Since restarting my blog, I have been working on building my audience. Figuring out what I am sharing and how, making sure that I am reaching people, building a connection with them. Years ago, this feat was a little easier. You build your connection with people, simply by getting involved. You read other blogs and commented. Your social media outreach wasn’t as wide as it is now. And content creation wasn’t as much of a thing. You didn’t have plugins and there wasn’t as many ways to monetize your work. That is one good thing about blogging and content creation now, there are a lot of ways to make a full-time career out of it now, where there wasn’t before.

You can build your business through a variety of different outlets and expand your reach. But what happens when you are using these outlets, reaching out and no one extends their hand back to you? It can be disheartening. Because you are wondering, what I am doing wrong? You watch the videos on Youtube posted by creators and see how they work. They make it look easy, even though you know that it’s not. But you can’t help but admire their work. You’ll watch the videos on growing on social media, they will tell you ” Try to (X) and you will gain (X) in 30 days!” Then, you try it and you start wondering, what am I missing here? That’s when it’s time to pivot.

I started taking inventory of my work. When I post, how often, setting a schedule and trying to figure what would people respond to, in terms of what I can offer. That’s when I decided to start on my 90-day challenge. I decided to take 90 days and figure some things out. To get more involved and invested in my work and in my delivery. Not just watching my favorite content creators but getting my notebooks out and studying them. Leading up to the days that I post, tuning into Youtube and watching videos from my faves. Taking notes and looking at my own work and social media to see how I can apply what they are saying. Watching posts on social media, taking notes and saving the ones that resonates most with what I want to accomplish on my own social media. What I hope that people will take away, each time they look at my social media. On the days that I post, I like to engage with other blogs. I like checking the work of others and commenting. And I don’t just watch one type of content creator. But I watch several different ones. I love looking at the blogs of photographers, to understand photography, lighting and shadows. Travel bloggers, to understand how to film b-roll of locations. Setting my posting schedule to 3 times per week and not obsessing over it, when it’s not a workday.

Taking a minute to create and breathe. It’s okay to get a few likes and follows. It’s okay to get a few views and reblogs and reposts. Each one you see, you are earning. One by one. Keep those people close and support their work. Connect and connect some more. That’s exactly what this content creation world is all about. Building and connecting. We have to practice patience. Remember, whatever you are good at, it didn’t happen overnight. It took time, dedication, practice, failure and growth. But you got there. And we will do it again. Just keep going. Even if what you may have just posted doesn’t get a like, post something else. Content creation is everchanging. It will never be an exact science. But people’s interests’ changes. What grabbed their attention this morning, might be forgotten by the evening. But it doesn’t mean that this is not for you. That’s just the nature of the beast. But everything will click. And when that moment arrives, where it all clicks, it will be so much sweeter.