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What you’ll hear in this episode

• Longhaul flights sparking productivity
• Authentic content
• Advice for new bloggers

Overseas flights are long, and to pass the time most people watch movies, read, or listen to podcasts; Shruthi Parker on the other hand started a blog. It started out as a place where friends and family could keep up with her since she was moving to London and where she could share her authentic thoughts. Throw in her love for a good pun, and you’ve got The Honest Shruth. With her background in marketing, she built her blog from the ground up as a portfolio for herself. Instead, she starting gaining an audience that loved her content.

Shruthi keeps the content she puts out as real as possible and writes a lot about love, faith, and her marriage. Her authenticity applies to brands she works with as well. She shared with us that yes, she is a full-time blogger, but would never take a campaign that doesn’t represent who she is. She splits brands into four categories when thinking about working with them to make sure they align with her and her beliefs. She does this to be sure she never misleads her audience and stays true to herself and her brand.

The theme of authenticity also surrounds her advice to those starting out in the social media space. She said to figure out what content you want to post and find your voice within that realm and that an audience will always pick up on something that feels disingenuous. Another tip she gave was to network and to reach out to other people working in the social media realm in your area.

To hear more from Shruthi about The Honest Shruth, keeping it real, and how to get started, be sure to tune into the second installment of The Positive Influence. If you enjoy this episode be sure to share it with friends and colleagues! You can listen to more of The Positive Influence here!

Host: Chelsea Bancroft

Guest: Shruthi Parker

 

Transcript:

this is a family media podcast this podcast episode is brought to you by our friends traverse legal they were super helpful as we started pounding media and the podcast network traverse legal has been changing the way Los practice since its own founding in two thousand four with a focus on utilizing technology to better deliver IT and business services founder start ups and emerging growth companies first legals latest offering traverse GC provides a monthly fixed fee factional general counsel offering to companies learn more by visiting traverse legal dot com

welcome to the positive influence podcast I’m has Chelsea Bancroft on this podcast we talk about how influencers got to where they are today and have them share helpful tips and stories in a positive way this week we’re sitting down through the Parker choose a lifestyle blogger at the honest truth who is deeply connected her faith she loves keeping things positive and sharing her passion with their followers here’s my conversation with three

so much for being here thanks for having me yeah so I want to start out and kind of talk about how you first got into blogging because I stocked year I went way back here and your blog in your first post being at the airport moving to lend a hand so how did you get to that point where you were ready to I’m gonna do block yeah really it was pretty organic you know we had a wonderful ten hour flight to get all the way to London and I can’t really watch TV on flights because I get really bored in my ears hurt so I was like okay what can I do that’s productive but fun at the same time and sort of went down the path of why don’t you start a blog and I don’t really think much of it you know I was just like I bought in internet pass on my flight yeah and I was like let’s go on wordpress and just start this you know really was organic yeah that’s kind of how mine started yeah I just want to keep up with friends and family when I was leaving for Australia

so where did you get the idea for the name the honest truth well I came up with that name because I love pines like I love times I love dad humor you know all of that kind of stuff and so what I was thinking my name truth be not exactly you know the most easy name I was thinking okay what kind of goes with truth and truth sounds like truth and I was like why don’t I just you know have an authentic presence living abroad I don’t really have anyone to impress I just want to write my best lots so I thought the honest truth love it that’s kind of what I do with mine shell yeah we were friends we are really the same story

so I felt like when I moved to Sydney you know having the pressure of the blood but wanting to share that helped me kind of you know explore the city more did you find that in London you know how was your experience moving to a whole new country it happened the blog and this ram well actually I think the reason why I loved it so much is because I felt no pressure I moved over there with a consulting job in my start date kept getting moved only three or four times and so you know I thought to myself okay I mean this amazing city I haven’t been called in to work at why don’t I just volunteer and right and just make the most of this time we were only there for one year and we need that for sure and so was kind of a gift to be able to just explore and write and volunteer and meet people I’m also through volunteering I met for other London bloggers and they were really really important to me getting my feet wet and meeting people so yeah I honestly I don’t really feel much pressure there yeah that’s on them so how did you like start you know know how to set up a blog know how to get yourself out there bro your followers in hand thing so my background is actually in price optimization software yeah really sexy stuff hand I like I built my blog for our company from the ground up it was really dense content but it helped me so much with everything from SCO two key words to alt tags to you know posting at the right times things like that and so kind of coming in from a marketing background that really helped me start my own blog also because I wasn’t getting called in to work I was really worried about this gap on my resume and I thought why don’t I start a brand from the ground up and use that as a portfolio so that when I moved back I can show you know like this is what I can do for you but then I ended up just doing it for myself we’re done yeah exactly

