Over the last year I’ve been watching my daughter, Sarah, as she embarked on growing her social presence through Instagram. It’s been an up and down journey but since social is vitally important for any online business I thought it would be worthwhile picking the brains of my resident expert.

She now has close to 10,000 followers and this is continuing to expand. She has not spent a penny on any advertising and the growth has been entirely organic. More than that, her engagement with her followers is incredible with it being much higher than corporations that have five to six times her number.

As an example, last night Sarah posted a photo (she’s VERY particular when they are posted btw) and within five minutes she had 20 likes and a couple of comments. Within an hour she had over 100 likes and 20 comments. By the morning these numbers had grown to 295 likes and 38 comments.

I just checked out some other images that she’s posted and one of them received 696 likes and 115 comments so it looks as if it’s early days for last night’s post.

There’s nothing quite like your eldest daughter turning 21 to really focus your attention on the years that seem to have sped by. I’m so proud of the young lady that she’s become.

It seems like only yesterday that I held her in my arms for the very first time. Her wide open eyes soaking in the world around her…..and then she pooped in my lap. I really didn’t mind as the loving bound between us that was forged in those moments would stand the test of time.

In the early years, like every Dad, I was my daughter’s hero. I was like superman, able to lift large toy boxes down off shelves, build complex train tracks and give copious amounts of tickles. Holidays were times of laughter and playing games together.

In the teenage years Dad became a bit of a “he’s the old man”. The bound between us was tested but it was built of stronger stuff than steel. The transition from telling Sarah what she should do to advisor was a little traumatic at times as I watched her make mistakes, learn from them and then sometimes make them again. I wanted to reach out to catch her so many times but knew she needed to learn from her own experiences. It was tough being a Dad.

But now she’s 21 and I couldn’t be prouder of my daughter. Sure, she’s done some pretty amazing things such as getting qualified and working in her industry but it’s more than that. A lot more than that.

When I look at Sarah I see a young lady of character and as her father this is so much more important than her achievements. She’s patient, loving and kind. She loves telling me about her friend’s successes, while downplaying her own. She easily forgets the wrongs done to her by others in her desire to care for them.

She’s a lady that does her best to be truthful and protect those around her from harm. I’ve never seen anyone that perseveres like her and she always hopes for the best in every situation. More certain than all of these things I know that our love for each other will never fail.

So as we celebrate Sarah turning 21 today I have the privilege of looking at her through a father’s eyes, with all of our memories and knowing that we will make many more together in the years to come.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

In this video I will be chatting with Sarah about what’s to come for WhizbangsBlog. We discuss how she has been going with her most recent blogs and the overwhelming amount of positive feedback she has received.

We also touch on the upcoming webinars that will be happening in the future. We would love for you to leave a comment on this blog about any questions or topics you may want us to discuss.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

Today I have the privilege to be writing my very first article for Whizzbangs blog. Can I just say, that it’s a lot of pressure not only to be writing for a successful blog, but also to be writing on a topic I don’t know too much about.

I think from my perspective that’s where I struggle. I feel like there is a huge gap between knowing about domaining and understanding what its all really about. I mean, still today when someone asks me about my dad I struggle to explain what he does to a person my age. It normally starts off with “…well, he sits on the computer a lot” and for a lot of people that already generally enough to shut off.

As I watch their eyes glaze over, I fumble and try to explain in the simplest terms what domaining is about. Bottom line is nothing about domaining to me is simple. People my age are very tech savvy when it comes to social media, computers and video games, but as soon as something as technical as domaining comes up I can see my friends (as polite as they are) just shut down. I was once the same, until I realized how interesting business can be!

Now that I am working part time for Whizzbangs Blog I have already learnt so much! I’ve been actually excited to look at spreadsheets (unlike when I was at university) and its even better when all the numbers actually make sense a little bit. But my question to you all is how do you describe what your job is to someone who has never heard a thing about domaining?

I’d love to get know many of you in the domaining industry as I know my journey has only just begun! Please leave comments and feel free to reach out to me and share your own journey!