a hobby. Okay? Business means business connections, business opportunities. It means people buying your products. It means getting media exposure. So we're going to be talking about all of those things that you can get out of blogging. My favorite thing that I get out of blogging is that I get to talk to the coolest moms on the planet and teach them about how I raise my kids and how they can raise theirs. Of course you may think like, wow, she's so bossy. But really it's not about that. It's really being an influencer. And I want each of you to think of yourself right now as an influencer, as a person that can make a difference because you have influence with your words. And I want you to play along with me for a second and just repeat after me, the world is waiting for my words. Awesome. Now turn to your partner, to the people sitting next to you and tell them that the world is waiting for my words. Awesome. So that's the kind of energy that I wanted to generate in the room before we get started. Because really that's what this is all about. None of us are hopeless. We can all do this and as we do it, we can inspire other people. So those are all the things that you saw on the WordCamp Miami website that we're going to learn today. You can take a picture but I'm not going to read them for you. But we're going to learn a lot of stuff and if you don't learn something, then you can smack me in the head. I'll give you permission right now. Lightly and gently, okay. Awesome. You're laughing. So that means you don't want to take a nap right now. I was worried about that. Okay. So the first thing that we're going to touch on is the horrible, the common things, the common reasons why your blog may not be working. How many of you already have a blog in the room? Okay. So some of you may be feeling like I have this blog and it's thin, you know, it's kind of working but there's something missing. So I'm going to go through three things that may be the reason. The first one is that you are failing to have a strategy or a plan. As you see right here, it says fail to plan equals plan to fail. The very first thing, actually I worked on, you know, I had a web design business for a long time before I merged with my husband and one of the first things that I did was sit down with my client and plan the thing. I always said that web design happened was the very, very last step. Okay. Designing, coding and putting the pieces together, that is the last step of the process. The first step is to do a brain dump to really plan out what you're going to do. And you're probably saying, well, Alina, I don't know everything that I want to do and that's fine. You don't have to know all the pieces. Just the next pieces to get you started. And then says, you know, any strategy is a good strategy. There is no bad strategy. I always say that God rewards action. As you move, you're going to really understand if that's the right move or the wrong move. But if you just stand in place, then you're not going to know what the next step is going to be. And we have what I like to call analysis paralysis, right? And nobody wants that. Because, you know, if you get in the car and you tell your GPS, I want to go to that place, there are two pieces of information that your GPS needs. One, it can read it, which is where you're at. And the next one is where you want to go. Without knowing where you want to go, then you're just going to get in the car and maybe you'll get there. Maybe you'll get mugged. Maybe you'll, who knows what will happen and who knows where you will end up. So you want to have those pieces of information. Where am I right now? What do I have to offer? One of my favorite quotes says that, do anything you can with what you have from where you are. And so that's what we're going to do. Now, if your car is parked, it doesn't matter what you told your GPS. You've got to get moving, OK? And as you go with the GPS, it'll tell you, you know, make a U-turn. And I don't know about your GPS, but mine is very annoying. If I don't make a U-turn, I mean, it's like, can't you see, it says no U-turn right there? Well, she can. But, you know, she annoys me to know, and make a U-turn. I told you, make a U-turn. So, yes. So as you move, you'll see what's working. You'll see what's not. You'll see if you need to make a left turn or a right turn. So I hope this analogy is clear for everybody. OK. And my accent. How's my accent? Thank you. So let me tell you about when I started blogging, it was 2005. And I was blogging about marketing and web design and, you know, reaching your clients online and all of that stuff that we all love. And it was fun. And it was exciting. And I was getting, you know, really good traffic. And I was getting clients for my web design business. And it was all really fun because that's how I generated the funds to actually stay home and raise my girls. I am very grateful for that journey. However, in 2009, I had an epiphany. I started kind of adding a little bit of my personal things, my stories to my blog. And I noticed that whenever I share something about being a mom, about my kids, about the things that I was struggling with, or the things that really mattered to me, then my blog just spiked. The traffic, the engagement, everything. I even got opportunities to go on blogging tours and things like that, which are really