Professional, Consistent and Bubbly.
The three words that I can think of to best describe our guest for today at the Freelance Blend Podcast — freelance make-up artist, best beauty blogger at the 2013 Virtual Style Awards, brand consultant, lifestyle blogger at AskMeWhats.com, and hands-on mom — Nikki Tiu.
Professional. I admire Nikki’s professionalism when it comes to her corporate, blogging and make-up career. I found it so amazing how she was able to balance and prosper at each venture, all at the same time. I couldn’t do it myself, that’s why I had to leave my day job to focus on Freelance Blend. Nikki, you are my idol.
Consistent. According to Peter Montoya, author of “The Brand Called You”, “Your visibility is more important than your ability”, while Woody Allen says, “80% of success is showing up.”
It’s true. And the main reason I believe that Nikki has had a very successful blog for the past many years is because she is consistent. She blogs every single day. She just shows up. And it applies not just to blogging, but to many other aspects of life — be it business, career, art, etc.
Bubbly. I’ve only met Nikki personally twice, when she guested for two of our outstanding workshops to date, Personal Branding Workshop. Despite the short span of time we talked, I already felt at ease conversing with her because of her bubbly and super-friendly personality.
I realized that that was her secret sauce. That is the reason why Nikki has many so followers and readers because to them, Nikki is that “kalog” friend that you want to hang out with all the time.
Meanwhile, here are the other takeaways from the interview:
Takeaways
- Nikki’s beginnings as a blogger
- The reason behind the name AskMeWhats.com
- The old school website feature that pushed Nikki to keep on blogging
- The small blog group she formed with other beauty bloggers
- How brands and sponsors started to discover her blog
- How she transitioned from blog to social media
- Why Nikki wanted to be an anonymous blogger before
- Lightbulb moment: When Nikki realized that she can turn her blog into a business
- Misconceptions about beauty blogging
- How she avoids writer’s block
- The do’s and don’t of blogging
- How to approach sponsors
- How she is able to blog every single day
- The importance of a great blog layout
- Why bloggers should not rely solely on sponsorships
Links and Resources
- AskMeWhats.com
- Project Vanity
- Shen’s Addiction
- Snapchat.com
- Personal Branding Workshop – sign up for our newsletter to get notified when the next Personal Branding Workshop happens (around mid-2016) and receive our free ebook.
- Follow us in Snapchat: AskMeWhats and MarvDeLeon (or scan the image below)
Quotes
“Office work, to be honest, is not really for me. Parang kiti-kiti ako, di talaga ako makaupo sa office ng sobrang tagal.”
“I get clients, like isang pitik lang. Without even trial make-up, they deposit payment. Bigla talaga silang may tiwala, because of the blog.”
“Blogging is really a happy place for me.”
Join the Freelancing for Beginners Workshop on January 23, 2016!
