New blogger over here!
Several years ago when blogs first started to gain a bit of traction I immediately gravitated towards the trend. Fast forward a few years and something that most people deemed to be a fleeting fad has turned into a viable career for some. Wildly successful bloggers are getting invites to the Oscars or the Met Gala one week and being spirited away to exotic locales for business the next.
I went back and forth for a while on whether or not to start a blog and I’m happy to report that I’m glad I finally did! Of course I’m no where near all-star blogger status yet. I’m also not sure if I want much more from my blog than to simply provide me with a creative outlet. Regardless, I feel like my journey with Violet Roots is just beginning and the possibilities are endless! I feel like a new season or chapter in my life is slowly unfolding and I’m more than fine with slowly crafting my new blogger life.
In a few days I will have officially been blogging for a solid 3 months! Now I know quite a few of you guys have been blogging for years and so you’ve already passed a lot of the baby blogger milestones but it’s all still brand new to me. The new blogger learning curve has been incredibly steep but I think I’m getting the hang of it. Along the way I’ve learned quite a few things about myself as well as blogging that I doubt I would have discovered had I decided to fill my free time with something else. I’ve compiled a list of 4 things I learned as a new blogger below and I’d like to share them with you!
1. Blogging is not just blogging. Someone who has never blogged before might assume that blogging is easy. They also might assume that a blogger simply writes up a blurb on any given topic, posts a picture and calls it a day. This is so far from the truth it’s laughable. I wont go into all the ins and outs of blogging since there are plenty of other articles out there on that subject. I will however say that a blogger wears many hats, usually works a regular job and relies solely on their free time to work on their blog. They’re content creators, editors, copy writers, social media mavens, community managers, and entrepreneurs among other things. I admired bloggers before but after becoming a new blogger I have so much more respect for the industry.
2. Blog/Life balance. It is all too easy to be all about the blog 24/7. Since I’m a newbie I have all of this bottled up energy and I just have a ton of ideas and thoughts I want to produce. Sometimes I’ll find myself up late at night reading other blogs or brainstorming ideas for my content calendar. There are other times where I’ll be in the car on the way to dinner as I’m checking notifications on new comments or juggling multiple twitter chats. My partner, A, is incredibly supportive. He takes the vast majority of the pictures you see on Violet Roots, he’ll read and re-read posts before they go live just as much as me and he gets excited with each milestone the blog reaches. Still, when he gets home from the hospital the last thing he’d like me to do is engage in a twitter chat while he’s telling me about the surgeries he did that day. I didn’t realize I had it in me to be a workaholic but I feel that this hobby is something that I’m truly passionate about and so the “work” doesn’t feel like a drag. I’m working on finding the off switch though and I’ll let you know more about that in an upcoming post!
3. Social Media. Maybe you thought you had an affinity for Instagram or maybe you were an avid tweeter but once you start blogging those social networks of yours become more than just an outlet for your foodie pictures. Hashtags used to be a funny phrase, an inside joke or an obscure reference I’d come up with to add to the end of my caption. Now I’m all about hashtags. Hashtags for days. Hashtags forever. I didn’t even use Twitter before starting Violet Roots and now I’m on the site everyday. I love all the fabulous bloggers I’ve been able to interact with on a regular basis because of it but there is such a shift in the way that I think and view social media. Some platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest are second nature to me now and other apps, like Snapchat (@violetrootsblog) are taking a little bit more time to get used to. There is always a new app or social site around the corner which is exciting but it also makes keeping up with them all a bit impossible at times. For me, I just focus on the ones I like the best and divvy up my extra time on the others.
4. Numbers can be evil (if you let them)! The numbers can work for you or against you. As a new blogger it’s easy to get caught up in all the analytics involved in your site and social networks. It’s exciting to gain new followers and to reach a new viewership goal. Still, it’s not all about the numbers. I started this blog as a creative outlet for my interests. I wanted to share the things that matter the most to me and I wanted to make connections with people from around the world. Everyone wants an engaged community that spans far and wide however you’re not going to get that stressing out over the numbers. I just do my best to take it day by day, be thankful for the lovely followers that I do have and the readers that I’m slowly starting to build a relationship with. It means so much to me when I notice that some of you come back every week to check in on my corner of the internet and to me that’s satisfaction enough.
Sweater: Gift, Jeans: Gap, Boots: Thrift, Earrings: Baublebar
If you’re a blogger what did you learn in your first few months? If not, what did you think of my thoughts as a new blogger?