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Blogging as a full time job is a lot of work, and Lucie finds out how to do it well from Courtney Quinn on this episode of Lucie For Hire.
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00:00I'm Lucy Fink. I'm a video producer at Refinery29, but every so often I like to
00:04try other people's jobs. Today I'm hanging out with Courtney Quinn from
00:09Color Me Courtney to see if I have what it takes to be a blogger. This is Lucy
00:13for Hire. While I have a pretty substantial Instagram following myself
00:19and I occasionally do paid brand partnerships on social media, my main job
00:24at Refinery29 is being a video producer and a lifestyle host. I find that I'm
00:29occasionally lumped into the blogger category just because of my Instagram,
00:33but the truth is I'm not a blogger. Courtney Quinn on the other hand is one,
00:38so I spent the day with her to see if I have what it takes to do her job.
00:43Hi, I'm Courtney Quinn and I'm a blogger at Color Me Courtney. Courtney lives with her
00:47fiance Paris and her adorable French Bulldog Waffles who's paralyzed in his
00:52hind legs but does not let that stop him. So I became a blogger kind of by
00:56accident. I went to school for marketing and I had a degree in finance and I
01:01looked kind of like a numbers nerd on paper. I started a blog so I could start
01:05applying for fashion jobs and eventually get hired. I think people think blogging
01:11is really glamorous and it's not a lot of work but it is. I always like to explain
01:15it like an iceberg. Like the tip is all you see but there's so much work
01:20underneath the iceberg that goes into it that you would never see. Most bloggers
01:24don't work for a big corporation. Instead they work for themselves. They're aiming to
01:29build their following, grow their personal brands, and of course make money.
01:34Okay so let's talk about money. Someone with like about a hundred thousand followers on
01:38Instagram who's maybe just doing Instagram, I think you can bring in
01:42about a hundred thousand dollars a year somewhere in that range. You can charge
01:45like anywhere from like on the low end kind of five hundred dollars for a post to
01:50maybe on the high end like twenty five hundred. And it's important to remember
01:53that's not just taking a selfie and like posting it. It's all the work that went
01:57into it. All like the back and forth. A lot of times you have to pitch your idea
02:01to a brand ahead of time and kind of go through all these hoops before that
02:06actual content gets published. People pay way more for blog posts than they pay for
02:11actual Instagram posts. So even though it's only twenty five percent of my content it
02:15accounts for fifty percent of my income because people pay more for them. Yeah.
02:20I gotta start a blog. You really do. Whoa. And based on Courtney's formula I'd say she's doing pretty
02:26well for herself. So after gathering a little bit of background about her day
02:30to day happenings she put me to work. Your first challenge is self-management.
02:34One really cool way to grow your following is to partner with other
02:37influencers and it's also a really good way to pay it forward and share your
02:41followers with other influencers and kind of get exposed to their followers too.
02:45So it's just win-win-win-win-win. I've done a few of these collaborations with
02:49other influencers but Courtney does them all the time. It's an amazing way to grow
02:53and expand your audience. So today we partnered up and we each put in a little
02:58bit of money to give a gift card to one lucky winner. Two. One. Post. We shared our posts at
03:05the exact same time and each told our audiences to follow the other. By the end of
03:10the day we had each gained a few thousand new followers from this. Now that we're
03:15growing your following a bit let's go make a pitch deck. Next Courtney showed me
03:20what a typical media kit would look like and we sat down to evaluate hers before
03:24I made my own. So basically you just want it to be like a quick one snapshot of your
03:29personality, stats, facts and figures, contact information, if you have a manager,
03:33all that kind of thing. So are you ready to try? Yeah I think so. I think I've got a
03:37good
03:37idea of how I want to arrange the photos. Yeah. And I think I know a few photos I
03:41want to use. Most of daily life as a blogger involves creating original content.
03:45So you won't get that far by reposting other people's photos. Be creative, be
03:50innovative and stay true to yourself. As a blogger you're responsible for building
03:55your own brand. So the best thing you can do is set yourself up with all the
03:59tools you'll need to truly sell yourself. Your second challenge is content prep. So
04:04one thing I spent a lot of time doing is scouting locations. About one day a week
04:08when it's nice weather, I'll like go out for like three or four hours to a new
04:12neighborhood, walk around, put in a podcast and just look for colorful ideas. The two
04:18of us took a little walk to scout a nice shooting location. I'll use cabs a lot of
04:22times for yellow. How far in this radius do you usually go to get location
04:28scouts done? Oh, a lot of times I'll take a car to a totally different
04:32neighborhood. Smart. And like try to figure it out because I kind of get sick of
04:36doing like the same neighborhood. So you would never do something like... No. This.
