Life & Work with Darla Slade

Today we’d like to introduce you to Darla Slade. 

Hi Darla, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I started out by creating a blog with a mission to inspire happy, healthy, active families by sharing local experiences and travel adventures, fitness tips, and wellness resources. 

I blended my background as a fitness instructor and former gym manager, my passion for travel, and my experience as a marketing campaign professional to create FunFitnessFamily.com. 

I thought blogging would be easy, but it is quite time-consuming. A lot of people may not realize that it is not just writing, but managing the technology behind the blog, editing and tagging pictures, and search engine optimization. Not only that, but you have to push your content out into social channels to be seen, grow your blog, and keep up with comments. 

Over the past year or so, I’ve shifted more focus to Instagram because it is growing rapidly and more interactive. Plus, as a working mom of two, I can spend a little time on it here and there. It is more instant gratification and a lot easier to keep up with than blogging. Though, I do still try to maintain my blog as another channel of communication. 

On Instagram, I’ve made a lot of connections with other “momfluencers” as I call them, and with lots of other people that share my passion for travel both locally and across the globe. I have also started getting sponsorships that have allowed our family to enjoy paid vacations, attend theme parks and museums, and go to special events in exchange for sharing our honest opinions about them with our followers. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As I mentioned, I thought blogging would be easy. There are so many people out there doing it. So, it was a huge shock to me to find out how much goes into it behind the scenes. 

It can be discouraging when you spend time building something and nobody sees it. That is where I learned to build a community. 

It is so easy to give up…and a lot of people do, but you have to keep at it in order to keep growing. 

I think of social media and blogging as building a snowman. At first, it is so hard to pack the snow to make a tiny little snowball, but once you start rolling along, you can build up quite the momentum. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I specialize in sharing travel advice and experiences plus fitness tips and resources to encourage people to be healthy and explore more. 

I am most proud of what I have built from nothing with the little bit of time I have outside of my day job and mom life. 

Two things set me apart from others in my space: 

First of all, I am very creative. I don’t copy the latest trends or post things just to get the clicks. I make original content that I think would be useful to others. 

A lot of other creators focus only on one thing, but I blend travel and fitness together. On the fitness side, I know that families are busy and want to be healthy… it is just a matter of doing a little bit each day to get there. So, my content is mostly travel-focused, but I throw in fitness and wellness tips at least once a week to encourage people to do a little more to lead a healthier lifestyle. 

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I feel like there is no finish line in social media. Things keep evolving and the rules are always changing. That said, I define success as achieving little wins along the way. 

I feel successful when one of my readers tells me that they visited a place that I recommended or shares my content with their followers. I also feel successful when we get invited to attend events so that we can evaluate and share them and when we hit milestones with the number of views, we receive on our Instagram reels and with the number of followers we grow to. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://funfitnessfamily.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/funfitnessfam
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/funfitnessfamily
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/funfitnessfam
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FunFitnessFamilycom/

Image Credits
@funfitnessfam