Well, this is normally where I would say something like, “what’s up y’all!? Long time, no talk”, or, “it’s been a minute”, but both of those would be a massive understatement. Considering it’s been more like 87,000 minutes, and I’ve suddenly redone my website and started asking for blog topic recommendations, I figured I owe you guys some reasons.
So, here’s the skinny. Or more accurately in my case, I should say here’s the fat because I’ve never really been one for short-winded explanations. Or even better, here’s the tea. Isn’t that what the cool kids are saying now? Anyway, I digress.
When I started my very first blog, right about the time that dinosaurs went extinct (kidding, but it feels that long ago), the actual blog was the whole thing, if you can believe it. Instagram had just surfaced and was definitely a tool that bloggers had started using as an extension of their website, giving little tastes of their content, if you will, but the website itself was the main course. The whole reason I ever started a blog in the first place was because I loved the idea of the combination of good imagery and long-form writing. I have always loved to write and it felt like a match made in heaven.
Now, fast forward 5 years and come a little closer to the present. Instagram has grown very quickly into the marketing Mecca that we know of today. Like thousands of others, that now make a living off of this little app, I started to focus a ton of my time and energy into building my presence on that platform. The word “blogger” was replaced by the word “influencer”. A very large chunk of the population stopped reading blogs all together. Why would you? All of the parts of the content that you want to see are right there, instantaneous and scrolling, all within Instagram. Besides, who has time to actually read any more anyway?
As the blogging world has evolved over the years, so have the tools and technologies available to bloggers. From social media platforms to website builders and plugins, there are now countless resources available to help bloggers create the perfect online presence. For those using WordPress as their blogging platform of choice, there are a variety of registration plugins for WordPress that can help streamline the user experience for visitors to your site. By allowing users to easily create accounts and access premium content, these plugins can help increase engagement and loyalty among your readership. Whether you’re a seasoned blogger or just starting out, taking advantage of the latest web design tools and plugins can help you take your blog to the next level.
I hope that you caught some of my sarcasm there and if you didn’t, please know that it was intended. In all seriousness, though, as my numbers slowly declined on my website, I slowly paid less and less attention to it, which I now see caused a cycle that lead me to only write a post every one or two months. As a business person, you want to put your time and effort toward nurturing the aspects of your brand where you are seeing growth right? Even on my slower work days, sitting down to tend to my blog was never on my agenda.
Recently though, I’ve had the urge to breathe some life back into this corner of the internet that used to be my baby. I got to thinking and realized I stopped writing because I thought people stopped reading blogs. Then, the other day, I had this epiphany and thought aloud to myself (don’t be weirded out, when you’re self-employed, talking to yourself is basically just the morning meeting), what if it’s not that people stopped reading, but that you stopped writing posts that they felt inclined to read?
Stay with me- have you ever seen one of those snowball animations, where it starts out small at the top of the hill and begins rolling, picking up more snow until it’s a giant, unstoppable boulder of packed snow? Yeah, that’s sort of what my mind did when I had this light bulb moment. I promptly got on my Instagram Stories and asked you guys if you had any topics that you’d like me to cover on my blog, fashion-related or otherwise, and boy, was my inclination right. You all FLOODED my DM’s with all sorts of awesome ideas and things you wanted to read about and I immediately went into action, redoing my site to accommodate all of the exciting new things that will be going on here. You like my design? Gee thanks. Just bought it.
So here I am, present day, writing the first real blog post since my blog-posting hiatus of sorts, and I want to give you a preview of what’s coming. I want this to be a place for you as much as it is for me. Some of the topics you guys requested are personal and controversial, a lot are about love and marriage, and a lot were for the usual fashion, beauty, and home decor (don’t fret, those aren’t stopping, just getting a little better). Over the coming months, my goal is to start working through those topics and populating these new categories on my site with all of the ridiculous digressions and rich sarcasm that I like in my posts. I’m not saying I will be cranking out a post a day as most of my obligations still lie with Instagram, contracts, emails, content approvals, etc. BUT I’m excited for this new side of my platform. I want it to be a new space to connect with you guys where we can talk about everything from outfits to marriage to social media to why the sky is blue.
Above all, I want to say thank you to you guys for being so excited about this with me and for being the reason I get to do what I love. Thank you for reminding me why I started this thing in the first place. Thank you for giving me a reason to be excited about writing again.
Whew, writing makes me desperately sentimental. That was gross.
I told you I’m not one for short-winded explanations.
xx
Candidly Chan
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