Welcome back to another episode of The Marly Dice podcast. This is Marly, and thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. This week has been one of those weeks where I’ve wanted to do a look back and really assess what’s been working and what’s not been working in my blogging business.
I try to do an overview of my blog every month or so, just where I take a minute to stop and smell the roses or assess my blog in this case. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and the creation of content that sometimes we forget to # 1. take a breather and remind ourselves how much we have accomplished and #2. to see what’s actually working for us and what we should do more of.
So that is what sparked my topic for today. It wasn’t on my schedule of topics but I felt like this what the right topic for today so there ya go.
As a quick reminder, I really appreciate all of you who have left me a review on iTunes. Your reviews really do go a long way and I want to thank you for leaving them. At the end of this episode, if you loved it, and you feel inclined to leave me some love, please take a minute to drop me a couple words on iTunes. A lot of you send me messages and emails about how much you love it, and ya know I love ya for it. But what would really help is if you could spread that love where others see it, which is on iTunes. Plus, I love reading reviews of my podcast and giving a shout out to those that leave them on my episodes, and yours could be the next one read.
As I was looking back on what has been and what hasn’t been working for me, I tried to look at my blog in totality, where I assess all different aspects of my blog and then arrive at conclusions. So, if it seems like I’m all over the place talking about all the things today, you’ll know why.
First up, I want to chat about what HAS been working for me as a blogger.
#1. The first thing that is working for me is transparency. Recently, I got real…real transparent that is, on an episode of The Marly Dice Podcast, and it’s really paying off for me.
So many of you have reached out and either commented on something or sent me an email or an Instagram message about how the episode on overwhelm, which is episode #21, inspired you and made you feel like you’re not alone. I got messages thanking me for talking about the subject because others just resonated with it so much.
It’s also been one of my most-listened to podcast episodes, and I just released it a couple weeks ago, so that’s saying something.
I actually had no intention of getting all this love from this episode. I made episode #21 because I had gone silent on my blog for a month. I didn’t feel right just picking right back up where I had left off and pretending that I didn’t disappear for a month.
I wanted to explain myself to you. And I wanted you to understand where I had been this past month since I wasn’t blogging. It was more about showing up for you and, giving you some explanations since I hadn’t shown up for you in so long after I promised I would.
It was in a really vulnerable position when I chatted with you all about overwhelm in episode #21 because I was putting myself out there and being super transparent. I admitted that I hadn’t shown up for you and that was really hard for me to do.
See, some of you would have completely missed it and not even realized that I hadn’t shown up in a month. Just because you have so much other stuff going on, and I’m probably not a priority of yours. But, I knew I hadn’t shown up for you. And I wanted to own it. So that was the reason I wanted to make the episode.
All the love I got on the episode was just a happy outcome. That being said, that’s what I learned through that experience.
We’re all human and we all have hurdles. Me being transparent about my struggles with overwhelm ultimately helped me build a stronger relationship with my audience.
I’m not saying you need to tell your audience all of your business, but I am saying that I learned being transparent with my audience is pays off.
#2. The second thing that’s working for me recently is giving a look into my personal life. I recently did a photo shoot with my daughter and I got so much positive feedback about it. I think sometimes we get caught up in being a “home blogger” that we feel we have to stick completely to that and share only images of our home.
Here’s the thing – people connect with people. And I think our audience likes getting to know us on a bit more of a personal level.
I think sometimes it can be easy to get caught up on labels. Like, I’m not a parenting blogger so why should I show my kids in my IG feed? And I know I’m guilty of it too where I do get caught up on labels and I start thinking, well I shouldn’t share that because it’s too much about my daughter or my life as a mom.
The thing is, it’s my blogging business so I can share whatever I want. That’s one of the beautiful aspects of having your own blogging business. You can share whatever is it that you want. If you’re having a great moment in your mommy life, why not share it?
