Well, the challenge has been met. Thirty days. thirty blogposts – done. I knew it wasn’t going to be a difficult challenge. If you go back to my first post of this challenge on November 14th, you can read about the origins of this challenge and how it started on a whim via a discussion between Clay Lowe, DarrenKeith, and myself. So, what have I learned by reaching this challenge goal?
Two days ago on December 9, I published a post about accepting challenges and how I look at the ROI to determine whether going through with the challenge is worthwhile. I summed it up by just that, the ROI is a very important gauge to assess as a catalyst in moving forward. As mentioned in the November 14th post, I’ve been blogging officially since 2007, and it’s been pleasurable when I have. After 15 years, the blogging scene has changed a lot.from monetization purposes to more of a huge push in audience growing (the latter always being a desire to any blogger), but it just seems like it’s become more commercialized (like podcasting).
What I have seen, is that I’ve never pushed to grow my blog reading audience as it’s always just been a pastime to engage in self-publishing from my own digital garden (as DarrenKeith says). With that comes a circling back to audience growth. If growth is what you want, especially from your own platform where you make the rules and are not subject to algorithms and the like, you have to put in the work to increase reader. This is where the ROI comes in for me. Theres not one person I know that doesn’t enjoy readers engaging with the content they publish, but when you do publish from your own space, it’s imperative that you put in the work to, at least, increase the reach of your blog to the masses. The easiest (read most convenient) way to do this is to crosspost your post links to the huge social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, IG, TikTok, etc. Once that occurs, you’ve done just that BUT that doesn’t guarantee engagement (comments) on your post. Perhaps another way to achieve that is blog on sites like Medium or Tumblr but, again, the work needs to be put in.
My takeaway based on my ROI for this challenge, is this: reaching the goal of this challenge will NOT cause to blog on a regular basis because the desire is not grow readership based on the work it will take to do so. Conversely, I’ll just go back to enjoying the desire to blog when the whim hits me and engage with anyone who chooses to leave a comment or comments. I like it that way,
For those who have commented on any of my posts during this challenge, I highly appreciate you sharing your thoughts on my topics. Thank you!
Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Fresh.
Thanks for keeping me motivated to blog every day. I’m glad we got a chance to connect. And I do hope you keep blogging. I can’t wait for the Sunday Soundtrack to return in full force.