Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking to travel blogger Ryan Biddulph as part of the last installment for 2019 of EngageBay’s ongoing interview series. Speaking with Ryan was a great note to end the year on, as he provided some amazing insights!
In case you’re not familiar, Ryan Biddulph is a renowned traveler, writer, blogger, and an Amazon best-selling author. His website, Blogging from Paradise, has inspired a slew of successful courses and eBooks. It’s no wonder that Biddulph has received endorsements from Nikki Woods of the O Network, New York Times best seller Chris Brogan, and many more.
Born in New Jersey, Ryan has lived a life many of us wish we could lead: traveling and seeing the world! He’s been to such locations as Nicaragua, Turkey, Cyprus, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Peru, Fiji, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Japan, and many more.
It’s not just all play for Ryan, as his blogging has seen him get noticed on sites like ProBlogger, NeilPatel.com, JohnChow.com, Fox News, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.
Here are some great pearls of wisdom Ryan graciously shared during our interview.
Shift Your Energy from a Place of Fear to One of Faith and Passion
Ryan told me that when he first started blogging, he was petrified. He didn’t know a lot about SEO or even many blogging best practices. It’s since gotten far better for him, but still, in the beginning, Ryan struggled. He mentions that this is because of where he had focused his energy.
According to Ryan, so much of his energy was coming from a place of fear. He wasn’t blogging for the sheer enjoyment of it. He wasn’t writing to educate or entertain people. Instead, Ryan was so afraid of failing at blogging and having to go back to a nine-to-five that fear was at the basis of his life.
Once he more honestly assessed himself, he shifted out of that mindset. Ryan also began working with more successful bloggers who helped him come from a place of passion for his writing. With that attitude shift came more success. It just goes to show what a positive mindset can do!
Every Business Should Have a Blog
It’s almost 2020. It might seem like having a great website and a strong social media presence is enough, right? Well, think again. Ryan talked in our interview about the importance of blogging. Here’s what he said: “Blogging is so big for business because you get to show off specifically what you know with a one-of-a-kind brand.”
Every company wants to differentiate itself these days, and your blog can be the opportunity to do that. It’s important to have a very strong, well-defined brand voice before you start filling the blog with content. This voice should be present in every post you make and each comment you respond to. Further, that brand voice should extend to all your communications, be that in email or on social media. That’s how you get that one-of-a-kind quality Ryan was talking about.
Social Media Can Be Used to Build a Community if You’re Willing to Help
Do you want heaps of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms? This almost seems like a rhetorical question, right? Of course, you do. Yet how do you go about doing it?
Ryan advises businesses to focus more on helping than necessarily the “sell, sell, sell” mindset. If you produce the kind of useful, valuable content that people need, they’ll be at least attuned to your brand. Oh, and Ryan says this content should be free, at least at first. As he told me, “if people trust the freemium, they’ll buy the premium.”
In other words, have some trust in the process and see what can grow out of it, which is one of Ryan’s life philosophies.
Well, that’s about all I have to share. Ryan talked a lot more about some great points for businesses and marketers, all of which you can check out in our full interview on EngageBay. Give it a watch!
Checkout Our Interviews with Top Influencers:
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Ted Rubin
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Neal Schaffer
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Deirdre Breakenridge
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Laurie McCabe
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Ryan Robinson
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Douglas Karr
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Shane Barker
