We recently connected with Emma Golden Miller and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I feel I branched out on my own at the exact right time. I wouldn’t have done it any sooner or any later — it happened exactly when it was supposed to. Let me explain.

In January of 2020, I was pretty miserable at my 9-5. While I was a senior copywriter and manager, inner-office politics had gotten murkier and murkier, and morale was at an all-time low. I was being made to feel like I was bad at what I know I’m great at — writing. Miscommunication and mixed messaging were creating a never-ending negative feedback loop of edits, and it was hell.

At this point, I had been freelance writing on the side for years but had never taken it very seriously. It was more of a hobby and my 9-5 was my “actual” job. However, I could see the writing on the wall and was beginning to realize that if there were ever going to be a time to quit and make freelance my full-time thing, it was now. I started to bulk up my client list and save more and more money in preparation for creating an LLC, and then COVID happened. Suddenly, we were all locked inside at home working remotely, and the already glaring issues at my corporate job became blinding. By April, things were so bleak, I was in tears nearly every day, alone at home.

But while my corporate job had reached an all-time low, my freelance career had picked up and was going full steam ahead. Bloggers needed writers to help them create uplifting, interesting content during the lockdown, and I was their girl. At the end of April, I did something insane — I gave my two weeks to a secure job during a global pandemic and went off on my own. Had it been any moment before that one, I wouldn’t have been ready. I needed the 10 years of “real world” experience to not only hone my craft, but gain invaluable skills in terms of client relationships, communication, and essentially how to function as a working adult. While the pandemic was a scary, lonely time, it was also an unprecedented opportunity for me to set up a home office and get a taste of what working for myself might be like, and I loved it. So I jumped.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a copywriter by trade, but I’ve been writing ever since I could pick up a pencil and put it to paper. My mom still has piles of my early work like poems, non-sensical short stories, and Powerpoint presentations. I always knew I wanted to write for a living, but I wasn’t sure in what capacity. I understood that not many people can call themselves successful novelists, and that writing articles for newspapers or magazines only got you so far. So for the first few years out of college (and especially because it was 2009, i.e. peak recession), I was in a sales job because I wasn’t exactly sure how to utilize my natural knack for storytelling and words just yet.

In March of 2010, I started my blog, EMMASTHING. It was a space where I could share my every thought and musing about life, and boy, did I. The content I put out back then is the definition of cringe-worthy, but I didn’t care — I was writing and strangers on the internet were reading what I was writing, and sometimes sharing what I was writing. So I just kept writing, and slowly but surely, with the explosion of social media, I was able to expand my reach and begin writing for other people and other websites. Back then, I took any writing job I was offered — it didn’t matter if I was writing a restaurant review for an online site with no traffic or editing someone’s cover letter. I was writing, and that’s what I clung to.

Finally in 2012, I took my pages of blog posts and handful of small-scale articles written for other publications, and applied to an advertising agency for a junior copywriter role. I had zero real world writing experience, but knew if someone was willing to let me wedge my moderate size 7 foot in the door, I’d soar. And someone did. And I did.

Writing, to me, is storytelling at its core. Weaving words and sentences together to create a larger message is an art, and while I can’t draw a dog to save my life, I can tell a captivating story about one with a keyboard or a pen. I can be shallow, deep, flowery, serious, poetic, prose-y, clipped, long winded, cheeky, blunt. I can write one-liners, a paragraph, pages on pages. I can write a TV commercial, sponsored article, 300 words about an outfit, a touching Instagram caption, or website copy that gets people clicking. Copywriting specifically is the ability to wear many hats, and it’s a good thing I look great in hats.

With social media, I’ve been able to combine my love of writing and storytelling with my love of connection and people. I dabble in video editing as well because, again, it’s another form of storytelling, and I will never pass up an opportunity to tell you a story whether it’s written, spoken, or shown. I’m known as an open book online because I subscribe to the idea that if you feel some way or think something, you are not the first and only person to feel and think these things. We’re all in this together, and you are not so unique or “weird” that you’re alone in your thoughts – no matter how out there they may seem.

Tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine. And if you can’t put yours into words, I can.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have such a passion for storytelling. I truly believe that there’s a story in every day just waiting to be told. My mom used to joke that she never left the house and came back without a “story.” Whether the story was about a car in traffic, a run-in with someone at a store, or how her lunch order was wrong, she always came back with a tale to tell that was entertaining as hell. Seinfeld is my all-time favorite sitcom (right in line with The Office). It often referred to itself as “a show about nothing,” and that’s how I referred to myself for a long time: “a blog about nothing, yet everything.” Life happens in the small moments and, when woven together expertly, creates intrigue and relatability. My goal is to bring humanity into sales and marketing and help people and brands find their voice that tells their story in a relatable, interesting way, and it’s absolutely what drives me forward.

How did you build your audience on social media?

To most, my following is what you would deem “small.” In the grand scheme of audiences, 13k+ isn’t much. However, for me, it’s everything. For a long time, I beat myself up over not having a niche. I would often joke that I’m not a fashion blogger, but I have style and love to shop. I’m not a food blogger, but I love baking and cooking. I’m not a beauty blogger, but I love playing around with makeup. I think a lot of creators get very hung up on finding that one THING that can really zero in on and only ever create content around that one thing and, while this makes some sense in terms of consistency, I’ve always felt it can have the opposite effect and sort of pigeonhole people creatively speaking. Life is about evolving; it’s a process of elimination, exploring yourself, your likes/dislikes, and regardless of what they say, people do and can change. So while you may be all about beauty one year, maybe you realize your true passion is weight lifting and want to shift your content to that.

People are not just ONE thing and to label yourself as X type of creator is to suffocate your own creativity and opportunity to be whoever you want to be that day. My biggest pieces of advice for someone looking to grow their following and find their “people” so to speak are as follows:

– Be unapologetically you. Don’t worry about offending anyone or saying the wrong thing because you can’t please everyone and even if you think you’re doing everything right, someone will still dislike you for no good reason. So just post what you want, when you want, and the right people will show up.
– Don’t try and be something you’re not. Sure, there may be trending reels or hot content everyone seems to be creating, but if it’s not what you would typically do and seems totally out of character and forced, people will pick up on that quickly. Again, just be you.
– Engage with your audience constantly. Answer DMs, take polls, put up question boxes — get to know them and give them the chance to get to know you.
– Find likeminded accounts or personalities you love, follow them, and support them.
– Remember that IT’S ALL A HIGHLIGHT REEL. No one’s life is that great or perfect so don’t get caught up in all the filters and long-winded captions.
– Be consistent. Post every day. Talk to the camera on stories so it feels personal. Nowadays, more than anything, people are looking for connection over inspiration.
– Don’t be afraid to promote yourself because no one else is gonna do it for you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.emmasthing.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/emmasthing
• Other: https://theweeklydigress.substack.com/

Image Credits
Jennifer Lawson @jennybirddd