On Friday last week, we hosted Luvvie Ajayi, one of Africa’s most popular and highest paid bloggers for an evening talk with her Nairobi fans and bloggers. The event had been sold out just 3 days after word went out about her visit to BAKE. The room was already filling up with enthusiastic fans well before the start of her session.
Luvvie, popularly known as Awesomely Luvvie, is quite hilarious in person and kept the audience engrossed from the start to the end. We had 3 hours of talks and Q&A and here are a few gems from the otherwise ‘packed full of gems’ evening.
On transitioning to full time blogging – Being laid off from employment turned out to be Luvvie’s blessing in disguise. She spoke of the struggles she went through while transitioning to full time blogging and how many times she contemplated seeking employment again, and how she soldiered on with blogging. These were encouraging words for bloggers as they got to know that even the top bloggers struggled to make ends meet at the beginning.
On creating content – When you decide to focus to write, do away with all the distractions especially notifications from social media. Don’t waste all your words on facebook and twitter posts because those words could be built into a comprehensive blog post. Only put out content that you can stand up and defend.
On blog monetization – There is nothing wrong with monetizing your blog. Monetizing is not necessarily selling out but you should go about it in an honest and transparent way so that your audience does not feel cheated. You should also strive to work with products that you believe in. Your brand is not your logo or your website. Your brand is your reputation. Also, as much as it is difficult to walk away from money, you need to set standards for your blog early enough so as to maintain clout.
On dealing with negativity – Fame comes with its fair share of negativity and the blogging world is no different. There is constructive criticism and then there is outright unnecessary meanness and you will usually know the difference. You should never feel guilty about cleaning your space by deleting troll messages or blocking trolls on social media. Whatever you do, do not let trolls get to you.
On plagiarism – you owe no kindness to someone who steals your work. You should be firm in asking them to go about quoting and crediting your work in the right way.
On keeping private life private – Simple. Don’t say anything about your private life.
Luvvie attributes part of the success of her blog to the fact that her audience feels like they’re talking to a best friend in their head. She keep it authentic and she keeps it real.
For those who missed out, we had the discussion on the hashtag #NairobiLuvv on twitter.