Over the past few months I have been have been trying to decide what direction I want Running With Tongs to go in.
One of the things that keeps coming up in conversations I’ve had with other bloggers is how I’ve approached dividing my content between my several blogs and social media accounts. The one question that keeps coming up is “Why do you have so many accounts?”. The truth is, I’ve been hesitant to mix my content on Running With Tongs since getting negative feedback several years ago when sharing my stories of my first pregnancy.
It left me feeling pressured to separate my life as a mom from my interests in food and fitness. But without sharing all of this, I feel like I’m not giving a fair representation of who I am to you. The truth is, I’m not just a lifestyle blogger or a parenting blogger. I am a mom. I love food and fitness. I’m passionate about natural body care and make up. I’m an essential oils educator and wellness advocate. I want to share all of this with you. These are the things I want to talk about with my friends and that’s what we are here, friends.
I’ll still be maintaining a couple different social media accounts, but I’m incredibly excited to get back to writing and sharing a lot more of me and my passions with you here on Running With Tongs.
I thought (like most other bloggers) I would weigh in on the new Instagram Story v. Snapchat. I have to say my initial response was no. Just no. It took me a year to finally fully embrace Snapchat and I love it so why is Instagram coming in and trying to take over.
The thing is though as I have been playing around with Instagram Stories I have come to really like it. I have realized [for me] that Snapchat and Instagram Stories are two different things. Snapchat is a fun way for me to connect, be a little goofy and share a bit of my life to anyone who wants to follow me.
Instagram Stories allows me to filter a bit more of my content so that it focuses more specifically to my followers of each of my [too] many Instagram accounts. If I want to share family things I’ll share it on my Naturally Family, healthy living/fitness/food on RunWithTongs, Essential Oils on Essentially Lindsay, health and wellness coaching on PDXHealthCoach and beauty/makeup on Naturally Lindsay.
Instagram Stories also allows me to connect with a huge range of people who I don’t follow/don’t follow me on Snapchat (I’m lindsayingalls if you do want to follow). I love being able to connect with others so for me this is the biggest selling point of Instagram Stories.
Will I be leaving Snapchat though? NO WAY! It’s such a fun spot to be on and the filters (which yes, I know IG will also have eventually). I use Snapchat to give a little highlight into my day/life. It’s basically my lazy way of daily vlogging.
So both have their pros and cons but it seems that both Istagram Stories and Snapchat have their place in this social media world.
I first started blogging back in 2006, well if you don’t count that LiveJournal account I had back in high school. Since then, I have had my ups and downs with blogging. I have had times where I dedicated a lot of my time and focus on my blog and other times where it kind of fell to the wayside. We have gone through name changes and content changes and here we are back at this place where I don’t know what to do.
I love blogging.
I have a book full of post ideas, photos I dream of taking, and things I want to share, but finding the time to do all this has become my struggle. This isn’t meant to be a woe is me kind of post more of a post to share what I’m thinking and hopefully to get some input.
With a one year old and three year old life is pretty chaotic these days. In addition to the standard demands of parenting, we have decided to unschool/homeschool so of course there is a lot of time and focus on this part of our lives.
Speaking of time we recently moved to a new house and my husband now commutes 1.5-2 hours per day via public transit (one car family). That means he is usually gone from around 6/7am to 5:30/6pm everyday. By the time he is home it’s dinner, cleaning/playtime and then bedtime for the kids. This should be when I workout (haha) or make time to do blogging projects but instead I feel exhausted and sit on the couch or head to bed early. Weekends come and we are catching up on errands and chores or heading out on family adventures. This is our favorite time of the week (well maybe not the chores!) and a chance for us to catch up and enjoy family time together.
Basically I have been feeling like I don’t know where to go from here. You see blogging is kind of my thing that isn’t taking care of the kids or the house but it’s something I don’t find I get to put much creativity into lately. I guess a part of me is wondering for those of you who also have other demands (work, kids, house, partner, working out social life, etc) how do you balance things?
Ultimately I don’t want to quit blogging because I love it I am just in a situation right now where I don’t know how to find the balance and the time. I’m hoping that maybe I’ll leave The Hello Sessions (blog conference I am attending Friday) with a better perspective, some inspiration and hopefully come out of it feeling refreshed.
So no I am not quitting. I enjoy it too much. Rather I am in need of a bit of time management and focused blogging time because I have a lot of ideas. Tell me how do you find the balance?
