Joe Miragliotta is the founder of the men’s lifestyle and travel blog, JoesDaily.com. He recently moved from Los Angeles to the midwest with his wife (Sarah) and dog (Holly), where they reside just outside of St. Louis. Outside of writing, Joe enjoys creating content for his social media and YouTube channels.”

Tell us about Joe’s Daily

Joe’s daily is, is kind of, my elevator pitch is like a men’s lifestyle travel blog. I’m a content creator. So of course I’m all over social media. Everything’s Joe’s daily. Um, but yeah, so I, I currently, uh, live outside of St. Louis with my wife, Sarah, my dog, uh, Holly rescue dog.

Got her year, pandemic, dog, you know, uh, saved her. She saved us type of thing. Um, but yeah, I lived in LA for 17 years and honestly that’s where my blog kind of kicked off was I did random marketing jobs. I used to, uh, be a magician’s marketing director and, and do movie marketing. And meanwhile, I was doing my blog, like a lot of content creators kind of filling their void of creating content cuz that’s what we’ve all kind of wanted to do. And I’ve been doing it for a while now. And um, yeah, wouldn’t change a thing.

You turned a passion for photography into a career as a content creator? How did you make this happen?

So basically, um, it was a mixture of things. I had passion for photography and just content creation in general, whatever that looked like. Years ago. Um, and now, but yeah, so what happened was a lot of colleagues in the space could probably agree, you know, we, we start off creating content and then you’re like, okay, cool. I got this product. I wanna take a photo of it.

Our iPhones aren’t enough. I mean, they are great, but you know, sometimes you want a nice little depth of field and some CRISPR raw editing technique, so you can apply with a nice camera. So I. Bought my first camera. It was pretty entry level and self-taught just went online. Like a lot of people do YouTube blog posts and read about how to use it.

And I just got better over the years. And so I kind of turned that into another part of the Joe’s daily umbrella, which was like, you know, maybe selling photography sets to brands if they liked it, or when I’m traveling, give it to the tourism, you know, and it kind of just became an organic thing. Just like, you know, we had to create videos nowadays, just cuz it’s content’s king.

Right. So. Yeah, just a passion hobby turned into a career, just like my, my blog turned into a career as well, so, yeah.

You’ve been “blogging” for more than a decade. How does it feel to be a veteran content creator?

I’m just very grateful that I’m still. Kicking. And, and, and I was able to adapt during ups and downs of various, you know, the flooded market of new people coming in and essentially taking the brand deals from away from people that’ve been around for a while, not taking, you know, they earned them, but I’m saying you, but it’s happening.

It’s a reality. It’s yeah. It’s just like anything in the world. Right. Um, so I, no, I’ve been very lucky. So feeling it calling myself a veteran, it’s kind of wild. I didn’t even think of it like that, but, uh, no, it feels great, honestly, to, to see. Everything adapt in the way it’s gone. And like I said, being able to stay afloat and take care of my family and keep doing what I love.

That was like my main goal. I didn’t care if I made less money than I did at my marketing job. I just wanted to do what I loved and to this day I’ve been doing it. So just very lucky is how I feel.

What has been the most exciting advancement you have experienced during this time?

I think the exciting thing I’m seeing is how brands are giving. I would say I, I like video. I haven’t really fully gone in on video. Like you see, like with TikTok and Instagram stories and stuff, but I like what they’re doing.

I like what’s happening. Despite some people having some criticism towards that. Um, but for me, I think it’s how brands are working with niche. Content creators. I think there’s a lot of them out there. And I think the fact that it’s opened the, the doors and when I first started, it was like, you had to really hard label yourself.

You couldn’t really be, um, just like a broad. Creator or a hyper niche, you kind of had to be on the nose for that specific brand to work with you. I think it was cause a lot of it was such a new space. A lot of people were like scared, meaning brands were scared to like figure out this new type of marketing.

Right. Um, and as you said, like Instagram and Twitter were there, but they weren’t really a thing. People didn’t think about like, oh, I can make money off posting to these things, you know? Um, Yeah. So I, I’m just excited to see where the next evolution’s gonna go. Like, you know, you see a lot of the AR uh, augmented reality, virtual reality stuff like that.

I’m not saying it’s really here yet for branding, but I like what they’re doing with it. You know, you see like the, um, the fun floating head things on TikTok. Right. You know, people do. Yeah. I mean that, that’s really neat, a great way for brands to incorporate that. And I’m always trying to find ways of doing that with my own stuff.

