We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tara Ball a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I’ve been a writer alongside my relationship coaching practice for many years. I’ve always enjoyed writing and made some money on the side blogging about relationship advice as well as writing for dating websites. It wasn’t until I tackled having multiple sources of income that I started making more money from content creation than I was from coaching. I also felt like I was reaching more people and providing more impactful information than I’m able to do just meeting one-on-one with clients. I first started blogging on the platform Medium.com. Later, I diversified into video content on Tiktok and Instagram (@tara.relationshipcoach), and I’ve just started on YouTube as well. My major milestones started out small: 100 followers, 1000 followers, etc. I ended up having a video go viral a couple of months in on Tiktok, and that momentum helped me get over 100,000 followers. I’m now at 270,000 followers on Tiktok. Instagram was harder to blow up on. It’s more of a long-game platform, but with them transitioning more into reels, I’ve found that my video content on Instagram has done really well too, and even though I have 200,000 less followers on Instagram, I feel like all of those followers on IG were well-earned! On top of making money from creating content (through the Tiktok creator fund and the bonuses feature on IG), I also have had other lucrative opportunities from those two platforms way above and beyond from just blogging. I get coaching clients that way. I sell digital products, webinars, workshops, community memberships, and live courses. I also occasionally get brand deals that make sense for me to use, and I do some affiliate marketing. I also landed 3 book deals from my presence on Instagram, which included advances and some royalties. I think the most important part of being any content creator is diversifying. Don’t just write, also film video or do a podcast. I wish I’d gotten onto Instagram and Tiktok much sooner than I did for my business.
Tara, 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’m a Relationship Coach and author. I spent nearly a decade trying to work on my first marriage. I went to individual therapy and couples therapy. We attended couples retreats, and in my free time, I listened to podcasts and audiobooks on relationship skills and tried to follow popular advice from relationship self-help books. While I tried valiantly to save that marriage, I couldn’t, but all of that knowledge didn’t go to waste. I ended up using that impetus to improve my personal relationships into becoming certified as a relationship coach. I now work with individuals and couples trying to improve their toxic/unhealthy relationships. I offer one-on-one coaching, manage a Vibely challenge group (https://app.vibely.io/happyrelationshipclub/challenges?showSubscribe=tiers), and post regularly on Tiktok (https://www.tiktok.com/@tara.relationshipcoach), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/tara.relationshipcoach/), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0lcxmYgKdkKdL_boZP4D9w). I’ve also written three books. Two focus on positive tools for couples: Grateful in Love: A Daily Gratitude Journal for Couples, and A Couple’s Goals Journal: 52 Weeks of Prompts and Activities to Track and Celebrate Your Relationship Goals (https://amzn.to/3c3F22o). I also have one book (set to come out in December 2022) on how to recover from a toxic relationship titled Reclaim & Recover: Heal from Toxic Relationships with a 7-Step Guided Journal (https://amzn.to/3cg5fuy).
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Once I transitioned to coaching full-time, I knew I needed to reach more potential clients and that social media would be the way to do that. I started on Tiktok in earnest in January 2021. I started posting videos 1-3 times a day. I focused on educational videos in my field because I’m not a dancer nor am I particularly sexy as a late-30s mother of 4. I got lucky with a viral video that took off in March 2021, and started amassing followers. I now have over 270k followers on Tiktok. Most of my clients now are ones that saw me on social media and book virtual sessions with me. When Instagram started pushing their reels, I started posting my Tiktoks as reels on Instagram and started amassing followers there as well, and now I have over 75k followers on Instagram. While trends come and go, I’ve found educational content to be what people follow me for. It’s evergreen and specifically helpful to what my followers want to learn more about. I do pick trending songs for my videos, but other than that, I stick to what I know what works. I think it’s always helpful to share knowledge with a clear gap. As in, “here’s the basics, BUT if you want to learn how to do more, hire me/buy this.” Plus persistence. A social media presence can take time to build and it’s easy to give up when things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like, but stick to it and have fun.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
For a couple of years, I met with clients in person on the side while I taught full-time at a private K-12 school. I wrote dating and relationship articles on Medium and other online writing platforms. I also had a dating column for Zoosk. I knew I wanted to get out of teaching eventually, but wasn’t sure how to make that leap. It made sense for me to shift to full-time coaching and content-creating when my “side hustle” income started to exceed my teaching income. When I had an entire year where I was making more on my side hustle than my full-time job, I decided to finally make the leap. It also helped having a partner whose job covered our health insurance. Once I made the leap to full-time, I then started building a social media presence and diversifying my income streams. I now make money from writing, content platforms (Tiktok, Instagram, and Medium), affiliate marketing, my Vibely challenge group, collaborations, and book sales. I’m always looking for new ways to make income, so I’m never dependent on just ONE thing. It also helps make sure I’m never bored!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tararelationshipcoach.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara.relationshipcoach/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarablairball
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0lcxmYgKdkKdL_boZP4D9w
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tara.relationshipcoach
Image Credits
Shore Shooters Beach Photography (for the beach photos)