I started this blog in college but allowed my school and work-life to push this to the back burner. This month, I decided to stop making excuses and come back to blogging.

Restarting wasn’t easy. I had to set aside time to execute and produce content I was proud of.

Although starting over is challenging, I believe it was the best decision that I made this year. I posted more in 30 days than I have in 3 years! I am so proud of myself for sticking to it, even on the hardest of days. Today, I am going to share 5 best practices for anyone who wants to start creating content:

1. Plan, plan, plan: Preparation is key. If you are juggling a 9-5 and content creation, automation is your friend. There are so many tools and resources to help make your life easy and even post your content for you! You just have to take the time to find them and set them up properly. Be specific about EVERYTHING you need to do to prevent over committing and schedule your time appropriately, which brings us to the next best practice.
2. Be realistic about time: Producing content almost always takes more time than you think. Be sure to cut your work into small chunks and give yourself some cushion time to prevent overwhelm. I totally underestimated the amount of time it would take me to film and edit my first IGTV video.
3. Clean your camera: I shoot all of my content using an iPhone 11. Before I shoot, I always make sure to wipe the camera in order to capture quality photos.
4. Provide value: Your audience wants to learn more about you, but they also want information that is beneficial for them. As you become more purposeful, you may lose some followers. Don’t be discouraged because you will replace them with the audience you are meant to serve. When you are intentional about your content, your ideal audience will find you and will likely engage with your content more than anyone who unfollowed you.
5. Be authentic: Everything I share is relevant to my self-care journey. I don’t share anything that I wouldn’t actually use or wear. People sense when you are inauthentic. We often look to others and emulate what they are doing. Create your own aesthetic. To do so, you may need to try a couple of different looks before you land on one that you and your audience love.

As you can see, I learned a lot during the #mjconsistencychallenge over the last 4 weeks. It forced me to step outside of my comfort zone, yet it was 100% worth it.

As a result of being consistent, I was able to achieve over 1000 blog views, 2 brand features, and an increase of 20+ followers in less than 30 days.

I appreciate all the love and support you all have shown and I hope you all continue to join me in this #bloglife! Email list coming soon!