So I think just like the technology’s ever changing, and I think that’s exciting. Are you on TikTok? I’m not sure I am on TikTok. Uh, but I will say I, I like TikTok a lot. I, I love it. Um, I I’m on it all the time. My wife and I are on it as physically users as for content creation. I definitely am not consistent.

I want to be, I haven’t really figured out what I wanna do there yet. I do know that whenever I do travel, You’ll start seeing me post more. So like, you know, I have a trip this weekend to Europe on a cruise, and I know I’m gonna be producing a bunch of content, but see, I don’t like going back and then I’m not traveling and then I’m not posting content.

So what my goal is is to find a nice downtime strategy. So I’m at home. I can maybe make educational videos about, I don’t know, travel, you know, educational travel videos. Yeah. But it’s, it’s always easier for me to be inspired with content when I’m traveling or when I’m, you know, physically working with a brand or a product.

Right. So, yeah, I’m on it. I don’t have a consistent plan yet, which I hope I work.

You focus on travel and cars. Two industries that have been most impacted by the pandemic. How has that affected your work?

Well, yeah, let’s talk about the impact of that. So obviously, um, I, I read a lot about a lot of things, but as you touched on travel and. Also go hand in hand. A lot of times I travel to go test drive a car, which obviously during the pandemic was hard.

Matter of fact, my first trip out was still in kind of the heat of everything. Everyone was safe wearing masks and, you know, making sure everyone was safe, but it was very awkward and very difficult to really get the same vibes we had on other trips where you would be driving in a car with a fellow colleague, maybe even one of the technicians in the car that worked on the car, like, you know, to have like an.

Process while you’re driving the car, that’s changed dramatically. Now that’s like, Hey, let’s have a zoom meeting with them. And then we’ll send you a car to test drive, which is great, but it’s not as nice to not be able to have that one-on-one in person with multiple people in the brand, in this space.

Like maybe like a, a BMW or like whatever. Um, But that’s changed dramatically. I, I do think we’re getting back to some, a, a new normal, um, a lot of my colleague friends, uh, actually have friend James just went on a nice GMC trip, so I’m happy to see him out there doing some road trips. And I have a few potentially coming up in a few months, so that changed dramatically.

Um, and I think that it’s gonna change the industry for, for a new way that we haven’t seen before. Um, as for travel pretty self explanatory, uh, travel is just now getting back. New normal, but the more normal we’re used to, um, which I’m excited about, um, you know, you’ve got sure there’s a lot of new checks you have to do to get in and out of countries and stuff like that.

I’ll, I’ll be experiencing that very soon going to, I go to Canada next month. I go to, uh, Alaska Vancouver, and then I. Go to Alaska, but, um, so I’ll experience that, but yeah, I’m going into Turkey this weekend and I’m already seeing all these new protocols in place and I’m like, oh, this is new. It’s okay though.

They’re handling it very well. I, I figured out how to do it. It’s not very difficult. Um, but yeah, as for me as a business person doing this, um, yeah, about a two year lull, you know, and that’s tough, you know, writing from press releases isn’t as fun as experience in the trip itself. Right. So right. Once again, grateful to be in this business still and thriving, but yeah.

Um, Travel and cars definitely took a major hit. And I think we’re just now seeing it get back to a normal.

What are some go-to destinations you recommend to avoid the hefty airline and hotels prices we are currently seeing?

So this is all I could say, because I don’t know, I’m not like checking prices. I don’t have like any like secret hack there necessarily, other than just being active with, you know, you sign up for those deals you see on, you know, Southwest and, and United all, all the airlines sign up for those, those subscribed letters, because they’ll send.

Discounts, like pretty crazy discounts, like on the fly. If you can book on the fly. Good. Be flexible is all I can say is you want a good discount? I know not everyone can do that, but if you’re saving up your vacation time, try to get a little flexible. Uh, but no, I’ll say this. Um, Despite gas prices, even in, you know, car fuel gas prices, I would say road trips.

I know you’re probably not asking about that. I’d say take advantage of road trip. This is a good time to learn about what’s around you. I, I think a lot of people have this idea of vacation being like, I gotta fly to Mexico. I gotta go to the Caribbean. I gotta go to Europe and don’t get me wrong. I love all those places.

