Even though the July challenge is over, there will be another challenge in October. Should you consider participating? I had one main goal: to extend my reach. Let’s look at what I gained:
- I grew my Facebook page ‘likes’ from 70 to 101; this enables me to use the ‘promoted posts’ feature on Facebook.
- I added three new subscribers to my mailing list.
- my Klout score (a measure of influence in social media) grew to 47 – an increase of 17 points.
- Additional comments on my blog should help my google ranking.
What did it cost?
- Participating is free. You make a commitment to post 31 times during the month, and comment on 2 other blogs daily.
- The time commitment is substantial. Although I repurposed some material, and scheduled a guest post weekly, writing a completely new blog post could take me up to 2 hours. And there was additional time to read and comment on a minimum of 2 blogs/day.
- Some of my VA’s time; she found and added an appropriate visual to each post.
What I learned:
- Guest posts are a great way to expand your reach, because your guest blogger promotes the post to their list also.
- There was a definite ‘fatigue factor’; I had only one ‘unlike’ on Facebook, and no unsubscribes to my email list, but readership dropped off as the month progressed. My theory is that daily posts created information overwhelm.
- Having the posts written & scheduled a week in advance was the best strategy for me. I did this prior to going on vacation, and it worked well. When I returned, however, I had a horrendous week (my husband had surgery, then a setback which landed him in the ER for a full day AND I had to make several trips to Santa Barbara to get my mother’s house ready to sell AND of course the washing machine picks that week to go kaput.) Everything had a good outcome, but I missed 6 days of posts.
Would I do it again?
Maybe, but not until next July, which is usually a slower month for me. And I would begin to write/schedule posts a month in advance, so there was less pressure during the month of the challenge. See yesterday’s post for the tool I used to plan and keep track of my posts.
If you would like to participate in an upcoming blog challenge, they are held quarterly; find out more here.
If you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear your comments on what you liked about what I posted this month and/or suggestions for improvement. Use the comment box below.