I love blogging, but sometimes I really hate it. The concept of blogging is great; sharing ideas and posting reviews etc. is so much fun and I really get a kick out of actually making blog posts. From creating the initial idea to taking photos to creating the written content, to publishing a polished blog post is fun and really self-rewarding as nothing makes me feel more productive and accomplished than firing out post after post, especially as I feel that I create good content.
My problem with blogging, and why I get so apathetic towards it, is a constant lack of feedback. I don't mean I expect to have hundreds of followers or anything narcissistic like that, I just don't understand why I don't get much traffic to my blog at all. I see new bloggers that have, for example, 15-20 posts with, also for example, at least 5 comments on each post and 150 followers on bloglovin' and 95 followers on GFC. All these figures are made up but I'm just trying to highlight the comparison, because personally I feel this is bullshit. To be honest. I've been blogging, on and off, for nearly 2 years, I have a strong social media presence; I take part in bloggers' chat, I have Instagram and Twitter, I comment on other bloggers' posts and I follow people and engage in random bloggers conversation on Twitter but I'm not getting anywhere in terms of building my own little niche in the blogging community. Which, in turn, created this apathy.
I do see differences in my blog and other bloggers', but I don't want to sacrifice my own blogging style and creativity to gain more followers or to become or a sell out. I write reviews and hauls mostly, because I suck at makeup. I didn't even realise it, but I really suck at makeup. But I don't write reviews for me, I write them so people don't make the same shitty mistakes I do, and in hope that they'll follow my recommendations and fall in love with products that I also love. I say "people", I mean you. You amazing person that is actually reading all this piffle and thinks that this whiny bitch, me, needs some emotional blogging support.
Okay I'm done. I think. If you want to leave a comment telling me to shut up and get over myself, that's fine. Any feedback would be great.
Thanks for reading.
If it's your birthday, happy birthday!
xo.
...I may delete this, haha.
Don't delete this. I'm gonna ramble a bit now lol -
ReplyDeleteSo basically - I get you! When I first started my blog it was a little bit of a beauty and fashion blog. I had recently started wearing makeup at the old age of 23 and kept talking about makeup stuff. Then I ran out of products to talk about and to be honest I wasn't getting any comments or followers for that matter. It turned out I was kinda rubbish at talking about makeup. I had no idea really! Then I just started talking about me, my life and my little experiences. Things that made me happy, sad, pissed me off. I've shared my troubles at work and how I ended up walking out of my job, moving into a new one and everything that's happened since, and now I'm sharing a new chapter in my life.
I've not had maaaajor growth in my readership, but I've noticed that I've got some truly lovely loyal followers who come back time and time again. Now the numbers don't matter to me. Neither am I bothered about freebies to write about. I don't even check my stats anymore if I'm honest.
I think that some people want to make their blog into their career and that's okay (even I did at first) but now that I know what I want to do with my life career-wise I'm not constantly thinking about new blog post ideas. It just depends what you want from your blog.
I think that you need to carry on being yourself on your blog, but just see what kind of things your readers like to see from you. Talk about things that are of interest to you firstly, but then maybe share things about your life that your readers can probably relate to? That's something I see my readers tell me time and time again about my posts, that they can relate to them and they share a little bit about their experiences or give me advice when commenting (sorry if you already do these kinds of things as I'm not a regular reader of your blog but I really wanted to give you some advice) If you fancy a chat about blogging feel free to email me :D
Yazmin xx
www.yazzyscorner.co.uk