04:41Uh-uh. Okay. It's raining. How are we gonna shoot out here? I don't know. I'm sweating.
04:48You gotta push through. It was hot. It was raining. I stepped in a puddle. An all-around
04:55exhausting experience. I'm just about ready to shoot right here. No. That's not
05:00gonna work. This is it. We found the spot. We have to keep going. But for Courtney,
05:07location scouting is a major part of making sure that her feed stays
05:11colorful and vibrant. This would be cute of you because you have like a cute
05:16little matching outfit. True. Whoa. Whoa. Once we returned, Courtney showed me the
05:22other major part of her content prep phase, the prop closet. Over time, Courtney
05:27has accumulated a ton of gear to shoot with. Different cameras and lenses, various
05:32types of lighting, tons of backdrops and more. But when she was first starting out,
05:37just like I did, she just used an iPhone. Once we were ready, we started our shoot.
05:41Your third challenge is to shoot. I've got to say I'm pretty happy it's pouring and we
05:46can't take this outside. Because of the rain, we set up indoors by pinning a solid
05:50colored sheet to the wall to use as a backdrop. And then we steamed it to make
05:54sure there were no wrinkles. Then we set up the cameras and lighting. I actually
05:58really do love shooting and I can shoot every single day. But it can be
06:02challenging because a lot of times I shoot on my own by myself. So I have this
06:07little like pop-up tent. Get in there, change. Hope it's not a windy day because
06:10then you're like falling all over. To change into the next look so that I can get
06:16it out and keep shooting.
06:28After we were happy with what we shot, it was time for my final challenge.
06:32Your final challenge is to edit. Since Courtney and I are both into making stop
06:37motion videos, we always receive a ton of questions about which editing program we
06:41use. Neither of us uses stop motion apps or a stop motion program. To edit this
06:47stop motion video that we shot together, I just used Adobe Premiere, which is a video
06:51editing software. It takes a little bit longer than a stop motion app would, but
06:55it gives you more freedom and flexibility.
07:03But the real test on whether or not I'm blogger worthy comes down to photo editing.
07:08My mom took this photo so it was just on like generic settings and that's where the background,
07:12like this was a really yellow building, but it's kind of blown out. But now adding this
07:16like warmth to it. When I'm traveling and like my mom's taking my photos or just like someone random
07:22on the street, like I don't always have the best opportunity to get the right settings
07:27that I want.
07:27Right. Creating great content is obviously where it starts, but what happens post creation,
07:33I'm really able to just transform it with the editing process and make, you know, a not so great photo
07:39something that's up to par with the usual standard of what I create.
07:43Before, after.
07:46I want you to try one and this photo is really cute, but I think you can make it cuter.
07:52Yeah? Yeah.
07:53Okay, this photo of me and my brother on horses.
07:57Where were you guys?
07:58Anguilla.
07:58But like, I feel like that water was probably bluer than it looks in this photo.
08:03The sky looks totally gray.
08:05Yeah, blown out.
08:06And like my brother's not even paying attention. He's taking a selfie.
08:09Runners.
08:09Alright, I'm gonna fix it.
08:10Yeah, I think you can fix it.
08:12And then I gave it a go.
08:15I edit all of my photos on my phone, like using like free apps because I just want it to
08:21be something that other people can do too.
08:23The before and after is really crazy.
08:27You ready for this?
08:29Before.
08:30After.
08:32Goodbye, Robbie.
08:35Well, that's what you get for taking selfies.
08:37That is amazing.
08:38Being a blogger for the day was not only physically draining, but I really did get a taste of what
08:43it would be like.
08:43To work for myself.
08:45Your success and how much income you can bring in are tied directly to the amount of work you do
08:50and the amount of time you spent hustling.
08:52I pull all nighters all the time.
08:55At least one a week.
08:56Usually two to three a week.
08:58Just because there's so much to do and it's only me and if I don't do it, it doesn't get
09:02done and everything relies on that.
09:05So the next time you think blogging looks effortless, just remember how much work actually goes into it.
09:11And just know the market out there is highly saturated.
09:14So if you want to do this full time, make sure to bring a fresh angle and something completely original.
09:20There's only one you, so show the world what you've got.
09:23We'll see you next time on Lucy for Hire.
09:27We'll see you next time on Lucy for Hire.