Blogging · Me myself and I · Thoughts

Let’s talk about success!

Cyranny

No, no… Not sex. I’m not a Salt-N-Pepa member!

Following the interest for my first two posts regarding blogging ( you can catch up with The fine art of commenting & Between bloggers ), and the long and insightful conversations they provoked, I thought I’d keep sharing my thoughts about our common hobby.

As I mentionned number of times, I am not a pro, and these are just my opinions, and some ideas you might find useful, especially if you are new to the blogging game. I am also doing this because I enjoy the chat that follows, and the things I can learn from you in return!

So this time, I am thinking about something naturally embedded in hosting a blog.

Success.

Let’s face it. In all honesty, we all seek some kind of success. Otherwise, why post things for the whole planet to read and/or see? If we didn’t want other people’s attention, approval, feedback, we’d keep our art and our work to ourselves.

I think the first thing to realize, is that success is a slow process. Some of us get lucky, and their blogs will attract the crowd’s attention quickly, but these are exceptions. And if, like me, you don’t ask Mom, Dad, your sibblings, your friends and your colleagues to follow you in the beginning, building a readership should be a long run goal.

But what is success to you? Having a lot of readers? (I really don’t like the term “followers”) Getting a lot of views? Getting a lot of “likes”? Getting a lot of comments? Of course, some of these things are somewhat connected, but I don’t think anyone blogging as a hobby, can focus on all these points. And certainly not worry about all of them at once.

I’ll try to cover this later…

What I really wanted to point out, is how you can look at your blog differently than simply staring at the statistics’ page and looking at the numbers, which can get depressing at times.

 

Set yourself a personal goal

Go for something original, and something you can’t compare yourself to others with. My goal is to get a reading from every country on the world map! My quest is going pretty well, and I still check every once in a while if a new flag has joined my collection. When it happens, I do my happy dance! It might be just one reading, which doesn’t impact much my stats per say, but it is a step towards a fully colored map, and it keeps me away from numbers.

 

Blogging is not a competition

Don’t bother comparing your “views”, your “likes” and your number of readers with other bloggers. Ok, I say that, but we all do it from time to time. The point for me is not to focus on wanting to be like a fellow blogger. So many things can affect statistics, I prefer to work on slowly getting better at what I do best. I am glad for those who “do better” than me, and I try to help newcomers.

 

Know your strenghts

Very few are the bloggers that win on all counts. You might be impressed by some people’s numbers, but look more closely, before you get down. For an example, let’s say you follow a blog that has 10 000 readers, and you only have 100. Reaching the same number of followers might seem like climbing a tall mountain, but if said blogger gets an average of 100 likes per post, and you get 20… Do the math, that’s something to be proud of! (ooook, I’ll do it for you – I’m nice like that –  it means this “big” blog gets an average of 1% of “likes” from their readership, and you get 20%… See?) In the same way, a newcomer with less readers than you might get a better average of likes for their posts, but never get people to leave feedback, when you have tons of interaction with your own crowd… We are all good at something. Gathering people, collecting “likes” or attracting feedback. Enjoy your strenght, when the other numbers are not as high as you’d like them to be!

 

Remember that you don’t control the Bloggosphere

The only things you control, are what you post, and how you manage your blog. You can’t control readers and force interest. Some days, no matter how fantastic your story or your artwork is, people just won’t be there. The opposite is also true. Some days, you’ll post something silly and break records, statistics-wise. It has nothing to do with you… It’s just like that. Just stay away from your stats page when it happens. It’s no use getting disappointed because the odds are against you… Believe me!

 

Well, as usual, I hope this will be helpful for at least one of you… Please share your own thoughts about the concept of “success” in the comment box below 🙂 What do you aim for? What motivates you? What works for you?

I’ll be close by, as usual!

Happy blogging, Lovelies…

 

 

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25 thoughts on “Let’s talk about success!”

  1. I too love the conversations that occur in the comments. One thing that’s kind of sad — we put so much thought into our first few posts, and no one actually sees them. It’s almost as if we should repost some of the early offerings so we could share them with our current followers.

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    1. And boom! First comment, and you already prove me right about how cool these conversations are! This is such a good point, Candice! When I have some free time on my hands, I like going back to my favorite bloggers’ earlier posts, to see how they started up… But I am aware that these first posts almost get lost in the bloggosphere… It is quite a shame. We should start a “visit some of my earlier posts” week, or something… To promote these almost forgotten pieces of work 🙂

      Thank you for taking the time to bring this up 🙂 xx

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      4. Loved your post, and I wish you still had this hint of appreciation for your writing! I hope you’ll listen to your own self, and realize that even if you don’t have as much inspiration because of the things happening in your life, you are still a great writer!!

