As the end of 2015 waves its face in front of us, it’s usually the sign for times of reminiscence, both in our personal lives as well as professional.
The same can be applied to pretty much everything we do, with blogging being one of them.
If I were to look back on where this blog has taken turns since starting it back in September 2008, there have been a lot of directional changes in that time.
There’s one, though, that stands out for me as the best decision I made about this blog’s direction – when I stopped writing primarily about social media and marketing.
Talking About People is Marketing, is Social
For the first five years or so of this blog’s life, the topics were mostly based around marketing, social media, content, and the various tools and technology that joined them all together.
This was all well and good, and helped build the blog a pretty decent following among readers looking for these kind of topics.
But there’s only so much you can say – or want to say – about marketing, or social media, or content, that isn’t being repeated ad infinitum elsewhere.
When you begin to not look forward to publishing another post, because your heart isn’t really in it, you know it’s time to either change things up, or quit.
Since I enjoy writing so much, the decision was made for me – quitting wasn’t an option, but changing direction was.
So, out went the business-specific posts, and in came the more personal ones that looked at life in the bigger picture.
Topics ranged from misogyny to ignorance; life lessons to hopes; messed up priorities to racism; and more.
As a result, I lost many subscribers – and that’s okay, because as I mentioned in a post detailing the move, the new direction wouldn’t have been for them anyway.
However, in their place remained (and came) those looking for more personal conversations, and topics.
The level of comments, and the depth behind these comments, showed me I was right to make the move to the type of blogging that was important to me.
An interesting side effect was an increase in readers of the Millennial age group.
Given that so many social media wonks advise you to “write for the Millennials!”, I can’t help but smile at the irony of writing for myself, and attracting a new audience made up of ones that we’re meant to be targeting.
Plus ca change.
What Comes Next
For you, the readers who have stayed with me on the personal journey, I sincerely thank you. I’m glad you choose this little part of the web to hang out on, and I’ll try not to disappoint.
This blog will continue to travel down that path, and have some guest writers who I feel are a good fit for that direction.
I’m going to be experimenting in post formats next year, with some ideas I want to try with regards visual presentation – so that should be fun.
I also look forward to growing the Pure Blogging site, as more readers discover that in 2016. We have a great team of writers there now, with more to follow in 2016, so check it out.
It’s been a fun 7+ years so far – here’s to what comes next.
Cheers!
The Best Decision I Made About This Blog originally appeared on Danny Brown – – all rights reserved.
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