1. How long have you been blogging? What has changed since you started?
My blogiversary is always easy to track because I started blogging when Kainoa was a brand new baby. He turns 15 in July so I’ve nearly been blogging for 15 years!
In the early days of blogging my main objective was to one day get a book deal and make money from my website. There was a huge community of bloggers back then and our favorite blogs to the sidebar of our sites and visited each other daily. If you really wanted to grow your blog, you would comment on as many blogs as possible to increase the likelihood that others would click on your comment and subscribe to your site.
Every night when the kids went to bed, I would watch TV, comment on blogs and write blog posts. I published posts 5 days a week and most of them were just updates on whatever I experienced that afternoon. Lost my camera? Blogged about it. Feeling under the weather? Blogged about it. Kainoa had a doctor check up? Blogged about it. I couldn’t NOT post on a weekday because people might wonder where I was. I didn’t want them to come to my site and God forbid see YESTERDAYS blog post as the most recent. If I didn’t have time to write a blog post, I would write a blog post about how I didn’t have time to write. Some posts were only a few sentences long.
I started Writer’s Workshop as a nod to my teaching background and at one point would have 100-200 bloggers linking up each week. I made a few friends at that time that were gracious enough to include me in some of their business endeavors. They started running blog conferences and would fly me out to different destinations as a speaker.
We were always brainstorming how to take our sites to the next level, run campaigns, and monetize them. One of our efforts was focused on building communities on a site called BlogFrog. The owners of the platform were so impressed with the growth of our communities that they actually offered us jobs to work remotely and help run other communities. I took the opportunity while my friends started what became their own competing website.
Blogfrog eventually turned into TapInfluence and my job eventually turned into a customer service job for them that I lost when they were forced to scale back. My friends hired me to work for them instead and I still am beyond grateful that these people who I met over these silly blogs had my back no matter what.
I continued blogging daily for quite a few years but with the introduction of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram came a much easier way to share photos and insight with a community that wasn’t nearly as difficult to build. People were opting to share snippits of their lives on those platforms rather than on their blogs and the community of blogging as we knew it at its peak began scaling down. If you wanted a successful website, you needed to choose a niche that offered value to people visiting. Pinterest drove traffic to craft, DIY, Home Decor and food blogs while parenting blogs took a backseat. In addition to that, our kids were growing up and there was growing criticism that mommy blogs were exploiting their kids by sharing family stories online without their permission.
There was also a push for bloggers to incorporate more video into their sites and I began making YouTube videos. My willingness to dabble in video opened doors to do some really cringe-worthy videos for companies like SheKnows and Cafemom. To be clear, they’re only cringe-worthy now, back then they were amazing opportunities and we can always use the money! I can hardly watch them now because my energy level is so forced and the video quality is so bad.
I kept blogging despite the fact that many of my friends had moved on. They joke sometimes on Facebook about starting a blog back up and I usually quip in the comments, “join my workshop! It’s stilllll kicking!” I’d be lying if I said I don’t think about putting a neat little bow on the website and retiring the old keyboard but I am a creature of habit and just haven’t been able to bring myself to end it.
At this point I’ll probably have grandchildren I’ll need to write about and who knows, maybe Granny Blogging will start the cycle all over again!
Now it’s your turn!
Choose a prompt, post it on your blog, and come back to add your name to the link list below. Be sure to sign up with the actual post URL and not just your basic blog URL (click on the title of your post for that URL). For good comment karma try to comment on the three blogs above your name!!
The Prompts:
1. How long have you been blogging? What has changed since you started?
2. Write a blog post inspired by the word: time.
3. Write a list of 5 things you miss about being a kid.
4. Tell us about something people have assumed about you that was totally wrong.
5. Write about your favorite book as a child.
6. Describe a time a teacher made you mad.
Astrid says
I am so happy your blog friends from back in the day hired you when TapInfluence had to scale down. It is very sad that the blogging community seems to have shrunk so much, even though on WordPress.com it’s still going strong (as much as Automattic itself tries to discourage that by being ever more customer-unfriendly). I’ve never quite understood Facebook, Instagram or Twitter so blogging is still my main outlet, as it was fifteen years ago when I started my original blog too.
Mama Kat says
We’re all original bloggers here it seems. :) I loved the social media platforms for awhile, but as with all things, they keep evolving and I got tired of keeping up. I think being a mom of teenagers has influenced that a bit too.
Betsy says
I’ve been blogging 15 years too!
Mama Kat says
Crazy, it’s like like the blog is that additional little child. :)
Abby says
This brings back memories of those early blogging days when it was THE thing to do!
I have facebook and instagram, but rarely post anything there. Blogging is my preferred oversharing platform.
Mama Kat says
I can’t remember the last time I shared to my blog Facebook page, but I do like Instagram…although I’ve gotten quiet over there too. I actually deleted my Twitter account. I think I actually like blogging because it’s a quiet little corner now. I’ve bailed on the social media roller coaster ride.
John Holton says
I, for one, am glad you’re still here…