With all of the constant shifts in the blogging industry, from social media algorithms to influencer marketing trends, the one thing that stays consistent is your brand. After being a content creator for a while, you realize pretty quickly that you don't have control over many things. You'll never be able to control how many likes you get on a post, or how much engagement your blog pieces get But, you can always optimize your brand to be in the best position possible day in and day out. Back at MVCon 2019, Jocelyn Delk Adams took the stage to talk all things brand. She's the founder of Grandbaby Cakes, a brand inspired by her grandmother which shares classic recipes in a modern and accessible way. In this podcast episode, you'll hear her top tips on how to align your brand with your personal passion and create a community that you love. You don't want to miss it! Helpful Resources * Grandbaby Cakes* Jocelyn's Cookbook* Grandbaby Cakes Merch* Mediavine On Air Episode 49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx1UhSZM6UE&t=115s Transcript [MUSIC PLAYING] JOCELYN ADAMS: Good morning. Yeah! I'm the only one excited to be here? OK, I just want to apologize for the weather in Chicago. It sucks. I am sorry. [LAUGHTER] I am sorry. It will get better tomorrow. How is everyone doing? Yeah, I feel like I'm doing the Oprah-like thing. Well, first of all, we're going to go from high energy to probably some kind of cooler energy. And we'll go back and forth because this is a serious topic. So for you guys who are blogging a year or less, raise your hands, a year or less. Oh, so everybody is like OGs up in here? [LAUGHTER] Right? OK, so what about four to five years? OK, yeah, y'all need this. You burn out. Anything above that? Oh, my gosh, and you're still doing it. OK, clap for yourselves for real, right? Because this is hard. Staying fired up about your brand is very, very difficult to do. You've got the ebbs and flows. I mean, I'm sure most of you are not waking up every single day like, oh, my gosh, I can not wait to do SEO today. No? No, right? This is difficult. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I cannot wait to go out and do 20 more Instagram shoots today. It gets difficult to stay in the mix. So I have a presentation, and I have all of these thoughts about things you guys can do to externally keep the fire going and internally keep the fire going. But this morning, I had a lot more revelations. It was at like 3:00 in the morning. And I was up with my daughter. And I started writing in what looks like my eighth grade journal. Does anyone still do that? And so I have more stuff to offer too. And the first thing that came to mind for me is that staying fired up about your brand, that's inner work, right? So when you come to these conferences, you're going to learn so much about strategy, about how you can do all of the things, the things that keep your brand growing. But what about the things that keep you invested? What about the things that keep you excited about what you do every day? Because it's difficult.