Yesterday I finally saw the movie "Julie and Julia". Truly a blogging Success story.
If you haven't seen the movie it's about an amateur writer, Julie Powell, while coping with a dead end job and seeking purpose in her life, finds her passion in cooking.
To really learn how to be a great cook Julie looks to Julia Child and her famous cookbook, Mastering The Art of French Cooking
Her daily blog posts were about her adventures of cooking one recipe a day for one year and how that impacted her life as a young wife with a full time job living in a rather modest New York Apartment.
The movie kept us laughing and Meryl Streep gave us a great glimpse into the life of Julia Child. But that's not what stood out the most for me while watching this movie. I got a real sense for how Julie understood the concept of commitment and passion. Her project started with the simple idea of cooking a recipe a day, blogging about each one and seeing it through to the end.
For bloggers and non-bloggers alike you couldn't help but notice that while creating a blog might seem like an easy thing to do, the commitment and energy behind it are what really counts.
The amazing part of the story was that Julie's hard work eventually attracted some prominent eyes and of course she realized a book deal from her efforts.
While most of us won't be lucky enough to get a book deal from our blogs, creating a blog can be a great adventure, it can give you purpose and even be an inspiration to others. But true blogging success, whether it's to develop your passion, connect with others or even generate income, comes from developing the staying power to stick with it and realizing what it takes to make that happen.
Julie Powell was a great example of all those things and here’s what she inspired us with…
Blog about what You Love
It's so much easier to write about what you love than something you find painful to write about. If you have a passion or a talent, share what you know. If you love what you're writing about your passion and enthusiasm will become obvious to others and that's what your readers will come to rely on you for.
Be Unique
Julie definitely brought a humorous side to the art of cooking but it was her unique idea of blogging about her cooking that intrigued us. She carried that even further by connecting with her readers on a personal level. She kept things interesting, fun and wrote in a way that gave her fans something to look forward to with every single post.
Post frequently
Posting frequently keeps your blog alive and readers coming back. They'll even come to look forward to your tidbits of enthusiasm or ideas. Julie posed every day as her commitment to cooking but that certainly doesn't mean a daily post is required. What is required is consistency and focus; this will give your blog purpose and meaning.
Promote your blog
You won't get much from the movie about how to promote a blog, in fact I doubt Julie did much to attract her readers except to provide an interesting topic and consistent posts that her culinary viewers appreciated. But really, that's where it all starts. Once you build up momentum and get a rhythm for posting, start guest posting on other related blogs, next move to promoting your blog through networking and learn how to use use social media successfully.
You can easily develop a daily promotional strategy that may take you only a few minutes a day to do but it will work wonders for drawing in visitors, comments and getting you noticed.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Julie and Julia" and if you are a Blogger yourself or even thinking about it, you will too!
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Hey Liz,
Loved the article. I think what we need for a blogging career to be successful is to have passion for it. I’m a firm believer of that. Because passion makes us go beyond what regular people can do, it gives us the motivation to become better than most. It separates the ordinary and the extraordinary.