Bloggy goals for 2012 and beyond

I've been thinking a lot about the direction in which I want to take this blog in during the rest of this year and beyond. I want to strive to make it bigger, better, more encouraging and more supportive than ever before. I'd like to reach more people and increase readership, and I want to turn Chronically Creative into a resource full of helpful and inspiring stuff rather than a place just for me to take part in a woe is me write-a-thon.

 

 

So without further ado, here are my bloggy and social media goals for the rest of the year:

 

- Reach out to other bloggers. As of late I've fallen behind in my blog reading, but I really want to try my best to get along side other chronic pain bloggers, encourage them, support them, and help grow their blog and celebrate their success. I especially want to help newbie bloggers find their voice and confidence, and I want to provide plenty of opportunities through this blog and on Twitter and Facebook for bloggers to gain a little more exposure. There is so much under followed talent out there!

 

- Increase readership. I really want to concentrate on growing this blog, it's my main goal for this year. I do need to grow some balls and get this blog out there and have more belief in this blog than I do right now. I have some pretty huge, creative and fun plans for this blog in the coming years, but in order to pursue these plans, I need to build a community. This year, I'm aiming for 250 blog followers, 50 email subscribers (there's currently 37), 400 Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Considering the stats now, I think those are achievable numbers. If you are not yet following, what are you waiting for? Get on it, NOW! For now, my lips are sealed on what these plans entail.... a girl has to have a sense of mystery about her, ya know!

 

- Vlog. I am not very tech savvy, and I'm extremely camera shy, but I'll try to muster up the courage to post a video. Figuring out a topic to talk about is the tricky part.

 

- Publish a resource page. This is going to take some time to do because there is a lot of investigating and organisation involved. But the plan is to put together a helpful page people can go to, to find a variety of blogs on chronic illness, different support groups available, and the best Facebook pages around. There are some great resources out there that deserve a mention and a place on this blog. I'll be doing a call-out at some point, so if you would like your amazing self listed, stay tuned.

 

- Write more devotionals. I did start writing a few devotionals going back a year ago, but I stopped. I guess I just lost courage and felt that I didn't have anything valuable to share. Spiritually, I'm parched right now, but I do want to get back into sharing a bit more about my faith. I haven't been going to church at all for quite a while now due to a couple of reasons, and I really should be writing about these issues as I have no doubt there are plenty of others who are feeling the same way I am. We need more Christians speaking out about chronic pain and illness and being honest about how it affects our faith at times.

 

- Be more present on social media. I'm not so bad with Facebook, but when it comes to using Twitter, I am terrible. Because all my Facebook updates automatically go to Twitter, I sometimes don't log in for over a week. This needs to change. As much as it doesn't seem so, I do love Twitter and I ADORE the people who follow me, and take time out to share a bit about themselves with me. I really must try and put in a bit more effort in taking the time to get to know such incredible people.

 

- Take risks. I need to change things up a bit. By risks, I mean write about different things completely unrelated to chronic illness and creative stuff, like writing my opinions on different issues in the big wide world.

 

- Take advantage of advertising opportunities. Blogging has opened up some small opportunities for me already, but I'd like to give myself the opportunity to make some small spare change if I can. I don't make any money from this blog, and to be honest I think I deserve a few cold drinks. Keeping a blog is hard work, even for those without illness. I'm not quite sure I'd like to sell out my sidebar just yet, but I would love to open up a few spots for blogs and businesses to advertise at an amazingly ridiculous reasonable price.

 

- Make my Facebook page more engaging. I've been doing a bit of reading on how to go about making your page more fun and engaging. I've discovered heaps of helpful tips from professional bloggers, and so far I think I'm heading in the right direction. I do want to create opportunities for people to share about themselves. So far, I'm thinking of hosting a weekly post your URL day, but more on that later.

 

So, I'm pretty crazy considering that I'm currently struggling to cope with working one shift a week AND blogging. I don't know how I'm going to go achieving any of these, but it's good to have some goals,

 

What are your blogging/writing goals?

 

 

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