20 Years of Blogging Florence: What Changed, What Didn't With Elena Farinelli

In March 2006, before Instagram and before the iPhone reached Italy, Elena Farinelli started a blog about life in Florence. Twenty years later, Io Amo Firenze is one of the longest-running blogs in Italy, and Elena has watched the whole internet change around it. As so many of us have.

Georgette and Valentina, both longtime friends who first found her online back in 2006, when Elena was topping the search rankings, sit down with Elena to talk about what content creation in Italy really looks like now.

They cover the early blogging days, when 2,000 readers arrived in a few months and a Japanese television crew came calling. Why most people in Florence makes don't make most of their income on social media alone and ho awkward it is when creators aren't transparent. We also look into the cost of oversharing online and discuss if the city, and the way it has evolved, has made it a little harder to support.

Episode highlights

• Elena on being a Florentine "doc" in a family from everywhere else in Italy, and being baptised in the Baptistery in Piazza del Duomo
• Looking at the internet in 2006. The forums, a nickname born on a digital marketing message board, and almost no reliable information about Florence online (Mugello was one of the first areas to get SEO right)
• How the need for creative freedom pushed her to start her own blog
• How she was able to gain 2,000 readers in a few months in
• Why her friends don't read her blog, and how a reader who commented every day in 2008 became one of her best friends
• Elena's three jobs: content creator, consultant and teacher (her rule: she couldn't teach Instagram if she didn't use it every day)
• Why she doesn't call herself an influencer, even though people have been going to the places she recommends since 2006
• Copycat content, trending audio and the algorithm's template, and why Elena skips the places everyone else is filming
• Italy's creator boom: content-creation businesses grew from about 9,000 in 2015 to more than 25,000 in 2024 (Il Sole 24 Ore) and why social media and viral newbies makes it all look like one huge MLM
• The hidden cost of the job: Aka hours of editing, time taken from family, and the "brain rot" that comes from scrolling for work
• The money reality: in Elena's experience, nobody in Florence creating in Italian makes a full-time living from social media; most combine it with teaching, consulting, courses or products but you wouldn't know it from IG.
• Transparency: why Elena tags every invitation and paid collaboration "for my community, not because of the law," and how she handles a place that isn't great (important topic).
• Oversharing and parasocial relationships: the breakup post readers still ask about years later
• How she deals with negativity, from being hurt early on to happily replying to TikTok trolls today
• Why Facebook isn't dead for her: her page is growing, with an older audience
• Florence today: "I love Florence, but Florence hates me," why she considered renaming the blog, and why all three of them live outside the centro
• Advice for aspiring creators: find your niche, start from passion, plan for the long run and make peace with the boring parts
• Cose a Caso (our quick fire fun conclusion round): quick verdicts on the new rules of content, from "people follow people, not brands" to whether going viral still means anything

Guest

Elena Farinelli is a Florence-born content creator, digital marketing consultant and trainer. She founded the blog Io Amo Firenze in 2006, making it one of the longest-running blogs in Italy, and has spent twenty years writing about what it really means to live in Florence. Alongside creating content, she consults for businesses and teaches digital marketing and AI at universities, design schools and companies. 🔗 Io Amo Firenze · Instagram: @nellifirenze

Big thanks to Vivace Media for producing the show, and to ZOWorking Sesto Fiorentino for hosting us.

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