How I’m Launching A Blog & Social Media Channels

How I’m Launching A Blog & Social Media Channels

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I am Jackie, (Jacquelynn on a Sunday or when I am in trouble) born in the swinging sixties and living my teenage years through the fabulous 80’s I fell into a very unsexy office job where I have remained ever since.

My entire life I have always contemplated what I really wanted to be when I grow up. And, at the age of 52 I think I am about ready to make that decision.

I am ready to emerge; chrysalis like. So here comes The Social Media Virgin.

The loves of my life are my 7 year old Jack Russell, Ziggy and my slightly older grown-up daughter Lady Laura, and as she often reminds me, my preference is usually in that order.

Fortunate enough to live in Whitley Bay on the North East coast, my home life really is a beach. Perfectly positioned to be in the city centre of Newcastle or nearby countryside of Northumberland within the space of 20 minutes.

I hate holidays but love travel, hate gin but love rum, hate fast food & takeaways but love restaurants & fine dining and strangely I love a bit of colouring in!

How To Set Up a Blog and Social Media | Blogging tips | The Social Media Virgin Blog

Social media has never interested me

I have always, and I mean ALWAYS, resisted the urge to become involved in any social media and prefer the anonymity of ‘living off the grid’. Having recently read several articles about the increasing trend of blogging, vlogging, tweeting, pinning and instagramming and the ability to generate a healthy income from such activities, when I woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago I thought I would undertake my own social experiment.

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Is it really that easy that anyone can do it and make some money from it? If the millennials can do it, can Generation X or the Baby Boomers?

So here it comes thesocialmediavirgin.com

I quite like the name and it is really an apt description for my venture, the fact it took the 7 minute car journey to work to come up with it shouldn’t be held against me, if it had taken 2 weeks I don’t think I could have done any better. Decision taken and one tick for the check list.

The Challenge

Having loosely decided on a goal – starting with zero access to social media and therefore zero following, my intention is to have 365 days of immersive social media to gain a following of 36,500 and generate an income of £36,500.

I intend to start in earnest on my birthday which is on 27 September 2017. Until then I am in training/set up mode. Between now and launch day (which may just turn out to be lunch day instead) I have a lot of preparation and research to get through so that I am as ready as I can be.

I have a brand and for £11.04 I have just purchased my domain name from GoDaddy for 2 years, however, since writing this I found Bluehost give you a FREE DOMAIN here when you purchase hosting for $2.95 per month.

This is me thesocialmediavirgin.com and as they say come check me out!

I have done this immediately so that I am committed to my new venture. Just having the idea and then doing nothing about it is usually my trait but this time I mean business and I am doing it for real.

My Ever Growing Check List

  • Brand & domain name – check
  • Logo required?
  • Sign up to a blogging platform
  • Create a business email account
  • Create a social media Twitter account
  • Sign up to Instagram
  • Sign up to Facebook (don’t gasp this has just never been my thing)
  • Create my first YouTube video (get instructions from 9-year-old nephew for this)
  • Sign up for Pinterest
  • Join a blogging group
  • Do I need to create an email list?
  • How do I take decent photos?
  • What’s an Instagram story? (ask teenage niece)
  • How do I set up affiliate marketing?
  • How do I use Adsense?
  • What on earth am I doing!

What’s it Worth? 

Right, it’s not my intention to seek out ‘free stuff‘ as there is undoubtedly a cost to my time and resources involved in any reviews, critiques etc, and in order to achieve my goal I must be clear from the outset how valuable my time actually is.

(Add to the list – Calculate the value of me) it is worth adding at this point I work full time in a busy office and will be doing this in my extremely valuable spare time so it needs to be correctly evaluated. I also need to calculate the amount of effort in relationship to the level of any income so as part of my monthly income reporting I will also aim to add a summary of time expended.

I am also thinking that although new to all of this my value should be high, a lady of a certain age and experience shouldn’t underestimate her worth. (Sounds like a noteworthy motivational quote) added to that people of my age have available time, money and inclination to expend on travel, dining, fashion & beauty products etc. Is this my demographic or do I appeal to a broader market? No doubt another question for the ever increasing list.

The Perfect Reader

Just read an article on being specific about your one perfect reader and tailoring your blog to that individual. So I am now aiming at;
Gender = non specific
Age = young at heart
Interests = life

Now I have started writing and have a domain name I feel that I need a platform to see if I can ‘reach out’ and attract my first followers. I am thinking I will go for advice in my research phase from complete strangers as my first port of call and gather genuine interest rather than just sign up friends and family to make it look like I have a few followers!

More for the list

How do I use hashtags?
Do I need to buy a good camera?
Should I include a lifestyle blog that covers a multitude rather than solely concentrate on the recording of this adventure. Needs more thought.
Should I have a daily question so that I can get traction?
Do I really need to start everything I say with the word ‘so’?
I might need to learn to type on my phone with more than just one finger!

My list will no doubt grow as I think of more things, hopefully though I will tick off a few quite quickly, especially those that have just popped onto the list as random thoughts.

I am thinking a guest post on an established blog might be a good opportunity to get me started and if I manage to ask some worthwhile questions I may get some good responses. I’m more than happy to listen to advice from anyone to get me off the ground.

I Need Help!

Pick a question from my list and give me your best start-up advice.

Email: Hello@elleblondedigital.com

Instagram: @thesocialmediavirgin #thesocialmediavirgin

Twitter: @thesocialvmv

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