We’re thrilled to present the latest addition to Afluencer’s content lineup – our podcast series featuring insightful conversations with influential brand owners. In this inaugural article, we have the privilege of introducing Edie Summers, the visionary founder of My Daily Well, as our esteemed guest.
Meet Edie Summers: The Mind Behind My Daily Well
Edie Summers, the innovative mind driving My Daily Well, takes center stage in the Afluencer podcast series. With a wealth of experience in the world of influencer marketing, Edie shares captivating insights, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped her brand’s journey.
Podcast Premiere: Delving into the My Daily Well Universe
Join us in exploring the enchanting world of My Daily Well through the eyes of Edie Summers herself. We’ve embedded the riveting YouTube podcast video below, offering an exclusive glimpse into the transformative power of influencer marketing.
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Key Takeaways
00:00 🎶 Introduction to the podcast with Edie Summers.
– Edie Summers is an author, wellness coach, and content creator with over 40,000 organic followers.
– Discussing the challenge of standing out in the noisy online space.
01:05 📈 Growing an Organic Following.
– Edie’s journey of growing a Facebook page related to chronic fatigue support.
– Tips for finding a niche and understanding your audience’s needs.
– The importance of user-generated content and engagement.
06:11 💼 Advertising and Accelerating Growth.
– Initial marketing efforts and the importance of advertising.
– Transitioning from paid advertising to organic growth.
– Reaching a critical mass and leveraging advertising effectively.
10:49 🤝 Collaborating with Health and Wellness Brands.
– The changing landscape of influencer outreach.
– Challenges in finding the right brand partnerships.
– The role of influencers in accelerating brand growth.
13:36 📚 Promoting a Book in the Digital Age.
– The challenges of marketing a book online.
– Exploring different strategies for book promotion.
– Leveraging media interviews and podcasts for visibility.
19:05 📖 Edie Summers’ Book – “The Memory of Health.”
– Details about Edie’s book, “The Memory of Health,” available on Amazon and lulu.com.
– The book’s significance as a calling card and a labor of love.
19:32 📖 Promoting “The Memory of Health” and Future Plans.
– Edie discusses the process of publishing her book, “The Memory of Health.”
– Future plans for promoting her book and expanding her online presence.
– Leveraging social media, including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest, to connect with her audience and potentially work with brands.
– Edie’s interest in speaking engagements, webinars, and collaborations with health, wellness, self-care, and business brands.
Transcription Insight: A Peek into the Conversation
Gain an insider’s perspective as we burrow into the transcription of our engaging conversation with Edie Summers. Discover the strategies, anecdotes, and wisdom that have fueled My Daily Well’ success, all captured in this in-depth transcription.
In Conversation with Edie Summers, Founder of My Daily Well:
Brett:
Welcome to our Afluencer podcast. We have a special health and wellness addition today. Eddie Summers is joining us. Eddie wears a million different hats, so we were talking about her job titles as we got on the horn here. But Eddie is an author of the book The Memory of Health A Journey to Well-Being, as well as a wellness coach and a content Creator.
So we’ll talk about all this good stuff with Eddie here. It is also grown her following to over 40,000 followers active, and she’s done so organically. So that’s something that we want to pick her brain about as well. Eddie, welcome. Thanks for joining us today.
Edie:
Hi. Thank you so much for being here and for inviting me. I really appreciate it.
Brett:
Yeah, it’s great to chat with you. Let’s start with that 40 K number because I know that’s of interest to influencers and brands alike, right? It’s tricky. Even as you and I were talking before, and the Internet’s very noisy today, right as we head into 2024, age is makes it even noisier with people being able to spin out content and you don’t know who created it.
So that’s, that’s another challenge to people who are looking for health and wellness, especially type of information. But you’ve been able to break through the noise and do so organically, which is awesome. How have you been able to take us through that journey in terms of going from, Hey, I’m starting a Facebook page and there are literally there are zero followers and then you follow it and invite your friends and now you’re at 40,000.
How does that work?
Edie:
Yeah, sure. I appreciate that question. So I started so I had a friend invite me to Facebook and in 2009 I knew I was in the process of writing a book. And so I thought, Oh, hey, I’ll start a page that’s related to my book. So I called it Chronic fatigue support. And I think that part of it was like, because I got lucky that that was Denise.
