Hi there! I'm Jasmin and I'm a rising junior in college. That's more or less what the first sentence of the 'About the Author' page on my blog says. And before you ask, no, I'm not referring to a Tumblr blog; I mean an actual website that I pay to have hosted online with my own domain name. Nothing against Tumblr or anything, this is just a clarification that I've had to make many times. I'm primarily a college lifestyle blogger who also talks about style, beauty, food and my adventures journeying beyond my college campus. It's what I love to do—my natural high, if you will.
When some people think of the term 'blogger,' they sometimes think of wannabe journalists who think that sticking a picture of a sunset on a beach with a bit of text is using observational skills to report on the world around them. And then some people think that bloggers are super fashionable influencers who always know what's up and are always running off to NYC, L.A., or the Hamptons for extravagant events. Well, my experience blogging isn't like either of those predictions. And in case you firmly believe that having a blog actually is nothing like having a business, here's some behind the scenes action for you.
As a blogger, you really learn that marketing is a true roller coaster ride. It is hard work gathering followers and convincing people that what you have to say is totally worth the read. In fact, I'd say that marketing your blog is more work than actually writing the blog posts! I've learned what to post, when to post, where to post, and how to do it all over again the next day, and the day after that and the day after that. As long as I'm not in class, not studying or doing homework, and not working, I'm on social media increasing my audience. I have definitely gotten eye-rolls and head-shakes from peers who see me watching my number of Twitter followers like a hawk. Pass me off as an internet-obsessed millennial if you want, I'd think to myself as I'd happily sip iced coffee with my laptop in front of me.
And by the way, your followers and readers are your customers. Granted they aren't actually paying money to read your posts (unless you're offering them an e-book or merchandise) you still treat them like they're paying a million bucks to read your words. That is, you aim to give them unique information that only you have—you make it as original as you can. You run an honest and reliable ship—if your readers can't trust your information, they stop coming. You want to provide a convenient experience for your readers, so you make shopping between your posts and pages as fluent as possible. There are also other businesses out there like yours—people doing the same exact thing; people doing something slightly different; and people doing something completely different. And the icing on the cake: you make your blog and all of its posts as attractive and window display-worthy as possible. All this takes a helluva lot of planning, but for some reason, it seems to get more and more exciting every time.
Some people say it's hard enough to find the motivation to get out of bed and study for an exam. You need an immense amount of self-discipline to be a good blogger. You are your own boss, which means you have to motivate yourself to meet your own deadlines, set deadlines in the first place, and really do everything you can to make sure your readers get the experience you want them to get after reading one of your posts. There is no syllabus, and the closest thing to a blogging study guide you might have is a checklist created by an angelic fellow blogger that you stumbled upon on Pinterest.
All that and more on top of class projects, homework assignments, exams left and right, extracurriculars and a social life—some people may call it a mental breakdown, but I call it inspiration. Yes, it does get hard and really crazy when you should've published your blog post 20 hours ago but instead something came up that you had to look after. Or when you need to wake up extra early in the morning to take photos for your blog because afterward you'll be in class until late at night, and you need that nice natural lighting for great pictures. Or when you haven't been able to publish a post in a week and a half because you've just become so bogged down with everything else going on. But you'd rather do it properly and perfectly the first time than to half-ass it, so you give yourself some time to re-charge your powers so you can go back to being the hero your loyal readers love hearing sassy posts from.
As far as opportunities go, you get some great ones. And you don't even have to wait to until you graduate to encounter brands from 'the real world' because you're already jumping on those. From time to time, you get contacted by PR Officers from brands that would like to partner with you to promote a product or offer discounts to viewers, and you learn how to handle those situations with excitement and professionalism. You also learn that you hate waiting for people to contact you, so things get real and you shed your shyness and take the initiative to reach out to the right people yourself (which, by the way, really comes in handy on multiple occasions in college).
My laptop is one of my closest friends, and my blog is basically an offspring, and I definitely work super hard to reach my goals and get where I want to be. The experience that does this is different for everyone, but blogging is what has taught me some of the most important lessons ever—the ones you don't ever learn in a classroom; the ones people don't tell you because they don't want to discourage you; the ones that make victory taste a million times sweeter.
