“Geek Chic” Skincare Blogger’s Persona Pays Off

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Two big things as we kick off today's episode. First, beware the Ides of March. It is, in fact, March 15th. You never know what's going to happen. So look out, beware.

Also, seemingly unrelated, welcome to episode 1900. 1900, you have been doing this for 1900 days in a row. Only one episode to go until 1901. That's what's gonna happen next. From 1900, we're gonna go to 1901.

Okay, well, without further ado, in today's story, originally from Taiwan, now living in Toronto, Canada, an online fashion and skincare blogger promotes a culture of trust using the scientific method to craft clever content online. Her tagline is science-based wellness and all things beauty. Let's see what we can learn from this story. It's coming up after this quick message from our sponsor. [Music]

The skincare and fashion industries can have a dark side, at least when it comes to online marketing.

False promises and hyperbole are not uncommon. But skincare and fashion blogger, Jenny Wu, found her way into this fanciful field by debunking product myths, focusing on facts, and diving deep into peer-reviewed studies. How did this geek chic blogger use her force of good to carve out a niche in the industry? To find out, let's head back in time. Just briefly, we're not really going back in time, it's just an example.

But for the example, all the way back to 1999, everybody was worried about Y2K, at least the adults were. 11-year-old Jenny was busy creating her very first website. And the theme was Pokemon, complete with sparkling purple background and Comic Sans font. She loved collecting rocks and stickers, so Pokemon came naturally. And though she wasn't yet coding, she used a drag and drop tool to make that website.

Constructing it was fun and creative. An outlet that would inspire her to become the successful developer she is now, developer for her day job and blogger for her side job. I should mention that Jenny was in Taiwan back then, where she was born. She now lives in Toronto. And after the Pokemon site, 12-year-old Jenny decided to launch the blog that would eventually become a side hustle, approximately a decade later, after some iterations, she got serious about it and renamed it Geeky Posh.

As someone who lives by the saying, "Knowledge is power," Jenny decided to focus her content on what truly mattered. Do skincare products actually work? Are any of their wild claims founded on actual facts? To answer these questions, she decided to dig into evidence-based studies to investigate whether or not the ingredients to what their packaging suggests. She then tested the products on herself, filming the process.

Her little lab of learning became fodder for her blog, and her growing group of daily readers was grateful too. Jenny's scientific method saved them from splashing out on products that didn't work and gave them the inside scoop on how ingredients synergize. Although her messaging was in place, that wasn't enough to make actual cash. So to do that, Jenny focused on ads. The first ad provider she chose was Google AdSense, and it produced only pennies.

She was relieved when another one invited her to their network, but her inner web developer was annoyed with their buggy platform. Finally, Jenny landed on Mediavine, who she still works with today. Mediavine supplied her with support and training on best practices. It wasn't long before her ad campaigns were optimized and turning real profits. What used to be pennies climbed to an average of $2,000 a month.

Driving traffic toward her blog was another puzzle she needed to solve. Over time, she learned more about SEO, an obvious yet deceivingly complex strategy for content sites. Reflecting on what she would do differently now, Jenny says she should have started with SEO, noting that these practices have made a big difference. As a web developer for her day job, Jenny spends a lot of time online, and her secret to beating burnout is writing about what she loves. The process of diving into these products, testing them, taking the pictures for her readers, it all energizes her.

And these days, she's considering a shift towards wellness work, yet another competitive industry that has a tendency to distort the facts. She, of course, plans to stand out much the same way she's done with the blog, by focusing on facts and engaging readers by guiding them towards proven results. [Music]

So what else might Jenny be able to do? Obviously, she's had a tremendous success with the skincare blog. She's learned a lot along the way.

She's learned to maximize her skills, and definitely learned more about SEO, which has helped, focused her approach, also helped. I think one next step might be creating a form of direct income. And we actually have a question about this from one of our listeners in an upcoming Q&A episode, the difference between direct and indirect income. Short version there is that indirect income is coming from the ads, maybe some affiliate income, whereas direct income is selling a service or a product directly to her website visitors, her readers, her subscribers, et cetera. And often in a situation like this, with a project like this, you can do some of both.

And so one next step potentially might be creating a form of direct income just to diversify or in fact increase her overall revenue. But Jenny is doing great, congratulations. Listener's inspiration is good. Inspiration with action is better. The show notes for today are at sidehustleschool.com/19001900.

You can check out Jenny's blog, anything else I mentioned in the episode. You can send us a comment or a question. And mostly I hope you will subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. I'm so grateful to be able to make this show for you every day. Got a lot more coming up, so I hope you'll join me.

My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.