My intro story from BITW Episode 039: http://breakintotravelwriting.com/bitw-039-the-power-of-pinterest-how-to-snag-your-first-influencer-campaign-with-nicole-diaz/

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Today’s guest shares how to harness the power of Pinterest and Stumbleupon for massive traffic to your blog and also shares how to join blogger groups to make income with influencer campaigns. Before we jump into her interview I wanted to share a bit about the power of a belonging to a Mastermind group.

The four keys I see with a mastermind are:

  • The Value.
  • The level of expertise and support (especially if you choose your members wisely)
  • The Networking opps.
  • You Never know who you’ll meet.

I belong to two monthly masterminds.

1 – Tropical minds. This was born from a group of us who attended chris ducker’s ttt and have stayed connected. There are about 15 of us and we do a monthly meeting using Zoom. This is primarily about accountability. It’s set up for each of us to have 3 minutes to discuss our 3 goals for the next 30 days and ask for one thing we need help. After our ask for help anyone in the group who has the skillset to help raises their hand – literally and we follow up to achieve our goals.

If you are interested in zoom, it’s zoo.us and it’s free for up to 25 participants.

2- My second mastermind is a local mastermind in San Diego. I talked about this one on previous episodes and this is my more serious mastermind. There are usually between 4-6 of us and we meet monthly. Each person in this group has 15 minutes to talk about their business and then get a lot of feedback from the other members. It’s more of a brainstorming meeting that is super productive.

With each of these masterminds – they are entrepreneurial based and not travel based. It’s a great way to get more of a business perspective.

So, why would you want to join a mastermind as a travel blogger? If you have any desire to sell a course, products or services on your site and if you want grow your email list are two I think of first. The strategies that work for developing a webinar, email opt in, a course, social media strategies are similar across most industries.

I’m not saying I don’t think a travel blogger mastermind isn’t a good idea. Its been on my mental to do list for a few months now. I just need to take the time to get a bit aggressive about setting it up and inviting people to join.

Now, another benefit to a mastermind is networking. One of the members of my SD mastermind – Beth Wilkenson works in PR and has an event planning company as a side hustle. She created a women’s only slumberparty mastermind, which I attended last week. It was a one night event and was really great. There were about 10 of us at the event and I knew 3, but met 7 new women who learned about my podcast and travel academy. Also, a former employee at her company also happened to be a top 3 finalist in Masterchef – a cooking show with Gordon Ramsey, Graham Elliott and Christina Tosey. She surprised us by asking Claudia to cook dinner for us. Claudia also stayed for our mastermind portion of the evening and was an amazing participant. She has a huge knowledge of social media and pr as well and gave great advice to all of us. Plus I have to say it was really fun participating when it was Claudia’s turn to talk about what her goals were after Masterchef. From this evening, Claudia invited all of us to her private finale party for Masterchef at the W hotel in San Diego. Not only was it a super fun event, because YES! Claudia did win masterchef, but I met some great people.

How to start a mastermind. I suggest you team up with one or two people that run in different circles. Pick them strategically. I helped form the SD mastermind I am in with a friend, Gary Ware who has worked at a PR agency for years. The agency he worked for at the time we started the group had a branch that was focused on the travel industry. This allowed me to meet other people from his world who focus on travel pr and social media – which included Beth who threw the slumber party where I met the new Masterchef, Claudia Sandoval – you can see who this could be of value to me as a travel blogger and podcaster.

Each of you then invites 3-5 people, set a date and a structure for you meetings. Move forward. Not everyone will stick with it, so keep reaching out until you have a handful of people that commit. It the group is valuable people will make a point of showing up.

Let’s say you don’t have any business goals with your travel blog. You aren’t interested in making any income from it and you blog for the opportunity to travel. Joining or creating a mastermind that focuses on social media growth and blogging tactics would be of immense value.

So, my two cents. I have found participating in my masterminds a great way to stay focused, be accountable for monthly goals and move forward growing this podcast, my blogs and my travel writers academy.

If you have any questions about starting a mastermind reach out to me on Twitter or Instagram @writetotravel, on Facebook at the Break into Travel Writing Podcast or leave a comment in the shownotes at bitw/episode39 or on this post.

One last thing, if you haven’t listened to the last few podcasts, I think you’ll be excited to hear that I am starting a small exclusive group for people who are serious about learning more about how to get started with travel writing, get media visits and get published as well as defining your why for travel and becoming a travel writer. If you want to learn more about how I am working with pr companies and directly with hotels and DMOs and traveling as much as time allows…….. stop what you are doing and go to breakintotravelwriting.com/travelwriter and apply to be a part of the group.

It’s easy to apply and there are just a few questions that are fun to answer because it will get your mind thinking about the direction you want to take your travel writing career.

This group will be limited to a small number, so if you are ready to jump in with both feet to get your travel writing career started and you want to know all my secrets just go to breakintotravelwriting.com/travelwriter and I will be contacting everyone to set up a call starting this week. It will be a quick call to discuss your travel and travel writing goals and I’ll give you all the details about the group and the launch date.

I’m really excited to hear from each of you who are ready to get your travel writing career started! So, again its breakintotravelwriting.com/travelwriter to apply!

 

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