WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL BLOGGER?
It’s funny, because when I was at school I so badly wanted to fit in - I strived to be popular, or to at least have acceptance from the people who were praised constantly by their peers. And when I started blogging I must've subconsciously told myself I wouldn’t be that person, that I simply couldn’t be. I would do what I wanted and what made me happy, nothing more nothing less.
And yeah, I think that’s meant that by not following people or trends or movements, I haven’t moved all that fast.
I’m fortunate enough that I get to call this my job - but I’m not ignorant enough to say that I don’t see others who have been doing this as long as me, whose followers have soared, whose opportunities have sky-rocketed. That there are even a pocketful of instagrammers that earned millions of followers almost overnight for their carefully curated feeds. And that I’m still in the same place I was two, even three years ago.
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It’s so very easy to let numbers dictate success in this industry, especially when nine times out of ten, followers equal opportunity. I make it my mantra to not compare myself to others - I can recognise someone else’s success, appreciate how hard they’ve worked to achieve it and understand that their path is not mine; we all have different journeys to take.
The harder you work the luckier you get; I believe this whole-heartedly. But spoiler alert: we are all working hard, and sometimes that’s not quite enough in this digital world.
I’ll never have a grid theme, a fully detailed YouTube plan or a daily blog post scheduled - it’s not how I work and it never has been. I’ve always wanted to make this space a place that makes me truly happy, that I’m proud to share and that (hopefully) adds some value every now and then. For me that means I post when I feel like it and if that means I fall into the background a little, then that’s okay.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that a ‘successful’ blogger doesn’t look like anything. You define what success is, nobody else. Numbers are a helpful push in a wider direction, but they are not everything. You are.
Is blogging dead?
Absolutely not.
Yes there are a bunch of us who now prefer an easy fix, with a quick catch up on instagram and can’t be arsed to scroll through an 800 word piece via a swiped up link. But I’ve always said that this weird little internet world is just exactly what you want it to be. There is no right, there is no wrong.
Yes there are certainly ways in which you may be able to ‘succeed’ quicker, if that’s what you’re looking for - but ultimately, the internet is what you make it.
You can be whoever you want to be (and yes I will accept my higher levels of wanky-ness on this one occasion).
It’s totally fine to see what’s going on around you, to let it make you feel things, but to then let it go. You are only here once and if there’s anything you owe yourself, it’s to do it your way.
And perhaps that means not totally fitting in, but believing in it anyway.
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