I remember hearing the girls (with about 50K on IG at the time) talk about getting ready to leave their full times job to blog and not understanding how they were making that kind of money … I’ll share how much I made off the blog in 2014 a few comments below, but it wasn’t nearly enough to pay my rent!įor the blogger event I threw # Macaronsandmimosas, I reached out to a million PR contacts and asked them to gift goodies for the gift bags. In an attempt to meet some gals, I hosted a blogger party at my apartment and invited all my favorite girls – this also helped me grow on Instagram by about 1K. I didn’t have any blogger friends and that was really hard on me (I’m a people person). I constantly reached out to brands, publications, and pr firms and spent all of my time blogging to the beat of my own drum.Īlthough I was doing my own thing, I still felt alone in the blogger community. I strayed from typical methods of growing (basically every method you could read about on the internet at the time) and developed my own ways of building a community and following. Although I still struggled with shooting sans sunglasses, I did my best to get good shots despite loosing this security blanket. I stopped stalking other bloggers and started looking for inspiration within. It didn’t happen over night but I gradually started to shed the sunnies, show my face (and personality), and dress outside the lines. I quickly realized that if I wanted to be successful, there were a lot of unknowns, but I was sure of one thing – if I was going to spend my nights, mornings, lunch breaks and weekends working on Color Me Courtney, the brand I was going to build had to be 100% unapologetically me. I was putting all of my energy into working from 9-5 and keeping up this blogger charade in my free time. I bought the sunglasses they wore, attempted to re-create outfits that emulated their style and tried (and failed) at perfecting their poses … I was miserable, and not at all me.Īfter about two weeks I was exhausted. I found and followed big bloggers then started mimicking their outfits, Instagram aesthetic, and photography. I went into it as I do most things – by studying. To be honest, I didn’t really think I could have a full time job as a blogger – I thought I would always have both, a full-time job and CMC. When I decided to turn Color Me Courtney into a business and a brand, influencer marketing wasn’t anything like it is now. I had just attended my first Fashion Week and started my first day at Coach, when I decided to turn my blog into a business (before then, I had only used it as a resume boosting tool to show potential employers that, despite having degrees in business and an MBA, I had a real interest in fashion). I had about 1K followers on Instagram – consisting mostly of people I had gone to high school with. So, get ready to expect the unexpected and learn a little bit more about me – PLUS to say THANK YOU there’s a giveaway at the bottom of this post – yay! Most Importantly, this post is about embracing your uniqueness and daring to be different (because as you know, perfect is so boring). I’ll start at the beginning, share my story, and include some tips and tricks along the way. Today we’re traveling back in time as I share some of my history and growth over the past few years. I don’t do this to be mean or to keep secrets but because “how to grow on Instagram” isn’t a question I can answer… but, if you’re interested in building a brand – and finding your own place in the industry – then I can help you … here’s my story. I get so many questions about how to grow on Instagram or become a full time blogger and to be honest, I don’t answer them.
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