Hi Friends! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! We spent the weekend sippingcoffee, shopping at the farmers market and playing at the pumpkin patch. Now it’s Monday and I’m wondering where the bottomless cup of coffee is while I wait for Ikea to deliver our new mattress (wahoo!). I’m working on improving content over here on RWT and I have a survey for you to take (it takes literally 30 seconds) so if you wouldn’t mind clicking here and taking it I’ll be forever grateful.
*Click the words above to view photos from our weekend via our Instagram accounts.
Disclaimer: I have chosen to the blackout the names of the people, event and minor details in order to not draw negative attention to this specific event or the people involved.
Source*
I was recently approached about covering a local event here in Portland. I was thrilled to be asked and was really excited about the event. The initial e-mail didn’t include any details beyond when, what and a link to the event so I responded that I was interested and looked forward to hearing more. Finally 18 days later I heard back from my contact stating that media bloggers would be receiving standard passes and that more details would be sent soon regarding the event. This was my first red flag.
A standard individual pass for this event has a value of $20 however at the time this was all happening you could buy a standard pass for $10 via groupon. This standard pass basically included admission and few minor things that really had little to no value.
My response to this email: Five Days Later this is their response:
Hours:
2-3 Weeks of Social Media Buzz –> 2 hours
Attend Event and Interview Sponsors, Interview Key Note Speakers, and Live Social Media Coverage –> 8 hours
Blog post about event –> 4 hours (this includes time to edit photos, work on the post, edit post, social media around post )
Blog post review for the kit –> 3 hours (this includes time to edit photos, work on the post, edit post, social media around post )
Total Time: 17 Hours
Value: $80 = $4.70/hour –> I do not consider the Blogger Power Hour or VIP seating to have any value in the situation. As for a Blogger Exhibit space a. I don’t have a newsletter and promotional material beyond my business cards to hand out and b. I am not sure how I am supposed to attend the event, interview companies and key note speakers and try to work an exhibitor table; honestly it’s easier for me to walk around and interact with attendees and pass out my business cards. The Kit valued at $50 really shouldn’t be in the “what we’d love to offer you” section but rather in the “what we’d love from you” due to the fact that there is an expectation to do a blog review and company profile with it; as you can see this blog post is included above in the hours.
For fun let’s consider the giveaway option as well:
Blog post prior to event –> 2 hours
Standard sidebar AD
Total Time: 2 hours
Value: $30 – $20 for sidebar AD = $10
Total Value for both: $90/19hours = $4.73/hour <– minimum wage in Oregon is $9.10/hour and LIVING WAGE is $9.42/hour
Needless to say I declined participating as a blogger at this event because simply the cost/benefit of attending was just not worth it. I honestly felt insulted by the imbalance between the offer and expectations.
Curious about how much I’m worth? My rates basic rates for a sponsored blog post including 3-5 social media shares starts at a value of $100 however the average is $175 –> what is that hourly? $175 divided by 7 hours (prep, photos, post, edits, social media) = average $25/hour. While I do some free work/product only work I am selective about who I work with and only tend to work with companies that I already have a relationship with or ones that have a product/service that I love or think is a good fit for me, my blog and my readers.
How much are you worth? Consider this next time you are approached to review a product or attend an event.
Update: Since I wrote this post I did end up attending the event however not as a blogger but with a company that I work with frequently. The event overall was unfortunately poorly run and has resulted in a lot of negative feedback from attendees. I have to say in the end I am glad that I did not participate in this event as a blogger because I honestly would have had very little positive feedback to provide my readers. I also ran into a fellow blogger at the event who also had been invited to be a VIP blogger and she also declined due the requirements and the simple fact that their expectations versus the compensation was simply insulting.
I have notebooks filled with blog ideas and yet I often find myself struggling to write. Often this struggle isn’t because I am feeling uninspired (although sometimes that is the case) it’s more often that I am tired out and unfocused. When this happens I look elsewhere for inspiration to help me get more focused and back on track for example my Currently posts.
I have been working on creating a resource list and have been taking advantage of Pinterest to keep track of a variety of resources.
Other helpful ways to help me stay inspired is by hearing back from you all! So please take a moment and share with me something you’d love to read about on the blog. Maybe you’d like to read more about weekly workouts, prenatal workouts, recipes (specific, general, an ingredient), my healthy living tips, day in the life, meals, sites and eats around Portland, basically anything that you want to read- share below!