I do. ’em as much as I can, but lately what my wife and I have been doing is taking advantage of any road trip opportunity, especially be now being in a new spot in the Midwest. Yeah. I mean, we went to Omaha to meet some of her work co. Sure. It’s Omaha, Nebraska, not somewhere IM wanna go, but I got to experience something new and exciting, and I, I made the best of it.

Um, Check in a road trip, check in what’s around you, maybe a few hours away, maybe eight hours away. You’d be surprised we get out of it. Um, you probably save a lot of money. Um, but as for flights, um, there’s been a lot of great, uh, credit card points. They’re dropping all these amazing opportunities for if you’re in that market for maybe new travel card.

You basically can get your flights free at this point. Now, if you, if you plan smart, uh, so I’d say, look into that. I know it’s not exactly what everyone say. I open a new credit card, but let me tell you, like, it’s, it’s no joke that it’s it’s travel hack. A lot of people don’t know that they don’t take advantage of them, I should say.

And, uh, you can get some, no, I know with my Delta have like all these free last year, we went away for it. Like my son came for free. Yeah. And, and tell you, people don’t realize they hear the, the annual fee of like a hundred bucks, 200 bucks. What they don’t know is that the deals you get from owning the card, it goes way past that annual fee.

Right. So if you can put yourself past that. You’re building up your credit, you get great travel points and you, it, it pays for itself. Just look into it. I mean, there’s plenty of great websites out there that, um, I don’t cover that stuff personally. Other than if you asked me the question like you just did.

Yeah. I don’t cover it on my website, but there are plenty of other great reliable, uh, websites out there that can provide you great information like that. So hope that helped . Yeah, it did. Cuz I’m like in the throes and I’m like freaking out, but thank you. . You’re welcome. So I’m gonna ask a question about.

What has your experience been like working in a predominantly female industry?

You know, I didn’t really think about that. Uh, very much until the other day someone actually said that exact question, like how do you feel about that? And I was like, huh, interesting. Um, so after thinking about it, I would say, well, first to, to your first question, like, how did I, you know, how did I make my way through it?

I just didn’t care. I, I don’t, I don’t care that maybe there’s more women in the space cuz the truth is we’re all writing about our own stuff. It kind of goes back to like, just write about what, you know, I think, um, when it comes down to it, not to say there’s plenty of women that could speak on what I write about.

Cause I don’t write about primarily with men’s. I just put the men’s lifestyle. I’d say about 80, 90% are more interested in my content than women are. Right. Unless they’re maybe shopping for their, their hubby or their, you know, brothers, you know, whatever. But, um, yeah, as for working in the space with other and been on plenty of press trips with, uh, uh, like.

80% women. Um, and I love it. I love it. Cause I get inspiration from other groups. It doesn’t have to be, it could be men too, of course. But I’m saying sometimes I hear how they work things out. Right. How they work out problems, maybe even how they approach their photography. I mean, it’s amazing. Like just for me, I’d rather work with a dev a.

Diverse crowd in this case, being more women than me being with the same, almost like the same bubble. Right. And I’m just like, I’m lacking inspiration. We all talk about the same thing. Maybe we all wrote about the same thing, but when I hear other inspiration and I know this isn’t the exact same, but I don’t wanna give you one example.

So it’s not really a women, uh, comment, but it ki kind of goes in the same vein of that. Um, I was on a cruise not too long ago on, on, uh, wonder of the sea’s brand new cruise ship, biggest in the world. And I met a bunch of crews, YouTubers. That’s all they. YouTube and I’m on YouTube, but I I’ve been wanting to kickstart my YouTube channel.

And even though this doesn’t really answer your question about like working with women, I just wanna use it to, to translate. All of a sudden I had all this inspiration. I saw the way they worked their YouTube videos. That’s all they did. I mean, they have Instagram too, but no, their bread and butter is YouTube.

And I was like, man, I’ve always, I love cruising. I do a lot of cruising cuz of my job. I’m like, I would love to do this. I’d love to get back into YouTube and doing this with V loggy style content. And that goes the same with, like I said, going back to your original questions, it’s like working in a.

Predominantly women, um, focus industry. And by the way, this goes with the agency, right? Not just my colleagues, but like people like you yourself, um, working in the agency, I’d say it’s like 80% women, usually, maybe more, maybe less, but around the same. And, uh, I’ll tell you, I I’ve, I’ve always had a better experience working with a woman along, whether it’s on a phone call, an email, or just getting the business done, like the way it needs to be handled.

