I’ve been blogging for a long time… since the 7th grade. My, my, things have changed! I think for the good and sometimes for the bad. I feel in many ways disenchanted with the monetizing process, but also excited that people can get paid to do something as fun as blogging. I’ve done plenty of sponsored posts and pitched to even more. Some of my experiences make me squirm to realize how underpaid I was. Of course, at the time, I was just ecstatic that someone was paying me to use products I already used or wanted to use. Most of the time though, I was really excited to work with a great company/ write about my experience.
For my personal sanity, I’ve stopped pitching to companies for sponsored posts. I’m sure it won’t be forever, but this has been a multi-faceted decision that I’ll explain in this post. These are my honest to goodness thoughts on blogging paychecks.
I have never aspired to be an internet celebrity
I do not have a bikini body, we do not buy a lot of products, and our life is frankly very routine.
I was listening to an instastory from the fabulous Allison Faulkner and she said something that has always really stood out to me. I am paraphrasing it, but she said if you’re a pretty face without a message, then you just want to be internet popular. I thought it was really interesting because I had honestly never thought about it that way. I was never the cool kid in high school or college… and it was never really an aspiration either. Having a community of supportive and positive people has always been a goal of mine, but prestige has never really mattered to me. I took a step back from blogging before my rebrand and decided: well, what do I have to offer?
I decided my message is that I’m an everyday person that is working hard at learning how to be a better person. I wanted my blog to revolve around things I hope people can relate to (because this world can feel a little lonely sometimes) and be a place where people feel like they can learn a little bit with me; I’m very much a work in progress 🙂 .
When I began to realize that my blog was more about a message or hopes that I can help other people learn things, I realized it became less about selling products. This was something that made me scratch my head a lot. After making money for posts, was I ready to just commit back to blogging again because I just love blogging? I questioned what that would like and how I would go about it.
I decided the following about how I would move forward with monetizing my blog:
- Review posts: I feel like this gives a good opinion of what I think about a product whether I bought it or it was provided by a company; either way, I always disclose if a product came from a company whether it is a book or any other item.
- Recommendations: I will happily recommend any items I have used and love through affiliate links. I currently do this, but I think I’m going to be upping my game on this and updating old posts. I read constantly and there are a lot of books that I think are beneficial to past topics.
- Limited sponsored posts: I don’t have the energy or priorities to pitch everyday to companies. I have a friend who does this beautifully and she does a great job finding companies that she really clicks with. In the future, I only plan on doing sponsored posts if a company reaches out to me and it is just a perfect fit.
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People have not responded well to my sponsored posts
My sponsored posts are my least engaged with and interacted with posts. However, they probably take the most time for me to write about and I take a lot of personal pride in making them. Honestly, I’ve had some real life situations that have really frustrated me involving sponsored posts on my blog.
I’ll always remember when I landed some of my first sponsored posts and I walked into my grad school office area and overheard people discussing how stupid my sponsored recipe posts were (among many other things). I’ll be honest, I felt completely gutted because there were people I had previously considered friends. After that? Absolutely not. I felt so confused because these were products that I did love, I had presented them genuinely, and yet, people hated them. More than that, it felt really personal because some of the attacks with it were very personal about me. I’m not a brand, I’m a person. I don’t criticize how other people honestly make money and it baffled me that people weren’t extending the same kindness to me.
I comforted myself with the philosopher T. Swift: “people throw rocks at things that shine” until I had two people I knew make fun of blog campaigns I had done to my face. The first time it happened, I honestly was upset and had no idea how to approach it. I tried to make the assumption that it was some kind of accident even though she listed out details about why the post was inauthentic. The second time it happened, I explained that my product usage was genuine and so were the stories I shared. I then eye rolled and kind of hated people for the rest of the day.
