Today’s Sunday Chat is extra special because it’s my official one month anniversary since launching The Pretty Little Hustler! Time seriously flew, and although I’ve only been blogging for a month, I really feel like I’ve learned so much in such a short amount of time. Obviously I still have a ton to learn about the blogging world and the ins and outs of running a successful blog, but I think I’m off to a solid start and I have y’all to thank for that. Seriously, you made my launch day so incredibly exciting and I’m over the moon that I actually have consistent readers on my posts! I can’t lie though, there have also been some lows among all the highs in this last month, and today I want to go through some of the major takeaways I have. Newbie bloggers or aspiring bloggers, this one’s for you!
1. The Importance of the Editorial Calendar
If you’re a blogger or someone who reads a lot of blogs, you’ve probably heard about editorial calendars. Basically that’s just a fancy way to say that you plan out your blog posts and/or social posts in advance instead of just creating things on a whim. I’ve found that my editorial calendar and actually sitting down to plan the month or the week’s posts ahead of time helps me so much. Right before launching, I had planned out every blog post for the month of September. Things went so smoothly and I couldn’t have felt better. Then October snuck up on me and I had nothing planned. When I tell y’all that I felt the difference, that’s an understatement. Suddenly I found myself playing catch up and rushing to shoot things and get things done in time for my posting schedule…it was a mess. (Hopefully you guys didn’t notice, hah!) So yes, editorial calendars are majorly important and sticking to one will seriously help your blog & content stay consistent, and save you a lot of stress.
2. Try Not to Let Social Media Get You Down
This is a big one, not only in the blogging world obviously, but also in life. Today I’m just focusing on the blogging aspect though. So obviously I launched my blog a month ago and have seen a good response to my content and gained (what I think is) a good amount of followers in this short time! I’m quite happy with my growth and am definitely not complaining. However, I’m only human. And being new to this blogging world, I didn’t realize just how fluid your follower count/engagement is as a blogger.
Let me explain. You know how on your personal Instagram you don’t gain/lose a significant amount of followers in one day? At least for me, my friends aren’t just following and unfollowing me everyday so it stays pretty consistent over there. But on my blog Instagram it’s the complete opposite. I’ll get so excited to see a bunch of new likes and followers come in one day, just to wake up the very next day to find that I’ve lost 15 followers overnight! (Not kidding, this actually has happened to me a couple of times now and it sucks!) This is obviously such a “first world problem” and not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of life, but when you are trying to grow a blog or a business, followers matter. Plus it makes you reevaluate your content and second guess things. Should I not have posted that outfit? Do they not like my style/personality/photos? It just makes you question yourself. But I’m learning not to let it get me down and that there are so many fish in the sea, it’s fine if those followers didn’t wanna hang with me.
3. The Comparison Game is Real!
Piggy backing off of that, I’m sure you all are familiar with the rise of the comparison game since social media took over during the last few years. Seeing people’s seemingly perfect lives through the filter of Instagram, seeing other people’s accounts grow much quicker than your own even though you feel like you’re posting close to the same thing if not better content? Yup, that. No joke, yesterday I found this girl’s account who is a fellow newbie blogger, and also started her account in the beginning of September. However, she has already passed 1,000 followers AND got accepted into rewardStyle (a super exclusive affiliate network in the blogging community that is basically what we are all striving for, ha! gotta be honest here). That’s insane! At least to me. I literally had that moment on my couch last night where I started to compare myself to her and what I was doing “wrong” and I had to check myself. We are completely different people, posting similar but different things, and at the end of the day, I can’t control other people’s success! I can only control my own. And that is what I need to focus on—comparing my own growth to months past instead of other people’s growth.
4. Stay True to Yourself and Your Blog
Like I said earlier, between the roller coaster ride of follower counts and the nagging comparison game, it can be hard to remember why you started your blog and what you wanted to achieve. I have to remind myself that even though other bloggers may post multiple outfit posts per day, or have beautiful travel photos to share from their most recent trip across the world, I don’t have that! And I’m not here to. I started my blog so that I could not only have a place to document my life while sharing insider NYC tips and some cute outfits, but that I wanted to be a RELATABLE blogger. I literally had this conversation with a good friend of mine the other day. As avid blog followers, we both get a bit burnt out clicking on links to beautiful products that are just WAY over our budgets. Who can really afford to spend $300 on a throw blanket for their couch?! If you can, that’s amazing and I envy you, but I simply can’t at this point in my life right now. And I’ll bet there are girls just like me who feel the same. So I wanted PLH to be a place they could go to see affordable and stylish options, and relatable content to their life right now, not their dream life in 5 or 10 years. Remembering this when I’m planning my blog and social posts has been so important and helps keep me grounded.
Again, I want to say a major THANK YOU to everyone who keeps liking my photos on Instagram, and reading my blog posts. Seriously, it means the world to me and makes me just want to create bigger and better things for y’all. Let me know if any of you are also newbie bloggers or thinking of starting a blog! I’d love to check it out 🙂
1 month bloggingbloggingblogging lessonsblogging tipscomparison gameinsecuritiesnew bloggerreviewsocial mediastaying groundedSunday chat