I did not realize so many people were looking for answers. So part of it is, you have to kind of be experiment and Google can help you with this, like typing in keywords and see what gets a lot of hits that can help you. Sometimes you’ll find niches. I mean, you can guess, but also part of it is just the journey.
Brett:
So I’m sorry to interrupt you. You look at the autocomplete then in Google where you start typing something in and see what Google.
Edie:
I think Google keywords, I forget where.
Brett:
You are too.
Edie:
Yeah, I use the keyword tool. Now. I didn’t use that. I used it later and I realized, Oh yes, that is this is a nice but I did it just because that’s something I have experienced chronic fatigue and and then but I got lucky that that was the name of the page and honestly, it just started growing on its own just because that’s somewhat something that people need it.
And then later, years later, I would say it started growing right away because I found a niche. Years later I added a group and that did the same thing. It just it grows on its own and there’s a lot of user generated content. So I’m very into I mean, I try to answer as many comments as I can.
People really like the engagement and they want to be seen. So I think two things are you want to find a topic that that really helps people and means something to them and whatever your domain is, you can I feel like you can always find that niche topic. It might take you a little bit time to find it, but honestly, once you find it, it does start growing on its own.
And yes, I did put content, of course, on the pages and in the groups that after a while it just starts to take off on its own because everyone’s talking to one another. I do have a moderator that helps me in my Facebook group, but and I would say that for my page on Facebook, I focused on a lot of since it’s a health topic, I, I tried to stay in my domain and I realized also that people were responding to posts about like hope and inspiration.
Now, that’s changed a little bit over time. You do have to listen, right? You have to be active, activate your social listening skills, which part of it, and can be doing research and seeing what people are talking about in terms of your brand or topics related to your brand, but also on any page that you’re trying to grow or social media platform, make sure you’re listening to what people are saying on there and then you can adjust your content based on that, which isn’t always fun to do because it’s not always what you think the content should be.
My content originally started out as more supportive content, and it’s still I still have that. And then I realized that there were so many people that were suffering from very debilitating chronic fatigue that some of the posts became more like comical or just information based or just really, really empathizing with, This is where you are now. You’re in bed, you’re exhausted and you know, everyone has a different journey.
And I may not be in the same place as one of my users is, but just being able to give them what they need. And again, sometimes that’s different. But yeah, I would say that 2009, it took about a year for it to take off. And then I just realized that it was just growing on its own and I was reaching about 100 likes a day organically.
Now it’s about 70 likes per day organically, but it just keeps growing on its own. And I retired briefly for like three weeks and then I realized I probably didn’t need it. However, I’m not opposed to advertising because you want to reach that critical factor. Where I do think that I have I have colleagues who run power of positivity, and if you’ve heard about that page, it’s pretty popular.
They were posting lots of content again, that was very much related to a niche that people found was very relevant, like kind of cultivating a positive mindset. And they once they hit a million followers, now they’re like 17 million, 22 million. I don’t know. You definitely reach an apex where it just takes off, but I think it can happen even at, you know, at the level that I’m working at now, I have to scramble to keep up with all the comments.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s a great point on and I found that as well in our startups and journeys and with influencer in terms of advertising early because you have to get the ball rolling and I mean in your case right it’s you’re a 14 year overnight success and x rays so you had to like you said a year to get things going and then at some point the ball does get rolling and we’ve seen that on our end.
We spend a lot of our early days and we started in 2019 as a spin off and work the first year or two just recruiting influencers. And that was something we invested heavily in and advertise housing as well, right? Because it’s like, Hey, we come over here and you got to kind of get people’s attention and then the word starts to spread and then that’s a good thing, right?
Because then you can pull back maybe from the paid stuff or paid stuff there and then you move it around, like in our case, we move it around. So we’re like, okay, well, we can now move some of the paid stuff to reaching out and trying to find more brands, right? So we want more health and wellness brands are looking for people like you, and that’s kind of how you move things around.
But I think that’s a really good point in terms of not being afraid to use the paid stuff first. But you also want to make sure you have that match with the market where you’re eventually it all fits and someone’s looking for chronic fatigue, right? That’s a thing. You’re not just out there creating something that’s important to you, but there is there’s nothing else out there.
