I remember the global recession of 2009. I’d ditched my full-time PR job to go freelance, had won my first clients and everything seemed to be going superbly well. Then, when the economy hit rock bottom, I lost all my business overnight. It was the worst possible time to find myself out of work, as I’d just bought my first home and was planning my wedding.
Instead of giving up and finding another job, I decided to roll my sleeves up and secure more freelance work. The obvious plan of attack was to carry out my own PR and marketing. Not an easy feat when it’s just plain old me. Journalists never really want to write about one-woman-bands. Advertising, certainly back then, was expensive and out of reach. Networking wasn’t really of any use — not like it is these days. Which is why I’m so glad social media came along when it did.
Twitter was my saviour during those dark times. Surprisingly, it became the very thing that helped to turn my fortunes around. I got tweeting with lots of other creative people and small business owners, and it transpired we were all in the same sinking ship.
We’d all lost business. We were all struggling to get our names out there to attract new clients. So we tried to help each other out. It was then that I came up with the idea for Creative Boom — a website that would “celebrate, inspire and support” creative freelancers and small business. An online platform that would ultimately get my audience, as well as myself, in front of potential clients.
I had grand ideas for Creative Boom. It was going to include a directory, a jobs board, a news section, a chance for people to share their portfolios. It was going to look beautiful and be as helpful as possible. And the name was inspired by wanting to spark a creative industry boom — a tad over-ambitious and perhaps arrogant for a 29 year old, I know. But I passionately believed in my idea and decided to go for it.
With absolutely no budget; only our own time and skills — I turned to my husband Tom — a web developer by trade — who got me started on a free magazine theme template via Wordpress.
In terms of branding, I was friends with a nice lad called Mike Messina. He’d just graduated and was available for freelance work. I hired him to create our first ever logo.
Creative Boom's first logo, designed by Mike Messina
With the website and branding up and running, I needed to populate the site with content. Coming from a journalism background and having worked in public relations, I was lucky to have some editorial experience. Knowing about things like getting listed on media databases — Vocus, Vuelio (previously Cision UK), Gorkana — and already having some decent media as well as industry contacts, I was able to build content pretty quickly.
With virtually no clients and all the time in the world, I launched Creative Boom on 24th July 2009, sat at my dining table at home. The daily blogging began and I shared all my content via Twitter, attracting traffic to my site. On day three, the site got over 300 hits. A year later, that increased to 1,600. In 2011, we got 3,000 hits — our best daily traffic yet.
It was probably a slow start, but the blog’s name was starting to get recognised. People thankfully liked my content. My Twitter followers soon surpassed 20,000 and the creative industries began to engage with me.
During those early years, I dedicated entire days, evenings and weekends to publishing content, building Creative Boom’s audience, nurturing contacts and learning new skills that would help further. I’d be on Twitter virtually 24/7, engaging with everyone and anyone I could. There wasn’t a spare moment. I was physically attached to my keyboard or smartphone— utterly dedicated to the cause; stubbornly refusing to slow down when family and friends started to notice the long hours I was pumping into the site. I even made myself ill on a few occasions, suffering the horrendous effects of burnout. And in 2011, I had to have an operation on my elbow to release a trapped nerve that was affecting my left hand; the doctor put it down to “too much time spent at the computer”.
But I wasn’t alone. My husband Tom also sacrificed many weekends, evenings and holidays to develop Creative Boom. It was the only spare time we could dedicate, as we were also building our business during normal working hours — a PR consultancy called Boomerang. The very thing that paid the bills.
And while friends were enjoying that thing called ‘downtime’ and having fun— we just got our heads down and continued to push Creative Boom forward.
One of Creative Boom's earlier designs
Never forgetting my original mission — to help others as well as myself to attract clients and win new business — our own company, Boomerang, started to take off. Enquiries were rolling in, we were winning new work — we no longer had to worry.
Even better — those we featured on Creative Boom seemed to benefit as well. I can’t tell you how many kind emails I’ve had from people over the years, thanking me for promoting them and telling me how it’s helped.
