the bossbabe podcast - 93. How to Become a Better Writer: 3 Tips on Creating Viral Content with Sara Levine from Betches

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Do you want a peek into the mind that is behind the hilarious and relatable memes of Betches? We’re joined by special guest, Sara Levine, Editor-in-Chief of Betches. With over 7 million followers on Instagram, Betches is a multi-media destination that provides women with an outlet to communicate honestly and unapologetically. As Editor-in-Chief of Betches, Sara is the Queen of Memes and the brains behind Betches’ viral content.  Whether you’re looking to become a better writer, or you’re interested in learning how to create viral content, tune in as Sara takes us into the writer’s mind and breaks down her strategy for creating captivating content and how to get it seen by a large audience.  We’ll also dive into why it’s important to be your most authentic self in your writing, how to deal with writer’s block, and how to stay organized whilst being a creative. This episode is packed with actionable takeaways, so make sure to grab a pen and notepad before diving in.  Sign up for our FREE training: How to Plan and Execute Profitable, Repeatable Launches With Our 4 Step Formula at https://bossbabe.com/launchformula Receive 20% off Grammarly Premium when you sign up at Grammarly.com/BOSSBABE Follow on Instagram:  @sarafcarter @daniellecanty @bossbabeinc

When the inspiration hits, right, it just hits, you have to run with it at that moment or you're going to lose it. Oftentimes, it's just a fear of starting, but if you just do it without thinking, you can get the ball rolling and usually you can kind of come up with something. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Danielle Canty, president and co-founder of Boss Babe and your host for today's episode. And today I am joined by the hilarious Sarah

Levine, who is also the editor-in-chief of Betches. Now, if you haven't heard of Betches, they have over 7 million followers on Instagram and they have quickly become a leading page for hilarious and relatable memes. And in today's episode, I'm chatting to Sarah, who's behind a lot of those memes and is going to be giving us some insight on how to successfully create viral content. And as the editor-in-chief, Sarah has written a lot of content in her career, and I really dive into her strategy for creating captivating content and pieces and how she actually makes sure they're seen by large audiences. And I'm also going to dive into why

it's important to be your most authentic self when you are writing and how to deal with writer's block and how to stay organized whilst being a creator because these are actually some of the questions that I really wanted to know because as you guys know and as I share with you my story, I'm really not someone who loves writing. And I really, really enjoyed getting to know Sarah's creative journey and what led her to becoming such an influential voice in the age of memes, but also getting all the actionable steps so that you can become a better writer too. So if you're interested in learning how to create viral content, I know you are going to absolutely love this episode. So get out your notepads and pens and get ready to

leave this episode with some really key tips. And as always, screenshot your biggest takeaways on Insta stories and tag myself at Danielle Canty and tag at bossbabe.inc because we love reading all of them. Okay guys, so before we dive into today's episode, I want to fill you in on something exciting that we've got planned at Boss Babe because we have been listening to you guys and we have heard launches are causing you a big problem. And so in true Boss Babe style, we've decided to teach you all we know and create the most epic training ever. Now, this training is for you if you don't have a proven roadmap or strategy to follow when it comes to launching your programs, services, or products.

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make sure you head over to bossbabe.com forward slash launch formula and snag your spot today. Add it to the calendar right now. It's May 21st. Now spots are filling up really, really quickly. So I don't want you to miss anything. So pause this podcast, jump over to bossbabe.com forward slash launch formula to grab your spot and we'll see you on there on May the 21st. Now, without further ado, I'm really excited to introduce this week's episode. So let's dive right in. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself.

Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. So welcome Sarah to the Boss Babe podcast. We are so excited to have you on here today and really just looking forward to diving in and chatting all things Betches. Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to virtually be here with you. I love it. So first of all, now, for those of you who don't know, Sarah, you're the editor-in-chief of Betches. And that is a pretty awesome role. And I just want you to kind of share with us how that came about. Thank you. Yeah, so I actually love telling this story because it's just a true testament to just like blind persistence. So I actually started as a Betches super fan.