cool. And you can ask me all about because I love them. But one thing that I did is I aligned my blogging with my passions. Instead of blogging about the things that I knew about and that I was skilled at, I started blogging about the things that truly mattered to me. I started blogging about the things that I couldn't stop talking about if somebody just hit me in the head, OK? The things that I dream about at night, the things that wake me up in the morning. So that is one thing that will guarantee your blogging success. Is that ES is cool to give information, to give inspiration, entertaining. All of those things matter. But when you're blogging about the things that matter to you about the why in your business, in your life, that's when you're going to notice that people are going to resonate with that content. Actually, my daughters, did any of you see my daughters speak? OK, can we clap for those two young ladies to stand up? So those two were the reason why I changed my content around. Yesterday, they were talking about how we need to be authentic with our content, how we need to be vulnerable. So they are my why. Let's see. OK, there we go. So before I talk about this picture, I'm going to tell you that there are two things that are wrong with that picture. The little circle over here is what Simon Sinek. How many of you know Simon Sinek? OK, Google him, or actually YouTube him. He has to talk about the golden circle of the why. Why is the number one question you need to ask about in your business? Why you do what you do? Why are you passionate about it? Why do you need to do it? Why does it need to come from you? Why me, why now? Those are the most important questions in your business. Then the how, and then the what. So it all starts with why. And I told you that these two little girls are my why. Well, the first thing that is wrong with that picture is that it is Photoshopped. And it is Photoshopped because this was added on later. And I'll tell you how that came to be about. It was 2 o'clock in the morning in a very cold Florida October night. I had just moved from California with my husband across the country. And Alicia was two, and Alyssa was one. And I woke up with a very weird feeling and I woke up with a very weird feeling in my stomach. And I went and scanned the room. I was living in a room that was about this size. And if you're from Florida, of course, all of you, I think, I live in Texas now. In Texas, nobody knows what an efficiency is, but that's where I was living with my daughters until we found the home of our dreams. Well, I found out at 2 o'clock in the morning that their dad left a note saying, it was too much responsibility. Go back to your country. I decided to pursue other things. So that was the pivotal moment of my life because I always say that there are defining moments in your life, moments in which you either define the moment or let the moment define you forever. And so that's what's wrong with that picture. It was just the three of us for a while. And that is why I started blogging. It was because it was an outlet for me to actually be with my daughters full time, to not have a nine to five job, to not let other people raise my kids, to be able to share with them the things that I have learned. And so I'm really, really happy that I have been able to do that, but I'm really, really humbled because that was instead of, you know, I saw it as a tragedy. And of course I did what every person does. I wanted to cry and I crawled in the fetal position, but I discovered that I had the best part. And I became really grateful about that opportunity. And that's why I'm here. And that is why when I decided to focus on helping other people, I want to help moms that feel scared, that feel that they are worthless, that they are hopeless, that they don't know where they're going to go next or they don't know how to do things. And so that's why we need to focus on the why. If I were to focus on the how I was going to make it as a single mom with no family, I couldn't go back to my country with my kids because it would have been kidnapped. So I would have probably just died because I didn't know how, but I knew why. So ask yourself in your business, in your life, why? Why do you need to blog? Why do you need to create content? Why do you need to take the next step? Why do you need to be successful? And who are the people that you're going to impact with your content? Because in this moment, it was not about me. And my self-worth was probably non-existent. It was about my kids. And then it became about these moms. And one tip that I'm going to tell you is that if you're terrified to create content and to publish, publish is like the enemy, right? One thing that I do is I have one person that I blog for. And she's my imaginary friend and her name is Amelia. Yeah, I'm like a kid. I'm a kid size, so it works for me. Yeah. So I think about her every time I sit down and pour my heart. I don't think that millions of people out there are going to read my blog. I don't think about anything but that person that needs to hear those words. And it's true, the world needs to hear your words. But if one person hear those words and says, you know, thank you, it makes it all worth it. So yes, there's a Photoshopped guy into my picture and a little baby. And so yes, we have a happy ending. So I