Sometimes on IG especially we may think that just because we’re home bloggers, every single post has to be around our homes. And it can be, for sure. But, it can also be about you. You run your blog and people love getting to know the person behind the blog.
I recently shared a picture of my daughter and me on my Instagram account and I got so many wonderful comments from my photoshoot with her. People genuinely seemed to enjoy seeing my life behind the scenes – behind A Brick Home. I often times share my peeks of my daughter in my stories but I don’t often share photos of her in my Instagram feed, again mostly because I got so caught up in labels and I felt like I shouldn’t share photos of her because my audience wouldn’t care. Well, turns out, they do care!
So, if there’s something you’ve wanted to share from a personal angle, maybe now is the time to do it. You can always put it out there and see if your audience is receptive. You may end up gaining some new followers because they like this other side to your work.
On the other side of this, I will say that it’s still a good idea to stay more niche. I wouldn’t go posting photos of random things so that you get off brand. But do share some things about your life that you think others will and can relate to.
So now I want to switch gears and talk about something that’s not working for me. What’s not working for me is sharing my blog posts to Facebook. You might be confused and thinking well this is a great way to promote your posts and drive traffic to your site.
Is it? Is it really?
When I think about Facebook, I always like to put myself in my audience’s shoes by thinking about how I interact with the platform.
When I get on Facebook, this is what I do: Typically, I am on my phone and I scroll through my Facebook feed. I stop at photos and videos. Usually I am more interested in videos and then start watching video after video. Then, I may eventually get bored of the videos and go back to my feed and keep scrolling. At no point (or very seldom) do I actually click on a link I see in my Facebook feed.
Any why is that? It’s because it would take me off Facebook. I don’t really want to go off Facebook, I just want to interact directly on that platform.
There’s about a zero percent chance that I would click on someones link to their blog, read their post, and then come back and like or comment on the initial FB post about their blog post.
Of course we want to drive traffic to our blog, but Facebook, for me, is more about promoting my brand. I want to have people think about my blog often, or go do something and then remember how I talked about that in my Facebook post and bam, it reminds them of me. Then they think..I wonder what she’s up to and then decide to hop over to my blog and see what I’ve been up to around the house, and posting about.
People are very rarely going to click over to your blog from a Facebook post where you share your blog post. I do share my posts on my FB page every so often in the hopes that some people will hop over to my blog, but, especially because I have under 1,000 followers on FB, my post isn’t even going to show up to that many people.
So what is working then?
Well, I’m finding that it’s better to spend my time on Facebook growing an audience instead of using what little audience I do have to push to my blog every chance I get.
So, Facebook lives, for example are a great way to spread brand awareness.
It’s one of the things I talked about in my last podcast episode: episode #22. If you haven’t listened to that episode I talk about three things that I wish I had done sooner to amplify my brand. It’s a good one, so after you finish listening to this one, you might want to hop over to that episode.
It’s also good to just share things on your FB page that don’t link anywhere. Sharing images and videos without linking anywhere and that includes a question in the caption, often times promotes socialness. We want people to be social on our pages, to comment and respond and hit that like button. And one way to promote engagement is just to ask questions on that image itself that you post.
So there you have it, those are a few things that I’ve noticed recently that have and have not been working for me over the past month or so.
Don’t forget to hop over and listen to episode #21 if you want to hear my story of overwhelm and episode #22 if you want to hear about the things I’ve done to amplify my brand – which I talked about earlier.
If you loved listening in on today’s episode, please take a minute to subscribe on iTunes and leave me a review on iTunes. I’d really appreciate it!
Have a great rest of your day!
Instagram community: instagram.com/abrickhome
Facebook community: instagram.com/abrickhome
Episode on overwhelm (#21): https://marlydice.commy-story-of-overwhelm-how-i-came-out-on-top/
Episode on what I wish I had done sooner to amplify my brand (#22): https://marlydice.com3-things-i-wish-id-done-sooner-to-amplify-my-brand/
