Krisrael is my first blog that I originally made in college and then picked back up again about 6 months post grad. I ran it, full speed ahead for 8 months before consulting took over all my free time. 

 

In those eight months we took a blog to 100k views, and I managed a staff of 14 writers and 2 editors. I even had to fire a couple people, which was not easy since everyone was at the least a friend-of-a-friend type of connection. We put out lifestyle content twice a day for people just out of college, trying to find their identy and discover beautiful things about the world they'd just begun to experience. 

 

Here are some of the highlights from Krisrael

I wanted to make sure I created a team with many voices and view points. All of them were invited to write for the blog based on the type on content they shared on their personal facebook wall. I figured if they knew what interesting content looked like in the first place, then I was already half way to winning the battle on what an interesting blog post looked like. 

 

This turned out to be primarily true, many of them became fantastic writers and put together some top notch pieces.

 

I split my writers into 2 groups of 7, each group reporting to one of the two editors for proofing, then the blogs were handed off to me for final approval and tweeks. Writers were expected to delivery weekly, on a deadline, in a specific range of content. I was always open to collaborate and chat about ideas they could blog about, and created a private facebook group where everyone on staff could share ideas and celebrate our successes together. 

 

I think everyone enjoyed the experience, a few of them have gone out of their way to write me recommendations on LinkedIn.

 

Part of my job was to make sure that tags, titles, and photos were being optimized. Here's a couple posts we loved, and were so proud to reach top google rankings

 

#4 for "Shoes Every Man Should Own"

#1 for "Geeky Engagement Rings"

This video is the product of 1 part SEO, and 1 part partnerships. James Craig Salon and I worked together to promote their salon AND give me a great new hair cut. Video has almost 15k views to date-- almost strictly because of the tags and title (I'd like to say it's because of the content, but then I'd be admitting to how funny and clever I think I am, and I don't think this is the best example of that aspect of my personality).

I promoted the blog not only through a standard facebook and twitter page, but with reddit and pinterest accounts. As many marketers know, Reddit is a scary, brutual place-- it's kinda like the movie 300, but instead of super beefy spartans it's geeks kicking your content (and you) into that huge gaping hole in the ground. BUT when you get it just right, they'll reward you handsomely. Here's my favorite example of cracking the Reddit code. 

Here's the blog post: 

Here's the reddit post:

This is what 231 up votes on Reddit translates to:

(By the way the stats on that second post is from another winning Reddit post)

 

I'm really proud of the work we put out on Krisrael so I wanted to post some links at the bottom of this portfolio entry for viewers to look at if they still want to see more. 

Banana Blueberry Oat Pancakes Recipe- (photos shot by me, cooking done by Brendan Barnard)