remarried three years ago and she's two, we call her little pigeon. And she is very active. She's like a little version of me which is a good thing but an exhausting thing. I already have two gray hairs. Which takes me to the second thing that's wrong with that picture. I want my hair back. Pregnancy can do little crazy things to you. So I'm getting there. Okay, so any questions before I tell you what this is? Because I wanna hear from you, okay? So there's this thing that I like to call the Seven Sentence Marketing Plan. And it's something that I learned from one of my mentors, J. Conrad Levinson. I'm a Gorilla Marketing Certified Master Trainer. And what that means is that J. Conrad Levinson who created the Gorilla Marketing brand and sadly passed away two years ago, he was my mentor and he trained me to do what he does. And basically he used this plan with Steve Jobs with Michael Dell, with people that in the industry and Fortune 500 companies that have very successful solid business, they started with this little Seven Sentence Plan because he believed that your intuition is more important than your knowledge. And actually that Albert Einstein also said that imagination is more important than knowledge. So if you're gonna humor me for five minutes, we're gonna write down these sentences and you're just gonna write down whatever comes to your mind. Because he said that Steve Jobs shared with him about five years ago, because that was three years before he died. He said, I still go back to that sheet whenever I have a question to make a decision. So the first sentence you're gonna write is the specific purpose why I blog is. And if you're not blogging, that's gonna be why I will blog, okay? The specific purpose why I blog is. And just write what comes to your head. And this is best done in five minutes. If you're like me, I want to analyze it and meditate on it and then write three paragraphs and see what happens, but this is something that we're just gonna do on the fly and then you can't fine tune it, but it's better if you just go with it. The second one is the competitive advantage that I'm going to focus on or that I'm going to stress on is. And that is what makes you different. What is the thing that you have that no one else has? And that doesn't need to be a degree or an expertise or anything like that. My blog is successful because I am a positive mom and I became a positive mom by being a very negative mom and then focusing on the things that I could be grateful for. Then you're going to write the marketing weapons. Remember it's guerrilla marketing. So the marketing weapons that I'm going to use are. And one thing about this, about the marketing weapons, those are the things that tactics or the tools that you can use to promote your blog. And one thing about this is that we always want to say, you know, well, if I did video, my blog would explode or if I did more keywords and more SEO, my blog would explode. But I want you to focus on something that you're already doing because that is a tool for procrastination. We say, well, when I get a YouTube channel, then I'll start doing it. Or when I hire the guys to do the SEO, then I'll start doing this. But when we focus on what we have right now, then we have no excuses. We could already be doing it. If you have a Facebook, then put Facebook on there. If you have a neighbor, then tell it to my neighbor. Okay, so we all have things right now that we could be utilizing that we don't need to postpone or procrastinate marketing ourselves or creating content. Then the fourth sentence that we're gonna write is my identity. And I know you can't read that, but. Identity means what you stand for. And that was, that's what people call your brand. Yes. Identity is what you stand for. Oh, my identity is. That's it. Yeah. And these slides are available to you too, so that you can get back. I'm gonna tweet them out and they're gonna be on the page for you to download. I also, I'm very reachable. So if you wanna reach out to me after this session or whenever, I love to help people blog and take their ideas and share them with the world. Okay, so the six is the main action that I want my reader to take. The main action that I want my reader to take. Yes. Five, right? That's number six. Five. Okay. Five is my identity is. Okay, four was my marketing weapons. That's what I was telling you about. Oh, I skipped number three, okay. I'll leave it for last. Don't worry about it. They're not important. The order is not important. So after my identity, which is the next one? It's the main action that I want my reader to take. I skipped number three, but I'll leave it for last, okay? I'm sorry. I love that. That means you're paying attention. Yeah, go for it. Okay, so the main action, we all want different things from our blogs, from our blog post. Is it sharing? Do you want them to share? Do you want them to comment? Do you want them to subscribe to your blog or download something that you have on there for them to download? Do you want them to hire you? Always know what the main action that you want people to take is and take that across your brand. Have that same call to action everywhere on your marketing. Because the thing is that if you see someone that you go to their website and they want you to subscribe, but then you go to their Facebook page and they say that