Those of you who follow me closely know that at the beginning of this year I made some changes to my artistic and blogging priorities. Over that last few years I have really been consumed with the idea of building an audience.
Someone told me that was important for the writing portion of my life. Platform Size! Platform Size! Platform Size!
For some reason I listened and it has taken God a while to break through that false word….
Last year I was posting at least four times a day and I was garnering several hundred hits a day….but it felt really empty. I was getting more hits than ever and loads of likes but I felt most of the time like I was running alone.
In my prayer time at the end of 2020 God showed me that none of my work is done for the size of my audience. It is done for the glory of God and to build a community that brings honor to Him.
Community does not depend on numbers or on likes. It depends on relationship, collaboaration and communication among other things.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE IMPORTANT BUILDING BLOCKS OF COMMUNITY IN YOUR MIND?
So I had to shift the way I blog, and that has further shifted the way I live. If it is about relationship, collaboration and communication then it cannot be about hits and likes. It has to be about conversations…. and sooooo……
I have had to slow things down. I have had to post less, and post more conversationally. I have had to start reading more with the mindset of finding those posts I want to comment on.
It takes a little longer now to blog this way. I get less hits….fewer likes…..fewer bloggers are reading my work….but more of you who do read are commenting and I am entering into some interesting conversations and some have even begun to private message me to have side conversations over things we have discovered in common.
I am not saying the way I did it before was wrong and now I am doing it right. I am saying what I was focusing on before was not working FOR ME. What I am doing now is working FOR ME. In the end this is about ministry, artistry and community. I fell like I lost sight of that for a while.
I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ABOUT HOW YOUR BLOGGING HAS CHANGED OVER TIME.
Lillie-Put 
Sounds a lot like my blogging story. For me it’s been partially about numbers but more about interaction. People seem to just want to read the daily posts and leave. Some never actually make it to the blog. I grew up in a church with a strong sense of community and that’s what I’m all about. Not being able to figure out how to get more visitors, followers and interaction has been extremely frustrating. I’m slowly learning to trust that the right words will find the people who need them. Some people just seem to have the ability to build mega-platforms. Everything I try to build my platform fails spectacularly. But I do not have the problems with hateful interactions that some spiritual bloggers do. I believe that people find me for a reason and thank God for that.
Yes I would agree with that. Even when I was blogging four blogs a day I was hitting a ceiling I couldn’t seem to break and I was only having a very few folks comment. Of course I wasn’t taking the time to give them much to comment on was I? I wasn’t aiming at any kind of discussion, because I wasn’t writing anything that would garner more than a “that’s pretty”. As I look back on it even what I was giving folks was largely recycled because I wasn’t doing any new work. Maybe that is also part of this discussion.
I made that same goal when I returned from blogging last year – more thoughtful posts and less posts based on a prompt and now, months later, I’m back to before. It is definitely a hard goal and it does indeed take longer and the stats does take a bit sometimes but I think it’s worth it if the post sparks conversations.
Yes. I agree. I want to have these discussion around values and around community and what we as bloggers want that to look like. I also want to be able to use what I write to enhance the community I dwell in. I want to be a voice for the people I live among…..I am notm quite sure how to accomplish that goal yet but I am working it out.
I’ve been sucked into the numbers game before but I am much too lazy to worry about that any more. I blog for me, for my kids (just in case they might read it one day after I am gone) and for the enjoyment. I have WAY more conversations about that i have blogged IRL than I do on here. At first I was disappointed with that. I wondered “why don’t they comment?” But to each his own. It is a little disconcerting sometimes when people stop me in the grocery store that I had no idea were reading, but I just try to shake it off and smile.
Yes. I have blogged for so long now I have been through the numbers counting cycle several times. In all these years though this is the first time I feel really clear about what this is for and how that effects what I write. I like that suddenly I am writing with a conscious intentional goal that feels like it mirrors my values. I think I fell into a trap these last few years of trying to incorporate someone else’s values into my writing.
How liberating!
You know my greatest fear is that I fell into it unwittingly and didn’t even realize that for the longest time I was writing to fulfill someone else’s mission. My hope is that I can stick with my goals this time.
Yes…its hard to let go of the ego. I totally get that!
Yes I agree….It is one of the hardest things.
I like this journey you are moving into. I can share that my own experience was having God impress on my heart from Day#1 in the blogging world to let Him take the reins, let it be His platform, not mine, and let Him lead or draw people to visit, not to ‘market’ it. He also asked me to let Him lead my ‘follows’. It was hard to do at first because I ‘got’ it that ‘hits’ seemed to be a big thing, a measurement of some level of success. Instead, I learned over time to let God ‘speak’ and to let my words be fewer. In time, I forgot about ‘hits’ and enjoyed the writing all the more because it was about going with the Spirit’s flow, big trying to drive any agendas. I am so thankful for everyone who visits and who I have met on the blog, and that there are just enough for me to not forget anyone, and to continually pray for them as we journey along together.
This is so good. I have met over the years so many wonderful folks from so many backgrounds over the years. My one regret is that I have not beenm able to track with all of them. That said maybe that is part of “letting God take control of all the follows”. I like that thought.