What I have learned from blogging for 30 days
In this blog post I will explore my journey and what I have learned during the 30 day blogging challenge from Sark E-Media.
When I got invited by a good friend to take part in the 30 day challenge I was not really prepared for what was about to happen. 30 blogs in 30 days - no problem I thought. Despite the fact that I was blogging about once a week at this point.
What I found in the group was a constant stream of blogs from all over the world and on such varied topics. I generally only consume content that I am interested in so tech/startup and digital, so do see so many personal blogs and food and travel was a real eye opener for me.
So at this point I was quite excited and didn't even wait for the first email from Sarah to arrive before I posted my first blog.
The 1st email from Sarah arrived the next day and reminded me I have to post again and it also gave me some solid and sound advice on not just blogging but idea creation, WordPress plugins, content calenders and so much more. All of that in the first few days.
It was nice to see comments appearing and traffic creeping up. More importantly I felt a sense of accountability. I saw others were either on round 2 or 3 of the challenge and others had started at a similar time, i did not want to break the chain of consecutive days. This feeling of breaking the chain is a well known psychological tactic used in habit forming and it really does work for some people and clearly myself.
I saw others drop off and had their reasons for stopping the blogging, some restarting others just stopping completely. What I wondered was is the feeling that they had broken the chain some sort of failure and they did not want to have to say I am sorry to the group and seek permission to pick up where they left off? Some do ask and Sarah and Kevin are so supportive and always suggest just carry on.
That is the best thing about the group, everyone is so supportive and the comments are positive and encouraging. If someone does fall of the horse nobody minds, it is not that kind of group at all.
Once I got to day 15 I was starting to get into the swing of it and publishing everyday was having a real positive effect on my blogs traffic and engagement. Not only that I was looking forward to publishing each and every day and also posting into the group.
Sarah was nearly always first to "Like" my post and encouraged me to keep going. I didn't want to let Sarah down, the group down nor myself.
Others started to notice my blogging efforts too and would mention the blogs and the frequency.
I was of course sharing them via my social channels and this was also having a positive effect as I had fresh new content to display each and every day. This is turn increased my followers too.
There were days when I was blogging 2 or 3 times a day as I contribute to other blogs too and soon was finding similar successes.
The last few days might have been harder, but the regular emails from Sarah kept on giving me more ideas and in fact was no chore at all.
So this is day 30 of publishing a new post each and every day and I really do no intent to stop.
What was supposed to be some small silly challenge has turned into a real turning point for me, blogging every day has got me to think about what I want from my blog and also made me consider what I want to teach. Sharing my thoughts is a way of me thinking things through and hopefully helping some others along the way.
So thank you Sarah and Kevin for putting together a wonderful community and i highly recommend the 30 day blogging challenge to everyone and anyone. Also thank you to Lucy Hall for inviting me in the first place.
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.