when you go to their website, what you want them to do is something different, then there's a mismatch of messages and when people are confused, they don't buy. They don't do what you want them to do. There's too much, too many messages. So you want to focus on one action and you want to always go back to what's that action. The next one is the way you will measure success. And of course, we don't like tracking and measuring and testing, but that is the secret to success, not only online, but with any business, because that's how we learn. It's with feedback. It's with tracking the things that we do, what went wrong, what we could do different, what we need to keep doing, and maybe add something new. So how will we measure success? The one that I left that was number three and there is no particular order, but it was about your audience. Who is my target market? A lot of people tell me, wow, you have 44,000 Twitter followers. How do you do that? Am I supposed to be on Twitter? And I said, well, are your people on Twitter that you would try to reach? That's the first question. If you're supposed to do something, it's because the people that are on that platform want to receive your message. Pinterest, people ask me, am I supposed to be on Pinterest? Well, if you're targeting to women and to moms, then yeah, that would be a good idea. LinkedIn, well, it depends whether you'd be to be or be to see or whatever platform you have. So it's all about the audience. Who are they? And when we focus on our audience, people, the whole model was demographics and that's still important, but we want to focus on psychographics. And what that means is what do they need? What do they want? What are the questions that they're asking? What are the things that they want to know about? What are the ways that they can solve, you can solve their problems? Because really that's what it comes down to. People buy from people they know, they like and they trust, but they do it because they have an idea that buying that product or that service or reading that blog is going to help them either achieve a goal or avoid an outcome, solve a problem or feel a need. Those are the only reasons why they do it. So if you're blogging about yourself and you're not really taking into consideration what your client needs, what your reader wants, then there's going to be a disconnect because they're not going to feel like it's valuable. And with blogging it's all about value. Okay, there are a couple things written on here. That is what I think a content strategy needs to have. There are three pieces to a content strategy. You start with the results first. So what are the results that I want to get out of my content strategy? Then you establish the roadmap, how you're gonna get there. And then you measure your ROI, your return on investment. Yes, that's how you get a strategy together. So the first mistake is not having a strategy. Creating your strategy is all about first you outline the results, then you say how you're gonna get there and then you measure your ROI. Because usually we don't start with what we want first. We start with the how. We start with I need a website, I need a Facebook page, I need an Instagram account, I need to have 10 ideas on what I'm gonna blog about, but we don't really harness on the results that we wanna get. I want to reach 10 million moms in the world. That's my results, those are the results that I want this year. And so how am I gonna know if I did that? Well I go back and reverse engineer how I can do that. If I, on December 31st I had reached 10 million moms, what would I have to have done in November? Where would I be? And where would I be in August? And where would I be in June? And what am I supposed to be doing right now? So that's how you get there. What is the roadmap? Okay, so moving along, reason number two is there is no focus on your content. And whenever I work with people and they say, well my blog is not working, the first thing I look at is at their categories. They have like 20 categories that they blog about. And I recommend that you have three categories. Because it's doable. Because it's something that you can set yourself up for success. And you can blog about anything that you're passionate about on those three categories. But if you take all of your categories and you say, well if I were to blog about all of that, where would I put it? Okay, one thing that will help you with is to know that you're really not putting all of the same eggs in only one basket. So I have three categories that I blog about and I blog three times a week. So I know that I'm blogging each day of my schedule. I'm blogging on one category. So my content is consistent and it's predictable. If you go on my blog on Monday, you know what you're gonna get. And if you go on Wednesday, you know what you're gonna get. And if you go on Friday, you know what you're gonna get. Some people only go on Mondays. And I know who they are. Because that's the only content that they are interested in on my website. And they subscribe only to Monday. So you want to make sure that your readers know exactly what they're gonna get. You're gonna know what you're gonna be blogging about. So it's gonna really solve that puzzle. Oh, what am I supposed to blog about today? I don't know. So it's going to help you organize your content and it's