In Ask an Influencer, Business of Home explores the creator economy. This week, we spoke with content creator Sara McDaniel.
In Sara McDaniel’s hometown of Minden, Louisiana, there was a house that everyone seemed to know—a vacant historic home built in the early 1900s and still owned by descendants of the prominent original inhabitants, who refused to sell. After living in Corpus Christi, Texas, for a few years, McDaniel moved back to Minden in 2014, newly divorced and in search of a new beginning. As soon as she arrived, she knew: The house was meant to be hers.
It took two long years of persuading the owners, but by 2016, McDaniel finally purchased the home. Her first thought was that her fellow town residents would be just as curious as she was to get a glimpse inside.
“I started the blog and social media accounts Simply Southern Cottage because I thought, ‘The good people of our small town of Minden will want to follow along with this journey,’” says McDaniel. “This house had been legendary in our town, and no one had ever been able to buy it, so I thought people would be super curious about this house and the renovation process.”
As she came to find, that curiosity would extend well beyond the nearly 12,000 local residents. Almost overnight, the account’s following grew into the thousands, and then tens of thousands. McDaniel had her fair share of hands-on experience in design and renovation—while working as a teacher in Texas, she had flipped several homes—so once she completed the original home, she moved on to a new property, documenting that process for her followers as well.
Eight years later, she has become a full-time design content creator, growing her hobby into a multipronged business with several short-term rental homes, a boutique hotel, an online shop, and an annual creative retreat for women in business. Her following hasn’t stopped growing, either—today, she has amassed some 270,000 followers on Instagram and 137,400 followers on TikTok.
Ahead, McDaniel shares her trick for boosting engagement by setting aside time for community-building. She also talks about the automated add-on that directs social media traffic to her site and why she isn’t afraid to step outside of the design niche in content creation.
Power Hour
Every single morning, McDaniel wakes up promptly between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m. to publish her first post of the day. Then what she calls “power hour” begins: time set aside specifically for the content creator to respond to comments on her posts, answer direct messages, and engage with other accounts in her design and lifestyle niche.
“There are probably about 30 [accounts] that every morning, without fail, I like and comment on their posts,” she says. “Then they come over and like and comment on my post, and it happens organically that the algorithm, seeing this engagement, pushes my posts out further.”
Another aspect of the power hour is reaching out to accounts McDaniel wants to take notice of her. Early on in her social media career, that meant engaging with magazines, editors, photographers and designers who might share her work on their pages. With some consistency (she opts for at least five days per week), the method is a surefire way to boost engagement and promote audience growth.
“Working on social media, if you want it to be successful and you want to make money from it, you have to treat it like a full-time job,” says McDaniel. “It’s not only creating the content; it is spending time with your followers and building relationships and answering questions and providing the services that they're asking for.”
Get Automated
Over the last six months, she has integrated a new kind of social media tech into her online presence by utilizing autoresponders. Here’s how they work: A content creator can prompt followers to comment or respond with a certain keyword, and the creator’s account will automatically message users with more information on the topic. (McDaniel opts to use InstaChat; another popular service is ManyChat.)
For example, she can caption a post: “Comment ‘link’ if you want a link to this gardening tool,” and the autoresponder will send readers a link to the product page. The service can also be used to direct them to her blog or website for more information—a useful tool, she says, for boosting traffic when needed.
“[This is] another way that you can drive engagement and also increase sales, depending on what your goals are,” says McDaniel. “It really has been a game-changer for my business.”
Stepping Outside Your Niche
Knowing who exactly is viewing your posts is crucial to planning future content—and for McDaniel, that is an audience of primarily older women. While her design content clearly appeals to those followers, she also makes an effort to touch on topics that stray a bit from her home niche.
“I do try to plan my content around serving that demographic,” says McDaniel. “I am a home renovator. I am a designer. But I try to pull in lifestyle content to meet the needs of a variety of demographics.”
In many cases, the approach can be as simple as trying out a new kitchen appliance. In a recent example, she made videos reviewing the viral Ninja Creami blender, which had the added bonus of allowing her to tap into a trending topic.
“Every single day, I’m talking about the real estate part of my life—we’re talking about my [short-term rentals]. But I also want to provide value to the people who can never get to Minden,” she says. “Maybe they can’t get here financially or physically, but I want to keep them engaged, so I do have to diversify my content to make sure I am meeting the needs of a variety of learners.”