Like I remember my friend in college just like showing me this website. I think it was like a WordPress at the time. And she was like, you have to read this. It's hilarious. And I was immediately obsessed. It was just so funny. It totally captured college culture, dating and drinking and all that stuff. So I kind of read it really religiously. And then in 2012, they put out a call for interns and I applied. I got decently

far in the process. Actually, I remember I did a phone interview and then I just didn't end up getting the internship. I was like, okay, whatever, you know, I went about my business was still reading the site religiously. Then in 2014, I had just graduated college, they put out a call for freelance writers. And so I bought again. And I was like, Hey, do you guys remember me? Like I applied to intern two years ago. And they're like, Oh, yeah, they kind of remembered me, which definitely helped. I'd also in the meantime, got in a little bit more experience, just writing and various internet blogs. So I got accepted as a freelance writer, I think the first piece I wrote for the site went like kind of viral. So that was pretty cool. And then I think I just stuck with it for about two years. At which point I was looking to leave my current job. I asked if they

had any openings and they were like, sorry, we don't right now, but we'll keep you in mind. I was like, okay, yeah, you know, companies say that to everyone. When do you ever really hear back? But sure enough, six months later, they contacted me and they said, hey, we actually do have space for an editorial role. Do you still want it? So was like absolutely this is my dream it had been my dream for so many years so that was pretty much that I love that that's such a cool story and I think you're so right there's so much power in being persistent and we always say there's like so much power in the follow-up too and so many people as well we actually have a link on our website right at the bottom of the photo called careers and people are like oh do you actually go through

them I'm like yeah like that's the first place we go to whenever we're looking for somebody because we know that they're actually super interested and they actually love the brand. And when you actually find somebody who loves the brand, it's even more powerful when they actually join you on board and be part of your business and part of your culture. It's just fantastic. So I love that you did that. So would you say that you have always been like a really natural writer? Have you always been that like creative side of you? Like, how did you first get into kind of going, actually, you know what, I think I've got it. But prior to the first piece of content you wrote from going viral, like, what had you always enjoyed writing?

Yeah, so I mean, I kind of always enjoyed writing, but I never really had the confidence to see myself as a good writer. I think it wasn't really until maybe junior year of high school that I was like, hey, maybe I'm pretty good at this. I had a creative writing teacher who like really encouraged me, but I was still kind of like, yeah, this is fun. But you know, it's not going to be something I really pursue. And then I kind of ended taking an introduction to poetry class kind of on a lark in college. And I think I maybe needed a prerequisite or something. And so then that professor really encouraged me to go with writing more. So I ended up choosing it for one of my majors and then running with it more,

I guess. I love that because I feel like so often people ask the question like, oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? Or what do you want to do in your career? Or what's the next step and often like it's really daunting to be able to feel like oh my god I need to have everything lined out like I need to know exactly where I'm going but what I love about the story is it's just so organic you found yourself like okay I'll lean into this a little bit more and pursue the next thing of okay I'll try being an intern here and I'll put in the fact that I actually really would love to work for them longer and how that goes like full loop I think that gives people so much faith in the fact that you know what things work out for a reason and things work out for the better. And when you're intentional

about okay, yeah, this is something I would like to pursue. It's amazing how things kind of fall into place when you just start planting those seeds. Yeah, definitely. And I would say that I certainly was not one of those people who had a five-year plan. I mean, I still don't. But I just was following what I liked, what felt right. And it just ended up working out. I was just lucky that it was the right place, right time. I was persistent without even necessarily trying to be.

Because I think now in this job landscape, you can get worried about following up and being like oh I don't want to be annoying I don't want to badger people so I mean yeah it all just kind of worked out I love that so I want to talk to you about viral content because you mentioned this earlier like the first piece that you wrote went viral and betchas create amazing content but you also do on your personal Instagram as well so So before we get into Instagram, I want to talk around viral blogging content and how you look back and reflect on how that first piece went viral and how you make sure that you're always creating content that's going to captivate people. Yeah, so I actually still remember this vividly. So this was probably like, I guess 2014. And I wrote this open letter or a rant, I guess, against guys who would invite me over to watch a movie. And at that time, the term Netflix and chill didn't exist yet. So it wasn't like

