I posted on my facebook earlier today:
The more successful you become, the more people will hate you …the more people hate you, the more successful you will become.
Take Beyonce for example…
It’s the sad reality that I’ve faced this past year. My first year in business everyone seemed to “love” me. You could barely find a negative comment on line when inquiring about me as a person. During this time my site was growing but it wasn’t growing at a rate comparable to this year. As soon as the hate comments starting coming in this past year (which ironically began after I made the decision to put my images in my site’s header), my site grew at numbers that were unexplainable. The more people talked, the more the site grew and of course the more revenue came in. Sometimes I wonder if the trade off is worth it, but you can’t force those who’ve never met you to like you…and just because people are fans of the site, doesn’t mean they have to be fans of me, as a person.
My advice to those that experience this during growth and a period of success is to ignore ignore ignore! I always look at it this way, if those people took the energy they put in hating you and put that same energy into building their own brands and working on their goals, they’d be just as successful and we’d all be happy. But everyone has a role. You either play the game or watch from the sidelines. Whether you are booing or cheering, I’m going to win.
Speaking of Revenue: This guy posts a youtube video today with a slide show of my photos and broke down my story of how I acquired success over these past two years. In the video he stated that I make six figures. A commenter (that seemed like a very unhappy person) quickly commented that that figure was wrong and that if bloggers made that much then everyone would be doing it. If she did her research, then she would have realized that she was misinformed.
Although I find it tacky to talk about how much money a person makes I will say this. To any aspiring blogger that reads this site: Sitting and blogging isn’t going to make the big $$$. Yes you can bank on a google adsense check every month but that’s not going to pay the bills. Invest in a good media kit. Promote your site to potential advertisers that are trying to reach your demographic. Create proposals. Learn how to make invoices. If you want to make your blog your business, you have to run it like it’s a business. When I started soliciting my own advertisers outside of the ad agencies, I tripled and quadrupled my site’s revenue in 30-60 days. It’s about putting in work and taking the initiative. Now, do I pocket all of that money. Not really. I actually put it in business banking & savings, pay myself a set salary and budget out a certain amount to pay photographers for exclusive photos, pay correspondents and other things. My graphics designer fee I normally include in the ad proposals.
It just baffles me that people think that blogging is just that. You will not make alot of money if you don’t do much outside of blogging on the site. You have to go and create opportunities for revenue. I also get appearance fees everytime I go on a tour, speak at a school or host a party or event. I also get paid for endorsing products. And that’s why it was so important for me to start branding myself outside of my website. I normally let my attorney broker the deals and pay him a percentage to take the responsibility off of me going back and forth with people. He makes sure the contracts are right, that travel and accommodations and any additional things I need while there are taken care of and we are good to go.
The commenter also made it a point to say that blogging isn’t my full time job..and that i have a side hussle. Blogging is my full-time job. My side hussle are those other opportunities that come with the popularity of the site.
Just wish people would do more research.
I did…and that’s why I am where I am now.
Hi, I'm Necole!
😉 Even when hated you still try to break things down and help ppl:) keep Bitchin!!
I think that people don’t realize how hard it is until they try to get into it and it is easier to nay say then to admit defeat
you are right. Actually when I got into this I didn’t have a life…for atleast 6 months I lived and breathe the site. WAs on the computer all day every day researching, taking notes from other sites and just developing my craft. It’s hard developing a solid fan base and keeping them interested especially since I was so new. By the time I hit the scene the sites like ybf, mto, c&d, concreteloop and all the huge sites had been around for atlest 3 years.
There’s always going to be people around trying to knock sombody else’s hustle. I dont understand why people just dont refocus their energy on their own business! From what i see, you are taking care of your business… and still lending a helping hand in the process! AND YET… they still are going to hate! keep doing u Necole!
Necole,
I just want to say that you truly inspire me. I started by own blog a few months ago and whenever i get down or feel like it isn’t working out, I come to hellonecole.com for inspiration and it always helps.
I recently lowered my hours at a dead end job i’ve been working at for the past 5 years and moved back home to save money. I’ve always loved reading your blog along with all the other black celeb sites and since getting the courage to start my own i’ve been looking for ways to get exposure/ advertisers and this blog entry really helped me. Thank you so much for being the humble person you are and sharing your knowledge with us!