It doesn’t bother me when other people have sponsored items or blog posts, but I haven’t really received any positive feedback from my own experiences. As a blogger, I understand how exciting it is to have some spending money and to be able to pay for the services that run your blog. So many of us grew up wanting to be writers and blogging can be a very tangible way of being able to do that! However, I find that sponsored posts seem to be treated with such a raised eyebrow of judgement and suspicion. I’ll be honest that it makes me sad that people automatically question the authenticity of a blog campaign and it feels very personal when it is one that you do. I am not the authenticity police; people should be allowed to determine that for themselves without judgement. Let’s just make the intention to believe people are being authentically themselves. Can we add this to a list of things that women just need to support other women about? Yes, please, and thank you.
I don’t think sponsored posts make a blogger “sell out.” There are plenty of companies I have chosen not to work with because it felt odd for me, but then I’ve seen other bloggers write the post with them beautifully. I think that determining whether someone has “sold out” or not should be determined by an individual based on their own values of authenticity; if they love a product and want to work with a company, that’s fine with me. However, we project assumptions so often on influencers that I hope we wouldn’t onto people we know and love in person.
You don’t have to make money to validate a passion
When I quit my job back in September, I realized my focus for blogging became: “that’s okay, I’ll just turn my blog into something that I make more profitable.” I felt okay with that until I didn’t. It took me a long time to realize that I don’t mind when other people make money off of their blog, but for me, it turned something I love into something that felt like drudgery. I realized that it isn’t why I liked blogging at all. I didn’t like how much my page views mattered to me and I hated when I would see numbers go up and down on different social media platforms. I realized for me that the more I focused on the numbers, the more there seemed to be a loss of connection with the people that would interact with me on my blog and social media. Frankly, the more I focused on money, the less joy I found for myself personally when I came to my blog and that made me sad.
I began realizing that the books I was receiving for free weren’t free. I realized they often took over six hours to read and they were piling up like the homework I had in grad school. I realized in this regard, I was turning another one of my hobbies into something that felt a lot like work.
Sometimes you can just enjoy things for what they are instead of expecting them to give you a paycheck. For me, I’m realizing that there are things that I am very passionate about that I love being paid for (teaching!), but blogging isn’t one of them and I realize that now. I feel lucky and blessed that I found what I was passionate about in my 20s. I love teaching ESL! However, I’ll be honest, when I’m unemployed it makes the separation from that really painful.
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I need a break from consumerism
One afternoon, I spent a lot of time on social media. I realized when I left the space that I didn’t feel like I was a better person, I didn’t feel like I had learned much, and I felt the desire to buy a bunch of stuff that I didn’t really need. I counted how many times I saw ads or people trying to sell me stuff and I felt overwhelmed. I wouldn’t watch a TV commercial, but yet, my whole phone WAS a TV commercial. I realized I just needed some space from that.
I’ll be honest: people could say that people who are selling a message is a different type of consumerism, but it is one I identify more with and that’s fine. I realized that as someone who lives a frugal lifestyle, I couldn’t really promote people buying stuff all of the time. I’m not throwing shade on anyone. In situations like this, I think everyone should just evaluate what they think and how they want to go about it. I’ll fully support you on whatever you decide for yourself.
I realized that by doing the type of monetization I plan on doing, I feel like I can offer suggestions that are helpful and have made things easier for me, but I won’t feel like I’m telling someone they have to be more or have more.
I realized I needed a disconnect from my computer
While being unemployed, I began realizing that it was very easy to live my whole world behind a screen. However, I didn’t find as much fulfillment in it. Something humbling that I have realized the last few months is that I am not an introvert. WHAT?! Instead, I realized I am an extrovert that has really struggled with depression the last few years + I need a lot of down time. With my husband’s job and being unemployed, I have been massively socially starved and working outside of the home helps me fulfill some of those needs. I realized that I was trying to schedule stuff outside of my home like once a day and I realized a job would easily replace that for me. Everyone’s personality is so different and it was eye opening to realize how much I rely on positive employment to fulfill that need.
I’ve been trying to figure out my thoughts on all of this stuff the last few weeks. I don’t know what cracked my metaphorical shell on the topic, but I realized that I missed blogging for blogging. I miss the blogging that felt very easy to do a few years ago. For myself, I missed looking at blogging as a well-loved passion with a sense of community instead of a paycheck. Most of all, I missed just being able to candidly write like this.