How She Does it All: Instagram, Blogging, and Running a Successful Small Business (Guest-Starring Lindsay Silberman)

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HOW SHE DOES IT ALL: INSTAGRAM, BLOGGING, AND RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL SMALL BUSINESS

GUEST-STARRING LINDSAY SILBERMAN

Everyone has to multitask, but influencers do it more than most.

Lindsay Silberman might do it most of all. Balancing a personal brand on Instagram, an extensive lifestyle blog, and a small business that grows every day could easily lead to burnout, but Lindsay is surviving and thriving, and she’ll be sharing her top tips for balance with you.

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The biggest struggle as an influencer is balancing work and life.

Combine the need to be on multiple platforms at once with non-stop content creation, and you have a formula for burnout. Given this dilemma, most influencers will wind up working endless hours before they realize they’ve lost the balance. The price to pay can be huge from running an inefficient (and unprofitable) business to giving up from exhaustion. That’s why it’s so important to have certain systems and processes in place from the beginning.

If there’s anyone that I’ve met that’s mastered the art of multi-tasking as an influencer, it’s Lindsay Silberman. Lindsay built her brand while working full-time as a magazine editor. Today, she’s left that job and transformed her influence into a successful business - and built a profitable product line from it. Tune in as she dishes out her tips for how she manages it all.

1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t be in all places at once.

When building a brand on social media, it can be tempting to jump on every single platform. However, creating high-quality content for every channel can be time consuming and unrealistic.

Lindsay believes that trying to be in all the different places at the same time will just lead to burnout.

Instead, she advises that it’s more important to know your strengths and weaknesses. You can then use your skillset to determine which social channels make the most sense for you. Focusing on just three platforms will set you up for success.

As a seasoned journalist, Lindsay has been able to use her skills and experience to build a profitable blog. However, she knows that not everyone enjoys the process of writing, planning an editorial calendar and more - and that’s okay. If you love being on camera, then it might be better to have a YouTube channel instead of a blog.

2. Leverage your community

Lindsay is one of the few influencers who uses a private Facebook group to foster a community of like-minded women. What’s unique about Lindsay’s Facebook group is that there is no monetary incentive for her. This group was formed with the sole intention to connect women with common interests. The participants can then look to one another for answers instead of relying on Lindsay alone. She’s now able to spend less time in her DM’s answering repeat questions and can direct her followers to one place for all their needs.

3. Focus on things that you love

There’s so much advice to focus on just one content vertical, but Lindsay believes that you can focus on as many as you want as long as you genuinely love the subject. In the past few years, Lindsay has seamlessly merged her love for travel and beauty, positioning herself as a go-to resource for both.

Lindsay’s advice for covering multiple content verticals effortlessly is to stick to categories you know and love. This makes the content creation process much more seamless and organic. She also says that it’s best to be brutally honest about everything - even if you don’t love a particular brand or item so that it doesn’t seem like you’re constantly pushing a sale.

4. Trust your gut

One of Lindsay’s biggest accomplishments to date is launching Hotel Lobby Candle, a luxe candle collection that brings her favorite travel experiences back home. She’s never dabbled in developing and selling any products before and started this idea with zero market research. However, it’s been a huge success and is now sold in Neiman Marcus.

Lindsay attributes this success to trusting her gut throughout the process. Although she lacked experience, she knew that many of the moving parts can be learned along the way - and did just that. What’s unique about Hotel Lobby Candle is that it has an identity of its own - separate from Lindsay’s personal brand. She keeps the two businesses separate by hiring a social media team to manage Hotel Lobby Candle. This has allowed her to juggle two very different businesses while still nourishing her existing followers.

5. Don’t think too long term

While Lindsay is a big fan of having big ideas, she only takes things one step at a time. She knows that there are many benefits to short-term gains, including better health and overall happiness, and planning only on a long-term time frame can take that away. Therefore, she never thinks too long term as it can become a huge source of stress and overwhelm.

When you’re an influencer, the business possibilities are endless. Lindsay believes that by focusing on what’s in front of you, you’ll allow for a natural progression of concrete steps that can move you in the next phase of your business.