At the beginning of the year I set myself some blogging goals. Whilst I had meant to do check in on them at the midway point of the year, the time, as usual, has ran away with me. With my first ever Blogging Conference, BlogOn Xmas now just over a month away, I figured now was as good a time as any to see how I have been getting on, and maybe set myself some new challenges along the way!

About Blog On Xmas

BlogOn Christmas is a one day blogging conference taking part in Manchester on 24th September 2017, and will be full of brands, bloggers and practical sessions. I am really looking forward to networking, learning some new skills, and meeting new friends and virtual colleagues, many of whose blogs I have been following for some time!

Firstly I should introduce my sponsor for BlogOn – Onlookr  without whom I wouldn’t be travelling up to Manchester in a few weeks time.

We did an Onlookr review earlier in the year and really loved what we learnt. Onlookr is a series of “reality dramas for the the text message generation”. Using the app, you follow the lives & events of everyday people as a fly on the wall in their phone’s inbox. When following their story, you get to read every single message, witness every reply & discover the consequences of their secrets, lies or insecurities. Not only is this an insight into someone’s world, but it also happens live – you follow the main character’s inbox as it unfolds, with responses received in real time, as they happen.

Since my review back in March, Onlookr has grown and developed significantly, with many exciting guests getting involved including Big Brother Stars and other celebrities. Over the last week we have been following 48 hours with Kiera Weathers who appeared on the X Factor in 2016. I was a big fan of hers and felt she left way earlier than she should have! Despite the fact her hair has changed LOADS and I barely recognised her new look, it has been fab learning all about the ins and outs of her phone inbox and getting some real life, live insight into her world, including what she’s been up to since she left the show.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYtTXOJlv83/?taken-by=theonlookr

Onlookr have LOTS of exciting plans and are definitely one to watch. If you haven’t already and you are a fan of reality TV or are just a little bit voyeuristic –  you will love it – and you can download the app here.

So on to my blogging goals – What’s gone well?

Social Following – “By the end of 2017 I would like 5000+ on Twitter, 8,000+ on Facebook, and 2000+ on Instagram. I would also like to see my monthly readership views increase by around 30% by the end of 2017.

So far this is going roughly according to plan. I have just over 4400 on Twitter, which has almost doubled since the start of the year and as such has seen the biggest growth so far. I am reasonably confident I will make the 5000 target by the end of December based on current growth. Instagram is a bit of a minefield for me, and I have really really struggled to grow this. I currently have just over 1300 followers which although not a large number has more than doubled since January. I find Instagram a little bit of a ‘game’ and it’s not one I particularly want to play!

Facebook is, as always, the area of slowest growth, with only around 500 new followers in the last 7 months. That said, Facebook remains my strongest social channel, and a large proportion of my readership is referred from here.

As for readership, my monthly views are definitely increasing, with my stats going up month on month, and I am just a few hundred views away from 100,000 views in 2017. I am very proud of this. I know that to be sustainable I have to keep working hard and writing the best content that I can. The odd viral post doesn’t go amiss either! 🙂 The biggest challenge will come when I return to work in a few weeks time, as I am going to have to be a lot more organised going forwards!

Domain Authority

I am chuffed to bits with how my Domain Authority has grown over the last 7 months. At the start of the year, my DA was low, due to my blog getting lost in 2016 by an AWOL webhost – as such most of my previous content and links went missing and I had to start from scratch. After lots of hard work this year, my DA is now 35, which just goes to show that the hard work can pay off! That said, DA can go down as well as up, so I am cannot be complacent. I am proud to have been featured on Huffington Post both in UK and Spain, and one of my blogs made national press last week.

What hasn’t gone well?

#Nightfeednatter – has died a slow and sad death. I’d love to say this was because my daughter started sleeping through but no – My sleep dprivation got to the point where I didn’t even have the energy to get on twitter in the middle of the night, and without me as the driving force behind it, the chatter and at least the use of the hashtag has pretty much stopped altogether. This is a shame as it was a huge help to me in the early days, but sleep deprivation is tough, and Neve’s sleep and feeding issues have made sleep a real bone of contention!

Pinterest – I had lots of good intentions with Pinterest, but if I am totally honest, at the moment I jus don’t have the time to invest in it properly. This is something that I need to come back to at some point, but for now, I would rather focus my attentions on Instagram and Twitter.

What areas am I going to focus on for the remainder of the year?

Scheduling – I still need to focus on scheduling to make the most of my content, and with me returning to work I need to me much more organised in order to keep up to date and posting at the same rate. I work so hard on writing some great content, but once it is published I do very little to promote it. I am considering investing in a better scheduling tool like buffer and social oomph so that I can share more of the posts I have written and push them out regularly to try and reach as many people as possible.

Finally, one thing I HAVE to get better at it not comparing myself to others. It is so easy in the blogging world to get despondent and lose confidence when campaigns pass you by, but I need to focus on why I started writing in the first place, and enjoy it. Going back to work will hopefully help my work life / social balance and give me a little bit of a break with my other passion and some more adult interaction. Going back to work is going to be an interesting time, but I am ready for the challenge!!

I am really looking forward to BlogOn Xmas, and hope it will help provide some focus, inspiration and opportunities for 2018. Hope to see some of you there!
Lucy