Many believe that the life of an influencer is so easy, but like all things, when you’re making an income and earning a living at it, it is hard work.
Naomi Davis, author of the newly released A Coat of Yellow Paint, and Forbes Top 10 Parenting Influencer, has managed to do just that. Naomi shares her happy and helpful stories across her social media channels and award-winning website.
What started in 2007 as an online journal about her newlywed life in New York City while attending Juilliard as a dance student, Love Taza had amassed a loyal following, reaching millions around the world.
Naomi Davis
@taza
Naomi realized that she could make a viable income from her blog. However, as a blogger who wants to monetize their blog, often people don’t realize what it takes behind the scenes to keep your blog going.
Now, Naomi continues to inspire audiences with vibrant photos, engaging videos, and heartfelt words that document her adventures parenting five young children, traveling near and far, celebrating life’s simple joys, and finding purpose in the everyday.
Naomi turned her experiences with her life and family into a book to reach many with her interesting and honest stories about the journey of parenthood. The essays in her new book dive into topics she has not publicly discussed before, including how to be confident in the choices you make as a mother; overcome criticism – including from yourself – on body image, infertility, and doing enough; make childhood feel magical, and seek out adventures with your little ones; navigate spiritual upheaval and reclaim your faith; and find more soulfulness in your social media and online experience.
As @taza, Naomi has created and produced dozens of successful branded campaigns for top companies large and small. Fun accomplishments include launching a limited-edition family travel collection at Target stores nationwide and being invited to the White House by Michelle Obama, to discuss the former First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative.
The blog was such a success that Naomi’s husband, Josh, was able to leave his full-time employment to come on and help her with her business.
But as Naomi had built her business, feeling very lucky and blessed to be supported by her husband along the way, she is often left perplexed to still be dealing with gender roles. Although her husband is entirely her partner, Naomi has experienced her fair share of many crediting Love Taza’s success solely to her husband. She hopes more will recognize the power of female business leaders. Naomi writes more about this in her book with two essays titled “Dads who do Diapers” and “From Tally Keeping to Tag Teaming.”
Naomi leaves entrepreneurs who are considering the path of content creator with these tips:
1. Do your thing
Make sure what you are blogging about is what you want to do. Don’t look for others to validate what you are doing, because you need to have a passion to sustain a blogging lifestyle. Instead of focusing on what other people are doing or what you think people want to see, that passion should be unique to your interests and talents.
2. It’s a hustle
Not one to discourage anyone from pursuing a dream, Naomi just wants you to know that it does involve work. It took Naomi four years of blogging before she could make an income from it. Today it can be more difficult to monetize a blog or social media, so get familiar with blogging strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and how social media platforms work.
3. Monetization plan
These days monetizing a blog is typically calculated by the amount of visits your website gets and monetizing a social media account by how many followers you have. More important than that though is the community you create and how members of your community feel when they come to it. While it’s true that sponsors tend to invest in high traffic blogs more often than lower traffic ones or social media accounts with more followers, keep in mind how much people engage with you, what you create, and with each other. The rewards, are in building a strong community online.
The bottom line is many won’t understand how you are creating your business but you need to do it for you and not look to find that external validation. If you are doing what makes you truly happy, then that is validation enough. Be sure to grab a copy of Naomi’s book A Coat of Yellow Paint for a deeper look at her life behind the scenes as a successful mom and entrepreneur.
