2nd blogversary. It is time to look at this hobby a bit more seriously?
After 2 years of complete chaos, here are my goals and plans.
1 Interact more
Engage with readers & social media followers more. Actual communication, not automated messages.
Personally find those automated DM crowdfire “thank you for follow” horribly cold. I hated receiving those, so I won’t do that to my followers. Those automated “top interacter” tweets are criminal too. How much time does it take for a person to type a thank you message if that person really cared?
Goal: Minimum 1 thank you note per week.
Thank you for the follow 😘 @gemmagoesglobal @restoringmind @heyzohra @BookingTripper @EricSeancoach @TExperiments @MelinaOliveir94 pic.twitter.com/63qqfQ8DRw
— Joyce Belfort (@JoyceBelfort) June 13, 2017
2 Be more personal
Letting it loose more and write on tilt. Who knows, perhaps that will characterise my blog more. I think I’m too uptight?
3 Hit 1,000 twitter followers
I have been terrible with social media account. It is something that I really need to work on. I am really missing out on reaching a greater audience by being so bad at it.
How am I going to do that? Well, it may not be a fool proof plan, but I am trying it:
- Tweet link to my blog minimum 3 times a day
- Retweet other bloggers’ posts to support others
- Comment on fellow blogger’s tweets
- Seek like minded bloggers to collaborate together
Why I have no goals for instagram? Well, I don’t know what the hell is going on with the follow and unfollow, it is way too stressful to deal with. Plus, it is not bringing me blog traffic in general. Focus one social media at a time and I choose twitter.
“Travel is very subjective. What one person loves, another loathes.” Robin Leach #quote #travel #travelblog pic.twitter.com/PMNmJVTFeL
— Joyce Belfort (@JoyceBelfort) June 12, 2017
4 Balanced topics
My blog has been very travel driven for the past 2 years. To be specific 80% travel, 20% lifestyle. I will try to attain 70% travel 30% lifestyle this year in incorporate my cosmetics/skincare addiction. Yes, SY, I am coming out with my problem. Perhaps throw in my crazy knit lady streak in there as well? I don’t know. This is more for me. I feel a bit trapped only writing about travel. Any thoughts from you as a reader?
5 Improve my photography
I am ashamed to announce that I don’t know all the functions available on my camera. This will be my blog year to learn more about my camera. Will also strife to do better set up when it comes to my lifestyle / beauty posts. I feel that there’s a big quality difference between my travel photos and lifestyle photos?
6 Learn more about graphic editing
I must have mentioned this before. I love Stashmatter’s graphics. She’s so creative! I need to learn that. Whether it is to edit my social media posts or add some fun to my posts. Spice things up a bit?
7 Improve traffic by 50%
It is my goal this year to have 50% most traffic than the last. Looks like my SEO is finally paying off. Well, that and me actively driving traffic to my blog by participating in discussions.
Any fellow blogger reading this? What’s your goal? Leave a link or drop me a comment.
This post topic was inspired by Nano B.‘s post and her gorgeous captions. Her photos of Japan are out of this world!
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21 Comments
Hi again, still reading your old posts 🙂 You have so much great content here! It’s good to have goals, I think blogging is a fun way to learn new things (internet marketing, photography, hone your writing skills…) and also learn about yourself! I see you have reached your goal of 1000 followers, almost doubled it, so well done! Enjoy your day!
O golly~~ I feel so loved. Thank you xox.
You have WAY more content then me. Sadly, I didn’t do everything that I set out to do 🙁 It was my fault, not disciplined enough.
You have a fabulous day too!!! xox You’ve made my day bloody fantastic~~~Thank you MUAH
😉
I’ve just started blogging a few weeks ago and I’m really enjoying it. For me, my goal is to keep it up! I want to keep up my motivation and ideas for my blog, and see where it goes!
I’ve got some very similar goals for my blog! Being consistent is my mail goal since that can be so hard with a full time job. I’m also trying to get more traffic from my social media accounts! I like the 30% lifestyle idea – I always love hearing about people’s lives and interests!
Yes, I also find consistency as one of the hardest thing to do.
Thank you for the feedback 😀 it is always nice to know xox Thank you for dropping by, Sophie.
Happy 2nd blogiversary!!! <3
Haha, I agree about those automatic messages. At first it was kind of sweet but then they felt so robotic. Hehe I like your follow message!
Follow / unfollow is the most annoying thing. I am at a point where I just won’t follow people back if I see they’ve got thousands of followers and only follow 10 people. I can see through their BS!
