Question:

I was wondering if you could share your experience, how did you get into blogging and reviewing DVDs? I have my own fitness business and I want to start a fitness article & product review blog. I just don’t know where to begin 🙂 How did you find companies willing to send you their products to review? Thanks in advance for your time 🙂 – Pam Nixon

Answer:

There are probably others who have considered getting into blogging about their yoga journey but are not sure how. Here’s how I got started back in 2007, which is a long time ago, but in may ways the principles of starting are the same.

Luckily, putting yourself out there is pretty simple to get started, whether it is blogging or starting a social media account. It doesn’t cost much, except for your time!

I’ve probably spent under $100 in total to launch my Blog and most of it was spent on Blogging books. For starting out, I recommend doing your research on the platform you most like to use and try to get a feel for what is going on there. Get the latest advice on your tech choices too. Will you be working from a desktop, laptop, or phone? What editing, scheduling, and posting software will make it easier and faster. You can find so much information for free on-line, but it may take you a while so why not just get the book and have all the information at your fingertips.

Pam also asked, how I got products to review and give away? The truth is that all these companies approached me to offer their product. So I’ll give you a short history of how I think this happened.

The World is Your Audience

I first started blogging about a year and a half ago when I took a business development class with an associate of my meditation teacher. It was about the nuts and bolts of building an on-line business. It inspired me to see the opportunities opening up across the world. We were encouraged to set up a free blog and practice writing and dream of ways we could do business on-line.

In the Summer of 2007, I started and ended about 3 different blogs until I decided on my topic – Teaching Kids Yoga. My posts were infrequent at the beginning but my mission was to give A LOT of free information about this niche topic in Yoga. Finding a niche is highly recommended for new bloggers. If you are interested in reviewing products you may try to narrow down to a niche of only certain products. Plus when you find a niche that is really interesting to you, it is easier to write the content with authority and passion.

Social Media is about Being Social

At the same time I started reading other blogs and subscribing to the ones I like. Not only yoga blogs, but business blogs, and blogging blogs. There are so many helpful people out there. I started leaving comments and it was like being involved in many conversations. I felt like I knew many of the bloggers I follow.

The Time Factor of Blogging

The big cost of blogging is the time it takes time to write the posts.

Plus the time it takes to read other blogs.

And the time it takes for readers to find you and to build yourself a community.

Reviewing Products on Your Blog

The product reviews started when a few companies approached me about their products. One straight out contacted me and offered DVDs to review on my blog and give away to readers. The other company e-mailed me about their product and I e-mailed them back offering to review it and do a give-a-way. In both cases it has worked out well for everyone.

In the beginning I was open to collaborating because I was looking for topics to cover to bring readers to my website/blog. Over the years, I do less collaborations unless it is a product directly related to kids yoga, and mostly then it is a product one of the graduates of my training has created.

My time became more valuable and I just didn’t have enough time to keep up with the requests. But there also became more noise online. In 2007, having a blog was unique, now every social media account is a mini-blog of thoughts and activities to share, it’s never- ending now.  

My Blog Vision Now

Now, what I feel is important is to keep my blog human created. There is so much AI slop being put out, sometimes I read an article and I literally can’t understand what their point is, or the advice does not match what my experience tells me. I immediately suspect it wasn’t written by a human with actual experience teaching kids yoga.

My blog-time is spent now going over my older blog posts and updating them for what is going on now.

People are still reading my blog from all over the world. Big cities, small towns, well known countries and mysterious lands (to me). With a world population of 6.7 billion there’s bound to be somebody out there who wants to hear what I have to say. My goal now is to create a place that feels like a real community of people by:

• Inviting people to attend my free training on Zoom where they can actually meet me
• Giving them useful information on kids yoga that actually works, with the hope that they will want to stay in touch and get the newsletter,
• and eventually, if they want to take a training, they feel it will be worth it to take the Certification training that goes more in-depth than a blog can.

If you want to get started blogging, it will take a lot of time, so you want to thing of your objectives too. What is the end goal of creating a blog?

Then there comes a time when you put down the books, stop reading other blogs, and just start writing. If you really want to blog … you have to become a writer. Even before you decide on a name or a platform to host your blog on, start writing articles. Start writing articles. Just list the topics you could write about. And write, write, write.

When it comes to blogging, writing is never a waste of time. It will come in very handy later when your blog is up and running and you want to reach out to your readers and you can grab an article and share it with them.

Thanks again for the question Pam. I’d love to see a link to your blog if you decide it is something you want to go ahead with.

Now a Question to everyone reading – do you have a blog? Is your blog part of your business? How has blogging helped your business? Why do you blog?