And so for me, it’s been, it’s been. Awesome. I love it. Um, okay. And I’m grateful that I’m able to, once again, be in this space and this position I’m in and hopefully I’m helping on the other side of things. Right. So if, if, uh, yeah, if I can drive inspiration for, for women in this space as well, you know, so.

What advice would you give to all the men tuning in who are considering entering the content creator space?

Sure. Uh, I honestly, I, I always say, uh, first off, just do it literally. Um, I started this business. Because it was almost like a diary for me, a public diary. It was like, I’m writing about stuff. I like, you know, I’m away from my family and friends from New Hampshire. This is like my early years in Los Angeles.

Cause that’s where I moved from. And I remember just being like, I need an outlet and I’ve never been one of those people that’s gonna, I I’m very public about what I like to share. And that’s why social media is, was so. Big for me. And then my blog, you know, uh, when I started creating any type of content, I was just like putting it out there.

And I think what a lot of men, maybe they don’t like that, I don’t wanna get into this whole psychology of men and women, how they share content. But I do feel like a lot of my friends, I have a lot of men in the space that, uh, that aren’t content creators yet, but they’re great creators. And I’m like, Hey, you should just put yourself out there.

And a lot of times they’re just a little hesitant, they second guess themselves. And I tell ’em, I guess this can go for any advice, but I, I tell ’em, I’m like, you know, It create your content. You’ll be so happy. Put it out there. And then when you get a little feedback, you’re gonna love the feedback it’s gonna make you better.

Um, and I think that just don’t be scared about feedback and get excited about creating content stuff you love and honestly, write about what you love, write about what you like. Don’t don’t try to be someone else. Um, you’ll you’ll be ever changing. I’ve. Don’t even know what I wrote about eight years ago, to be honest and I don’t care to look, I I’m, I’m new content all the time.

And, and now I’m into this. I was into that. Then now I’m into this, you know, and I think that, um, most new creators need to know that, put yourself out there, create content and, and the rest will kind of follow money wasn’t ever in my mind. And then it came, it kind of organically came later. And I think a lot of people get stuck in the mindset of.

I’m only doing this for money. I’m like, well, you might be in the wrong position. You might be doing the wrong takes a long, it takes a while, but, um, nowadays could be quicker, quicker than ever with, with the amount of content we need out there. Right. So, yeah, but it does take a long time.

Is there any advice you could give to brands? Do you think brands are focusing enough on men?

Um, I, I do think, I do think I’m doing just fine in the sense of like, you know, I’ve never been like jealous of like seeing all maybe like, I mean sure. Women get a lot of great, they get a lot of great products and, and stuff like that. Like apparel and stuff I do too. But you see a little bit more, I would say in that industry.

Um, which rightfully so. I, I feel like if you look at the statistics of why shopping, um, not just like women shop more, no, that’s, it’s the products that they’re shopping for, right? Yeah. Um, but no, I think, I do think. Brands could be a little bit more, um, a little bit more strategic. Um, I will say this, the hyper-focused men’s product.

um, it’s a little bit too in your face. I feel like, like, you know, the dude wipes, like you see these like products like that, nothing against them. I have a few friends that do market for competi like that and they kick butt doing it. But no, I, I think whenever you got like the more universal brands that are good for men and women, whatever that means they put in more men.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, and honestly, I you see that a lot. Like, I’ll go on a trip and I’ll be the only guy on the trip and I’ll be like, well, I’m grateful that they thought of me clearly. There’s not enough people. There’s not enough qualified. Men’s probably not. Yeah, no. And, and you know what, maybe it is.

They need to open that door a little bit further and give us a chance and, and see what content we can create. Cuz I will say, yeah, there’s not a lot of guys in the space that do what I do. I mean, there are. But not. If you looked at like the balance of the women’s niche of whatever that may be to also keeping in mind that there’s always like, like criteria.

So the person must have this, the person might have to have a dog. The person might have to live in a certain area. So then, you know, there’s so many female creators, but then when you have the criteria and you try to find the men. It’s really very hard to, you know, get men on a campaign. So if anyone’s a man out there, please take Joe’s advice and get into this space.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, there’s I mean, I tell everyone it only takes a few hours a day. Might maybe not even that to create some cool content, it might be like a, like I said, like a little bit of a release, you know, getting out, just creating some content. It can like free up your, your mind for if your other, you know, you got a day job.

I had a day job for a long time. In addition to doing blog stuff while you were doing this? Absolutely. I didn’t. Yeah, like I said, I didn’t do this for money at first. I didn’t. And then I was like, I love this. I don’t care if I’m making bare minimum. I, I love this. So I’ve just been lucky enough to do it and make a living like a good living.

