Have I loved connecting with people socially and sharing little bits of my life? Heck Yes!
Was it easy? OH HELL NO!
So here is how my blogging and social journey has gone so far.
Back then the blog world consisted of a lot of Mom Blogs. Those of us who were home, in the trenches with babies hoping to have a little creative outlet and possibly sell some of our crafty goods (crafting blankets and tutus were pretty big back then).
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away
It was simply a place to just have your own little soap box, to share your family pics and keep connected with those you love and possibly some bonus people who find you on the internet. At least that was my experience.
Its a millennials world and we’re just taking up space in it
Nowadays the blogging landscape has become a competitive, sometimes complicated place to market yourself. It’s become a place to promote yourself, your business, your lifestyle to hopefully earn a little (or a LOT) of income. There is good and bad in it and, full disclosure, I’m not here to judge because I’m in it for both reasons which is to share my world and keep connecting with those I love but also to earn a little extra income but let me tell you once I started trying to figure it all out and put the pieces together to create my own little virtual community…well I almost quit before I started.
The other issue is that I really am an impatient soul. I like seeing quick results.
It quickly became very clear to me that I wasn’t going to be able to just put out some fun posts and gain a massive following overnight. These things take time and hard work. This blogging thing is so much more complicated than you’d think and a TON of work.
Channeling my inner tech nerd
The technical part of blogging 2019 is where things got a little hairy for me. I’m a pretty tech savvy person but I’m also a very type A, perfectionist so I spent the first 6 weeks prior to actually launching heyitssooz.com (on May, 22nd 2019) researching and planning like a crazy person.
I wanted PERFECTION (insert eye roll…have I learned nothing in this life?!) but what I got was a reality check.
First things first…choose a name! Something so simple can drive you to the brink of madness. Luckily my oldest daughter Olivia came up with Hey it’s Sooz! One more thing checked off the list!
So after weeks of researching and looking at 3 million website companies I decided that I wasn’t going to use a drag and drop website builder. I was going to be a genius and in all my spare time build my own from scratch on WordPress.org. I mean how hard could this be?
Admittedly, this was my first possible boo boo but I chose WordPress.org due to the freedom of having more options. I didn’t want to be constrained by a limiting drag and drop set up. And honestly now I’m glad I did choose wordpress.org because there are so many great help boards. But in the beginning I was wholeheartedly frustrated and mad at myself for even diving in to something so techie. Then came the details. Widgets, themes, fonts, color codes, plugins, caching, linktree, CSS, SEO, monetization, and all the other tech words that I had to learn not only what they meant but how to actually use them. Fun times crying at my laptop.
The magic of Youtube
Yet still, even with the power of Youtube the whole process of just building the site started feeling like an anchor. My head was spinning and I quickly got overwhelmed which turned into full on shutdown mode.
So here’s where perseverance comes in.
It wasn’t easy but lo and behold I built this website you are currently reading (Insert angels singing here).
Hello writers block
And then in all my stupid research I read some fancy blogger who said, “You can not launch your site until you have written at least 30 blog posts.” (I envision this ladies voice to be Miranda Priestly from The Devil wears Prada.)
I was all like what in thee forking hell lady?! I can’t just crank out that much content! My brain doesn’t work like that.
I called my sister with my worries. She immediately said and I quote “Stop fucking following that lady!” And so I did. (Aren’t sisters great?!)
Self sabotage much?
So here’s where you hear how hard I am on myself and how I can totally self sabotage and create barriers for myself. Oh, you do that too? Yeah, humans…we’re so weirdly wired aren’t we?!
I gave myself a deadline to launch (dedicated or stupid?…I have yet to decide).
May 22nd I was going to launch this sucker like the QE2. This date was solely based on an online horoscope I read because ya know I’m superstitious like that and I’m not one to screw with the divine guidance of the universe. But as the date neared my frustrations only grew. This was starting to feel more like the Titanic than the QE2 launch.
Quitters never prosper
I was losing steam and started immediately doubting myself and doing that thing we all do to ourselves so we can quit something first before flat out failing at it. Negative self talk crept in. I even announced at the dinner table to my family the night before that I was thinking about not doing it. How about that for some parenting 101 on how to show your kid you’re a quitter before you even started because waaa waaa it got too hard. Not my best parenting moment.
If you build it they will come
11:25PM on May 22nd and with a big, fat, proud smile on my face I pushed that beautiful blue publish button and off to cyber world it went! Whew. High fives and back slaps! The horoscope gods were smiling upon me.
Not gonna lie, there are things I still struggle with in regards to blogging.
Niche: They tell you that your blog and social media outlets are most successful if you choose a niche. Well, as you can tell I’m all over the map. I tend to like diversity, probably have undiagnosed ADD, and just can’t really stick to one thing. And guess what? I’m ok with that because at the end of the day, this is my soapbox and I will do what I want! So there! (Ok, but I really do still overthink that niche thing daily.)
Details: I want to have a shop. I want to figure out shop my feed. I want to understand SEO better. I want to create a personalized banner. I want, I want, I want… but where to find the time? I also struggle with the curating part of it. As much as I want all of my pictures on this blog and my Instagram to look perfectly curated sometimes they just don’t. What can I say. It’s an overwhelming business this blogging thing. But I’m trying and that’s all I can ask of myself.
Time: Full time “real” job. Full time Mom job. Traveling husband. Three kids. No joke it’s a struggle to find time to write. I was really hard on myself at first. I gave myself strict instructions to produce two blogs a week. BAHAHAHAHA…yeah, no. That has only happened a couple of times but someday, just maybe I will have loads more time to dedicate to this blog. Or maybe this is as good as it gets and I just write now and then. Either way I’m just doing the best I can guys.
My number one take away from this experience so far is to just follow my gut, do what I want, when I want and don’t get hung up on trying to follow the statistics and rules that online experts think you need follow to be successful. At the end of the day it’s about the creative process for me. The writing, the connecting and having this perfectly imperfect soapbox.
For now I’m going to just keep on keeping on with it at my own pace so I don’t start sprouting grey hairs over it. Someday I may just suddenly stop and that’s ok. Or someday I may just be the next Rachel Hollis, Joanna Gaines, or Ree Drummond (or at the very least a contributing editor for a big magazine…Oprah Magazine I’m talking to you!)
What a great blog post! Honestly, I thought about doing a blog but it’s so much work – absolutely no doubt! After reading this, I appreciate your blog and IG page that much more! Just do it when it suits you – the rest will take care of itself. It’s always so much fun to read and interact with you!
Thanks so much! I’m so happy people are actually reading my crazy psychobabble. xoxo, Sooz