This is my 10th blog
post! Part of me really cannot believe I actually made it to ten. It’s only two
and a half months of posting and while that might not seem like a lot to some
people, my brain has been so scattered this year that I am honestly just impressed
that I managed to gather enough attention to keep
motivated in one task for
this long. Although maybe this is a sign that I’m finally becoming a
functioning human being because this year is also the first year I’ve had a
successful attempt at keeping a diary. I’ve attempted this countless times
before but it’s actually stuck this time and I’ve been writing in it since
March. I’ve nearly filled a whole notebook! This is a big deal!!! A lot of
things haven’t gone the way I’d have liked them to pan out this year, but one
positive thing has definitely been getting back into the habit of writing, both
online and on paper. So thank you to anyone who has followed the development of
my blog so far and been reading and supporting my posts, it really does mean a
lot.
Because it is my 10th
post, and that kind of feels like a milestone, I’ve decided to compile a list
of some blogging goals for the rest of the year. The end of 2017 is growing
nearer and nearer so I think September is a good time to evaluate what I’ve
done so far and what I want to change moving forward.
Schedule tweets
This has been on my
to-do list for weeks but I keep putting it off because I still can’t shake the
feeling that it’s something I shouldn’t do. In the same way that I was
self-conscious about sharing my blog posts on social media when I first started
(and sometimes still am), there’s just something about promoting your own
content that makes me feel like I’ll be annoying people. I follow a lot of
bloggers on social media who schedule their content to post multiple times
throughout the day and seeing these tweets has never bothered me so I’m not too
sure why I have been so reluctant to do it with mine. I know that once I start
doing it I’ll get over it so it really is just a case of making it a priority on my to-do
list instead of pushing it back and overthinking it. One of the things putting
me off is the thought of what other people will think when they see that I’m
doing it but I want to start worrying less about what people think because it
shouldn’t affect me. If I worried about what other people would think every
time I did something then I would never get anything done. If people really
don’t want to see it then they can mute or unfollow me and I realise I’m
probably worrying about people who don’t actually care what I do either way. I
work hard on my content and each post takes time and effort to compile so I
want people to see it!
Schedule blog posts
Currently I write,
take photos, edit photos, and publish a blog post all in the span of a week.
Although I haven’t had any problems with keeping to this method so far,
depending on what the post is about it can take a lot of time in the week to
compile and therefore I don’t leave myself a lot of room for if something goes
wrong or if something doesn’t work. There have definitely been weeks where my
photos just haven’t come out the way I imagined which has resulted in me having
a tantrum about it and I know this wouldn’t seem so urgent if I gave myself
more time to come up with a different solution. Additionally, this method is
only working for me at the moment because I’m working for my dad in a
relatively quiet shop which means I can write at work but hopefully I won’t be
in this position forever and then I’ll need a new method. I want to start
compiling my posts and scheduling them to post at least a week in advance so I’m
not leaving things to the last minute and give myself time to focus on other
things.
Plan some
seasonal posts
I want to plan some
seasonal content for a number of reasons. For one it’s just a fun idea which
gives me an excuse to buy things I might not be able to justify without it
(come at me novelty Halloween gifts I am buying all of you) and it also takes a
bit of the pressure off having to think of post ideas if there are a few
already tied into different times of the year. I’m also just looking forward to
the challenge of coming up with the concepts behind them because I sometimes
struggle to think of post ideas and doing this will be an extra push to get
more creative with it. If it works it works and if it doesn’t, it’s not the end
of the world.
Improve blog
photography
The photo side of
blogging was not something that was big on my mind when I first decided to
make a blog but I’ve come to realise it’s a massive part of blogging and I’ve
surprised myself by actually enjoying it. At first it was really daunting
because photography skills definitely don’t come naturally to me; lighting and
composition and exposure were all foreign concepts that I considered to be something you either had an eye for or you didn’t. And that might still be true
because I am by no means claiming to be an expert now, but I can definitely see
an improvement in my more recent posts from my photos two months ago. I’ve made
the switch from my iPhone to my camera and I’ve started noticing little details more
than I did before. My Instagram feed looks prettier since I
started paying more attention to what I was taking photos of and because of this,
I’m confident I can improve even more moving towards the end of the year. With more practise and planning I’m hoping I can move away from flatlays and produce even
better content. This may not be the case for this post because I was ill and
uninspired this week but I’ll start next week I promise!
Follow more bloggers
I want to follow more
bloggers on different social media platforms. I think the bloggers I already
follow have helped me massively in the process of creating my blog because I’ve
been able to gather inspiration and ideas. I also really like reading people’s
blog posts and that’s quite self-explanatory; if I follow more bloggers then
I’ll have even more blog posts to read. I’ve struggled to find bloggers who
aren’t already established with big followings and although I enjoy these
blogs, I want to find people with smaller followings and who blog about a
diverse range of things.
