It took me awhile to see the Meryl Streep/Amy Adams film “Julie & Julia” — kind of like it took me awhile to get into blogging.
Here’s a movie story about A Blogger Who Made It.
What could be a more wonderful story for any blogger who dreams of Fame and Fortune?
So here’s how the movie can help us
1. Plan your work, and work your plan:
29-year-old Julie Powell was looking for a way to add value to her life, so she combined her creative passions for writing AND cooking into a blog with this goal: to work her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking by preparing 524 recipes in 365 days. And she did it . . . and got a movie deal in the process.
2. Passion helps you persevere through adversity:
Plans and projects rarely progress on a straight, smooth road. Blogging is a great example. When we start writing and publishing, we’re often very excited. But keeping it going is not easy; in fact, it’s work. And when people aren’t knocking down the doors to subscribe and comment, it is easy to get discouraged.
In the movie, both Julia Childs and Julie Powell faced roadblocks and naysayers. It was their deep emotional drive that kept them going.
I love blogging, even when I don’t have a positive response to the question: “Are you making any money yet?”
3. If you create something of value, you will gain an audience — and your dream:
Julia Childs brought French cooking to mainstream America, and 40 years later Julie Powell proved that Childs’ techniques still worked.
When companies produce rich, relevant content on blogs, webcasts, white papers, etc., this is marketing material that can both spread and last a long time.
My dream is to write articles that will help people understand the value of social media . . . and how to do it.
4. When you do gain followers, do not let them down:
In the movie, we saw how Julie Powell’s readership grew so large that mainstream media acknowledged her accomplishments. I can’t remember how much she interacted with her fans, but I do know that the power of blogging and all of social media marketing is in the power of the conversation.
I recently read a post by my friend Suzanne Vara about 9 Blogging Blunders in which she wrote:
“Thank them of course but also include how you liked a certain post as it relates back to yours.”
Blogging — and marketing and business — are all about building of relationships.
5. When people offer help, accept it when it’s appropriate:
Both cooks in the film found that they needed the support of friends and family. As bloggers we can derive great benefits from collaboration with other bloggers, both with external linking and Guest Posts. Remember, we call this SOCIAL media for a reason.
6. There’s a whole lot we can learn from history — and the experience of others:
Daaah, of course 🙂
Many movie viewers enjoyed the interplay of the 1950’s Julia Childs-in-Paris scenes with Julie Powell in 2002 New York.
Lessons are everywhere; sometimes, like with this blog article: it maybe just being reminded.
NOTE: One “lesson” I learned many years ago seems appropriate here. Back in college I read Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa. Her greatest finding from studying these unsophisticated natives was that for them
Work was Play and Play was Work
I’m certain that Julie and Julie felt that way about cooking. And I certainly feel that way about blogging and the whole social media phenomenon.
FURTHER READING