everybody was railing against Netflix and chill because that term wasn't in the lexicon yet. So I just kind of wrote this rant about how I really hated it. And it just went viral. And I think the same thread happens even with my tweets, where it's just the stuff that you think will do really well, might do well, but it might not. And I feel like the stuff that always goes viral is the stuff that you don't expect, but holds the most truth, I think. And people like to read stuff that resonates with them and that they can relate to. And I think when something definitely has like real emotion behind it, and you can relate to that, that's when it's going to get shared and retweeted and just have more eyes on it. So basically,

what you're saying is with your viral content, it's not that you necessarily go, okay, I'm going to write this because this is going to definitely go viral. You just write more from a truth place, and then you know that it's going to get more attraction. Is that right? Is that fair? Yeah, kind of. I think Twitter is a different game than if you're writing, let's say a blog post. Honestly, with Twitter, it's truly just such a crapshoot. Because I think the stuff on Twitter that always does amazing is always just stuff that I just I had a random thought in my head, send tweet, you just can't really have a lot of expectations, I guess I would say. But what I've noticed between all these things is like people like the stuff that relates to them most. And my dating content on Twitter does really well, because I think I can take something that might be hurtful in the moment,

dating disappointments and all this kind of stuff and poke fun of myself a bit make it a little bit funny like everyone who's single right now can relate to that feeling so that also seems to do well with people because they're like oh yeah this is funny and also I'm not the only one who's thought this so one thing I always am curious is like when you put something out there and let's say like okay I'm gonna write this tweet or I'm gonna write this blog post and it doesn't do well let's say what is your process around that because I know a lot of people will sometimes scrap things and come start again but then I know other people like okay I'm gonna tweak this like tweak this slightly like I'm gonna change a title on this blog post I'm gonna change up a couple of little bits and yes maybe a tweet you're starting again but like I just want to understand like what that process is to really kind of like hone in writing and get it better and better for blogs for example definitely and

I think in a blog post if something doesn't do well there's always the option and I'll do this to tweak a headline maybe say okay this angle didn't really hit with people what if we kind of reframe it on this angle unfortunately Unfortunately, these days, I think in this internet culture, people kind of read a headline and like that's that they either decide based on the headline to click or to keep it moving. So there's always a hard balance between an attention grabbing headline and clickbait. Obviously, you want to stay on the attention grabbing, not clickbait side. so it's kind of like a hard thing to navigate but i think the beauty of blogging is you can do a b testing

if something doesn't perform well you can try it a different way you can also kind of rewrite the same topic with different information later on let's say maybe you want to approach a topic and now instead of writing it as a personal essay you're like okay what if I get a list maybe I'll contact sources or get quotes to kind of weave in make it a little more interesting I think everything on the internet has been written about before almost so it's not reinventing the wheel it's just okay what flavor am I going to bring to this that's going to make it interesting for people I think that flavor piece is really important because Betches definitely has its own tone and so does Boss Babe, right? We're not trying to be anyone else. We're just ourselves and we're authentic in that. And so what is your advice to upcoming writers who are maybe starting their blog

or they're trying to find what their voice is? What is your advice to them discovering that? I think my advice is honestly to just read more and write more because I mean, I personally write the way that I think it's just like an internal monologue that's seamless, but it definitely does take honing to figure out what your perspective is. I think reading helps you figure out, do I like the way this is written? Do I not? And try to dig deep and figure out why. And then, you know, writing more, obviously, just good practice. And then you can see how your voice will evolve over time. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Because I think any writer that I've spoke to, I'm personally not a writer, I'm actually a terrible writer. But Natalie loves writing. And every like writer I know, I have some friends who are some fantastic writers but

they really really have honed their skill and they'll talk about how their voice has changed over the years and sometimes they'll write more proper so it's the right way of saying it but they'll change sometimes they'll be a little more slang and write exactly as they're speaking and sometimes they'll be a little bit more eloquent in what they're putting to paper but I think it's like you say really key in the fact that they just keep evolving and continuously writing and building on that. So I think that's some really, really good advice there. Now, I want to also talk about the whole like, writers tend to be more right brained, left brained, tend to be like, you know, more maths and like analysts. And how do you balance that? Because I feel like as an editor in chief, you have to be organized. You're not

