Will Your Way to Success
Entrepreneurship is truly something near and dear to my heart.
Continuing on from my previous post and expanding upon my Entrepreneurial Mindset series, I strongly believe that bloggers are entrepreneurs.
I enjoy reading articles that discuss start-up businesses and applying it to the niche I have found in the blogging community.
Each and every day, I discover that blogging and maintaining a social presence is a business. As bloggers, we create, design, market, and monetize a “brand” all our own. We market ourselves, “sell” what we have to say, and present it to the world.
Best Advice: Fake It Until You Make It sheds light on one of the most important aspects of blogging: how you present yourself.
1. First impressions truly do mean everything.
You can make or break your start-up business based on how you present yourself.
A business plan (or a blogging niche) is the first step to becoming a successful blogger. As a blogger, I strive to cultivate a genuine community of readership, while aggregating high-quality content.
I write as a means to share my story in a meaningful and inspirational fashion; I want to create content that truly empowers readers everywhere to live the life they have always imagined.
In the spirit of making up words (which I do quite frequently), I have a new one for you: Bloggerpreneur. More on this later.
2. Use your personal vision to create something worthwhile.
Entrepreneurs must take the vision within themselves and “make their vision real and powerful to potential customers and investors.”
On the same note, bloggerpreneurs must use their personal vision to put forth a product worth reading, marketing, and promoting.
This is where faking it until you make it truly comes into play.
It is neither unethical nor illegal to market yourself in a manner that “gain(s) traction in building a new business model.”
3. It’s all about the presentation–make your work “puuuuuurty.”
Through an impeccable blog design, you can instantaneously give your presence a visual credibility.
If I were to give someone a fancy gift, I wouldn’t toss it in a trash bag and simply hand it over.
So, why would I present my blog and social presence in this manner? Why would an entrepreneur present their business in this way?
I know that I create quality content, as an entrepreneur knows they have a powerful vision. I want to wrap it up in gold wrapping paper and place a big bow on top. It’s all about the presentation; momma taught me right!
4. Will your model/blog/life/self into existence.
With the creation and implementation of a sincere vision, an entrepreneur/ bloggerpreneur must will their model into existence.
One must be able to see through the accepted standard, “If you build it, they will come.” Perhaps we should adjust our mindset to the following:
If you build it, market it, and create credibility, they will be receptive and interested.
It is imperative to display yourself, your product, and your blog in the manner by which you want to be portrayed.
In this article, Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman admits to creating fake accounts as a means to grow his website and emulate activity.
This is actually quite genius.
And before you start FREAKING YO FREAK, allow me to explain…
When it comes to the online and social word, we define credibility by the audience to which one contributes. Can you argue that?
If a blog has a beautiful design, countless comments, AND great content, people take it seriously.
If a social platform has thousands of followers, people are bound to believe what they have to say (and choose that they too should join the following).
Can you really tell me that if you click someone’s Twitter profile, you aren’t swayed by the number of followers they have? I know I am.. whether that is fair or not.
So essentially what I find genius is the process by which Reddit established their credibility. I am not here to advocate the creation of a fake audience—but the essence of what this creates for a start-up entrepreneur is extraordinary.
For me, as a blogger–I want to create my community over time through my content. I want people to come back because they enjoy what I have to say and how I have to say it.
I cannot deny that I have worked my tail end off to give my blog the professional look that may or may not sway their decision to take me seriously.
In addition, I work hard to generate content through social media that allows me to build my following. It’s all apart of staying with the times.
You get with it… or you fail.
Back to entrepreneurship… An entrepreneur can emulate the appearance of popularity and fans through the means by which they present themselves to the world.
A vision becomes reality when entrepreneurs present themselves in the light by which they view themselves.
Through hard work and “faking it until you make it,” success is achievable and a community can be cultivated.
An entrepreneur must be persistent in the presentation of the product.
5. Be your biggest cheerleader.
A bloggerpreneur must treat their content as valuable, respectable, and important from the day they have one reader to the day they have one million.
As with many blogs, I know mine began with one reader: my momma. I am proud to say that I have learned a lot along the way but my voice has not changed. Savvy Sassy Me is my baby and I value the content I put forth to the world.
If you take yourself seriously and market yourself accordingly, the world is yours for the taking.
P.S. Ekaterina Walter herself sent me a copy of her New York Time’s bestselling book Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Stay tuned for a review; this book rocks my socks.
