Blogging Your Way Masterclass - Self Study Course

What if you woke up tomorrow and your Instagram account was hacked? How would reach your followers, the ones that you spent years growing? I first launched my blogging classes in 2009 because at that time, I’d been blogging for a little over 3 years and my readers were filling my inbox every week with requests for help - how to set up a blog, how to become successful at it, what platform to use, how to write a blog post, and I was answering them as much as time allowed for it - sometimes until late at night and into the next morning. That’s when I knew I needed to do something with my knowledge and my classes were born.

I’ve been teaching in many creative ways ever since - through (obviously) my online classes but also in my podcasts, blog posts here on decor8, in-person workshops, lectures, you name it - and most are free - because I truly love to help others and to teach in all formats - it’s a fun challenge and I enjoy it.

However, to earn a living, my online courses have to come with a fee though I’ve kept them very affordable over the years so those at all financial levels can invest in themselves and in their business by taking a class with me. My courses are truly life-changing, I have examples of some of my students who have taken courses with me and went on to launch 6-figure businesses with a blog as their base.

My classes are offered as self-study programs and, once a year, I have a big class that is taught live. The love classes are taught cohort style so I’m answering questions, checking weekly homework assignments for students, and we “meet” together once a week in a group chat for an hour or more. The once-a-year course is when I clear my calendar and do nothing except teach for 6 weeks so I can focus on only my students.

I decided to teach my BLOGGING YOUR WAY MASTERCLASS live and then, taught it live a second time before allowing it to live on its own as a self-study program. I’m teaching blogging classes (also BLOGGING TODAY) because a few things are happening online currently that truly concern me.

First, many are drained and are becoming emotionally unwell using Instagram so frequently. This is a big topic, mental health, and I’ve seen many return to blogging as a result - still maintaining Instagram but not pouring their heart and soul into it as much. Or they are going to Substack, which is why I’ve also created a Substack Masterclass.

Blogs and Substack are less competitive, more intelligent, move a little slower, less FOMO, no doom scrolling, and peaceful…

The next concern that I have is how influencers and former bloggers spend every second on Instagram. Bloggers have paused or stopped blogging to build their businesses on very unstable grounds with the ‘gram. Influencers only focus on Insta, many don’t even have a website or blog. Bad idea. We can’t repeat their mistakes.

For bloggers who started on or before 2014, we know the importance of building something first on a website with a blog (or just a blog) then add a mailing list where we feed our subscribers interesting content on a somewhat regular basis.

Consistency (weekly) is very important. The importance of owning our mailing list, and our domain and blogs/websites, and marketing through blogs is what today’s influencers may call old school or simply dumb but they are wrong. Most of them didn’t start with a blog, so they have no understanding of its value - they just signed up for Instagram and boom! They were off.

Is it wise to grow your entire business on a platform that you don’t pay for, that has no customer service, and that can be blocked or banned or worse, shut down or hacked?

On a free platform, you lack control. In order to run a profitable, sustainable small business you have to build it on something solid. If you are a blogger who lost interest in blogging, please reconsider going back to your blog and writing once a week and most urgently, get a mailing list up and running NOW. Don’t wait.

What if you woke up tomorrow morning and your Instagram account was gone? How would reach your followers, the ones that you spent years growing?

I recently had one of my Instagram accounts hacked and I was able to get it back, but the other account was taken down by Instagram a few years ago for supposedly being a spam account and it was never reinstated and I lost thousands of followers overnight. It wasn’t a spam account. I still don’t know what happened.

I have many friends who had similar problems - they were hacked or shut down - they lost their password and couldn’t recover it - someone added them to a follow/unfollow service, they were banned, and they lost 20K, 30K, 100K followers overnight.

I like Instagram, it’s a fun platform for sharing and finding wonderful accounts, for making friends, for fast connections and chats - I’m not totally knocking the ‘gram. I cherish my followers there and I’m always thinking of new ways to make them smile BUT don’t build your entire business on one platform. Have a blog or better yet, a website with a blog and a mailing list. This is how you avoid losing your followers overnight. This is also how you build a strong mailing list of potential customers.

Before I wrap up, I want to say this. I recently conducted a poll with over 15,000 participants and learned that over 88% go to Google and 67% search Pinterest when they need news, information, ideas, tips, and more.

In fact, this very blog still has most of it’s traffic daily (87%) coming over from Pinterest and Google with about 3% from Instagram. THREE PERCENT.

Millions of people search for information using Pinterest and search engines every second of the day, and from there, most end up on either a website or a blog. They don't land on your Instagram account! You won't be found in millions of daily searches on Google if you're only on Instagram and that is what the new influencers don’t consider and this is what they are missing.

There are so many other reasons to blog, have a mailing list, and use sites like Instagram to grow your mailing list and market your business - that is why I created two self-study courses around blogging, mailing lists and content creation: My ultimate BLOGGING YOUR WAY MASTERCLASS and the BLOGGING TODAY course.

Hugs,

Holly

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