so what would you say is you know someone’s just starting out they want to start their block when they learned first is SCO is it you know how to set up the blogs social media that kind of thing yeah well if someone is just starting their blog my number one advice is first figure out if what you’re putting out there is like okay if somebody is just starting out their blog I would say make sure that the content you’re producing has purpose because if you just want to write to write then you know keep a private blog and do that but if you’re writing about travel and food and fashion things that other people can be inspired about that’s when the followers will come I think a lot of people try to be someone else and that in authenticity ends up resulting in a lock for readership so having your own voice and then the technical stuff I’d say you know word press is a great place to start research on you tube about SCO and key words you know you can I go to fry’s electronics quite often to see like what’s the newest photography equipment things like that you just have to be keen to research and you have to be keen to make this passion project something more

yeah on the topic of authentic content you write a lot about you know your marriage and religion and all that long how do you you know do you ever get people’s opinions like hitters coming coming on in like how do you deal with that people try to you know you because a lot of love and all that and do people you know trying to intersect themselves and not how do you deal with that yes so I would say that also if expressive besides like there’s a psych fuzzy feeling whenever I write something and I just know that this is good there are many times when I try to force it and I don’t end up sharing that content or if I do I feel really like I stay should just been patient yeah and so when it comes to things like my faith or my marriage or friendships because my love posts are just about marriage they’re also about like friendships and love for yourself I don’t really care what other people think and ninety nine percent of people have been positive in response every now and then I’ll get the one percent he tried to like work when I say and you know I always respond to them and I always say like that’s not my intention did make it mean to make you feel that way and you would be surprised how many of these people totally flip as soon as iris mind to them and you just come from this place of kindness they’re like oh yeah I I see your point I’m sorry and I would rather I would rather take the effort to make that conversation happened and just be like delete I mean don’t get me wrong I definitely had like one or two trolls right that work awful and I did a reverse IP lookup and did all of that creepy stuff to be are you but they’re not the ones that keep me writing yeah

that’s cool yeah so what was your like first success but what did you what happening you’re like yeah doing this he good question I guess from a written perspective I I don’t know I wanna keep this light but I guess really like my real successes like when I became a Christian my parents kicked me out of my house but I read a blog post on Easter and what that actually means in the cultural perspective in just like a relational perspective and that what they read that blog post and you know that meant a lot to me to be I’ve you may not listen to my words but you listen to my like written words yeah and also honestly from the fun perspective the first time I signed a campaign yeah I was like what but obviously the financial doesn’t I’m even come close to what like the root the great gratitude I feel with people reading my call yeah yeah yeah so how did use your full time Hey how did you at what point reelect okay I think of like I can go full time like I can sustain myself yeah I went full time when I felt like financially I was making enough cop like not not no we’re not anywhere near my marketing position right but in a place where I was like the time that I’m pouring into this is so worth it and you know I always thought to myself these years would be spent brainstorming these years would be spent chasing campaigns and easier to be spent building and right now I just feel like I’m in the phase of building and also discerning which campaigns to accept because I don’t want to just like I don’t accept the wondering campaign or like a skinny lolly pop campaign like that’s not me I’m not gonna tell women you know like eat this lonely pop and you’ll get skinny arm but I think yeah I think it’s just you have to figure out what is the hustle worth like a pay cut and yeah really pouring yourself into it I also brought on in turn right now and she is amazing she works full time for someone else but she still wanted to have this creative side in her and so she makes time to work with me and it’s just amazing yeah that’s super cool I’m

