We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lindsey Nilsen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lindsey below.

Alright, Lindsey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you manage your own social media?

Currently, I manage my own social media. I manage my own strictly as a way to cut down on costs but I would love to someday be able to hire someone to manage it for me. So far I’ve had mixed results from my own social media marketing. Some things I thought would be successful have been total flops and others have surprised me. I think my biggest lesson so far has been to do your research and to stay authentic to yourself/brand!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began my teaching career in a small rural school teaching third grade. I quickly fell in love with teaching reading and writing. After living abroad and being out of the classroom for a few years I learned that I could still foster my creative side and use my teaching skills, but in less traditional ways.
Once we moved back stateside we started a family and I was torn between wanting to continue to keep my footing in my education career and wanting to nurture my growing family full time.
Six weeks after my son was born I decided to take a leap and combine my creative side with my passion for literacy and make literacy resources to sell. I creat simple, engaging, and most importantly effective K-4 reading and writing resources that other teachers can implement with their students. I primarily sell my resources on the education resource site Teachers Pay Teachers but I also have my own website/blog. My hope is to continue to grow so that I can pursue publishing my children’s books someday!

I primarily create and share K-4 literacy resources, activities, and ideas for other educators to use with their students. Parents and teachers can easily buy a workbook or download worksheets online but what sets my resources apart is the engagement factor. I work hard to combine strategies that engage kids (games and crafts for example) with research-based learning opportunities. I’m not just creating dry worksheets. I create learning experiences that will last.

In addition to my literacy resources, I have also dabbled in promoting teacher mental health. While I LOVE teaching it is HARD! I very much struggled with my mental health while in the classroom. Again, I decided to pair my creative side with something I felt passionate about which brought my Teacher Mental Health Journal to life. I spent nearly a year writing and designing a journal specifically for teachers in the hope that other teachers might feel empowered to pour into themselves instead of just their students. I am very proud of the journal and have loved hearing all the positivity from teachers who are using it!

How did you build your audience on social media?

Honestly, social media is not my favorite part of my business. It has always been very hard for me to not overthink every post, real, or story. I think I’ve built up my audience so far by providing them with educational value. Social media is FULL of people just trying to sell you something. I get exhausted by all of the pushy sales tactics used by businesses and influencers and I didn’t want to be one more person trying to make a buck off my audience. Sure, I do hope that my audience purchases my literacy resources but that is not my main goal! I work really hard to do what I love: teach! I have always tried to teach my audience literacy tips, tricks, resources, teaching methods, and ideas. My audience tends to grow when I post things that help other parents or teachers teach too. My advice for others just starting to build their social media presence would be to focus more on adding meaningful value than on marketing strategies!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me knowing that there are things out there in the world that can be used over and over to help others is so rewarding. Being a creator of resources means that what I love most about teaching (helping others learn to read/teach reading) gets to happen even if I am not in the classroom. It means that it could be an average Wednesday for me, but to a child somewhere in the world using one of my resources it could be the day a light bulb goes off for them on their reading journey! I love how far-reaching my impact can be through my literacy resources!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://authorlindseynilsen.com
• Instagram: Authorlindseynilsen

Image Credits

Kelsey Dawn Photography