Starting the first post in the So Blogger category, here I want to share how to become a beginner blogger based on my experience. You could say, I'm still a new player in this field. Still nothing compared to the old bloggers. Even in February, TravelBeib is 11 months old. Like a baby, still a baby and slowly learning to tread.
How to Become a Beginner Blogger
Even though I'm still a puppy, there are many friends who DM me via Instagram. They asked for tips on becoming a blogger and also asked how to do it. There is really a sense of mixed touch is not confident also asked so, because I apatuh home has not become anyone. Since I can't answer them one by one, I thought it's better to answer them on my blog.
I think TravelBeib is the right place for us to share with each other. Even in this category, I specifically use Indonesian language. So that it can be read by friends who are Indonesian citizens. Of course, with my own style of storytelling. Hopefully with me sharing here, we can motivate and inspire each other.
Transitioning from Entrepreneur to Blogger
Before I decided to become a blogger, I had my own company. Decades of work in the field of Advertising and Event Organizer. To know my portfolio, you can lihat disini. In the past, my working hours were very tight. Do you know how tiring the world of agencies and events is? Then I got bored and decided to retire early. The main reason was because I wanted to have more time for my family, I wanted to feel like a stay-at-home mom, and I wanted to fulfill my hidden desire to be a writer.
From somebody to nobody. That's how I felt in the transition. Being the CEO of your own company, it's a big responsibility. Every month, I have to pay the salaries of dozens of families, single women and single men. Even though it's hard, it's still much better. Because there are those as a team, financial people and secretaries who can help and complete all the work. So bloggers don't have as much responsibility as CEOs. But, the job is not just writing content. You also have to be a creative thinker, conceptor, editor, designer, photographer and content maker for branding yourself, namely your blog.
Actually, you can just pay someone to do all that. But trust me, the results will definitely be different. At the beginning, I paid someone to build a website. I found out that the person is gone. From there, I finally learned how to design my own website. Learn how to write properly. Make SEO qualified content. Learn to make #TravelBeibPresets photo filters in Lightroom. And there are many more things I've learned to this day.
Apart from not being diligent in writing, my toughest challenge in becoming a blogger is fighting the laziness of posting on social media. Today's social media is not as fun as in the past. When I first got Facebook, Instagram and Path, I used to post a lot on those three social media sites. Armed with frequent travel and love to post on social media. I thought being a Travel Blogger could be a very easy new job. It wasn't as easy as I thought. The transition period from entrepreneur to blogger also took 1.5 years, to adapt and explore the world of blogging.
Whatever work we do. There will always be pluses and minuses. All it takes is our perseverance in doing it.
Preparing to Become a Blogger
Before you decide to become a blogger. Here are 5 important tips that you need to prepare, based on my personal experience.
Prepare Mentally
To be a blogger, you must be mentally prepared to be resilient, must not be sensitive, must not be easily hurt, must not be cynical, must accept criticism (if it is for improvement) and must not be arrogant. Tough? Of course it is. Because there will always be someone out there who is better, more creative and better than us.
When you first start blogging, don't expect to get a lot of support from your closest friends. The reason is because many of them are lazy to read, very busy, afraid of running out of quota and some even just don't like it when they see their friends working. Sad but true, but this is what happened to me. When blogku baru tayang there are only 10% of my friends who open the TravelBeib website. Even many of my friends in my WhatsApp group haven't read it until now. Sad? Definitely. But the funny thing is, the remaining 90% of my readers are people from other countries and cities, none of whom I know.
There will be times when we have written with all our heart and soul. But no one comments, even though many people review it. It feels like writing to yourself in a diary. This happened in artikelku yang ini. Until this moment, no one has commented. Eaaaa curcol, but no Baper.
Not everyone will like you, but not everyone will hate you
It's okay to be upset and cranky, but don't let that stop you from creating. Because every day there will always be good things that we can share with the world through our writing.
2. Confident
One of my unfulfilled dreams is to become a writer. When my blog was about to go live, I suddenly had an anxiety attack. My confidence disappeared in an instant. The blog finally went live 3 months later. In my mind at that time there were a million "What If?". Even though the big "What If?" that I had to ask myself was,
“What if I don’t do it now? I will never know.”