But in your case, I assume, and maybe you can walk us through this, is that something where people go to their doctor and say, hey, I’m I’m exhausted, And then the doctor just kind of taps on their knee and takes their blood pressure after running him into the back of the office and then shrugs and says, okay, yeah, I think you’re fine, or try this mat or something.
But it’s not really getting at the heart of the problem. So then they’re going online and then they’re finding you and your groups.
Edie:
Exactly. Yeah. Chronic fatigue is a symptom and it’s it’s associated with many conditions. But for people that have what’s called chronic fatigue syndrome, it’s a syndrome. So they don’t know what causes it. And a lot of people that have chronic conditions, whether they have chronic fatigue as a symptom or chronic pain, are not getting necessarily all the help that they need from practitioners.
So, yes, there are so many people online like looking for answers but also looking for support. I really do think that a lot of social media is about community. So if you can offer community in some capacity, but yes, people are generally not getting the help that they need just because they you know, I mean, there are so many conditions that are can be hard to treat even if we do understand what causes them, let alone if we don’t understand it.
And I just I definitely want to clarify that I used advertising after it had already taken off, but I totally agree. In the beginning I was just hearing this today from one of my favorite writers. What is his name? Hang on, it’s Donald Miller. It’s No. Two years. Grow your building, your story brand. And anyway, and he has a new book coming out called Coach Builder.
But he goes great advice on YouTube. And he was saying that in the beginning when you’re building a brand, you have to do about 80% marketing. And I wish I’d heard him say that earlier because I feel like I was focusing a little too much on content. And then, yeah, I definitely want to have a good pulse on who your audience is first.
I would say that, and that’s very much tied into marketing, whether you’re doing it organically or or paid. So yeah.
Brett:
That’s a great insight. Yeah. So let’s chat about some health and wellness brands that you’ve worked with or that you’re lucky to work with because that’s sort of who we see is or comes across in no book. Time to chat with me, right? And we hop on Zoom and go over the screen share of their website and maybe their influencer profile, and they’re kind of looking for that marketing, right?
They’ve got the health or wellness solution. And let’s say in this case, it’s something that can help with chronic fatigue syndrome. We’re seeing more and more of that. The brands are, I think, smart enough to figure out, hey, if I’m going to grow this organically in terms of my own socials, in terms of my own SEO, I need to check back in 2027 once the ball’s rolling, because it just takes it’s a multi-year effort.
And I tell them, Hey, is that thing, you shouldn’t be doing this stuff now. You should. But to accelerate it, you need to find people like EDI. If she’s aligned in terms of being on brand and you’re a good mutual match because you can potentially get in front of her followers. And today. Right. And that’s a way that you can help accelerate and then also get these types of synergies.
So what are you seeing from your and EDI in terms of working with you’re kind of like you’re almost like a hybrid, right? You’re your own brand, but then you’re a content creator and an influencer on that front. So how is it looking from your standpoint in terms of working with other brands in the health and well, especially the wellness space around what you do?
Yeah
Edie:
That’s a great question. Yeah. And I want to definitely want to emphasize that I have a few brands, so I also kind of help people with general wellbeing. So but I would say I’ve worked. So I want to answer your question. First of all, it’s harder these days I find, to find brands back in the day when it was kind of the Wild West on the Internet, which it probably still is to some degree, but there was less noise.
We were talking about. I found it easier. Brands just found me. They would generally dm me on Facebook or they’d email me or I used to have a pop up through DC to and then they would message me on my website from that. And I would say that primarily I’ve actually forgotten some of the brands names that I’ve worked with, but one of them was called Lemonade.
I’m going to I don’t know if they still exist, but they were a dating app for people with chronic conditions. So that would be an example of something that whatever would work with my Chronic Fatigue support group. But I’ve also worked with brands that are just in the wellness space in general. I’ve done some partnerships with brands with CBD.
I’m finding that a little more challenging these days because of all the rules on the Internet. So I’m not sure how to navigate that moving forward. But but I’ve worked with a lot of brands, mostly in the wellbeing space in general. I would say some of them are devices and some of them are just like supplements, different supplements.
And yeah, most of them reached out to me. But these days I would say I’m really grateful that affluenza exists because I found that those requests started going away, even though my audience was growing. Just because I think it’s harder to find people online. I don’t know. Maybe it is because of I don’t know, right?
