This year I want to open up more and share not only a little more personal life within my typical fashion posts, but also most behind the scenes of business. I know a lot of you out there are aspiring influencers, so I’m excited to pull back the curtain on the mystery!
Before we dive into the questions, I want to mention I have a lot of resources for bloggers here on my blog and a community facebook group if you want to connect with other bloggers. I also have an in-depth course on how to be a profitable influencer, I’ll let you know when it’s open for enrollment again this year!
Answering Your Questions about Blogging Full Time
How many followers would you say you need to go full time blogging?
It definitely depends on your business strategy and of course the income you’re comfortable living off of. Without being too general, there isn’t a magic follower number! I’m assuming this question is based on Instagram followers. I could have gone full time when I had 25,000 followers on Instagram in Spring 2019, but I waited to pay off my student loans fully before making that transition. I also know a lot of influencers with twice that following that still don’t have a consistent income. Heck, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that there are plenty of influencers with over 100K+++ that don’t make anywhere you would think they do. I also know people with 1,000 followers with a different business strategy and they are full time. So it all comes down to your business plan and how you set up and monetize your business versus your follower count!
Can you write out what a typical work day looks like for you?
I think this would be better explained in a dedicated post! So I’m adding it to my content calendar for an upcoming post. I will say my schedule over the last few months looks drastically different than it did because I haven’t been feeling well, but I also learned in 2020 that I don’t have to work constantly anymore now that I’m full-time. When you work for yourself, it’s hard to set work boundaries because you’re completely responsible for your success. Maybe I will share how my schedule looked when I worked full-time, and another example of how it looks now that I do it full time.
How do you get sponsorships? I just wait for an email but should I be proactive about it?
If your goal is to generate income working with brands and you currently don’t have enough coming to you, you absolutely need to be proactive about it and pitch yourself to brands. It’s totally normal to get a lot of no’s early on, but you’ll also get yes opportunities and start a relationship with brands that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. But that’s not to say you HAVE to pitch and work with brands, either. It just depends on your goals. Fortunately, I have enough coming in where I don’t need to outreach myself.
Do you constantly feel the need to keep up with other bloggers? If not, how do you avoid it?
I think every blogger, whether they admit it or not, gets caught up in comparison at some point. This industry can be very vanity-metric focused and we all know Instagram is a highlight reel. To me, things like comparing likes, for example, doesn’t take up my energy because I don’t think it’s a metric directly related to my value, let alone something I can significantly control. I try to focus more on the things I can control, such as my content and serving my community.
I know a lot of influencers, especially in the early stages, think their numbers are abnormal because of who and what they’re comparing themselves to. I think it mostly stems from your own personal imposter syndrome more than anything. The only person and metrics you can accurately compare is your own month over month to see how to improve.
If you do find yourself in a negative space, I would recommend muting or unfollowing those who you compare yourself to. I would also just stop looking at whatever is triggering that for you. Take a step back and re-evaluate why this is getting to you, remember what you can directly control, and where to better focus your energy on instead.
Do you ever get tired of keeping up with the “aesthetic” of blogging/social media?
I would say I more so get tired of the constant worry to please the masses on social media, especially after 2020. Everyone is so quick to judge and cancel someone these days, and it almost feels impossible to not offend someone or something being taken the wrong way. I second guess and try to analyze everything before it’s posted, and that gets exhausting.
How long did you consistently post before you started making a salary?
Long story short, it took about 1.5 years for me to grow from zero income to a full-time income once I started posting consistently and committed. I also waited to go full-time for my student loans to be fully paid off, so the timeline will of course look different for everyone based on their lifestyle and what type of salary they are wanting to replace. Looking back if I didn’t have student loans or deal with guilt over quitting my doctorate career, I could have gone full time within 12 months.
Are you able to see who supports and shops through your links?
I can’t see any individual information on the analytics side of things, just that this item was clicked on this many times, and this is the commission. There would be some privacy issues if that was disclosed, I’m sure! I answer most common questions on how affiliate links work in this post.
But, I do see and recognize the people who are always supporting via likes and comments, and I can’t thank you enough for that! xoxo
Do you still work full-time?
I switched from full-time to a PRN position in September 2019. I worked maybe twice a week, with periodic blocks in my schedule to better cover holidays or when I traveled. In March when COVID hit, my company didn’t need as much support from PRN’s because patient loads changed, so I didn’t work from March to mid-July. Once they started asking for me to come back, I had already been working full time and starting a second business so I decided to not go back! I shared more on that in this life update post.
How do you resize images for your blog so they still look good?
The size of your images depends on your blog layout, the display width of the device someone is on, and how optimized you want your site to be (aka how quick you want it to load). I have a web developer that created something to optimize all my blog images for me, so I don’t even resize them anymore, it’s all done automatically!
How do you do taxes and is the income more or less than being a PT?
My business is taxed as an S-corp and get’s pretty complicated, especially now that I have two businesses. So I pay a pretty penny for an accountant to handle all my business and our personal tax concerns. My taxes aren’t automatically pulled out like a typical employer, so I have to set aside money and save for taxes.
Since I’m an S-corp, I pay myself a salary from the business. In order to pay less personal income taxes (which is close to 50% since I”m also the employer paying the other side of things), I set my salary as low as possible. I took a questionnaire from my accountant to determine an appropriate salary so the IRS doesn’t come at me lol.
I also match my personal retirement contributions from my business. I think that’s something that would surprise a lot of people who don’t own their own business. Your business has a gross revenue, you pay your business and personal taxes, save for retirement, and what’s left over doesn’t all end up in your personal bank account 😉
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I still have a lot of questions I wasn’t able to answer today, so I’m thinking it may be helpful to do more consistent blogging related Q&A’s in my profitable influencer newsletter. If you’re interested in receiving those, you can subscribe below. If you have any questions you’d like answered in an upcoming Ask an Influencer Q&A, leave them in the comments below!
Thanks for reading!
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xoAmanda
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