just like writing, you're actually curating everyone else writing, making sure it's hitting dates and times. So how do you balance that? Yeah, I like that you brought that up because that's actually really true. Part of my job is organizing and staying on top of a lot of different things. Personally, I have a lot of spreadsheets. And I used to do this before I worked at Betches, I worked at a magazine and I was an assistant managing editor. And I was in charge of pretty much just trafficking and moving around all these files and making sure they got to the right time. So it was just like a lot to manage. So I've had all these spreadsheets that I would like color code. And also I really like using editable, whether it be a Google Doc or a spreadsheet.

And I guess like my organizational strategy is I try to not put anything and tell myself in my head that I'll get to it later. Like if it comes up, I'll try to edit it right away or make a note of it right away. Because I think telling yourself you're going to do it later is how things just fall through the cracks. I also keep a notepad at my desk and like notepad life. People don't write like write handwritten notes anymore. But I keep a whole book of my to do list. If I'm in the middle of one task, someone asked me to do something, I'll jot it down. And then it seriously helps because the day will just fly by. And I'm like, Oh, I had a million things to do. I look at my notepad. I'm like, Okay, right, right. Completely. We, Nancy and I actually brought out our planner

for that exact reason. So I was like obsessed with, I always have something written by my desk. I don't know why, but I don't like my to-do list always on my computer and I've got other windows, like I can't see it. And like you say, you want to just kind of jot something down.

And so I constantly have a planner out where I have like the three things that I want to do in my day. And then I also have like the tasks that are coming up throughout the day that I can just jot down. Because my memory, if you tell me a task to do something I just forget it I have to have it written down and so like I know there's going to be people listening going yep

completely relate to this so I literally have to have it constantly and even on this podcast I have a notepad and I'm writing notes on things that you're saying and because that's just how my brain works but it's really funny because my husband completely the opposite he doesn't write anything down he has a memory of an elephant, but it really frustrates me. I'm like, can you write this down? He's like, I remember it. And I'm like, but you make me nervous. You not writing it down is making me nervous, because I'm like, well, you remember it. And 85% of the time he will, but I'm still like, oh, this makes me, I don't trust people who don't have notepads next to their desk also there's definitely

some kind of is a different sort of satisfaction when you can physically check it off oh that tick the best it so is it so is so I love that and do you do a lot of batching do you have like days where you're like okay today is a full organization or you know this morning I'm literally before I go to my spreadsheets I'm just going to write because I'm feeling really inspired before I check in with everyone else like how do you balance that let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi you know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler.

One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So, of course, I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Yeah, I think for me when it, the inspiration hits to write, it just hits and it's like you have to run with it at that moment

or you're gonna lose it. But I'm kind of always in the mindset of how can I get ahead so that I'm not writing something for two hours or something like that, then I fall behind. So I think I just in my head, I'm telling myself, I try to get ahead as much as possible so I can have some breathing room. I love that. No, it does. It does. And have you ever had writer's block? Because I'm gonna, as someone who's not a writer, sometimes I'm like, okay, I want to write something. And then I just don't, like, I look at the paper and I'm like, oh, I don't know, it's blank. What do I start with? Do you have any advice to those people who have potentially, like, really get scared by writing? Yeah, that happens to me all the time.

You just really have to push through it. And I've done this before. Start with a 15-minute timer. And you just have to put something in a paper. Don't think about how bad it is. Just type freely for 15 minutes. And then when that timer is up, if it's still really like pulling teeth, take a break. But oftentimes it's almost just the fear of starting and thinking of the whole task at hand when you're like, I have to write this. It has to be good. But if you just do it without thinking, you can get the ball rolling. And usually you can kind of come up

with something. And I use somebody who then goes back and edits your own works. Is it written perfectly the first time? Would you tend to write it and then like a day or so later, go back to it and edit it? Yeah, I would like to think it's perfect the first time, but that's never true. A long time ago, like in college, I used to write for this website and their motto was kill your babies, which is just that you can't be so precious with your creations. You can't get so attached to anything that you write because you're inherently going to be a little clouded by your own judgment. So if you're not working under a deadline and you do have the ability to give something breathing room, I totally recommend doing that. I actually think a day is probably not long enough. You're probably still thinking about