Increase Twitter and
Instagram following
I’d like to grow my
following on Twitter and Instagram because I want to increase the number of
people who read my blog. Because social media plays such a big part in
promoting content, the more people I can interact with will hopefully translate
into more people seeing my posts. I don’t want to set any specific goals for
this because I feel like that’s setting myself up for failure but my current
stats are 3126 followers on Twitter and 399 followers on Instagram so I’ll see if those numbers go
up at all when I check back on this post at the end of the year!
Keep posting weekly
Apart from the break
between my first and second blog posts, I’ve been pretty consistent in posting
weekly. I
absolutely love that I’ve gotten back into the habit of writing and posting
regularly forces me to be creative every week and I love it! I haven’t had the
easiest year and having something creative to focus on has been the best thing
in the world for me and has really helped me manage and improve my mental
health. Right now once a week is enough effort for me, especially because I
haven’t managed to work out a schedule for getting on top of everything I need
to do for a blog post. It’s more like a last minute rush to finish everything
at the moment. So my goal for posting for the rest of the year is to keep
posting consistently once a week so I can build up a good collection of posts.
I’d love to be in a position where I can post more than once a week in the
future but for now it would be taking too much on.
Create something I’m
proud of
This is a bit soppy
but it’s true! I love having my own corner of the web to write about whatever I
fancy. I’ve wanted to submit to online magazines for a while but just haven’t
had the confidence and having my own space to write is slowly but surely
building that up! I like the freedom of being able to publish whatever I want
to write about that week and I have surprised myself in how much I've enjoyed the other aspects of blogging too.
I started writing
this post last week and even within the week I’ve already made some effort
towards getting these goals into part of my routine. I’ve followed loads of new
bloggers on social media, I’ve been trying to engage more with content and read
more blogs, I took part in my first twitter chat and I even bit the bullet and
scheduled some tweets. Considering its Tuesday as I’m writing the end of this
post and it’s meant to be going live tomorrow I think it’s safe to say there’s
still a lot of room for improvement with my other goals but I think I’ve made a
good start.
Tune back in December
for an evaluation on how I did and keep a look out for those seasonal posts!
Well done you on sticking to blogging! I'm so glad that you're finding it fulfilling, I certainly do! It's always good to have goals and aims like this, I find setting goals super motivating! Building your social media following will definitely happen over time, so don't despair if it doesn't shoot up immediately! Scheduling tweets can be dull but it's SO helpful for promotion, I use Hootsuite for free and it's great! Good luck on your blogging journey!
ReplyDeleteAbbey π http://www.abbeylouisarose.co.uk
Oooh these sound pretty achievable, and welcome to the blogging world! I know exactly what you mean about scheduling tweets; I avoided doing them for such a long time as I didn't want to seem "spammy", but twitter is so fast-paced that if you didn't tweet your blog at least 4x a day then nobody sees your posts!
ReplyDeleteGood luck on your goals, I'm sure you'll smash them by the end of the year!
Lizzie Bee // Hello Lizzie Bee
Congratulations on the last two and a half months! I can completely hear where you're coming from about scheduled tweets--up until recently, I always felt SO bad for scheduling tweets to promote my blogging content. I thought of it as being up myself, but a comment from another blogger (I can't remember who it was now, unfortunately) made me realise that I was giving people more of a chance to see it if they had missed it. The average tweet only remains relevant for ten minutes, or so I've heard, so promoting your content every now and again isn't going to be too much for people (or shouldn't be)! Good luck with all your goals. I can't wait to hear how you've done!
ReplyDeleteHi, well done for sticking with it nice to see that you are finding it fulfilling. I hope that you mange to achieve all of you goals by the end of the year. Scheduling tweets and FB posts is time consuming but worth it, maybe set a dedicated time aside for this in small chunks. Good luck π.
ReplyDeleteThese are all great goals! You've got so much on your plate, that's amazing! Scheduling tweets is a bit daunting but so convenient and you get used t it! Improving my photos has been on my list since I started! xx corinne
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on coming this far. You have set great goals. I am sure you will be able to meet everyone one of them.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on sticking with the blogging! It's so important that you enjoy it, so I'm glad you do! It's great that you are setting yourself goals, but would say the most important thing is to always do what you want to do, and just enjoy the ride! Eva x
ReplyDeletewhatevawears.co.uk
You're doing great so far. You've set yourself some great goals.
ReplyDeleteI am absolutely terrible at scheduling tweets but it definitely helps engagement. I find getting involved in twitter chats/comment swaps the best way to increase your following. It has certainly helped build mine!
Louisa | Loubee Lou Blogs
Congrats on your 10th post! I definitely think that social media is super important when it comes to growing your blog - just followed you on insta!
ReplyDeleteAleeha xXx
http://www.halesaaw.co.uk/
The last one is so important!
ReplyDeleteBest of luck for all the goals :)
http://www.desiringsme.com/sweet-solitude/