We were lucky to catch up with Jen Shaffer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

When I first started out in 2017, I was blindly trying ideas. It was basically like throwing darts with a blindfold on, hoping something lands where it should. Through trying loads of ideas like print ads and tables at farmers markets, I slowly started to see what methods were gaining traction. I wasn’t afraid of putting my business out there for exposure, but I definitely wasn’t using the right methods in the beginning. My business slowly grew each year, but it was mostly by word of mouth referrals as my other attempts fell flat. It wasn’t until I started posting daily genealogy tip videos on TikTok in 2022 that my business really took off. That was the magical ingredient that I needed to reach my right client audience. I was displaying my knowledge and skills consistently and now nearly my entire client base comes from social media tip videos on various platforms.

I see so many genealogists starting out and they assume that all they need to do is create a website and the business will come to them, but you need to be constantly churning out new content to gain visibility, a reputation and an image.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by history and what life was like during historical time periods. When I was in 5th grade, I had to do a family tree project in school and my grandfather, who was already 85 years old, sat me down with a suitcase full of photos from the 1800s, handed me a pen and had me write names on the back of these photos as his eyesight was failing. I was fascinated by these images and now especially love that these are all labeled in my little kid handwriting. What a huge help this has been in researching my own family history.

So flash forward until online genealogy became a thing. I started researching and quickly discovered that I was very good at it. I would seek out supposed experts at historical societies and ask them about the people I was researching. I would often find that they expert info they were giving me was actually from my own family tree online on Ancestry.com. I started wondering if this could be a field I could break into.

I started The Formidable Genealogist on a whim, just to see if it could go anywhere. I quickly realized just how much I want it to succeed and have put a tremendous amount of effort into it. Along with my business partner, Holly, we work a broad range of client cases. One day we may be researching one brick wall a client has for a specific ancestor, the next day perhaps building a full family tree for someone who does not have the time or patience to research. Holly also works extensively with DNA results to find biological family for individuals who have gaps in their family knowledge.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I continue to be amazed at TikTok as a business tool. I can’t stress enough how small business owners should be utilizing it. You can really build a reputation of being an expert in your field and continue to connect with peers and clients alike. It can be intimidating to get started, but it is an amazing tool.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My best advice is to not worry about it being perfect at first. You will adapt and alter your approach as you understand the tools better and what your audience wants to see from you. I also highly recommend that you pay attention to what others in your field are posting. Foster relationships with others in your field and learn form them.

I also recommend you reuse your content. I believed in the beginning that I needed to post different content on all platforms, but I really haven’t seen many of the same followers on multiple platforms. I reuse the same content across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook without feeling redundant. You’ll find that your followers differ greatly across different platforms and that’s okay. You’ll figure out your niche.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theformidablegenealogist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFormidableGenealogist
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-shaffer-genealogist/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsjJIjC9Vtw9xkLDSNlPhjg
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@theformidablegenealogist