The Blogging Break-Up

I love sponsoring other blogs. I think it's a great way to get yourself out there and to have someone promoting you even when you forget to do it yourself.  And my favorite bloggers to sponsor actively read and comment on your posts so you feel like you have your own personal blogging cheerleader.

This is all fabulous but then it just stops. It seriously feels like a blogging breakup. I'll look forward to your daily comments then in the blink of the eye you no longer comment, you no longer sing me praises on twitter, you're just gone. I know I only paid for 30 days of this treatment but it kind of gets my brain churning. Was it disingenuous? Did you really think that post was that great or were you grasping at straws to to find something appropriate to promote?

Many of the bloggers I have sponsored will still come and comment once in a while and it makes me feel good to think they still on occasion check out what I've been up to. This makes me feel as if their promotion was a bit more genuine. They must have liked me because they still read my blog. But on a few occasions I have had someone comment on every single post and then they never return after sponsorship ends and then I feel as if I've been played. I feel like it was all a lie.

Now are they bad bloggers because of this? No. You paid for a service and got what you asked for but something just doesn't sit right with me, especially if I am an active reader and comment"er" of this blog even after my sponsorship is over. I feel like maybe you could drop a comment a month or something of the sort.

I know it is a business and it may sound as if I am taking this too personal but blogging is personal. Someone reads all your thoughts and has active conversations with you about it but then when your paid time is up they're gone. I don't like it.

Will I stop sponsoring blogs? No way. I love it and it gets me a lot of traffic but this whole strange world of bloggers sponsoring other bloggers will continue to pick at my brain. So I am dying to know what are your thoughts on this subject? Am I taking this way to personal and should just view it as a business transaction or have others taken the sponsorship breakup hard?

"Oh Sh*ts!" Of Blogging

I like to pretend I have my act together, I think we all like to try and put up that facade especially when it comes to blogging but in reality I think the majority of you are unorganized messes just like myself. Let's face it blogging isn't the only thing we do. We either have families, jobs or something else pulling us in a million directions that blogging sometimes needs to be put on the back burner. Because of that little fact I find myself saying "Oh Sh*t!!!" quite often due to the blogging world. Examples:

When you are being featured on a cool blog and you totally forget to have an awesome post scheduled for that day for all the potential new readers. This is me today. I have a lovely little feature over at Sage and completely didn't have a good post up this morning. Hopefully Cassie's readers are forgiving and will still give me a try. Total blogger fail.

When you forget your camera for a major event or visit to an amazing place. As bloggers I think we always look at everything we do as a possible post so we always have to be ready to document everything. Having to rely on your camera phone for Pinterest worthy photos is typically a bummer.

Missing a deadline. Whether it be for signing up to be a part of a fabulous giveaway with your best blogging buddies or linking up for a creative link up, missing these things is never fun. That is why I try to sign up for giveaways and such as soon as I get the notice because I know if I put it off I will forget.

When you actually have a super post written and you forget to schedule it or publish the day it was intended. Every once in a while I have my posts written a few days ahead of time but then I either forget to schedule it or hit publish the next morning. Bummer especially when the work was put in.

You have no clean place in your home for product or DIY photos. I work from home and have a toddler, not really the best situation for having a tidy home. Time to clear off half of the dining room table and anything that's in the frame of the photo. All around what's in the photo is pure chaos. Again it's all a facade.

You realize you need to start actually getting dressed more than once a week. All the other bloggers you follow seem to have fabulous photos of themselves in the cutest outfits in every single darn post or their Instagram is full of the greatest selfies. Meanwhile, I am over here looking for old photos of myself in something other than yoga pants and a t-shirt.

What about you, what are some of your "Oh Shit!" moments of blogging?? xoxo

Are You Blogging For The Masses?

I had a thought many months ago while trying to come up with some post ideas, who am I blogging for? I had felt that at that point most of my posts wouldn't really interest any of my non-blogging friends. (Kind of like this post.) That many of my posts had to do with blogging tips or blogging issues and the only audience for those types of posts are other bloggers.

I also found that there were several bloggers that I had followed at that time that were only writing about the dos and donts of blogging and I wondered if it was their intention to only appeal to bloggers. If it is there is absolutely nothing wrong with that but I wanted more because even as a blogger I quickly lost interest in the blogs that I felt were always lecturing me about how I should be blogging. I wanted my blog to appeal to everyone, whether you are a blogger or not and if you are a blogger I wanted to keep your interest.

I do realize that most if not all of my loyal followers are in fact bloggers and I love them to pieces but  I want to see my posts trending one day and I think the only way to do that is to make my posts have a broader appeal.  My blog is sometimes "all over the place" but I have been making a big effort to try and write material that will appeal to everyone and by everyone I mean everyone in my demographic of followers not just the bloggers in that demo.

I have found that my most popular posts are indeed the posts that have mass appeal such as my DIY tutorial posts, my photography posts and posts having to do with major events I have participated in such as The Color Run. The other things these posts have in common are very "pinnable" images and all the repins drive more traffic to my blog. Although, I do have to admit that my posts that have to do with blogging tips do get many page views but as I stated earlier that is not the only audience I am blogging for.

I think in it very important to take a step back and really think about who you want your target audience to be and make sure that you are indeed creating content for that audience. It is easy to lose sight of the direction you originally intended for your blog so it is always beneficial to take a moment and think about these things. I always think a little direction is good and establishing who you want to be reading your blog is a great way to do just that.

So who do you blog for? Do you have a specific target audience or do you just blog about whatever you feel like and whoever reads it reads it?