We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelsie Mosebar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelsie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

My blog, Just Kels, was created in the spring of 2016 as I was wrapping up my first year of college. Ever since I learned how to write when I was younger, I immediately loved it and knew it was something I wanted to continue with in some capacity throughout my life. Fast forward years later, after exploring relevant majors throughout my first year of college and taking different classes, it wasn’t until I took my multimedia content creation class that I found an outlet of writing I wanted to pursue, in the form of my personal blog.

While starting off with a small audience of what consisted of close friends and family, my blog was my outlet, almost like an online diary if you will. I found it to be the way I could really express who I am to others and share my life experiences. At the time, I had only known of two other bloggers, as this was the very beginning of the blogging era before it exploded into the industry it is today. I had admired their work and followed along with their creative journeys as it continued to inspire me to evolve my blog in years to come, especially as more and more creatives entered the space.

It wasn’t until about two to three years later that I learned you could monetize your blog, and from there, my blog continued to evolve until I truly found my niche and created my brand, what people would come to my website for – travel guides, outfit ideas, lifestyle/wellness routines, relatable content, and even tips on getting started with their own blogs and building their own communities. I gradually grew my audience and community over time and connected with others in the space and felt like I was really making a difference and an impact on people, each day I saw more and more traffic coming to my site, people leaving comments or liking my posts, and continuing to support my work as time went on.

While the imposter syndrome was (and still is) real, I continued to receive support from my family and friends who encouraged me to keep going, even on days when it felt hard due to changing algorithms, etc., it always paid off and knew this was something I could succeed at.

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

I am a late-twenty-something millennial living in the greater Seattle area, working a corporate 9-5 job in marketing by day, and blogging by night.

My blog, Just Kels, was created in the spring of 2016 as I was wrapping up my first year of college. Ever since I learned how to write when I was younger, I immediately loved it and knew it was something I wanted to continue with in some capacity throughout my life. Fast forward years later, after exploring relevant majors throughout my first year of college and taking different classes, it wasn’t until I took my multimedia content creation class that I found an outlet of writing I wanted to pursue, in the form of my personal blog.

While I am very career-driven and put my career first, it’s very important to me to continue my passion project on the side as my blog has been a part of me and my personal brand for over eight years now. It has been with me through different chapters of my life and has truly grown with me throughout my twenties.

The content shared on my blog consists of travel guides and inspiration, trendy/affordable/everyday outfit ideas, life/wellness, and, more recently, my wedding. It’s very important to me to keep it real with my audience by sharing about my day-to-day, real-life experiences, and even recommending products or things I like/use (even if doing so is not sponsored). While it can be easy to fall into a comparison game when viewing blog and social media content nowadays with everything so curated, lux, and perfect, I aim to inspire others by keeping it real, or “unfiltered” if you will. I’m your average, everyday girl who you can come to for navigating life and its challenges, to relate to, and doing so in style, and where to book your next trip.

How did you build your audience on social media?

A few things I quickly learned about successfully building my audience on social media were consistency, connection, and branding.

Starting my blog in 2016 during the early years of the industry with Instagram still being fairly new compared to what it is today (and the lack of resources out there at the time), I’m almost embarrassed to admit I did not have much of a strategy and quickly learned from trial and error how to build my audience into what it is today. Safe to say, when I was first starting out, I was inconsistent, was not connecting with others in the space, and was not keeping a consistent brand across platforms – all key things to help with success over time.

After seeing unsuccessful results from my (lack of) strategy, I began posting more consistently, actively seeking out other creatives in the industry, or even local to my area and supporting their work or reaching out to build a connection, and keeping a consistent theme of posts across all of my platforms. Only after a few years, I was able to grow my audience to over 10k+ who continue to support my work today.

My best piece of advice here and what I’d say is the main takeaway from my experience is to continue to be consistent, even if it can be discouraging. Slow growth is still growth and over time, you’ll see the benefits of that and how quickly your audience will continue to expect content from you on certain days/times, always having you top of mind as they open their social media apps.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think the one thing non-creatives don’t fully understand about a creative’s journey is how much work it is – to this day, it is still underestimated to those outside the industry and bloggers/influencers still get a bad rep.

Viewing content on blogs or social media can be so easy and effortless that it’s easy to think that not much time or consideration goes into that content, however, being on the other side of it, it can take hours and consume so much time in planning outfits, locations, props and details, factoring in lighting/time of day for the best outcome of the content, coming up with intriguing captions, researching trending hashtags, dedicating a certain time of day to share content for the best results, engaging with others, and continuing to do so multiple times per week.

Not only that, but also keeping up with the ever-changing trends and platforms that continue to evolve, like Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, additional platforms like Threads or Lemon8, and continuing to be consistent on each every single day. Learning how to build your website, develop your theme and continue to drive traffic through engaging content. The list goes on.

Like any other small business, it takes time to build from the ground up with some days harder than others to keep going – there is so much hustle that goes into it behind the scenes that I think is very underestimated.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://justkels.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justkelsco/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBqmymCblfmDaeaLOpuJpNA
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/justkelsblog/