        And I really think we should start this #MyFirstPostRevisited thing going again… It is pretty cool!! Thank you for sharing 🙂 xx

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  2. I try not to look at stats because it’s usually disappointing… I’m not sure what I expect or what I even want, but I usually end up disappointed.

    I have definitely found that I have certain posts that are extremely popular and I have no idea why… they aren’t special to me at all. And conversely, I have some posts that I love and that I really thought others would love but no one cared. Sometimes, I wonder if no one ‘gets’ me. But it’s probably more like what you said… I don’t know…

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    1. I think everyone could tell the same about their posts… We all have unexpected “good” stat days, and days when we work like crazy and barely get noticed. Don’t worry too much about it, ok Gorgeous? 🙂 xx

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  3. I love the flag part too… I think the conversations and followers that actually come back is rather success. And don’t forget readers that are not bloggers that actually never “likes” anything but still comes back or comment.regards from the UAE flag. This summer I’ll add some danish and Swedish flags for you. I’m sure you have some already.

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    1. Oooooh! Is that right? Traveling to Vikingland this summer?? That’s great news!! How long will you be there? I can never get enough Dannebrogs 😛

      Thank you for bringing up the non-blogging readers! I don’t have many of those, myself, but they are an important part of blogging too! Sometimes I tell myself we must look like a private club with secret hand shakes, but non-blogging readers, We love you too!! xx

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      1. Lol yeah secret handshakes and me telling my husband I DO have friends. They are online and invisible.
        Traveling back home to celebrate Midsummer in June. It’s an important tradition to us. The Danes celebrate slightly different but it’s all about summer, food and ridiculous dancing (alcohol). At least we agree on that. Had that discussion with my danish hairdresser yesterday. We will stay two weeks and can’t wait to go. Getting super warm in the desert now.

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      2. Oh my, same here… I keep telling my boyfriend about the people I “meet” here. He has become very good at pretending he understands what this is all about 😛

        Sankt Hans looks like a lot of fun, from what I’ve heard about it… Someday, I have to travel during summer, to see it in person! *Fingers crossed*

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  4. Hi there, I have looked into the statistics thing for a very long time and tried out different statistics from Google Analytics to WordPress and my experience is every single one of them says something different about the same blog at the same time. When it comes down to it views and likes are only important if you want to earn money with your blog otherwise the main thing for me is to have fun and to be able to express myself in any way I feel at the moment. No, that is not right. The main thing for me is to get my mind boggled with what other bloggers write and to meet these great people out there who have so much to share.

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    1. I am not even surprised about the different statistics analizers giving different results… You can make numbers say what you want 😉

      It is funny because when I started blogging, I had nothing in mind, other than to share a few words and ideas. Little did I know I’d someday take part in such a great community! I have to be honest, when I have good days, stats-wise, I do enjoy it. But exchanging with amazing people has become much much more important 🙂 xx

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      1. Yes, I like it too but as I move my blog continuously I won’t get anywhere anyway 😁 as for the community: I think WordPress is special and really works for building one. However, if you don’t like answering comments or write some on other blogs you wont get anywhere 😚

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      2. True… I think some bloggers do great, just offering their work for others to enjoy. If they don’t want to connect with others, that’s fine… But I definately enjoy getting to know the people behind all these lovely blogs 🙂

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  5. I think the other thing that people should remember is that if you have twitter or facebook or instagram linked your followers are included. So for example I have 2000 followers, but I know that is a false number because some people follow me on facebook, twitter and wordpress. So 3 of those followers are actually the same person.

    Also my figures get over inflated over the weekend because I have anywhere between 20-48 posts coming out, so I am probably at the top of a lot of peoples readers. I tend to ignore that and instead have a look at the new people who come to visit. For example, I shared a blog about running. I have had a lot of people who run as a hobby (they blog about it) pop over and look around.

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    1. Two very good points… I have very few readers coming from outside WP, though.

      Pacing is also an interesting clue. Of course, the more content you have, the more chances you have to attract more readings… I can see the obvious crash in my stats since I had to cut down on writing to save what little sanity I had left… It was sad to see at first, and I was afraid it would drive people away, but I am glad to see that many people still show up almost daily, and it comforts me to think that I am better off posting less, but being happy about what I post, rather than posting a lot, but posting just anything that comes to my mind…

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      1. I actually find very few bloggers post every day. You have a few, that post as soon as something hits their mind, so might post four or five times in a day and then maybe not post again for a little while. I think it is whatever makes you happy, a lot of bloggers will go on about how content is the most important thing in the world, but I don’t think it is always. Some of my most viewed post are me swearing a large amount. My most viewed post that I have never posted is my birthday weekend share post followed by a photo of one of my cats, not including my about page

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      2. I think my most viewed post is “A like Love” from my A to Z Challenge… Which wasn’t my best by all means. Blogging is really a mystery, sometimes 😛

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