going to help you get that focus. And we already talked about the niche which is the people that you want to serve and how you want to serve them. If you know that you're blogging for moms, like in my case, or you're blogging for photographers, or you're blogging for kids, or you're blogging for WordPress users, you want to speak to them in their language. You wanna know that, yeah, anybody can read my content. I mean, you can be a guy and go to my content and read it, but it's gonna say mom all over the place. Because it's a blog for moms and it's going to be purple and it's going to talk about kids and have kid analogies and stories. So you wanna make sure that when they get there, they say, this is where I'm supposed to be. This girl gets me. She knows exactly what I'm looking for and she's speaking to me. Speak to one person. Don't say, as all of you know, I went on a road trip. Now say, you know I went on a road trip. It's eye to you when it comes to blogging. Don't write in the third person and write in present tense, present active tense. Make sure that you're taking them on a journey in your story with them and include them. Ask them questions. Imagine that they're in front of you. Like I said, if you're talking to one person, you're gonna make it engaging because it's a conversation. And I write like I speak. So let me give you this a few things because we started late, so. But the next thing is creating an editorial calendar and take a picture of that because all you need to do for an editorial calendar, that sounds like a big thing, but all you need to do is create an Excel sheet or a Google spreadsheet or office.org spreadsheet, doesn't matter. But just create those columns. And actually there's a blogging also that you can use. I find that I don't ever look at the blogging. I forget about it, but. So basically those are the things that you wanna do. It's post schedule and just make sure that you write all of your ideas on there and that if you have three categories, you wanna spread them out. The reason number three is basically that you're not promoting your content. And that could be because you're scared of people and the feedback that they're going to do. But basically a blog is different from a static website because there's engagement possibility. People can comment, people can share, people can really have a conversation with you and that is the most valuable thing about a blog is that you have the ability to create engagement. And content marketing is not content marketing without the marketing part. There are two pieces. Creating content and not marketing it is not content marketing. That's just content creation. And so if you want to monetize your blog, you need to create content so that people know that you have that blog, they need to hear from you. So use a sheet. I created this daily action list for myself but yours can look like anything. Just do a checklist. Whenever you write a blog post, did I share on Facebook? Did I share on LinkedIn? Did I tell people across the street? Use what you have right now and it'll start, it'll pick up momentum. But really the most important thing that you need to do is to block time after you create it to spread the word. So what do you think I do on Tuesday? I spend the entire time that I wasn't blogging, I was sharing my content. Facebook groups people, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, they want content and you want to make sure that you're sharing that content there. So those are the three things that you can do to get your blog at a better status. Any questions before we have to, because we are out of time? Any questions about your blog? Yeah. It's gonna be on the WordCamp website and I'm also gonna tweet about it so I'll tweet the slides. Any other questions? It's thepositivemom.com. Thank you. Yes. Well you can create content anywhere, like whenever I get hired as a blogger I actually also get hired as an influencer so we could do an Instagram post and that counts as content, it's visual content. So any of the social media websites you can post content on there. Yes. Okay, one moment please so I can hear. What was that? Yes. Yes, yes. Actually I installed the SumoMe share bar on my blog post so if you go to SumoMe they have a free tool, they also have upgrades but so I installed that on my website and I use my own share bar because when you have a share bar and it already has numbers people are more prone to share. So you wanna be your own advocate and fan so if they say oh one person already shared this they are more than likely to share too. So that's like yes and I just go and share it from my share bar everywhere which is a good reminder too when you see the share bar that kinda triggers you oh I better share my own post. And that's funny because sometimes we ask other people to share but we haven't shared it ourselves. Yeah, I have been published in the Huffington's post but basically as a blogger you have the opportunity to partner with brands. So for example I have partnered with companies like Delta, Dove or something like that. They want you to use their product or their company as part of your story. So one thing that Delta did is they flew me back to my country and the Dominican Republic and they wanted me to do something that I had never done there and to share that with my followers. And I shared my journey, I took pictures, I blogged about it and I told the story of what I was doing and why it was important to me and basically they pay you to do all of that because your voice is important. People want to hear how other people are using products and why and it is a very profitable business. So when you share it? No, I started with my own website. