Over at Back in Skinny Jeans, I shared the back story of my "success story" and that I landed my first TV spot. Woo-hoo! Yes, I was a featured success story on CNBC's "On the Money Show" with Carmen Wong Ulrich about becoming one of the top healthy living bloggers in the world.
Indeed, for a blogger, getting TV love is a huge deal mainly because it helps to punt you into a new level and it is fabulous for building your brand and influence on and off line. I find it really wonderful that my first TV spot is on a show about money and finance when I'm a healthy living/lifestyle blogger. I haven't even (yet) been on a show about health, wellness, or lifestyles; my niche. But that's cool. Not complaining. I'm very grateful!
So how did I land this CNBC gig?
In December, last month, pal Allese who works at Wesabe as their Community Manager talked to me about doing something for New Year's resolutions that ties health and money together as the two are intertwined. I loved this idea because I didn't want to do yet another weight loss NY's resy-thingy-mabob on Back in Skinny Jeans (BISJ). {yawn}
Yearning for something fresh yet leveraging what ya got
I wanted to do something different and fresh yet that still took advantage of the high number of weight loss searches I would normally get because BISJ ranks high in those SEO terms. So, I got creative and came up with the Skinny Debt Diet (SD Diet) that would help people boost their financial wellness and help them achieve a size zero debt. I decided to focus on the SD Diet for the month of January, and here's all the content so far. If I do say so myself, the brilliance of the Skinny Debt Diet from an online traffic perspective is:
- I leverage more search hits for the words: skinny, diet, wellness, size zero, fitness, food, finances, and feelings (The four categories of the SD Diet)...without focusing on weight loss. My focus is actually building overall wellness physically and fiscally which is still very much related to my core blog topic.
- In addition, I'm helping women to start shifting focus on other things than their body and beauty, and in these tough economic times, money is a priority for everyone.
- The SD Diet also leverages the large number of searches people are doing for personal finance topics and terms because of these economic times. So, I'm building a new pool of search reach.
- I can package all of the content I develop from the Skinny Debt Diet and turn it into a book for sale.
I wanted to integrate a community aspect for the SD Diet but do it in a place that was finance related so it could live on and on beyond BISJ. Plus, a new online community gives me as a blogger another place to again build my brand and online influence. And this is where Wesabe came in.
Sometimes you can get good deals that don't involve money
Now normally, for the level of exposure and partnership I'm doing with Wesabe for this Skinny Debt Diet, I would have asked them for sponsorship money because I'm doing way more work than just throwing a link to them and doing a few Twitter shouts. What I'm doing is bigger scale.
But, I didn't ask for money but, not to worry, I still asked the question, "So what do I get out of this?" I'm still a blogger who's gotta eat at the end of the day. As well, Wesabe is a startup that is not profitable yet, and so having worked at startups myself I know that getting dollars would be hard. But, this is where creativity comes in because there is always things of value that can be exchanged.
Pitch me baby!
So, we bartered, and the worm that hooked me was getting me pitched to the CNBC "On the Money Show" because TV is GOOD for a blogger especially when it's a "success story." Wesabe's CEO Marc Hedlund is a regular contributor to "On the Money," and CNBC loves the idea of featuring everyday people becoming successful. Wesabe has pitched several of their community members to CNBC. In fact, if you want a shot, here's how you can apply. Tell 'em Stephanie sent ya!
Wesabe didn't guarantee that I'd get on the show because that's entirely up to the "On the Money" producer, but they did guarantee that they would pitch me, and that was good for me. I felt confident to take the risk that I had a good story. And it happened fast people, Wesabe pitched me on Monday, Jan. 12, and I was on the show that Fri, Jan. 16. It felt like lightening: in a good way.
Treasures I didn't expect
But best, I've gotten to create a really nice new community over on Wesabe with our Skinny Debt Dieters Group. Going into week #3, we have 45 members and 26 discussions going on which is way more than I expected. I didn't realize that personal finance could be fun, and the tips and insights I've gotten in our SD Dieters group is phenomenal. I've learned so much!
Creating the Skinny Debt Diet and working with Wesabe has also helped my blog brand and influence extend into a new blog community: personal finance which I gotta say is pretty cool. Here's 10 personal finance blogs that knocked my socks off. As a blogger, being part of more communities can only benefit you and your readers.
I have to mention too that I wanted to do this Skinny Debt Diet with Wesabe because their core values fit with my values, and our brands are a nice fit. As well, the folks I work with at Wesabe are really cool people. I like them. Vice-President of Marketing Gabriel Griego even took the time to do a personalized video for my BISJ readers. Cool huh! There has been nothing but good vibes in this whole deal. And this is something very important to me, to work with good people where it "flows."
What I think of the advice the "On the Money" experts gave me
First, I can't tell you how grateful I am to be getting help from money people. I am very appreciative of their time. The advice the experts on "On the Money" gave me to grow my earnings from blogging included landing speaking deals and doing consulting work, and to ditch the book deal idea because people are reading more online than in paper.
So, I totally agree on the speaking and consulting work. I'm discovering that there is big money in consulting which I can easily jump more into as I've already been doing some social media consulting. And as for speaking, you're now seeing online personas score big like videoblogger Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV who is repped by CAA who also reps the likes of Kate Winslet, Brad Pitt, and Reese Witherspoon.
I do disagree with the book deal advice. First, because it has been my dream since high school to be a published author, and I'm not giving that up. In fact, I declared already that 2009 is the year I get a book deal. And second, a popular blog to book can become a silver screen movie. The book Julie and Julia