Brett:
Yeah. No, that’s yeah, that’s interesting. And the feedback I get from the brand standpoint is also similar in terms of reaching out that when they hop on Instagram and start DMing potential influencers, it’s it’s tricky from their standpoint. I think a lot of the cold outreach, it’s not necessarily people like yourself who have worked with brands and done collabs before.
I mean, you’re professional, you know how to work with someone and it’s fit or not. And maybe what needs to be done to potentially promote the supplement or or the product. I think a lot of times with these DMS, they don’t necessarily know who’s on the other side of it. So yeah, I think from both standpoints it feels like it’s noisier.
Edie:
Yeah, for.
Brett:
Sure. I that, that I get to your to your point. So in terms of breaking through the noise, I want to talk about your book because that’s a very big effort. It’s awesome that you have a book and that you’re a published author and that’s great. Congratulations. I know it’s a thankless task in terms of actually making money and being in a marketed I you know, in marketing a book is speaking from my experience by the most thankless task you can have.
But it’s great to have it because it sets you apart from other content creators to be in that front, right? You’re you’re not and you’re kind of your subject matter expert because you have the book. So what what’s that process been like in terms of getting that out there, getting it written and getting it published, and then also trying trying to sell a few copies.
Edie:
Wow. Well, thank you, Brett. I really appreciate it. It sounds like you’re an author, too. Is that what I’m hearing you say?
Brett:
Yeah, I did, Yeah. I published and a coauthor, luckily. Yeah. So we self-published a book in 2019 is a financial book and we’re fortunate we had a good audience to sell it to in terms of getting it out. But it’s funny because I pride myself on doing online marketing and I did everything that I could think of and more in terms of trying to promote a book and nothing than nothing even breaks even like you’re writing a $3 check to lose a dollar on the book sales.
Actually, the only thing that I found that kind of works is influencer. So that’s all we do now is we just do the labs, we promote the book, and then you can get you can get some good reviews on Amazon and good reads. So that’s kind of our thing in terms of promoting and giving up on everything else that we had a book marketing agency and they sold books.
But the problem is I had to write I’m like a $10,000 check for $3,000 worth a profit, you know what I mean? So it’s one of those where, yeah, it’s okay to get the ball rolling, but it was very tricky and challenging to find other book buyers out there. It’s just a mix. It’s I’m glad we have it, but it was very much from a moneymaking standpoint, it was a loser.
So you have other ways to monetize your brand and yourself. I think it makes sense to do it and probably be dumb enough to write another one on on influencer marketing. Hopefully next year. But now I have no delusions of making money on that. It’s more of a subject matter expertise. So anyway, interested to hear your what your experience looks?
Edie:
Yeah, I totally understand that. Relate to it. You could leverage it. It could be a bonus for a course or a bonus in some other way. It’s also a good calling card. I would say that I’ve also heard and this is what I’m starting to do more, I’m kind of doing a relaunch of advertising it and promoting it.
I feel like I tried. I felt like I tried the first time, but I mean, my my story sounds similar to yours, so and I published it in 2016. And then every year that went by, I was like, Oh, yeah, this really isn’t taking off, is it? Even though I’m getting good reviews and it sounds like you were, too.
Brett:
Yeah, it’s funny how the reviews seem to. I always thought once we got to a critical mass and reviews would start to click and here we are almost at 700 and there’s no it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. It’s interesting. Yeah, well, I’ve.
Edie:
Actually heard this over and over again. That podcast can really help to do interviews, so I’m going to do more podcast interviews. However, I am working with a PR agency to do more. I’m working on getting media interviews because if you think about it, I actually heard that even people that are promoting movies, if you don’t promote the movie and you’re an actor like a star and you don’t promote your own movie, the movie’s going to take or it’s not going to reach people.
So everything is about promotion. And so I’m working now on doing more media and podcasts I think is the easiest thing to do. And I still will requests and reviews and great content around my book. But I think that it’s it’s just doing a ton of media and, you know, I think it’s hit or miss whether or not it takes off.
But I will never regret writing it. It took me ten years to write. It was a labor of love. And the reviews that come in, you know, they they make it worth it. Are the emails that I get from someone that says, Oh, you know, I have the same situation that you do or something similar. And this helped me get like that alone almost makes it worth it.
