5 Lessons I’ve Learned From Running My Own Community Website (& How They Apply to Real Estate)

Thoughts

Jan 21

I visited the Career Center at the University of Puget Sound to speak to English majors about DearEnglishMajor.com and careers. I’ve visited a few times and it’s always a joy to return to my alma mater.

In 2014, I launched a website called DearEnglishMajor.com, and in the years since, I’ve learned so much about having a successful online presence. Through creating content for Dear English Major, running the social media accounts, sending out newsletters, etc., I’ve gained valuable insight and firsthand experience that I’ve been able to apply to the work I do for my real estate clients.

I’m going to share a few of the most important lessons I’ve learned (and how they apply to real estate), but first, I’ll share a bit of background info.

Dear English Major is all about showing English majors what is possible with an English degree, and one component of the website includes 200+ interviews with English majors who have jobs that are somehow related to skills they learned during college. DearEnglishMajor.com also features several informative articles; some are “just for fun,” while others offer advice on college, careers, being an English major, etc.

In addition to running the website and all of Dear English Major’s social media accounts, I also self-published a book in 2016 called “From Graduation to Career Ready in 21 Days: A Guide for English Majors” that I sell directly via the site and through Amazon, Nook, iBooks, and more. I also create original designs for merchandise in the Dear English Major Store, occasionally work with sponsors, and am an Amazon and Etsy affiliate.

As the website and its side ventures grew, so did the Dear English Major following. In 2019, DearEnglishMajor.com had a whopping 131,000 unique visitors. Currently (January 2020), the Dear English Major Facebook page has 28,000+ followers, the Instagram account has 10,000+ followers, the Twitter account has 7,000+ followers, and the Pinterest account has 1,400+ followers.

I’ve learned so much through running Dear English Major, and I’ve been able to apply the knowledge and insight I’ve gained from this experience to the work I do with real estate agents. Here are 5 lessons I’ve learned from running Dear English Major that real estate agents can also benefit from:

Showing off Dear English Major to a group of college students. This is the old website layout!

Lesson #1: You don’t always know what type of content is going to be popular.

This one has definitely been a frustrating thing to learn over time. The most popular piece of content on Dear English Major is a blog post titled “38 Beautiful Instagram Accounts for Book Lovers.” Bookstagrammers have a huge presence on Instagram, and I thought it would be fun to highlight some of the most awesome Instagram accounts I’ve found over time.

This post is one of those “just for fun” posts, and I never dreamed it would be as popular as it is. Honestly, it can be a little bewildering at times, too. There’s other really meaty, informative content on Dear English Major that I’ve worked really hard on—stuff that I thought would become way more popular than it has. But ultimately, I’m happy whenever people find the site, no matter how they find it!

This blog post has become a “gateway” post—people who are searching for book-focused Instagram accounts find this blog post, and discover Dear English Major in the process. I consider it a win, and every now and then I update the post to keep it fresh.

What’s the most popular piece of content on your website? Is it surprising (or disappointing)? If you haven’t look at your web analytics in awhile, go take a peek. There’s all kinds of juicy information in there just waiting to be harnessed!

Lesson #2: Try something new. If it doesn’t work, try again. Keep trying.

Some content falls flat, and sometimes, I’m honestly not sure why. Maybe the title wasn’t intriguing enough? Maybe not as many people care about a particular topic as I thought? I’ve shared content on Dear English Major’s Facebook page that I think is going to get hundreds of likes/responses, only to hear crickets in response. It can be downright puzzling at times.

Too often, I’ll see real estate agents write one or two blog posts to “try out blogging,” and when their analytics don’t immediately skyrocket, they give up because “it didn’t work.” Or maybe they shared a couple of things to their new Instagram page and only got a couple of new followers, so they abandoned the account after just a week. We’re all looking for some instant gratification, but growing a following takes time. And landing on the type of content that your unique audience wants can take some trial and error.

One way to navigate this process is to be really intentional about the type of content that you’re creating. Don’t get too obsessed with “getting it right” the first (or second or third etc.) time that you don’t start at all, and be sure to take the time to evaluate what you’re doing along the way. After publishing 10-15 blog posts over a few months, pause and review your analytics. What was popular on your website vs. on social media? What got the most clicks on social media? (Likes are good, but clicks to your website are even better!) Which pieces content are people discovering via Google search?