But despite all the hard work and growing traffic, Creative Boom was making very little money. To be honest, we weren’t even thinking about monetising the site. We just saw our blog as a great promotional tool for our business as well as those we featured, and it certainly did that.
Despite the lack of direct revenue, we didn’t stop developing and improving Creative Boom whenever we had a spare moment.
After its first year, we quickly moved away from Wordpress and its limitations, creating instead our own bespoke CMS. Since then, we’ve changed our branding and web design six or seven times, working with various freelance designers — always striving to provide a better user experience. And various sections of the website have been and gone, as I’ve tried to improve the content for our audience.
At some point, I even created a series of videos — providing tutorials and tips, or interviewing relevant creative people. God only knows how I found the time to film, edit and publish these things!
Success started to take off in 2012 when The Guardian newspaper approached me. They wanted a meeting at their headquarters in London to discuss Creative Boom becoming part of its new Guardian Culture Professionals network.
By writing for The Guardian, Creative Boom’s profile undoubtedly enjoyed a huge boost. During that period, I was asked to write for The Independent, Computer Arts and various other blogs and publications.
By October 2013, we enjoyed our highest ever traffic — 21,863 hits in one day. Our reach and influence was starting to make an impact. And what was the biggest article that day? A post about Red Hot: an exhibition that aimed to rebrand the ginger male.
Say cheese! At Adobe MAX 2013 for Creative Boom
In fact, 2013 was an unbelievable year. I was invited to The Coronation Festival in the Gardens of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the 60th anniversary of The Queen’s Coronation. All very surreal. That same year, I was invited by Enterprise Nation to attend Number 10 Downing Street and advise the UK Government on the issues facing small business.
I don’t care what anyone says. Going to Buckingham Palace and Number 10 Downing Street within months of each other, was a truly humbling experience and something I’ll never forget. I was thinking: “Is it finally happening? Could Creative Boom be taking off?”
After coming back down to earth, 2013 continued to delight. I started talking to brands as big as Yahoo, Vimeo, Samsung and BBC in terms of advertising, jobs posts and sponsored content. Organisations like Creative England and Nesta were talking to us. We also had close connections with all of the UK’s major universities, specialising in creative industry courses.
Just when it couldn’t get any better, Adobe invited me to its Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles — all expenses paid. That’s when I made great contacts and friends via other creative media, such as Emily Gosling of Design Week (now at the much admired It’s Nice That — and we’re still in touch) and Ashleigh Allsopp of MacWorld.
All definitely seemed to be heading in the right direction.
Until 2014, that is. When we decided to launch a new brand as well as a mobile-optimised version of our blog. What can I say? Complete and utter disaster. Traffic sank drastically. People hated the new web design. We’d made our biggest mistake yet. But it took many months before we managed to find the time or energy to sort it out, and create a better desktop and mobile experience.
What were we thinking? Our disastrous mobile optimised web design for Creative Boom
Our latest design — the one that’s currently live — has been our most successful and was probably our ‘tipping point’. Thank goodness. Launched in February 2015, our traffic increased by 305%; and during March we attracted half a million visitors.
As you can imagine, March was almost tear-inducing for me. I was on ‘real time’ Google Analytics obsessively that month. “200 people currently on Creative Boom, right now!” — I’d yell in utter joy and bewilderment. Could it be? Was my dream finally coming true after six whole years?
To my surprise and delight, 2015 has been phenomenal.
Creative Boom’s success has pretty much aligned to our business, Boomerang. In October 2013, Tom and I employed our first member of staff. Less than two years later and there’s six full-time employees — and one of those is working virtually full-time on Creative Boom. We also have a number of paid contributors who now write regular content for the site.
Creative Boom’s readership continues to rapidly grow. We’re now at over 78,000 Twitter followers and over 51,000 Facebook likes. Advertisers in 2015 included HP Printers, SquareSpace and BBC. And in December, on Christmas Eve in fact, we attracted record traffic – over 30,000 people visited our site in less than 24 hours.
Although we’re doing really well, I feel like we’re only just getting started.
There is so much more I want to do with the site. Just last June, we acquired the previously unavailable ‘Creativeboom.com’ — something we’d kept our eye on for some time. It wasn’t cheap. But we felt it was well worth the investment.
