If you read yesterday's monthly round up it'll come as no surprise to you that this blog stats and social media report might be a bit of a sorry state of affairs. I don't really know how many of these I'll keep doing, I don't massively enjoy writing them anymore and the blogging world is currently on a bit of a downer, we all know that.
Read MoreI have also been feeling this year like home is more important to me too. The notion of home has always played a huge part in my life and that's been more to do with family than anything else. I have always felt like 'home' has meant different things to me, like I'd refer to my childhood house as 'home' when I was in university and my flat 4 hours away as 'home' when I was back with Mum and Dad. Both those places felt equally homely to me, both the house I had for a mere 2 years with a friend and the house my parents have been in since I was born.
Read MoreSo we're halfway through the year - how in the hell did that happen?
I felt all motivated and prepared to make 2018 'my year' for blogging. I was going to pitch to brands, to secure more paid work than ever, to have a blog overhaul, a new look, a new focus, have more viral content and generally kick ass. But then the 'death of blogging' phase kicked in and we all lost motivation and social media became more the big thing and I just got too busy in my own life and here we are - I am feeling the slow decline the same as the rest of us.
Read MoreAh the humble Instagram husband. Those we rope into taking 91839826472647 photos of us for a single shot we're happy with instead of paying for a professional photographer who, ya know, it's their job to take good quality photos.
Read MoreI don't wish to alarm you but I am blogging again, for the second time this month already and for the third time this week. Guys, I officially think I am back.
Needless to say because of the shit storm that was April on my blog, with my lack of motivation came a lack of kinda anything. Not a lot of engagement because I wasn't sharing the love back. Not a lot of traffic because I wasn't bothering to promote it. I put no effort in and funnily enough, my blog didn't give me a lot back so whilst this month's report is a dismal affair on the whole, I have high hopes for May.
Read MoreUnfollowing has yet again become a hot topic in the Blogosphere from talk of muting people on social media to not liking every single photo on your feed being unsupportive.
Seen as I seem to have got my blogging mojo back again (at least slightly) I thought I'd stick my oar in and pop my two cents online.
Read MoreI was never going to beat January was I? February can easily be looked at as a bit of a failure on my part because isn't the aim of blogging and tracking your stats to be improving every month? If you even skim read January's blog stats post it's clear to see I had what will probably be the best stats month of the year and it's always the case as my traffic spikes when people start looking for bullet journal inspiration on Pinterest.
That being said, I always treat January as one on it's own, a stand alone month where everyone and their dog is on my blog and then we move on and up from there. I might take a quick peek at my December stats to see how February's fair against a more normal month.
Read MoreInstagram, it’s algorithm, it’s shadowbanning and every update it seems to give us is getting the blogging world down. No more are we gaining 50 followers a day, long gone are the days half our followers would actually see our posts and let’s not even get started on hashtags and how on earth do we use them.
We’re learning more and more about the ‘new’ Instagram every day. From the good (hold down the pen to fill the screen instead of shading it in and hold down the colour to bring a whole colour wheel up) to the bad (your images only being shown to 10% of your feed and only then if they are engaged with and liked within a certain time slot of being posted).
Read MoreFlippin heck this came round ever so quickly again didn't it?
Despite everyone and their dog (and myself) going on about how long January lasted, it seems like two minutes ago I was writing my last one of these, summing up my December and the whole of 2017.
January was very much a rerun of January 2017 where I did the very least work and got the very biggest of rewards and it was all down to my good friend; bullet journaling.
Read MoreFirstly before we get into the ol' blog stats report I just want to apologise a lil, or maybe explain is a better word, for my lack of blog posts this month. I wanted to get stuck into the new year and I really have.....in all other aspects of my life.
Read MoreI plain wasn't around enough this month to be of any use on social media but surprisingly my stats aren't really a reflection of that? I was reading Megan's roundup of her stats this month too and was struck by how similar our months tend to be. We often have bad months together and good months together and now have done very little to help ourselves yet have had decent months. So maybe the moral of the story of these posts is we can try all we want but in the end it's trends in blog reading and Pinterest that do all the work for us.
Read MoreBet you forgot I existed didn't you?
It's been a while my friends - my November round up will be live tomorrow where I'll no doubt whine about how busy I've been but really....I have. The past week we've been at 14 cider events and mid week I went to Manchester and I just didn't have time to send out a promo tweet let alone write a blog post.
Read MoreOur internet went down over the weekend and I kept absentmindedly picking my phone up to Google things and getting frustrated that I couldn't. But it got me thinking about how much we rely on Google to give us answers for things we want to know, how much we rely on that instant connection and gratification online.
So following on from the success of my 'things I text my Mum' blog post, I thought I'd share a little insight into my life through the 54 (yes 54) tabs I have open on my phone at the moment.
Read MoreI had very little hope or expectation for this October's stats and having a quick glance at them it would appear I was correct in my predictions.
Have I mentioned October was quite busy for me? You can catch up on what I did over here but it left very little room for blogging, social media or scheduling tweets so I didn't have high hopes for anything. I did however change up my blog focus and my content schedule though to take me into November which I am enjoying working on so far.
Read MoreIt's that time of the month where I look back at the thirty odd days past and see what statistics my blog and social media have thrown up. I always pretty much know what kind of a month I'm having mid month and September was no exception - basically I knew within about 12 days that it was going hideously.
Read MoreIt's my birthday month people -insert all the celebration and dancing ladies emojis here-
We're into my favourite month and can you tell the theme of this post? I'm all about the burnt orange colours at the moment, I think it's one of my favourite colours and my Pinterest is just full of it at the moment. I have done the cliche thing and ordered some fake leaves for blog photos so look out for them this week in my posts.
This month is all about the cosy hygge vibes in my life and I hope you'll make it a priority in yours too. This time of the year is all about looking after yourself, eating good old fashioned hearty food like stews and pies, staying home in pjs or going out for something mulled with friends. Get the scarves out, get the slippers out, get the bobble hats on your head and the wooly sheep coats on your backs and enjoy Autumn in full swing. I know I will.
Read MoreBlogging is a weird old thing isn't it? In June I was on jury service and I didn't tweet as much and I had a dip in my stats and then in July I had a corker and my stats went back to normal. So now we've eased into September and I checked my August statistics and whadda ya know - back in the dip.
Read MoreTwitter - the only time in which you can promote your blog in one sentence and talk about what you had for breakfast in the next (and probably get more likes for the breakfast). We all love to hate Twitter, we bitch about it, we berate the 'community' but we all rely on it for our promotion, and for communicating and connecting with like minded people.
There are definitely ways in which you can use Twitter to your advantage, and be successful at it - namely being a babe and being ace at scheduling tweets. But there are definitely some ways in which you should not being using Twitter. I spoke to my blogging gals and together we came up with a few of our pet hates to help you avoid making a Twitter faux par.
Read MoreIn my Insta stories yesterday I said I wasn't going to get caught up in the bloggers hype of Autumn because I feel like my Summer isn't over yet...but just look at this inspiration board. So I *might* have caught a little caught up with the thought of warm flasks and orange and red tones and crunchy leaves and gloves but just look at it??
Read MoreI had an entirely different post planned for tonight that only needed formatting before it was published but you're going to have to wait for that now (it was bujo related) because sometimes gang, a girl just needs a rant ok?
For those of you who have seen my Insta stories you'll know I have recently discovered I've been shadowbanned from Instagram and I suspect it's been happening a lot longer before I bothered to check. I got my Instagram randomly deleted in June and I have been struggling to build any kind of following or engagement since then - it's all been a bit fishy.
So let's start with introductions. What exactly is shadowbanning?
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