Although I've never really written down my exact goals for each year of blogging, I've always had them in mind. It's so rewarding to hit each milestone and that's why this year, I'm keeping a note of what I want to achieve from my blog and social media accounts and will report back in a years time.
My Blog
I'm fairly happy with my blog layout, but I'm fully prepared to pay to have it redesigned to fit my needs. My sidebar just doesn't fit no matter how many times I try to alter it and I can't pick another font for my headings since I'm limited to what I can do on Blogger. I'd love to have a full design that fitted my blog as a brand with some fancy features like a scrollbar or a nicer 'popular posts' section. My header was done by the amazing Jemma from Dorkface and I'm really happy with it so don't want it changing as far as I can see.
For content, I'd love to feature more food and travel posts, and going to Los Angeles in April will almost certainly help with that. I'll be collaborating with two exciting brands in the New Year which I'm really looking forward to, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Overall, I'd love to work with some more amazing brands, and keep the positive relationship that I have with the ones I collab with already. Once my confidence improves I'd love to feature more fashion posts and also close up makeup shots (on me) to really show off some fabulous products.
Photography
I think my photography has had a huge improvement in the past few months and since buying my Olympus Pen E-PL7 I'm quickly learning how to take professional looking photographs in minutes. I'd love to improve further by using both of my lenses with the camera to their full advantage and to demonstrate the quality of beauty products through this. The team at L'Oréal Paris complimented my La Vie En Rose photographs which was a huge confidence booster and it's great knowing you can please who you're working with too.
Social Media Followers
Social Media Followers
Blogging isn't always about followers, but they do help. Not only do they improve your blog traffic, but they help you gain recognition, open you up to new collaborations and keep you on track to know you're doing well. On Bloglovin' I've not really grown much in the 22 months I've been blogging which is disappointing. I'm not sure why, but it is disheartening. Buy the end of 2016 I'd love to reach 2,000 followers there. Over on Twitter I've had a huge surge which is so pleasing since that's where I focus most of my attention by talking to other bloggers and brands, alongside getting involved in chats and promoting my blog posts. I'm close to 5,000 followers now so I'm setting myself a huge target of getting to 8,000 followers over there which may seem unachieveable, but it's a goal.
Instagram is a huge love of mine and I put a lot of hard work into getting good photographs for it, but again my followers don't grow much there. I think it's so hard to gain Instagram followers so those who are 'Instagram Famous' must put so much time into their profile. By the end of next year it would be lovely to go past the 2,000 mark. Pinterest seems to have had the biggest influx of followers over the past few months and I've managed to hit 3,500 followers pretty quickly. Since it's easier to gain followers there and gain referrals to your blog, I'd love to hit 7,000 followers there - doubling what I have now.
Can I do it? Who knows. The most important goal overall is to improve my blog; with every word written, photograph taken and every backlink I give myself. My heart is in this more than it may be perceived and I want to show the World that this is my portfolio of what could be a future career. Not only is it work experience if you're going into PR/Marketing, but it develops skills that may have gotten a bit rusty since you left school. I'm going to be more vocal about my blog and not shy away from it when people ask about it. I may even venture into getting a Facebook page for it. What do you think?