And that brings me to my next point…

Lesson #3: Identify your most popular pieces of content and continue to invest in that type of content over time.

One of the most viewed pieces of content on DearEnglishMajor.com is a blog post about how much money English majors make. Hundreds of English majors shared their salaries anonymously to be included in the post. While I thought this blog post had the potential to go viral, it never took off quite in the way I had hoped. However, it’s still a strong blog post that is consistently one of the most popular pieces of content on the site, and that means it’s important to keep it fresh and timely. (Speaking of that, I really need to update the post… keeping a website fresh is a never-ending task!)

Lesson #4: You can’t make everyone happy ALL the time.

“Sometimes it’s good to hit a nerve with your content—it gets people talking, making connections, and having important discussions.”

This was a hard one for me to learn. For the first few years of running Dear English Major, I would get really frustrated when people would leave negative comments on Facebook, be just plain mean, or tell me what I should and shouldn’t be posting. But of course, I learned that no matter the size of your audience, it is impossible to keep everyone happy all of the time. And in my opinion, you should not be trying to keep everyone happy all of the time. Sometimes it’s good to hit a nerve with your content—it gets people talking, making connections, and having important discussions. If you lose a few followers along the way, I actually consider that a good thing—I can focus more on serving the people that Dear English Major as a brand aligns with best. I’d rather have 1,000 followers who LOVE Dear English Major and will tell everyone about it vs. 100,000 followers who “like” my social media accounts but are disengaged.

Still, it can be hard not to take things personally sometimes. But I have 28,000+ followers on Facebook (#humblebrag), and there is just no way that everyone’s going to agree with everything I post. There have been times where I’ve had to take a significant break from engaging with Dear English Major’s social media accounts because the negativity would wear on me, but over time, I’ve gotten much better about being more intentional with where I spend my time and energy. I’ve also become more confident in my knowledge and in sharing that knowledge, so the “haters” don’t bother me as much anymore.

All of that being said, the good has absolutely outweighed the bad. I’ve also made so many incredible connections and have had amazing opportunities as a result of Dear English Major. It’s been one of my best investments!

Here I am speaking to a group of English major college students about DearEnglishMajor.com and careers for English majors.

These same lessons can be applied to real estate content. I’ve seen people get upset about the silliest things on real estate Facebook pages—people can even get riled up when their favorite brunch place isn’t in your “best brunch” blog post. This just goes to prove that even when you stick with “safe” topics, some people will find something to complain about. I say go big or go home—dig into who you are and don’t be afraid to sing it from the mountaintops.

Lesson #5: It’s A LOT of work running a successful content strategy.

Maintaining a blog that you consistently update with content of value is no easy feat. In my experience, everything always takes about 5x longer than I think it’s going to, and something as seemingly simple as choosing a cover image for a blog post can eat up a significant amount of time. I’ve hired people to help me with some of the administrative tasks for Dear English Major, and many of the blog posts are from outside contributors. DearEnglishMajor.com would not be what it is today without these outside contributions and supporters—it’s taken a village to grow this brand into what it is today.

This is all to say that if you’re ever frustrated with how long a piece of content is taking to create, you’re not alone. It can be hard to spend valuable time, money, and energy on a piece of content without a concrete ROI in sight, and sometimes it can feel like a total time suck. Don’t be surprised if you’re spending 5 hours (or longer) on a blog post—there’s A LOT that goes into crafting a high-quality piece of content.

Keep in mind that even one year of blogging consistently is a worthwhile investment in your business. You don’t have to have a packed year of content EVERY year—maybe one year you focus on creating fresh new content, and the next year you create a few new pieces of content, but you mostly focus on updating old content and re-distributing it on your social channels. I’ve gone through several creativity bursts with Dear English Major where I’ll create a bunch of new content one month, then not do much on the site for a few months. In the meantime, people find the website, they buy my book, they buy merchandise through the store, and they purchase items through affiliate links. Thanks to the investment I’ve already made in the website, it keeps working for me even when I take a break and focus on other things (like Home Scribe Creative!).

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I hope you found some insight (and comfort!) here. Dear English Major has been an incredible amount of work, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything—the whole experience has been and still is truly rewarding. There’s really nothing like having an English major reach out to me and tell me how much the site helped them find a career they love.