So I didn’t go on vacations for free and exactly. Yeah. Also too, not to do the whole universe thing. I do believe in the whole like put good vibes up to the universe, but I’ll tell you this. Um, I’ll give you, I’ll give you a real example. Uh, I was I’m going on a cruise and I said to myself, man, Just like how I created my blog.

I wrote about what I liked. It was almost like I was drawing the universe to me. And I remember one day being like, man, I, I really wanna go to Europe cruise. It’s been so long. And next thing you know, I got an email from Costa cruise. It’s like, Hey, we’re going to Turkey. You wanna come? Yep. And then I was like, oh man, I really need some new boat shoes.

I really want something to dress up my nights out on the, on the nice nights. And the Mediterranean company reached out, Hey, we got some new shoes we wanted to try. It was like, I, I really do believe that. And it’s not like I’m like trying to like work the system. It’s just, I, I wasn’t thinking like, oh, it’s gonna come to me.

I just was like, I really want this. So I’m gonna write about. And it happens, you know? So I, I’m gonna try that. Did you see we crash? What’s that? Did you see the documentary we crash? No, I’m I it’s on my list. Oh, you have to watch it’s on my list. It’s on my list. well, you’ll you’ll know what I’m referring to if you watch it.

What is the best way for our listeners to reach you?

Oh, cool. Yeah. I mean, I, everything, these days I’m open. Like if you DM me on Instagram at Joe’s daily, Joe Joe’s daily.com is usually the most commons by email.

Um, but yeah, DMS are fine. Emails are fine. Any which way they would like to reach out. I’m happy to, to coordinate. Um, also I just wanna point out too. That’s a big thing for me is conversation. It, doesn’t not, everything has to be like, oh, you gonna, we’re gonna pay you this much. Let’s start a conversation.

You know what I mean? I feel like a lot of times. I’m the one having to ask, you know, you asked earlier, what can brands do ask talk? You know, I think sending out a cold email is, is better than not. And then being like, oh, we gotta make sure we have a budget form. No, not necessarily. If we build a relationship that could come later, that’s just like, my business started with no money.

It’s like, for me, it’s like, Let’s get the conversation going and then maybe, and if you’re passionate about it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, awesome.

Name an influencer. You love to follow, but hate to admit that you do.

Okay. So there’s, they used to be a duo. Um, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna narrow it. There were a couple, they broke up recently. So have you heard of, have you heard of gypsy lust and do you travel? No. Okay. First off. Follow them they’re as much as I’m about to tell you why hate it, why I hate it. So, yeah, gypsy lust is the, the female.

Um, and the male is Jack. His name is now Jack Morris. He changed his name from, do you travel, which is his famous name for the longest time to now Jack Morris. Okay. Let me tell you why I don’t hate the guy. Don’t know the guy. Uh, I’m jealous. Like I, I’m not one of those people that likes to be envious or jealous of anything.

Um, cuz I live such a, like I don’t use the word bless very often, but I live a blessed life. I mean, like you mentioned in my travels, I mean the amount of travel I’ve done in. Three months could like take someone’s entire, like lifetime of travel. I mean, I’m very lucky, right. But then you look at him and you’re like, good Lord.

This guy, not only does he just have the most beautiful photos, the guy just travels literally nonstop. Like, I don’t think he’s in a place for more than a week now that could be tiring, exhausting. Right. But then is like beautiful bungalow and Bali where his like mansion ISNT. I’m just like, so he has. As his, like back burner, he rents it out during the year makes a ton of money.

Other I’m just like, man, I don’t like to be jealous very often, but this guy, I love him. Well, that’s I hate to follow . I feel the same way about Jess wandering. Do you know her? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I follow her. Yeah. On me. Come on. Like yeah. Yeah. I changed my backdrop because like she was making me jealous.

Like I’m like, oh, she’s in these islands and Greece. So then she’s in these national parks. I’m like, who knew, but yeah. Yeah. Um, it’s the same sentiment, so I will check them out. . Well, thank you so much for being on the show. You’re welcome. We love working with you so everyone makes sure to check out Joe’s daily.

He’s awesome. Thank you. And, um, and be in touch and safe. Have a great time on the trip and a safe time on the trip. Thank you so much for everything we appreciate. Honestly, I love everything you guys do, and I appreciate you guys taking the time out.