what you're writing. So kind of give it a few days until it's not at the forefront of your mind. And then you can go back and edit with a slightly more objective eye. I love that actually. And I think just you saying on the 15 minutes and like being able to say, okay, this is a good piece and I can work with this or actually this is not a great piece and just being like more flexible with that and more fluid that I think is really really important with regards to writing let's say specifically for blogs or specifically for websites what would you say is the kind of like ideal structure to get someone to read all the way to the end? That's a good question. I think mostly you want to have an intro that is not so winding, kind of gets to the point pretty quick. And then you just want to make

sure that you have interesting elements throughout your piece. I used to write for another large women's website. And one thing that we did there, which was interesting was if you're doing mundane write up of something, try to think of ways to make the piece more interesting and add sort of a service element for readers, whether that be ending your piece in a list of a topic that's kind of related or taking your research somewhere further. I think it's just kind of thinking of ways to like, instead of, let's say, coming to a full stop at the end of your piece, like, let's say you kind of take a little rolling stop, you pull off to the side, you end with some kind of interesting list or things to keep your reader thinking about that are kind of on the same topic after you're

done with the explicit topic that you had at hand. I love that. There's so many like actionable takeaways. I love how we were able to break it down because for so many people, writing can be totally intimidating. But I also know for a lot of people, it can come very, very naturally. And it's really nice. I feel like you kind of wear two hats and the way you're describing it, you're kind of describing, okay, you've got the spreadsheets, then you've also got the writing side of your brain. And so just breaking it down and being like, okay, like, these are some things that you can do to perfect your writing is just so, so key. So thank you so much for sharing those. Yeah, thank you. No problem. So what's next for Betches? I would love to hear a little bit more about what you guys are working

on. What's the kind of articles that you guys have got coming up? Yeah, definitely. So we launched our Good Influence Fund for Corona Corona relief. That's our biggest project right now, we basically set up a fund that it's donating money directly to four charities that are doing different types of important work for Corona relief. One is the global empowerment mission, which helps give personal protective equipment to healthcare workers and other essential workers, one fair wage, which is helping people who are like service industry professionals, and who like are getting paid hourly and who don't have the same income as before. One is World Central Kitchen, which is distributing

freshly made meals for families who are experiencing food insecurity. And then the final one is the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which is helping people right now who are in abusive situations because sheltering in place is not actually safe for everyone. So we've had this fund set up for a little over a week now, coming into two weeks. We recently had a big Instathon event, which was a fundraiser, kind of like an old school telethon, but we did it all on Instagram Live. So now we're brainstorming ways to keep it going, keep the momentum going, get as much help out there as we can. So that's definitely like the big initiative we're working on for the foreseeable future. I love that. And thank you for those contributions as well. Like,

it's completely amazing that everyone's like rallying and pulling together during this time. And thank you Sarah for coming on this podcast and providing so much value. Like I always say, we always want to make sure these episodes are just full of actionable tips and you have certainly delivered that. I know that so many writers out there,

there's so many of the guys listening, if they're starting a blog or they're growing their blog or growing their website, are going to have so many things to work on after this conversation. So I really appreciate you and thank you for coming on. So before we end, I would love for you to tell our audience where they can find you because we know that they love to tag us with their favorite takeaways. So what's your Instagram handle, Sarah? Oh, awesome. Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Sarah F. Carter.

You don't spell Sarah with an H. No H. And honestly, guys, you should definitely follow Sarah. Her memes and Twitter posts are hilarious. They'll get you giggling. They really, really well. They brighten my day. So I definitely want to be sharing the laughter with others. So make sure you tag us.

Tag myself at Danielle Canty as well and at BossBabe.inc. And we would love to hear your takeaways. Thank you so much, Sarah. Thanks for having me. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a few more and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, and I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next. To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy of The Boss Babe 25. The Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. It covers everything from our favorite rituals, books, and hacks. If you want a copy, just leave

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