This post may contain affiliate links. All prices quoted are accurate as of the time this post was published. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
Today marks my 2nd blog-versary and to say it’s been a wild ride is an understatement. It’s been a labor of love and happy to say I haven’t stopped this creative side hustle quite yet. I also recapped my first year of blogging and you can check that out here.
Life Update
This time last year I was in the throws of feverishly trying to schedule interview after interview after my layoff over the summer of 2020. It wasn’t a healthy work environment to begin with, but that didn’t lessen the sting of losing your income in the middle of a pandemic.
Happy to say I did find a fully remote opportunity within my career field in the beginning of the year and have happily worked in my kitchen/dining room, pjs and all.
I also started to seriously consider home ownership and look forward to documenting the process here or on my Instagram @MeganblogsIG
Blogging Goals
I want to use this space more like a personal scrapbook and not so much as a magazine. I have put so much pressure on myself to shape this space into one category and it’s taken some of the fun away honestly. I am taking the pressure off to keep this blog in one niche category and share what makes me happy. Expect to see the same Amazon hauls and style posts, but with more lifestyle thrown in and personal topics.
Make an effort in the photography department. This is the MOST frustrating part of blogging and the one thing drives me crazy trying to master. One major goal this coming year is to take a few courses on basic photography skills and brush up on technique.
Not take social media so seriously. It’s not make or break and it’s so destructive to pick apart and compare one another. I am making more of an effort to put down the phone and distance myself from the constant need for instant gratification from social.
Build a email newsletter. Social media can become extinct tomorrow and I will still have this platform to connect with (because I 100% own it!). Building a newsletter platform will serve the same purpose and diversify how my content is shared. Not everyone is on social regularly, and not everyone enjoys reading newsletters. This will help meet in the middle and serve as a buffer if Instagram is gone tomorrow.
This one is easy, blog more.
What I Stopped
This ranch and cream cheese pinwheel recipe is my highest shared pinterest pin to date that I continuously receive notifications for. There was no prep for this post and I was taking the appetizer to a winery trip the day of. My point is, this is the most successful post I have published and there was no thought behind it. It just worked.
I started this blog as a food blog and the amount of prep it takes and trial and error to produce a post that would flunk deflated me. I will post recipes here and there in the future but for now, it’s on the back-burner.
Blog tools I use
Later – Social media management tool to share your posts across all your channels [I use a free plan]
Later Link in Bio – Instagram management tool I use to visually plan out my posts + create linkable images [I use a free plan]
Adobe Lightroom + Lightroom mobile – Photo editing software I use to edit all blog posts.
Instagram Text Spacer – How I create line breaks for Instagram captions.
Adobe Illustrator – graphic design software
Click-up – Project management software [I use a free plan]
Canva – Graphic design software I use exclusively for Pinterest pins
Premiere Rush – Video editing tool for social media
Inshot – Video editing tool for social media
Google Analytics – Measure how your site is performing and site analytics
Influenster – Review products and participate in product campaigns