Early next week, we'll be launching a refreshed layout for Creative Boom – along with a new regular feature called 'Interviews' where we talk to some of the world's most inspiring creative professionals.
It's just the start of what promises to be an exciting 2016 for us. We've got so much potential to further grow Creative Boom. There are so many new challenges that we face, but I’m hugely grateful that we’re in this exciting position. Watch this space for further updates!
Now I’ve brought you up to speed on the crazy journey so far, I thought it might be nice to share just some of the lessons I’ve learned since launching Creative Boom, taking cues from the highs, the lows and the mistakes that have only led to greater things…
Understand that there’s no quick fix
Before you start your own blog, understand that you’re going to have to dedicate a lot of time and resource if you’re going to make it a success. There is no secret or quick fix. It’s going to be challenging.
I’ve had many emails from people, asking for the secrets behind Creative Boom. They all want to know the same thing — “how do I get the same reach and influence without all that hard work?”. The disappointing answer is — there is no secret.
Hard work. Sacrifice. Being prepared to constantly learn and grow. Ditching crap evening television for educational reading or podcasts. Turning down pub crawls on a Saturday to work on your blog instead. Taking risks, being prepared to mess up and waste loads of time and money.
Repeat after me: there is no quick fix.
Believe passionately in your own idea
I won’t lie. The past six years have been tough. There have been times when I’ve wanted to throw in the towel. Quit. Give it all up. There have been tears and emotional moments.
But during those times, I’ve always hesitated. “You’ve come too far to quit now,” I’d say to myself. Or: “Come on Cowan! Get a grip! You can do this!”
It’s during these moments, when you feel like you can’t go on, that you have to truly believe in your own idea and push on. Because if you don’t believe in your blog or its cause, then no one else will.
Always consider the audience
It’s easy to make assumptions. Any fool can do that. Which is why you should always consider your audience and find out what they actually want or what’s working for them; rather than second-guessing anything.
Stats can help with this. Yes, you won’t have very many stats in the beginning. But as you start to put content out there, that’s when you’ll be able to understand what is and isn’t getting clicks and engagement.
With Creative Boom, I didn’t really start to consider our stats in this way until 2013. Crazy really, but there you go.
These days, using software like Google Analytics, SproutSocial and Buffer, I can easily see what’s getting the most clicks; and then determine editorial moving forward.
Surveys can also gather invaluable data about your audience. Over the years, I’ve put any spare money from advertising into prize giveaways — linking up SurveyMonkey (I’d also recommend ShortStack) to ask my followers all kinds of questions related to Creative Boom, with the incentive of potentially winning an iPad, or something equally lucrative.
The data I’ve uncovered has really helped me to understand my audience — tying it up with any other available stats — and from all this information I’ve created ‘personas’: pretend readers of Creative Boom who I keep in mind at all times.
There’s Gareth the designer. He’s 31 and has just gone freelance. He lives in Bristol, loves cycling, city breaks and books. He’s learning to code on the side, and he’s just started his own blog to champion other graphic designers.
And then there’s Sophie. She’s 28, an independent photographer from Leeds and she’s working part-time for a marketing agency while trying to build up her own photography business on the side.
Gareth and Sophie have become great pals. Whenever I write any tips articles on Creative Boom, I keep those two in mind. My ‘personas’ might seem a tad daft, but they’ve definitely helped me to stay on track and keep my audience in mind.
Try not to cover too much, keep it niche
There have been times when I’ve tried to cover too many angles. So keen am I to deliver the best content, I can sometimes get carried away. And that can lead to my blog spiralling out of control.
When you come to create your own theme for your blog, try to keep it niche. Choose something that allows you to really focus on something. And when it comes to choosing ‘categories’ for your posts, stick to no more than seven or eight. Make sure each category is self-explanatory and not too abstract.
Then once you get going, keep track of what is and isn’t working. Don’t be afraid to make changes, remove redundant content and introduce completely new categories.
Listen to your audience, even if you don’t want to
Be prepared to let go of your ‘baby’ and listen to the feedback you’re getting from your audience. Even if you don’t agree with it. Yes, be confident with the direction you’re taking. But don’t be averse to holding your hands up and admitting you might be getting some aspects wrong.
