From Blogger to Influencer to Done: Chelsea Coulston on the Creator Economy

About this episode

Chelsea Coulston discusses her journey from blogging to becoming an influencer and her reasons for stepping away from the creator economy.

In 2012, Chelsea Coulston had just moved to a new house in a new city with a newborn while her husband was deployed. She turned her focus to decorating her new rental home, and turned to the internet for help. But she wasn’t finding much to inspire her, since most of what existed was meant for people who could make permanent changes. So she started a blog called Making Home Base to share renter-friendly decorating ideas for military families. What followed was a 13-year front-row seat to how the internet went from a wholesome, free exchange of ideas to a massively profitable influencer industry — and why she ultimately walked away. " I think we're to this place where social media doesn't feel good. The content that we see doesn't feel real or authentic a lot of times. " Hear Chelsea talk about: How home bloggers were among the first to use Instagram — not to sell, but to send people back to their sites How the money worked: sidebar ads to Google AdSense to brand deals to sponsored posts, and what that means for authenticity Why Chelsea calls the creator economy the Wild West, and what it actually takes to keep up Why everyone with a following is an influencer now and why that…

People in this episode

Host: Stacy Raine

Guest: Chelsea Coulston

Topics covered

• creator economy
• influencer industry
• blogging
• social media
• authenticity
• military families

Keywords

• influencer
• blogging
• social media
• authenticity
• military families
• decorating
• content creation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Making Home Base, Brick

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