Now I don’t know about you, but when it comes to success, it’s pretty easy to measure in real-life right? I mean, you’d measure success by getting a promotion, a pay rise or buying a house. Most of us have life goals and when we achieve each one we can count that as a success. But when it comes to blogging, success is measured in a bit more of a subjective way. For some it could be getting a book deal, reaching 100,000 viewers a day or sitting FROW at every fashion week. For other’s it could be getting invited to blogging events, working with brands and PRs or earning enough to pay the bills each month. I mean that would be lovely!
So how can you measure blog success? Well honestly in so many different ways. Which is why I thought I’d share with you all some of the ways that I try and measure my own achievements when it comes to blogging:
IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS
I think most of us would agree that having a ‘high’ readership figure would equate to success. Right? But does it? What if you bought all your followers and faked your follower count? That doesn’t make you successful, that makes you a fraud. At the same time, do the numbers really matter if you can measure engagement….?
FOLLOWERS AND ENGAGEMENT
Which brings me nicely onto my next point, engagement. There’s no point having thousands of followers if no-one is engaging with your content. And by engaging I mean comments and likes on your posts, retweets and shares on your Twitter and Facebook pages, likes on your Instagram page and subscribers to your YouTube channel. From working with brands and PRs, I know they value engagement over followers. Plus as a creator, it’s what we want! We create content for people to engage with.
CONTENT
Speaking of content, it can be hard to measure success wise, but it’s a great way to measure if you’re hitting your goals. Did you blog five times this week like you wanted to? Did you promote each post on social media? Have you improved your photography skills? All of these are ways that you can measure how you’re developing as a blogger and that’s important. Especially as we know success does not happen overnight.
INVITES AND INCOME
Now for many, myself included, getting emails from PRs inviting you to launch events and fashion previews, or being offered sponsored content and gifts for review is a great feeling! It shows that brands and PRs are starting to notice your blog and all the hard work you’ve put into developing it into the awesome space it is. And for many, this is how they’ll measure success. For others success comes with being able to do this full time because you can earn enough to pay the bills.
HAPPINESS
And finally, let’s not forget that most of us started our blogs as a hobby because it made us happy. I know I certainly did. And when setting yourself goals and trying to measure your blog’s success it’s important to remember your own happiness. Do you still love to blog? Do you get excited to produce new content? Does blogging make you happy? These are the important things to consider when measuring success. As yes we’d all like our blogs to grow, for brands to want to work with us, for people to enjoy and engage with what we produce but the real success is us being able to do something that we love.
So however you choose to measure success, I think the key thing to remember is that each blog has its own views about what success looks like and as bloggers we each have our own goals that we want to achieve. So these have been some of the ways that I choose to measure my goals, but what does blog success mean to you?
I loved this article. I think for me success is hoping that one of my articles on living a more sustainable or ethical life will make some small difference to this planet so our children will have somewhere to live that is worth living. I was a bit of a joke when I first started, but being eco friendly has got trendy again somewhere along the way, so my engagement is definitely increasing which is my ultimate goal. Not for money, not for free stuff, not for the followers (but I definitely think those things are fun too and don’t knock anyone who prioritises those because we all have to live and enjoy life too!) but definitely for me it is for the impact of the reach I can have.
This was a great read and it is so true that we all have our own ways for measuring success. I consider my blog a success when I get lovely feedback from readers or I find out they tried something I recommended. Always makes me smile.
I love this, and its so true, we all measure success in different ways. For me I’d like to be happy and comfortable (money wise) x
Such an interesting post and something I’ve been asking myself recently. I think for me, success is being happy with the content I produce & being part of the community. I’d love to starting earning more from my blog, but I see this as a bonus and not something to measure how well I’m doing.
xoxo
Jess
Blog success for me at this point is being able to earn a monthly income enough to cover my bills and to put some in savings while staying true to myself and my readership xxx
Blog success to me is giving my family experiences that they would never have had otherwise. Earning an income is nice too, though
This is a great post. Blogging truly does mean different things to different people. Success can be measured in many ways. Your blog should make you happy. Mine sure does, it is a place to be free and write about what I want!
I feel successful because I manage to earn enough to work from home, meaning I get to spend my weekends with my beautiful children instead of leaving the house at 8am and getting back in at 10pm. But when I look at what other bloggers have achieved over the years I know I’m not anywhere near as successful as them. And that’s OK. We don’t all have the same hopes and dreams 🙂
Louise x
I guess success is all relative to the person. Although I have been blogging for almost eight years, I wouldn’t personally call myself successful as there others who are doing far better things than me
You are definitely on point. We measure success in different ways. If we could have a good number of followers, engagement plus a good income – that would definitely be awesome.