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they'll share it yourself or they found you. They find you. So if you're actually, for example when I partner with Dove Hair, I blog about self esteem and teaching my girls to be confident and they have a campaign that also talks about that and I happen to have curly hair and not straighten it. So basically, as you become the poster person for that particular topic, that's why you need three topics or as little number of topics as you can. As you become known for those topics brands are going to approach you. For example, Steve Harvey contacted me, his team contacted me to go to his conference and be one of the bloggers there simply because I blog about being a successful woman and a successful woman of color. So they approached me because they know that I do those things. So as you get known for what you do, as you put more content out there, you have the opportunity for people to approach you and say, what is your fee? Sometimes they don't even offer a fee. They say, what is your fee? How much do you expect to get paid to do this? And all you need to do is associate your name with the brand name. And with that, I wanna say, don't partner with brands that don't represent your values. So you wanna be clear that the message is the same because you wanna be loyal to your readers that know exactly what kind of content you put out there. So if you don't have a story or your values, you don't resonate with that company. I pass up a lot of opportunities that are very, in the high six figures because I don't really resonate with that endorsement. So as a blogger, not only you have the voice to create content, but you also are a talent for media as a media personality. One last question. Yeah, absolutely. Where's the next? I don't know and I wish him very well. They say that even eagles need a push and the mama eagle really, I don't know how she has the guts, but you know, I think that he was my mama eagle because without him doing that, I wouldn't have discovered the strength that I had. I wouldn't have really strengthened my faith and be able to raise my kids in the way that I did. I think that I would still be barefoot in the kitchen. So yeah, so that was truly a gift and God bless him. And we haven't seen him ever since. So it's a good thing. Yeah. When they call, what is it? What was that? When they call, what is it? When they call. You say it. Oh, what is my thing? It really depends because some people, they want you to write simply a blog post, but in the case of Delta, for example, they treat you like a VIP, they fly you back, they pay for all of your expenses. They also pay you your blogging fee. They also wanted me to share on YouTube, on Vine, on Instagram. And I have a very big following. So the more followers you have and the more views, then you have the ability to negotiate a lot better. But I want you to think about that. Some people think that they wanna wait until they have traffic or followers. Sometimes just because you are the perfect person to share that message, it doesn't matter if you have one page view. They just want for you to be an advocate of their brand. And if you're excited about it, and I speak to the brands all the time, they don't care about your numbers. And actually BuzzFeeds just had an article go to their website or go to Forbes. I think they also used it there. They said that page views and traffic is the old way to measure engagement on a website. Yeah. Do you have one page view? Yeah. Do you find the resources to approach them? Like, how do you approach them? They approach you. They approach you. But I wanna say also that there are blogger networks out there, agencies. So if you have a certain niche, for example, there are blogger networks that have to do with people of color or men, that bloggers, or something like that. Approach them, tell them, you know, I'm a blogger in this niche, and they will partner you with brands. So there are many opportunities. You can also do reviews in which you don't get paid, but you get, you know, your laptop for free or something. So there are many ways that you can start monetizing because let's face it, you know, I wouldn't have been able to stay home with my kids if I had a nine to five job. So you would need to own your worth. You, your words are important, but they are also valuable. They are also worth money. I don't think that there's anybody coming. So I've just continued. I'm just answering questions. If anybody else has questions, yeah. I guess it didn't happen overnight, how long? Well, actually I started blogging in 2005 and it was okay, but it didn't start really blooming until I switched to only mom content, which was in 2009. So, but you know, it has ups and downs. Like when I was pregnant, I didn't blog. And actually I think I published only once in nine months because you know, you got to be kind to yourself too. Yes. Yes, I do. Thank you. I'm your cool positive momo matchi yesterday. Oh yes, I know. I have it back here.