Hi Nicole! What’s the name of your blog.
Where are you from?
Pawleys Island, South Carolina.
Tell us a little bit more about you and your blog, Abroad + Abode!
Abroad + Abode is an online destination featuring my home decorating along with interior design and travel inspiration, tips, and advice to create a well-designed life.
Give us your best tip to staying on top of the blog/work/life balance?
Ha! I’m definitely still trying to figure out how to balance everything I want to do in life. I have a corporate job (in software), launching my interior decorating business, and love to blog and create – it’s a lot. My advice to myself daily is to find joy in what I am doing, stay on task, and always focus on helping others.
Fill in the blank. What people don’t realize about blogging is….
The amount of time and energy it takes to create a truly great piece of content. Behind the scenes is 95% of the work.
What are three things you wish you knew about blogging before you started?
Before I started blogging I wish I had known about SEO, how to time block + batch create, and other bloggers to connect with so it didn’t feel so lonely an endeavor.
What skills and qualities do you think are necessary for a successful and professional blogger?
To be successful at blogging you MUST be a self-starter, be able to form a strategy and execute without getting sidetracked and know yourself and your voice.
What has blogging taught you/given you that no other career or job has before?
A creative outlet and feeling of contributing to the education of others. I try my best to focus on helping teach my community about interior design and travel so they too can create a space they love and that represents them.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out in the blog world?
Invest in yourself and your education. It is better to spend a bit of money upfront to learn the best way to accomplish your goals than waste time fumbling through.
What does a typical work day for you look like? Whether you’re a full time blogger or not, we’d love to learn what your schedule looks like and how you manage it all.
A typical day for me begins around 7:30am – before logging into my corporate job, I schedule & review any posts needed for that day based on my content calendar, work from 8-5 with a couple of breaks where I may engage with my audience a bit, post a couple of stories, etc. Then after work, I focus on family time with my husband and pups! My content generation typically happens on weekends where I batch write, take pictures, make videos, and create graphics.
What would your dream partnership look like? From the brand, the content, all of it! Dream up your perfect collaboration.
Oh wow! My dream collaboration would be partnering with my favorite designer trade vendors to create the bedroom of my dreams and share the entire process with my community. Lots of blogs, posts, reels, and stories would be involved. I love sharing the entire design process with my community to demystify and make it accessible.
What is a current blogging goal you’re working on?
Because I focused most of 2021 on learning, in 2022 my focus is putting my education into practice. To that end, my goals are related to growth and consistency. Publishing blog posts 3x per week and driving readership growth via Instagram and Pinterest.
What’s your most recent WIN with your blog?
I finally took the time to create a NEWSLETTER! Using Mailchimp, I set up a weekly newsletter to keep my audience engaged with my website.
