James Hills is the founder, editor, and publisher of ManTripping. It’s a popular and respected men’s lifestyle blog that is celebrating its twelfth year on the internet. He originally came up with the idea for a niche after consulting for women’s lifestyle and travel blogs such as Cruise West Coast. James noted that men’s voices were largely outnumbered in the female-saturated travel lifestyle niche.
It was a daunting project. “Men’s lifestyle” at the time primarily referred to the promotion of a “men behaving badly” type of lifestyle, as you may have seen in the movie The Hangover. It was going to take some work, not only to start a blog, but also to change the meaning of men’s lifestyle into something more serious and respected.
James was up for the task.
He was ready to make the Mancation a real and revered thing. It would become one of the sources of inspiration for the formation of networks such as #menwhoblog.
How he got there
In this video interview, James talks about how he approached it. He gets into what he learned by jumping right into working full-time on the Mantripping blog, engaging an audience with social media, and monetizing it through various campaigns, sponsors, and strategies. He discusses how to maintain an income as an influencer while being true to your brand to keep authenticity.
To keep up with what James is doing today, you can follow ManTripping on Facebook.