so it’s been like one of your favorite collapse I’d probably say one of my favorite collapse was with napa vintners they manage multiple wineries in napa and they asked me to like if we send you a couple of cases of wine and you know money to throw a party would that be of interest to you and at that point my husband I had just bought a house yes I already I yes that was definitely not the one that I would normally choose because you know I’m just like like whatever white wine but now I’ve been like really on this one kick lately and so I felt like it was perfect timing with their house warming party that was so fun for us and that was something you know that it’s organic it again it comes back to that where that campaign that I accepted was something that I actually was going on in my life like I didn’t want to throw a party and I love why now and I’m always like reading bottles and stuff so that was that was such a fine campaign yeah I was from party yeah it was so what’s been like have you ever had a bad experience with the brand like you know I’ve had one where like I had hotel calmed and yelled at not being anything like was advertised how do you deal with that situation because you don’t wanna you know they always great when it’s not yeah so definitely have had situations where I haven’t felt as protected as the brand has and kind of actually going through a process right now of writing a contract on my end to send to them to protect myself my interest in my content which you know when you start off really this is so great like I’ll do this I’ll do that you’re so eager and excited you should still be eager and excited but really like you’re producing content and that’s a valuable content you’re spending hours you know with photography videography editing networking things like that for the specific event or brand or product and so I have a friend who’s a lawyer and I was like please help me help me right yeah and so he’s taking care of me which I feel like this me taking care of me so yeah yeah because sometimes I’m intimidated when a brand since our contract and it’s like one of my signing away right now yeah well I mean specifically I had a brand that kind of went against the way that they were going to pay me around the way that they were like sorry we only pay this way is a way that I have to pay fees to receive that payment and I said to them in the very beginning like I don’t accept this payment right now it’s like a moot point because they’d slip that into their contract and like it was like a twenty page contract and I was like all the you know like this brand is for me Bob yeah but the reality is the brand is for them so that kind of stuff you know you just have to be careful yeah stepping hard

so how do you kind of stay authentic with brand so you know I’ve had all the same providing something I only like and then you know genuine like I went bought hybrid coffee a video taken it out of the thing and I had a couple people be like there’s no way you actually bought that when I thought I did yeah hi brew coffee yeah I am a big fan of a fan actually like used to give that to make your passengers when I was and you were driver for the airport loop you know yeah but yeah the way that I stay authentic to brands I kind of have it in four levels so I have the brands that I would jump for joy for I’m like absolutely totally doing this the ones that I like arm but may not be the most familiar with the ones that are sort of like I did a campaign with big lots which I grew up like going to big lots and so there’s like a fondness there but it’s not necessarily somewhere I shop all the time in the fourth one of just like now you know I’m and I find that the one that looks like Mel are the ones that pay really well but people really do when they follow you and like you don’t even realize you have this influence they really are paying attention yeah and I don’t want to take them the wrong way and be like again like the laundry thing like that’s just not me and I’m I know a lot of my following who are like faith based they’d be like that’s kind of weird that you’re posting that kind of stuff yeah I know and I’m like yeah well that’s not even these I’m not gonna do that or like the lolly pop singer things like that

so kind of what where do you see on a street going in the next year like five years so the passion behind on truth is written content I would love to write a book but I don’t have like a thorough idea that fleshed out but actually something kind of exciting that’s like happening right now is that I was inspired to be more outward focus instead of inward and so my team and I are hosting a charity event in Austin in December and we just got the confirmation like all green light whatever that phrase the guy ago I today and I think he’s so much yet so exciting I am beyond time and it’s just sort of a way to before the city and get people in Austin thanks for like the giving season but that’s kind of where I see I see it like getting into people’s lives in a way of more than just like an Instagram post I want to beat somebody where they’re like inspired to be better to do guide or pay it forward be positive things like that yeah I kind of feel like I’m in Instagram world you can very quickly make it about just you yeah and find your value in it you’re worth and everything to certain extent you do but I can I can hit a wall a month ago where I was like this is not like me this isn’t feeding me yeah and so this idea has come and come into my life and we’ve been flushing out and it’s it’s wild how many people in Austin are like yes we want to be a part of this process so now we’re going very cool how do you kind of like keep the ideas fresh because you right not something I struggle with writing blog posts especially you write so much how do you keep coming up with content and ideas and like stay fresh not get writer’s block I definitely get writer’s block but what I do is I always take one day off in the week because you know people like Elton to take the weekend off and like no but I always take one day off it’s not a consistent day like this week I’m taking Friday off but that it’s a day where I try not to get on any type of electronical yeah and it’s something that you just have to rest you have to take care of yourself and that’s where in you know you feel like when you’re rested and you’re taking care of yourself that’s when you feel like you can produce your best contact and so that is one of the ways that I do it definitely taking rest but also you know I am an active person I love going on walks things like that I love bouncing ideas off of other entrepreneurs in Austin there are so many of us here that it’s just inspired you know grab happy hour coffee and you like what are you working on you know here’s where I’m at I kind of want to be here how can I get there we help each other yeah I definitely think there’s enough of the pie to go around and so I found that there are many other people who think that way and were able to take each other’s the next level yeah I great

