I've been blogging for a while now, I celebrated by first 'bloggerversary' earlier this year and I feel like I've gone from strength to strength. Slowly but surely, my blog is growing. I've found the last month or so to be quite tricky, but I'm pushing myself to keep going and power through. I feel plagued with self-doubt, which doesn't exactly make content creation easy.
So I've set myself a couple of goals...
Hit 1000 Twitter followers. To some this isn't many, but to many it's a lot. I was amazed when I hit 500, but I'm not expecting to hit 1000 any time soon. No tea, no shade, but I'm not one of those people who goes around following 100s of people hoping that they'll follow me back. If someone looks interesting, I'll follow. If not, I really don't mean it personally.
Increase engagement. This works two ways - both increasing the number of people who engage with my posts, but also increasing my engagement with other people. I used to take part in so many Twitter chats, however recently I feel hard pressed to do one a week. I want to make time to read more posts too, because I see so much amazing content out there that I just don't have time to give the proper attention to. Let's remedy this. I'd love to receive more comments on posts and @ replies on Twitter, and to try and give that back. I'm all about more discussion!
Fine tune my blog. I don't like the font in my header (it's just the default), and I'm not 100% happy with my layout, although I do like it a lot. Do I or don't I get a custom url? I still can't decide, and so have stayed a blogspot. This is one that I think causes me the biggest worry, because I find myself comparing my blogs to others. Can you really have a well established blog if you continue to have blogspot/wordpress in your url? I dunno *shrugs*
Keep up with a variety of posts. I find it's all too easy to fall back upon beauty posts when I'm struggling for inspiration. That's not to say I don't love doing beauty posts, but it's a lot easier to review a lipstick than it is to review a book. I want to push myself harder and write new things. I want to try and put out content that's not something I've seen 100 times before. Sometimes there are things that I want to do that are popular (such as the whole "how I used to do my makeup" thing), but I have my reservations about hopping on a trend. As long as I don't write about just one thing, I'm happy.
I think the biggest self-doubt I have is as to whether anyone actually reads my blog. Yes, I can see all the numbers going up and down on Google Analytics, but it's very hard to convince yourself that it's not just a spam bot. Do people actually read what I write, or just look at the photos and click away? Who knows, but that's not going to stop me putting content out there. After all, I do this because I enjoy it. If it becomes laborious, then what's the point? I have a full time job, I don't need something to dread coming home to. I often feel guilty if I don't publish regularly, like I'm letting someone down, but I'm trying not to beat myself up too much about it. I hope no-one minds!
Do you have any blogging goals or worries? I'd like to hear them!
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