My 2017 Blogging Goals

This year saw me do something I had thought about doing for many years; setting up my own blog.  I love to write but never really had anything to write about before but once I had Oliver and with the encouragement of Stu I finally plucked up the courage to start my own little space on the internet.  I think I have found my voice, but it’s still only little and in the next year I need to get bigger and a bit louder!

My first blog goal for this year is to get organised.  When I return to work in February I’m going to have to share my time.  Even though I’m only going back two days a week, they’re long days, meaning I will be out the house a little before 7am and not back until 8:30pm or later.  I need to get myself organised and start pre-writing posts and scheduling them.  This is one of the things I am worst at, I generally write and post, or scheduling goes as far as the post going live the morning after I write it.  I have so many things to write in my head but I don’t find the time to get them all down at once.  This needs to change!

My second goal is increasing my social media following.  I love Instagram, it’s by far my favourite platform and I am slowly but surely growing my following on there.  I love learning about new hashtags and communities on Instagram, Katy at Hot Pink Wellingtons wrote a great post about different hashtags recently and I found it so useful.  I need to try and interact more with others on Instagram too, at the moment I try to comment on my favourite feeds but I feel I would like to actually chat with some of the people on there sometimes, I just don’t have the confidence!  My Twitter following is slowly growing and I find this the most tricky platform to interact with, my Twitter is mainly just my blog posts and linkups.  I struggle with the pace of Twitter, it’s too fast for me! But in 2017 I will try and change this.  My Facebook page is slowly gaining followers, and I from what I’ve seen it is the hardest platform to gain a following.

Drawing on my point in gaining confidence to chat to others, in 2017 I really want to start chatting to other bloggers and my aim is to attend a conference and/or meet-ups.  Sunita from Lucky Things invited me along to her Lucky Things meet up in January, but due to Stuart starting a new job in the new year he will be away on training so I wouldn’t have childcare and I can’t attend.  Hopefully I will be able to attend a future meet-up.  I need to grow more confidence in my self and feel like I can chat to other bloggers.  I am just a bit shy, and even though in my job I am always speaking to strangers, I just feel a bit nervous to chat to people online.  So my goal is to start interacting more! If you fancy chatting, feel free to message me!

In 2017 I’m going to go self-hosted, I’ve decided I will take the plunge and as scary as it looks, I am going to do it.  Hopefully I will try and do it before I return to work, but I will have to see how I get on with that plan!  I have seen lots of helpful posts on going self hosted and I’m hoping I can use them as a guide through the deep darkness of self-hosting my blog.

My final goal is to start vlogging.  It’s something I’ve always imagined doing, but not really known how to start it.  Stu has always encouraged me with starting vlogging (he loves YouTube) and I have filmed things in the past with every intention of starting vlogging, but the problems were all in the editing.  My laptop is from the dark ages and is so slow and useless when it came to trying to edit a video it took me so long to load anything I gave up.  But in 2017 I have been promised a new laptop, a nice shiny Mac, so once I have that I will have iMovie and hopefully I will be able to easily edit my videos and feel confident enough to post them!  I feel like vlogging is sometimes needed in the blogging world and I am eager to give it a go. 

My final goal is to have fun and enjoy myself.  I don’t want to get too caught up in the what ifs and should I’s, and just write what I feel passionate about and why I want to write.  It’s what I’ve tried to do from the start and I’ve enjoyed it so far.  Sometimes I am scared to push the publish button, I’ve put my thoughts and feelings out there for all to see.  The posts that I have been scared to post are all the ones that have done the best in terms of readership, so actually it just goes to show you need to do what scares you, because actually that’s what I enjoy. 

I’m excited to see what 2017 brings my blog! What are your blog goals in 2017?