sometimes I feel like sometimes bloggers are like Jeez my competition line that kind of thing yeah which is part of what I want this podcast to kind of break down the able to be you know helpful to other people and it not be it’s not a competition we can all help each other and that kind of thing on that point like what would be your best advice for someone starting new for like Instagram social media anything I’m I would say something that helped me tremendously is not working and being intentional about that so creating a list of influencers and bloggers or also just people in business that you want to reach out to taking them out for a meal or a drink and you know getting there early you know sending them an email follow up like thank you so much for spending time with me just like you would in any other job I don’t think that just because you’re in the social media world like writing a comment equates with actually one on one time with someone right and so for me I had a list of like awesome bloggers when I moved back and I was like okay like you you you like let’s do this and it was surprising because I thought people were one way online and then when I met them lot of I’m surprised me I’m in good ways and bad ways yeah so but then the people that surprised me in good ways they’re the people that if they need anything from me I’m like yes like I will do that for you I will post that for you yeah I was like that no questions asked yeah

I think the networking was something like when I started my blog like I didn’t even think of you know what I’m I think I missed opportunity and Sydney like you said you had some bloggers in London and help you out so I think that’s a really good tip for anyone starting out yeah and I mean also just to be realistic like I’ve now I’ve kind of went through this thing of like I’m gonna get coffee with anybody once a week and when you know three months later I was like I’m so tired of coffee but sort of like setting your own limits so for now it’s like once or twice a month I will like to do that and most of the times it’s filling it’s a very filling converse yeah until like help somebody achieve the things they want to yeah that’s what I found with any I’m not I think any of the bars that I’ve met with in Austin and kind of there are some of my closest friends when I came back and said that it was a bit of a hard transition and not to my closest friends that was other bloggers so that I really appreciated yeah yeah I’m I guess for like last question what would be your dream can’t might collapse injuring company to work with if you can okay it’s so easy so I don’t know exactly what this would look like but I would love that to be like Kerry potter world’s number one I can’t hear you love everybody like everything related to them like any movie any like theme park anything if I was just like they’re like the head master master is that would be my dream I almost wanted to get married there I was a hard no for my husband by now now he was like no and so but you know that’s something that is like you are growing up as a kid that read those books and watch those movies things like that I love it so deeply that I would lose I really should be I really do think that that would be great yeah and then also I’m a huge huge tennis fan so if I was able to do something like passport to the grand champions or something so it’s like you know the Australian Open and French in the US in Wimbledon and kind of bring the millennial perspective into that yeah I mean I should honestly be pitching this I don’t know why I’m not so now when the tenor tennis I know you it is yeah that is people they know yeah but awesome hello

so where can people follow your just so we wrap this up insurance want people to be able to follow your blogging or Instagram sure so you can follow me at Instagram dot com slash the honest truth or on my website which is the honest truth dot com well thank you so much for coming today thanks for having me yeah thank you can treat the for sharing your journey with us on the show if you want to see what truth is out to make sure to click the link in our show now the positive influence podcast team includes me Chelsea Bancroft producer Mariah gossip an audio engineer Jake Wallace thank you everyone it sounding media for your support don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and maybe leave us a review on I tunes to help other folks on the show thanks for listening