We recently connected with Leah Ferezan and have shared our conversation below.

Leah, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I was a wedding planner for 14 years and I loved it. I started out in college taking marketing and wedding planning courses. Then I interned with a wedding planner for year before becoming an assistant and helping day-of. After that I started my own business for a few years but eventually worked as a wedding planner at a few country clubs. I loved the creativity, the organization, and being there for one of the happiest days of people’s lives.

However, after I had my two children I knew I wanted to have my nights and weekends back.

During my time as a wedding planner I was also blogging at Lifestyle with Leah and for the past few years .I started creating these story templates that were going viral all over Instagram. Just a few weeks after I started creating them I was getting thousand’s of messages from people tagging me in their stories after they would fill out these templates. Kristin Cavallari and Brittany Kerr were sharing them on their stories, my friend’s cousins were sharing them all the way from California, I was even featured in Cosmopolitan Philippines. It was WILD.

I blew up from about 400 followers to over 200,000 in the span of a few months and I didn’t know what to do.

It was at this point I hired Picking Daisies Media to help me work with brands with collaborations on my Instagram and other social media accounts.

For years and years I have always wanted content creation to be my full time job. I would study how bloggers could make tons of money and stay at home with their kids and so once I went viral on Instagram and once I knew I was done being a wedding planner my husband told me to quit and that I would figure it out.

So I did!

Picking Daisies Media did a phenomenal job with finding me like-minded brands to work with while I focused on affiliate marketing, growing my blog, and Pinterest on the side.

It was a risk but it was a risk worth taking. I am so much happier, I am still able to use my creativity and organization throughout my work and I love my job so very much!

I also get to surprise my kids at school for lunch, take them to all their cheer practices and travel whenever I want to.

I am forever grateful and forever thankful for taking the risk.

Leah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started writing a blog many years ago during my wedding planning days. It was called, “No Day More Perfect Than A Wedding Day.” Yikes! I cringe just thinking about it, ha!.

It was all about wedding planning and the weddings I would do. However, with time I changed my niche (and my blog name) and focused more on Lifestyle with my content pillars focusing on recipes, travel, hacks, family, and crafts.

One thing I write on in my blog is how my goal is for my followers to find value and takeaways in my social media. Whether it be a delicious recipe to make with their kids, a skincare product I love, a fun craft to do over the summer with their kids or a hack to make something in their lives easier, I only talk and share about the things I love and think they would love as well. Ideas are for sharing!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I first started out being a content creator I thought I had to please everyone. By everyone I meant the 200k + followers I had.

I started losing followers and at first I didn’t understand why. But the truth is, when you go viral on Instagram it is a blessing and a curse. Yes, you gain tons of amazing followers but those followers only follow you based off of that one story or that one reel that went viral so once they see your niche isn’t what they are interested in, they will unfollow you.

Now, I am super happy with the following I have. My followers follow me because they want to see what I have to share and I am completely fine when I get unfollows because that just means I’m not what they are interested in and that is totally ok!

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

Here is a little clip from an earlier question:

During my time as a wedding planner I was also blogging at Lifestyle with Leah and for the past few years .I started creating these story templates that were going viral all over Instagram. Just a few weeks after I started creating them I was getting thousand’s of messages from people tagging me in their stories after they would fill out these templates. Kristin Cavallari and Brittany Kerr were sharing them on their stories, my friend’s cousins were sharing them all the way from California, I was even featured in Cosmopolitan Philippines. It was WILD.

I blew up from about 400 followers to over 200,000 in the span of a few months and I didn’t know what to do.

It was at this point I hired Picking Daisies Media to help me work with brands with collaborations on my Instagram and other social media accounts.

For those who are just starting… don’t focus on followers. Focus on your niche, focus on bringing value to the people who want to follow you and focus on organic engagement (key word is organic). Paid followers and loops do not work. They will be a quick fix for a short amount of time but you will start back at zero. Just share what you love and you will attract the followers that love the content you provide. Patience is key here.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lifestylewithleah.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/leahferezan
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/lifestylewithleah
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@leahferezan
• Other: Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/lifestylewithleah