That’s a pretty vague title isn’t it. Looking at it now, it even seems a little ominous to me. Weird no? I mean their all nice words and I know I don’t have anything bad to say. Yet it still sends a chill down my spine. Like I’ve just raised a flag or something… Ok so I chose a gif of Komaeda, that’s on me.
I guess hopes and dreams are too grand a statement here. What I really mean is “general non committal goals for my blog”. That just didn’t have the same ring to it. Ok, ok. I’ll get to the point already… Considering it’s the end of the year, you probably guessed it, I want to talk about what I want to do with this place. *I think of my blog as a place, I’m not sure why*
I’ve looked back on my previous posts on the subject (there are a lot) and found them utterly unhelpful. It’s like I’m allergic to giving myself clear objectives! I’m always sort of wishy washy. On top of that, my big ideas are not impressive at all. Whatever happened to dream big!?! Granted I have never been disappointed but now I got nothing to brag about. All the amazing things I can credit to this blog were mostly due to you guys.
It’s about time I played my part. So here I am taking a chance. I’m going to actually try to do some stuff. If I fail you can tease me about it. That’s what friends do.
First, let’s start with the easy promises:
I’m going to keep posting every day. Since late summer 2017, I haven’t missed a day and I’m going to do everything I can to keep that up. I also want to throw something out there. I don’t necessarily think a heavy posting schedule is in any way better than occasionally posting when the muse strikes you or taking your time to really work out essays. I personally thrive in consistency but it’s not for everyone.
Also, I would love to finally get a handle of comment conversations. I have a tough time figuring out when someone actually wants to discuss something versus when they just want to get something off their chests and don’t have the time or energy for a long exchange. A few bloggers I really like usually stick to short neutral polite responses and that seems to be the most appreciated. I get a bit wrapped up in the moment and may be overwhelming at times.
I should do these but no promises:
My blog is getting a little cluttered. I will soon have in the 4 digit posts and only a small percentage of them are reviews. I really want to find a way to organize the material and make it easier to find for readers. Maybe some type of thematic index would be in order. (I also need to revisit my tags).
Even though I wrote a post about it, I still haven’t quite mastered social media. And by master, I mean learned how to use… I can probably use Twitter and Facebook way better and I haven’t even looked into other platforms. I have a feeling that if I can figure out instagram or Reddit, I’ll be rolling in… random click through with no engagement…YAY!
Better theme. Oh vanity will be the death of me. At least I’ll leave a beautiful corpse! I like my theme. It took me a long time to pick out and meets all my criteria. But it is heavy. I’ve had readers DM me a few times about it being occasionally long to load, so I’ll look into it again.
Things I want to try…
I told you all about media kits and their potential. That post was purely theoretical, I have yet to test one out. But first, I need to simply put one together. I m not sure if I would even use it, but for some reason, I feel like just creating one will be a good exercise.
Some of you may remember that I use to have this feature called a blogwarming. I wanted to spread the word about newer or lesser known blogs. Unfortunately, when a few bloggers started similar roundup and showcase features that were frankly better put together, my own project couldn’t keep up and submissions dried out. I was sad but it also thought me a few important lessons.
One of my biggest mistakes was to ask for email submissions. Twitter is a much more dynamic and easier venue for this. However, when thinking back, asking for submissions at all was a misstep. If we are dealing with newer or a little lesser known bloggers, they are often less likely to regularly interact with the community. They would probably never hear of my little project, let alone go through the trouble of figuring out how to contact me. I had structured it that way because I’m lazy and I was hoping great new blogs would just come to me. In retrospect, I should really have structured it like a roundup post and just shared with all of you the great new blogs I discover. And that’s exactly what I m going to do. I’m aiming for a monthly feature if I can discover blogs regularly enough. It will be a surprise blogwarming if you will. If you discover any blogs you think should be featured, of course let me know.
I also want to generally put the dozens of hours I spend reading blogs each week to some use. I asked Prattle’s permission and I’m going to try a very pared down version of their concept. Basically, I want to put together a weekly round up of seasonal episodic reviews from around wordpress. If you’re like me, when you get into a show (*cough S;G 0, cough*), you want to read what everyone else is saying right away, to extend and share in the experience. So it could be useful to have those posts gathered by show in a single spot.
You don’t know this, because I haven’t shared it yet, but I applied and got accepted as a blogger for a couple of professional sites in 2018. For various reasons I chose not to pursue those opportunities. This said I would still love to diversify and occasionally venture out of my little space. I’ll see what I can do.
I want to get some funkey search terms in 2019!!! No idea how to go about it..?
I m not sure how many of these I will accomplish. Maybe none. Maybe I’ll get sidetracked by a new spark if inspiration and pursue something completely different with this blog. How about you guys? Any big plans? Relaxing is a great plan for example!
