Happy Monday!
We have had another gorgeous day in Middle Tennessee.
Charcoal and I spent 2.5 hours outside, until the sun went
down. What a WAY to spend part of a day.
He is my reminder to STOP, go outside and breathe fresh air
and SEE all the beauty that God created for us.
I had a couple of people ask me about Blogging—yes 2 people!
I thought I would share some of my thoughts.
I realize that some of you will not enjoy reading this, but
it is ok. Try the next post.
I am in no way an expert, and most of what I do is by trial
and error.
Does my blog make a difference in the world? Probably not, but I enjoy it on most days and
some others do too, so it makes a difference for me and that other person! That, my friends, is success.
I guess I need to start at the beginning and in reading,
perhaps you will get the answers that you wanted by digging through my words.
You didn’t think I would make this EASY for you, did you?
I joined Facebook because someone told me I needed to join
to help my business grow. So I joined FB.
I had 9 FRIENDS for a long time.
I had no clue what in the world it was about. When my mother died in March of 2012, I got a
few more friends when people looked for me to send condolences. At that time, I saw a little of the possibility
of FB. The day of Mother’s death, I got
the link to a website I had designed for me, and so, I started adding to it and
launched the website on the anniversary of my Daddy’s death, because I have
tried to do something POSITIVE on special dates or to do something for someone
else on those days, and I KNOW that my parents would not want me in a perpetual
state of sadness. Yes, I struggle…
I had in the meantime, started a FB Business Page, and
struggled to find what to do with it. I
thought I would add helpful hints, but again, I had few followers. I started playing the “games” of FB with if
you like me, I will like you, and let’s have FRIENDSHIP FRIDAY, where you share
your link and on and on. I got my
followers to 1500 and by this time, I had found my niche in sharing memories
each morning of my life growing up on a Dairy farm with 2 brothers and I would
share something I had painted.
Sadly, the web site was a bust. I couldn’t get the lady to FIX stuff and she
didn’t share my web like she said she would, and well, I was frustrated. People kept telling me I should write a book
and that I should blog, and that I should….
I wanted to design patterns and I wanted people to buy
them. That wasn’t asking too much, was
it?
So, one night, while all of my friends slept, I opened an
Etsy shop (May, 2013). See—I really
should NEVER be left unsupervised. Sales
were slow in coming, but they came quickly enough to keep me going. I then discovered that I could add instant
downloads to etsy, so I became more excited!
I plugged along with designing, putting things on etsy and
doing my daily posts on fb. By this
time, FB had changed their “formula” and hardly anyone was seeing my posts, or
they were tired of them, or, who knows what, but seeing only 10 likes on a post
with over 1500 followers was sickening.
I struggled with deciding if I should start another FB page
where I would share thoughts on my faith, because I KNEW that my sharing my
beliefs was a “put off” to many and then that would leave a page to share only
my creations, without my commentary. I
thought about it long and hard, weighing the pros and cons, but at the end of
the day, I AM WHOSE I am and I can’t deny it, nor do I WANT to deny it.
SO, again, while my friends slept, I started a blog in
December of 2013—man, we have GOT to find a supervisor for me!
Well, now, I had a blog.
I had no clue, really, what that meant, and still, today, I am not
certain at times.
I tried to blog each day, while I kept doing my daily posts
on FB.
I have only dial-up internet, and that, in and of itself, is
almost too much to overcome, but still, I persevere. I seek solutions, but there is this horrible
evil called MONEY! MAYBE this will be
the year that I solve that problem.
I blogged for a while, and lost steam. During this time, I stopped writing a daily
post on FB, because only 30 people seeing it, was just a waste of my time. I
started finding a cute little post for my wall, instead. Meanwhile, nobody was really reading my blog
either, or so it seemed, because I was focusing ONLY on followers. I didn’t know what else to do.
I tried to get “followers”, but today, I only have 79 followers
on Google Plus. I tried give-aways, but
people do not follow directions at all (grrrrrrrrrrrr….) and it did nothing to
gain followers, the purpose of the task.
I see blogs with hundreds of followers, and wonder what I can do to get
followers~~that quest is ongoing!
I think that perhaps I have joined the circus just as the
elephants are being phased out~~too late to succeed.
I lost my UMPF…again.
Days quickly passed and I suddenly realized that I had not
blogged for a week, and then a month, and I was so disappointed in me!
I kept trying to keep it going, until ONE DAY, I decided
that I needed a focus~~A purpose. I didn’t
want to be like so many of the bloggers that I followed—months and months of
nothing!
The whole reason I wanted to have a business page was to
share tips. Then I discovered that I
enjoyed sharing memories, and others liked it, too. I also have a fascination with recipes,
especially appetizers and I wanted to pass along some family recipes, since I
am it! I have no children. I have lived through some challenges in
caring for elderly parents, and while I don’t want to rehash past mistakes, I
DO feel that I experienced things so I could pass them along to people. We never know what someone is going through
until we walk in their shoes, and even then, it is different. Oh, and being POSITIVE and ENCOURAGING remain
important to me, for we don’t need any more gripping! Whew—I become more and more like my Mother
with each passing day~~LOL
Recently, I developed a plan for ME~~A SIMPLE Plan. I chose 7 witty subjects: Serendipity Sunday, Monday Musings, Technique
Tuesday, Whacky Wednesday, Tutorial Thursday, Food Friday and Smorgasbord
Saturday.
My goal was to post ONCE a week. If I did more, then YAY for ME!!
So far, so good.
With this schedule, it allows me to post ANYTHING that I wish,
yet it has given me a focus. I am able
to post things that I LOVE and it covers different topics so that I can reach
more people. YES, the tutorials that I
give are the most viewed, and that is GREAT.
It tells me WHAT my base of people want.
That is SO GOOD to KNOW! How many
times, as crafters, have we said, “if ONLY I knew what people wanted.” I now know what people want. How cool is that?
I have learned about organic views vs. hits and not to dwell
on the number. I can see that by sharing
on the social media that I belong to (twitter, google+, Instagram and FB), the
number of followers I have isn’t the only measure of success. For instance, while searching for stats to do
this post, I found some posts with almost 500 organic views…I found some with
only 16…sigh The snowman nodder on
Thursday has 279 organic views, and that means that the number is from only ONE
address, whereas the hits are simply that—possibly all from one address! LOL (yes, I can picture it now—a lone man in Timbuctoo
with the only computer sitting and visiting my blog all day, every day!)
SO, now you are caught up with my struggles as a
blogger. I apologize for the length, and
yet I have a few points before I wrap this up and move on to another task.
If wanting to blog, I think some questions need to be
explored.
1.
Do you really want to blog?
2.
Are you willing to keep doing it and doing it
consistently?
3.
What can you do to motivate yourself to be a
consistent blogger?
4.
What is your reason for blogging?
5.
What are your expectations from blogging?
6.
Are you willing to put the time into the process
to be successful?
7.
Are you willing to forgive yourself if you fail?
8.
Are you willing to regroup and try something
different?
I can’t think my friends enough for the support I continue
to get. I HOPE that in some small way,
you KNOW what you mean to me. I fail at
so many things each day, but KNOW that my heart is trying and that just like
you, I am doing the best I can at the moment, and maybe, tomorrow I will be a
little bit better~~baby steps, right?
Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the
world. It keeps me wanting to try
harder.
I am simply blessed to create~~charlotte♡