Remember, there are 7,623,390,000 people in the world. Based on DreamHost, There are nearly 409 million people who view more than 23.7 billion blog pages every month. So you don't have to worry that no one will read your blog. If you want your readers to love your writing, you have to be confident in your own abilities.
3. Active on Social Media
Social media can be a place of both profit and destruction. Profitable, mentally devastating. Honestly, this is one of my biggest challenges as a blogger. I have to be active on social media when I'm sick of it. Every time I open social media, people want to exist by showing off their luxuries, wearing sexy clothes or posting negative things. I don't know why Indonesians are so happy with such things. Even though that's what makes us mentally depressed. But for the sake of website traffic, like it or not, every day there is a kind of compulsion to post on social media.
Instagram and Facebook algorithms are also the toughest challenge. If we have a lot of followers, the majority are active and there is also a lot of engagement through likes and comments. Our account will often appear on Explore or people's timeline. This is a plus for accounts whose followers are above 200 thousand. For those whose followers are still under 10 thousand like me, it becomes an uphill battle. This means that we have to fight more creatively and super to make our account can be lyrics by millions of followers in the world or at least appear on the Explore page.
Algorithm Insights are sometimes very ambiguous. This Insights is on accounts that have been set to business. I also don't understand whether the Insights report is valid or not. The proof is that I once posted in prime time which is said to be the hour my followers are active. In fact, only 20 likes were given. I've also posted at an hour that was said to be quiet, not knowing that there were hundreds of people who gave love. Then, based on the Insights report. Self-photo posts are more liked than object photos. Even though I prefer object photos. There are hundreds of likes for self-posted photos with a horizontal or vertical 4×5 size. While once, there were only 20 likes for an object photo post.
Data between the number of likes on Instagram feeds and likes plus reach feed posts through Insights. The numbers are really disparate, right?
It's really lame, isn't it? In my humble opinion, following Inisghts reports feels like being controlled by them. That is why I set my account back to personal only and post at hours that I can monitor myself. Yes, that's the ins and outs of the social media world. The important thing is, it's better to stop playing social media if you feel controlled by it.
4. Consistent
A blogger's consistency can be seen from her website niche, writing style, social media feeds to the photo techniques and filters she often uses. Honestly, for posting feeds on Instagram, until now I am still unstable in determining which theme is the most appropriate. For me, each photo has its own story. So if I use the same filter, the meaning will be different. As for the writing style on the blog. I'm trying to write at 500-1000 words, but in the end, it will be more than 1500 words. For Google Ad Sense, it's good, but I'm afraid people will get bored reading it.
Menciptakan sangat mudah, tapi mempertahankan adalah bagian tersulit
Consistency is the key. In my opinion, this is one of the ways we maintain our signature style so that readers or followers don't forget us. We are competing with millions of bloggers in the world. We can look at other bloggers for reference. But not copy and paste. Remember, fellow bloggers must respect each other.
5. Commitment
The toughest first step for a blogger is to commit to yourself. Especially committing to discipline in writing. Becoming a successful blogger won't happen overnight. Unless your writing goes viral. But it still ends up going back to no.4, which is consistent. Because being a blogger means you are the very own boss of yourself.
For maximum results, a blogger should post 1 blog a day. If not every day, at least 1 post a month. Sometimes, even one post a month can feel overwhelming. That's where the challenge is where we have to be able to fight laziness in ourselves.
The more you commit, the more income you will achieve
I experienced acute laziness after writing the second post. There was a gap of 3 months from the previous post. At that time, I felt like giving up because I was too lazy to think. But it felt like a waste to just give up. Then there were many offers of cooperation via email. Then there were many DMs and comments that said they liked my content. Until finally one day, I got an email from Google Ad Sense that my blog has been approved by Google. It feels so happy and I get motivated again. In this world, nothing is wasted. Maybe the results won't be instant. But as long as you commit and love in what you're doing. The rest will follow.
That's all the tips I can give at the opening of this So Blogger category. Hopefully it can be useful and useful for all Beibque. What's good I need to discuss again about the world of blogging. Please criticize and input yes. Have a nice productive day Beib.
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