Happy Saturday!! I hope you’ve enjoyed the guest post from this week in honor of my blogoversary, and I hope you’re ready for a lot more! This week’s Stop & Chat, is one that I could honestly talk about FOREVER!
What Would I Have Done Differently?
Blogging is so much more than I initially thought, and like everyone else I’ve made my fair share of mistakes along the road. If I could go back and tell then Octavia a few things they would be:
- NEVER. NEVER EVER EVER, sign up for every single meme you see.
One or two meme’s fine sure, go for it. But when I first started I was doing, Stacking the Shelves, Showcase Sunday, Feature and Follow, Waiting on Wednesday AND Top Ten Tuesday. Needless to say I though that this would lead to high stats, but I soon found that people come around for good and original content. Content! Not a meme that you see on someone else’s blog every single week!
2. Twitter is your best friend. Use it WISELY!
I remember the days I use to say “twitter is so flipping stupid! It’s nothing but ‘I just ate a cookie’ and pointless stuff!” but of course now I’m all like “I LOOOOOVE YOU TWITTER! I NEED YOU! I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU!”. Twitter has connected me with authors, bloggers, random funny people, BUZZFEED!, publishers, and some of my best friends. It’s also the go to option when it comes to promoting my blog.
3. Proof read. Sweet goodness gracious Octavia! PROOF READ THOSE DAMN REVIEWS!
I am the Queen of typos. I don’t think this will ever change.
4. Planning and organization are your bread and butter. Stop flipping procrastinating!
Before I started blogging I thought it would be easy peasy lemon squeezey! I’d read all the books, review them post them and have all the bookish folks like me! I forgot that writing reviews takes up time. Reading time. I forgot that even when the review is written, you have to promote the review or else no one will ever see it. Promotion takes up more reading time. I had no clue that I’d want and be able to socialize with other bookish folks. Twitter, takes up the rest of my time. When did I say I was going to actually READ?
5. Followers. Pageviews. Unique visitors. Stats in general DO NOT MATTER at the end of the day.
I say this all the time but, stats aren’t even on my radar. Seriously. Yes, I know that I have to know them for requesting ARC’s, and I do know them for that reason, but my stats no longer drive me to make Read. Sleep. Repeat. better. I genuinely just want people to enjoy whatever time they spend on my blog and have a few laughs within that timeframe. When I first started, I obsessed over my stats. I rolled over in the morning and immediately checked my page views/twitter followers and Facebook likes. I thought of nothing more than how to be as big as some of my bloggy idols.
Nothing too horrific, but if I would have known at least these five things before blogging those first 6 months would have been a lot less hectic. So, down in the comments share a few things you wish you would have known then so you could have done things differently!
