Journey to Becoming an Influencer
Sarabeth McElhaney is the owner and creator of The February Fox, a website dedicated to parenthood, design, travel, style, recipes, beauty, and anything else she dreams up. Sarabeth started blogging in mid-2015 when she was working from home and caring for a colicky baby. As her blog grew, she found it to be a perfect stress reliever and was able to transition to blogging full-time in 2016. The name “The February Fox” is inspired by her son, Fox, who was born in February and is a constant presence in her blog.
Sarabeth makes sure that her audience can relate to the content on The February Fox by being honest and real in the stories she tells. She knows that no one’s life is as perfect as an article may portray it to be, but she has a special kind of sensitivity to present an experience or a story as close to real life as possible. Whether it’s a post from recent travel adventures, opinions and reviews around new sponsored opportunities, or new parenting experiences, Sarabeth hopes her honesty comes through more than anything else.
“My favorite part about being a Linqia influencer is definitely the creative freedom. I am able to write naturally, and I feel better about the programs because my articles don’t feel like ads. In turn, the engagement I receive is natural and positive.”
How Has Linqia Helped
Sarabeth learned about Linqia while looking for other bloggers to follow and befriend. She came across a site with a Linqia badge and signed up to become an influencer. Her experience with Linqia opened her eyes to the reality that she could monetize her blog, which eventually enabled her to work full-time on The February Fox. Being an influencer keeps Sarabeth on her toes as she’s able to stay busy, try new things, travel, and meet exciting new people. As an influencer, she wakes up motivated to find the inspiration for her next story, whether it be a craving to eat at a new restaurant or an itch to try a new activity.
Since joining Linqia, Sarabeth has participated in over 50 campaigns, and her content has inspired 19,000+ audience visits to sponsoring brands’ landing pages to learn more about their products or services. Sarabeth loves that Linqia programs give her the creative freedom to post an article anywhere in a window of dates, as she feels that some days just don’t work for getting an article live and properly promoted. Because the creative freedom enables her to write naturally, her articles don’t come across like ads and the engagement she receives is natural and positive. Her advice to influencer hopefuls is simple – be prepared and be in love with your blog name, logo, website design, etc. She also advises that you don’t pigeonhole yourself into an overly-specific niche as it’s difficult to expand your audience and topics if you’ve limited yourself to talking about one subject.
Read more from Sarabeth in our blog post on How to Build a Successful Influencer Partnership.