And but it can be a calling card too, so it can get your foot in the door. Even just like I look at the social media followers and I view it as very symbiotic. I never want, you know, it’s a very symbiotic relationship, but that can also be a calling card, right, to help you maybe get speaking gigs or attract brands like you just you never know.
Like I don’t think anything is for not. But I hear you. It’s a lot of efforts. I don’t know if we’re I mean the content as a content creator, I’m not sure I can help not create content, but. Right. Yeah, I think I would only write another book, though. I would probably want to write a business book. And I, as you know, down the road and maybe partnering with some, you know, like something like Entrepreneur magazine or I still have that goal.
So maybe down the road, but I would definitely need the time and energy and know that it’s just it’s on labor of love.
Brett:
Right? Right. Yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it. And while we do have you on our media here, outlet, the book is called The Memory of Health and it’s available on Amazon.
Edie:
Is that It is, Yes, it’s available on Amazon. And you can also read it as an e-book on Amazon. If you have Kindle Unlimited and you can add it to your queue and limits and color that way. And then you can also get the physical book in color on Lulu dot com. That’s where I published it. So I did self-publish it but they have I tried to make it bookstore quality and Lulu dot com is really good.
They use the same printing presses that other published a lot of the big publishers do. So yeah. And I worked with a book designer and yeah so a book, you know an editor and book cover designer and Yeah so it’s, it’s definitely on Amazon. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Excellent.
Brett:
The Memory house. Go on Amazon, buy it, get it on your Kindle double get the E version and get the physical copy. Thank you. So we’ll get you out of here on this one then. What’s what’s looking ahead for you here in 2024 in terms of promoting the memory house we’ve got your main site is at my daily.
Well, just take us through the empire as we head into the new year.
Edie:
Well, well, I appreciate that. Yes. So I’m in the keep. I’m actually borrowing more of my social media. I’m branching out into I finally got on TikTok. I wasn’t sure about that at first, but I’m going to do that more because I think there are so many people on there and it seems like it does really well. And I’m my YouTube is growing and Instagram are growing, so I’m working on both of those on YouTube.
Yes, I, I have a, I have a few brands, but the other one that’s kind of all encompassing is called my Daily Wealth, and that’s to help people improve their overall energy and wellbeing. And so I’m working on getting to the point where I can, if I have enough followers, they can obviously offer products, whether it’s on YouTube or Instagram.
So are TikTok. So Pinterest, you know, I have that’s that’s doing pretty well too. But I’m also looking to I mean, of course, I always love to work with brands. I used to work in the natural foods industry, so I used to work for a lot of the big brands in that industry. I love them. Any brand that’s into like health or wellness or self-care, but business brands too, you know, I I’m studying for an MBA and I work with startups, you know, So I do have that business hat on too, and I love to inspire people that way.
And I’m looking to like you were talking about with your book or you’re also social media kind of leveraging all of that to get into speaking and doing webinars. You know, I mean, don’t rule out like, you know, anything that you’ve worked on. I think you can definitely leverage it. So but I’m always looking to work with brands, even sponsorships, things like that.
Brett:
Excellent. That’s great. We’ll get the link to your influencer profile right below the podcast here so that brands can invite you to their collab. So our health, wellness, fitness, self-care brands, business brands, heads up, we’ll get the link. So you can invite it and then it’ll just give us the socials then one more time. So we got your YouTube at my daily.
Well, that’s the same on Instagram. Is that your Tik Tok as well?
Edie:
Yes, I yes, I believe Tik Tok is also my daily well on Facebook. The big one is chronic fatigue support. I do have my daily well on there as well. But if anyone is looking for support and they have chronic fatigue for any type of reason, yeah, we have a really big community on a page and also in a private group.
So yeah, those are Pinterest is my daily. Well, I’m also you can also find me just as any summers on there. I have some personal accounts on there as well, but yeah, thank you so much Brett. I really appreciate your time today.
Brett:
Yeah, thank you. Really. Yeah. Thanks for hopping on. It’s been really fun to run through the gamut with you. The content creation has been awesome.
Edie:
Likewise. Thank you. I appreciate.
Brett:
It. Awesome. Yeah, you bet. Thanks again.
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Reflecting on a Journey of Innovation and Influence
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