SHE Media Partner of the Week: Alexandra of Hedgehog Hollow
MEET SHE MEDIA PARTNER,
Alexandra Stapleton-Smith!
A British wife crafting her Mid-West life from engineer & business woman turned professional crafter; Alexandra started the Hedgehog Hollow 3 years ago for fun after moving across the pond. Last year they received over 50 million views across all their platforms; have an award winning subscription box, and recently won the best social media in the craft industry award.
Tell us a little about yourself and your blog!
Hi! My name is Alexandra, the founder of Hedgehog Hollow. We are a craft, DIY & lifestyle blog; we also have an award winning subscription box in addition I also offer consultancy for many brands and other influencers including white label video production for some of my favorite brands!
How did you get started blogging?
I started blogging when we moved to the USA 3 years ago; I started for fun as I had quit my full-time job to move across the pond.
Tell us about your subscription box.
Each month we send out a box of crafting goodies from a different illustrator, brand or designer; it also includes all the supplies you need right down to the basics like cardstock. We also offer daily tutorials on how to use the box as well as coupon codes to drive our customers back to the sponsors.
Share with us a favorite quote!
Progress takes place outside your comfort zone.
What tools or resources do you use that help with your blog?
We focus on video content and I love VidIQ for YouTube, it’s an amazing analytics tools as well as helping with video optimization and keyword research. I am currently learning SEM Rush, it’s a little pricey but the value in increasing your SEO when you really learn it is well worth the investment.
What social media tools can you not live without?
Like most, I love Tailwind; I recently met Pinterest at a conference and it was great to hear that Tailwind does not get pushed down in their algorithm like many schedulers do in the platforms. For that reason I post all my other content natively so I don’t really have any other tools. But I do use the free Mention.com account to see anytime my brand name is mentioned online.
What do you focus on most when it comes to creating content?
For us it’s creating an amazing Hero Content Video and then distributing that throughout our platforms. We will take one piece of content and can repurpose that in so many different ways with clips, edits, social content, etc.
Share with us any goals you have for 2020.
This year I am working on licensing my brand to come out with my own products; in our niche we are very well known and have now won a number of awards, so I am leveraging that into our products to diversify our income streams further.
What’s the biggest lesson you learned in 2019?
Staff are hard! We decided we needed to scale and the only way to do that was employ people; it was hard to decided to make that investment but even harder to find the right people, manage personalities and all the admin needed.
Any tips you want to share with bloggers just starting out?
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. We knew we wanted to be a lifestyle brand but we honed our craft niche and then expanded to DIY and further out from there. If you spread yourself too thin too early you won’t do any one thing well.
What’s your favorite book?
That’s a tough one! We are a Harry Potter fan family so that’s high on the list and I love Dan Brown. But for business I did enjoy Boss Bitch by Nicole Lapin who I met at BlogHer Biz last year and I just finished Boss Up! which was also really insightful.
Where is your favorite place to travel?
I love New York City, years ago I lived in New Jersey and I miss being able to just pop to the city. I also really enjoyed Shanghai and I’d love to go back and see the Great Wall and Terracotta Army. The pyramids are on my bucket list too as I loved the Ancient Egyptians when I was in school.
What are the three most popular crafts on your site?
We started with paper crafting so they are still very popular tutorials; but people also love anything Cricut and my room flips! I want to do more recipes this year and we recently went to toy fair so we can add in more lifestyle content.
What’s the best blogging advice you’ve ever received?
SEO, SEO, SEO; I know everyone says it but it’s so important. Even on YouTube in your titles, keywords and descriptions; take the time to get it right now and reap the long term rewards.
Follow Alexandra on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest!
Interested in our SHE Media Partner Network? Only SHE Media offers members the opportunity to earn through media, branded content and events. Learn more about opportunities for influencers, bloggers, and websites by clicking the button below!