Re: graphics. Just practice! I’ve made horrendous graphics before but if you don’t attempt, you won’t improve. 😛 I’ve always loved looking at fonts, that’s probably the most fun thing. 🙂
I apologize for missing this post the day it was posted… your posts sporadically appear on my feed, usually a few days after it was posted! pout
Thank you 😀
Wahaha was that hairy lip for Cat’s a win or fail? 😛 The hair hater is a total winner! I’m totally going to add that for my hair busting post wahahah (laugh too much)
No need to apologise, I “spam” your old posts so often~~ you’ll need time to catch up 😛 WP reader has been killing me lately too. sigh I am still having lots of doubts with my self host move.
This post is really relatable – I’ve just started my blog and I am trying to build an audience so I can see where you’re coming from with all the resolutions. Hope it helps!
Keep up with the good work,
xx Kris
https://dreamingofpink.wordpress.com
Hi Kris, thank you for dropping by 😘
Hi Joyce, that’s a lot of goals, but it’s good to have something to go for. I don’t think you’re too uptight at all, but being personal is good I think. I could use more of this too (maybe, can’t make my mind up). A lot of the social media stuff you mention is way beyond me. I’m a computer/techie illiterate and wonder if my blog can ever really grow without links to other platforms. But anyway – I’ll be happy to reach 100 WP followers by the end of the year. I’m much more interested in encouraging engagement rather than numbers of followers. Good luck with it all.
Hey, Tracey. Thank you for dropping by. Good luck with your goal too 😉
I agree with you, engagement is definitely a number 1. Thing is kind of chicken and egg situation? People need to find the blog first in order to engage. With no SEO, blog won’t get picked up by google. Without social media, it is more difficult to do interact with readers or remind them there’s a new post.
WordPress.com is pretty handy, because all posts with tags are automatically picked up by WP reader, offering freebie exposure. Fellow WP reader users are mostly bloggers, they are more likely to drop a comment or two. So yes, I think you can reach your goal without social media
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization. It is basically how to get search engine to notice your blog? It really helps with new visitor finding you. Also, it tends to be high quality engaging audience, because the person actually found you via a search engine (they’re already looking around on that topic).
I just want to get to 100 followers on Twitter. I’m terrible at that particular social platform.
I am terrible at Instagram 😂🤣 no worries, eventually all your accounts will grow 😉
Happy Blogversary! Keep up the great work 🙂
Am so envious of your Twitter social skills! You’re a natural at it.
Thank you, Mrs P xox That’s so sweet of you. I’m still quite the newbie at twitter. Cat Forsley from mylipaddiction.com is THE maven. She taught me so many twitter things.
Happy bloggiversary, Joyce! Thank you for the feature. Isn’t it wonderful to have an independent project that you work on and then see it grow and flourish?! I love your new design and your photos are already beautiful, I can only imagine how great they will be in the future. I for one am still ignoring Twitter. I decided to adjust my goals a bit and first concentrate on Instagram this year till I reach my desired number and then move to Twitter. Sadly, I don’t have time for both. Which discussions do you usually participate in? Link-ups? Or travel forums?
Thank you, Nano 😀 I always link the blog who inspired me. Thank you for the encouraging comment xox
I’m so loving it! I really feel that blogging is my creative outlet.
Your photos are total goals, I’m sure you’ll slay Instagram. My main issue with instagram is that it doesn’t bring in traffic. You’re very wise to concentrate on a single social media platform. There isn’t time to do them all.
I usually chat on popular tweet hash tags that I find interesting or repulsive LOL I also comment on fellow bloggers’ tweet. I very rarely link my post on other people’s blog though. It is a very passive traffic generator, but when there is traffic from those, they’re usually high quality.
I have been trying reddit. Very high quality traffic. I’m totally using it wrong though. I just got temp banned for 60 days haha Apparently, I wasn’t allow to add any links unless I’ve bought some add on? I haven’t figured it out. I do like reddit for personal enjoyment though. Discussions are often very lively. The interface is simple and no frill? It reminds me or IRC from the 90s?
Reddit is great for discussions. I haven’t done it myself but I remember a total stranger shared one of my posts in “Tokyo’s best coffee shops” thread and I was getting traffic from there for the rest of the week! I need to get involved in it better. On Instagram, I do recommend always indicating your website in the caption along with the hashtags. It’s bringing me quite a success. Plus have your website linked in your bio for easy access. One day I’ll get to twitter 😅