I’ve been making a living full-time as a midlife influencer for a decade. I know a thing or two about creating content, dealing with the ups and downs of social media, and pivoting.
If you would also like to be a midlife content creator or influencer, it’s possible and requires some work.
Here are some basic things you can start working on if you are thinking of becoming a midlife content creator or influencer.
Table of Contents
- 1.- Choose your midlife subject matter
- 2.- Pick a name and snag a URL and social media handles
- 3.- Build a website for your midlife blog
- 4.- Make sure your picture and cover are the same for all social media platforms
- 5.- Start creating and sharing content before you think you are ready
- 6.- Create a publishing calendar and stick to it
- 7.- Create a one-page media kit for your midlife blog and social media handles
- 8.- Keep posting on your midlife influencer channels regularly
1.- Choose your midlife subject matter
What is the purpose of your content? If it´s only to make money, I would tell you that´s not a great reason. I do make a living, mind you, but it´s only because I absolutely love sharing about wellness, fitness and aging.
I´m truly passionate about sharing my experience with improving mental, spiritual and physical health to positively impact other people´s lives.
After having survived clinical depression, an eating disorder and being a single mom on welfare, to name a few, I know what it feels like to drown.
I like to think of the content I put out there as a lifesaver. Not really, of course, but something that people can hold on to, to float ashore.
So, what are YOU passionate about – to the point that it will carry you through the dry spells (especially when you´re starting out and when you plateau)?
Is it beauty, style, health, fitness, mental health, or something else?
2.- Pick a name and snag a URL and social media handles
Picking a name for your digital business or blog is as hard as picking a name for your baby.
However, don´t overthink it. Take pen and paper and jot down a few ideas, and then narrow them down. The name for my bilingual website Viva Fifty! came to me as I was out for a run.
I had been thinking for days of a name that would convey the joy of being over 50, and also that it´s a bicultural website. I had thought of Latina Prime, Latina Plus and others, and then realized it needed to be something entirely different. A word in English and a word in Spanish.
Once I hit on Viva Fifty! I went online to make sure the URL was available, which it was, and then I checked whether the name spelled the same way, @vivafifty, was available on the main social media platforms. It was! So I secured all of them and ran with it.
Make sure the spelling of the name is the same across the board and if it can’t be, come up with a different name or variation. Even if you don’t use, say, Twitter (or X), secure the handle anyway. Nobody else can take it if you do!
3.- Build a website for your midlife blog
The website is dead, blah blah. Blogging is passé, blah, blah, blah. To that I respond, remember what happened to Vine? Or Google+? Or every time Facebook and Instagram are out of commission? Yeah. So do I.
That’s why, whether you’re going to blog or not, you really do want to have a URL that is pointing to a website which, ultimately, is your digital business card. Aside from this website I also have my personal website, LorraineCLadish.com.
If any social media platform shuts down, you always have your own piece of real estate online. I started out Viva Fifty! as a personal blog in early 2014, on wordpress.com, with free hosting.
When I decided I would take it to the next level, then I went to wordpress.org and purchased a template for the new website, and bought hosting.
4.- Make sure your picture and cover are the same for all social media platforms
Everything, from my online headshot to my business card, always has the same photo. I usually keep it for a year or two and then, when I’m ready to update it, I change it everywhere.
Remember you’re a brand, and branding has to be consistent. Whether it’s a logo or a photo of you, people will only associate it with you if it’s the same on all of your platforms.
I’ve also realized that people engage more with a photo than with a logo. I still use a logo for Viva Fifty, but my own photo on my personal social media handle @lorrainecladish does much better.
When I meet someone at a social media conference who’s been following me online they may not associate my name with my face, but they certainly make the connection with my business card photo when I hand over my card.
5.- Start creating and sharing content before you think you are ready
Planning a website or digital business and everything associated with it, from the logo to the publication calendar, can become a rabbit hole.
It’s great to plan of course, but when I launched Viva Fifty as a blog, I had no logo. That came later and, by then, I already had plenty of content up on the page and across all social media channels that I could pay for the creation of the logo with money earned from the website!
I didn’t have a great camera to take photos until two years ago. I used a smartphone before that and, although now I can look back and see how far I’ve come, nobody questioned the quality of those first photos!
It’s easy to think that you need to have a full-blown video studio before you launch your YouTube channel. I used to think that too until one day I realized that what I really needed to do was start shooting videos with whatever I had … again, my iPhone, which is exactly how I shoot my vlog. I usually soft-launch ventures and hone as I go.
I only officially launched Viva Fifty! one year after I started it and now it’s been ten years.
6.- Create a publishing calendar and stick to it
You will need a publishing calendar for your midlife content blog if you choose to have one, and then for each social media platform.
To give you an idea, I will share a bit of mine: Viva Fifty! website publishes weekly for the most part although we started out publishing daily; on Twitter (X), we post twice a day; on Facebook, three times a day, and on Instagram every other day or so; on Pinterest: four times a day.
I used to post a video on YouTube once a week, although YouTube is my weak point- it takes more effort than the other platforms. I also run four Instagram accounts and they all have different calendars.
But you don’t have to do that. It’s what I do.
The point is to be consistent. So, if you post on Instagram only once a week, then simply keep it up. That’s all consistency means.
When you stop posting consistently on one or more of your channels it becomes that much easier to skip it the next day and so on and so forth.
7.- Create a one-page media kit for your midlife blog and social media handles
What PRs, brands and organizations want from content creators changes at the drop of a hat. One year it could be a certain number of followers, and the next, a certain engagement rate or reach.
For now, you can create a short media kit that explains your mission, who you are, what kind of content you create, who your followers are, and what they are interested in.
You can be concerned about honing and improving it later on. Establish certain rates for yourself. When you’re starting out it will pretty much be about trying to get paid any amount of money really, but as your following and reach grow, because you keep on posting compelling and high quality content, your rates will increase.
Just to give you an example, my rates have increased by 10X since I launched in 2014.
8.- Keep posting on your midlife influencer channels regularly
Now, here’s where most people fail. They have it all in place to make it in the digital world, but when there is a dry spell – when partnerships don’t roll in – they give up. Or they get bored. Or they don’t grow as fast as they expected. Or they burn out. Or any number of things.
And then they complain that they aren’t getting sponsors for their content … but when I check to see why, turns out their last post happened six months ago. Does that sound familiar?
If after a couple of years your blog or your digital presence is making little to no money, and that was your goal, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate your brand. If you’re growing and want to really step it up, then maybe speak to a business manager, like I did, and book a strategy session. That was my story seven plus years with Johanna Voss, and I haven’t looked back.
If you’re having a hard time learning to make reels for example, then take a course, or follow someone like Helen Polise who teaches transitions and much more on her Tik Tok channel and on her website and podcast HelloSocialize, where I was recently a guest speaker.
Trust me, it’s not always the most talented or those with the biggest budget that make it as midlife influencers or content creators. It’s usually the ones who stick it out for the long run, and learn to adapt to the ever changing Internet and social media scene! I know this from experience.
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