I can remember many occasions when I didn’t listen. Anyone who has followed Creative Boom since the start will know that we’ve gone through a ridiculous amount of changes. Some for the better, some complete disasters.
As previously mentioned, the last epic mistake was a complete simplification of our web design. It was a single column website, optimised for mobile. And our audience hated it. They told us so. And the stats reflected their feedback.
Did I listen? Not at first. With Creative Boom being a ‘side project’ — a hobby, if you will — it was something I didn’t have the time or inclination to face. To be honest, I was going through a ‘can’t be bothered’ phase. My own business, Boomerang, was starting to grow and I just didn’t have the time or energy to dedicate to Creative Boom.
Then suddenly, Tom and I found the extra time and we designed a better layout for desktop and mobile — one that we hoped would provide a better user experience for our loyal fans. Our work resulted in our current web design and it’s been our most successful to date.
Yes, we’ll never be satisfied with it. We always want to improve it. That comes with the territory. But thankfully, the visitors keep coming back… I’m so glad I listened to their feedback.
Recognise the symptoms of burnout and remember to take breaks
I’ve experienced burnout. It’s like hitting a brick wall at 110mph and then not being able to pick yourself up off the ground. It’s horrendous. You don’t want to suffer from it, believe me.
Yes, you’ve got to find the time to work on your blog. But you also have to enjoy rest and relaxation. Being productive and organised is key to your success. Know where to focus your precious time and always remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Make sure you read my article on how to recognise, prevent and deal with burnout to ensure you don't fall into the burnout trap.
Make life as easy as possible for yourself
It's one thing to craft content; it's a whole other story 'activating' and putting it out there. That certainly takes a lot of work, and I mean a lot. In which case, you'll want to make life as easy as possible by ensuring you use any available tools or time-saving resources to help you share content.
Check out my complete guide to social media marketing automation. This will start the ball rolling in the right direction, and save you loads of time and effort.
Understand that you can never make too many mistakes
Mistakes have meant nothing but progress to us. And we’ve made plenty. Redesigns that failed spectacularly; content that simply fell on deaf ears; decisions that turned web traffic on a frightening downward spiral — they’ve only taught us great lessons and helped us to move closer to success.
The key lesson here, I suppose, is to be the type of person that can embrace mistakes and learn from them. When you inevitably trip up, that’s not the time to stick your head in the sand or hopelessly give up. That’s the golden opportunity to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, smile — laugh even — and just try your very best to learn something from the blunder, and move on.
Take the time to be nice to everyone
Yes, you're swamped and finding it tough. Yes, you're wondering how you'll make it to the gym later – but if someone emails or tweets you, and says something wonderful about your blog: email them back and thank them. Follow them on social and check in with them once in a while.
This will become increasingly difficult when you start to get bigger, and are receiving hundreds of messages every day, rather than three or four. But it's well worth going the extra mile in those early days to build a loyal audience.
I'm still pals with plenty of people from those very early days of tweeting, over six years ago. And if someone sends me a nice email, I always try and reply. Besides, it's nice to know your efforts aren't going to waste and that people are enjoying your content.
Make friends with relevant and influential people
You're not going to make it on your own, so make sure you put yourself out there and connect with influential people online. Don't ask, don't get – so be bold and don't be afraid to spark up conversations with others. You never know where it might lead.
Understand that it’s a journey not a destination
All great newspapers and magazines are continuing to adapt to the digital revolution. It’s an exciting time when everything is still undergoing disruption, and that means we’re all in the same boat of testing, learning, iterating and improving.
No one has got it absolutely right. And neither will you. But if you’re happy and prepared to understand that this is an era of evolution… That you’re going to have to roll your sleeves up and constantly learn and grow — then you’re going to absolutely love the thrill, challenges and excitement of running your own blog in this continuously connected world.
I certainly do. And long may it continue.
What are your thoughts? What has helped you to build an audience? Share your wisdom below to help make this article as useful as possible to my audience.
Article originally posted on Medium