2016 Report Card

Hi! Since it's New Year's, I wanted to end the year the same way I started it--talking about my goals for 2016. I'm a very goal/list-oriented person and setting said goals or deadlines help give me a bit of purpose. I don't always stick to said deadlines (clearly 😑) but having something that I'm actively working towards helps me out a lot. When I first started this blog and it was trying to find its way, each December was reserved for figuring out any changes I wanted to implement in the upcoming year. I still keep to that in a way as it helps me to track how the blog grows and changes, but this was the first year that I created an actual list of goals specific to this blog. So let's review what my goals were for this year:

1. Be more active on social media ✔ ❌

I gave myself both a 'yes' and 'no' for this goal. I gave myself a 'no' because before, I would hardly promote my posts and I only did so on Instagram. This year, I started posting on Google Plus as well and I've been working on being more active on the 'Gram. I'm not at all where I'd like to be with it, but that's mainly because I haven't been able to review new products so there hasn't been much point. I'm also still trying to move past my issues with social media in order to be more active. I gave myself a 'no', though, because I wasn't entirely successful. I wouldn't say I have a regular presence on social media, and that was the goal so technically speaking, I didn't achieve it. But am I better than I was last year? Yes. 

2. Stick to blog schedule ❌

Do I have to go into detail about the level of failure associated with this goal? lol The intention was never to slack off; this was actually supposed to be the year that I really got my shit together enough to balance both blogs successfully and get everything on the right foot. But as is usually the case with my life, it never quite works out the way I intend. The reasons (I promise they're not stupid excuses) vary, but the point is that it gets in the way enough to throw me off my game. So unfortunately, this is a goal I didn't meet this year. 

3. Sharpen my reviewing skills ✔

I may not have been as consistent as I wanted to be with my posts, but I am increasingly proud of the end result of the posts that I do publish. I think that's another reason why I have issues with consistency; I'm a perfectionist and I know what I want my blog and its content to look like. If I feel that the post I'm doing isn't up to par, it's not getting published until it is. I have a skeleton for each post now and always try to work on being thorough without being too wordy in my reviews, which I do think I've gotten better at. I think this year has shown an improvement in both the content and the layout of my reviews, and I'm happy with where it's going. 

4. Strengthen my photography skills ✔

When I look back at my reviews when I was first understanding the importance of photography to a review blog (it always makes me laugh now to remember that when I first started, I thought just writing about my experience rather than including photos would be sufficient lol), I always cringe. They're so bad it's ridiculous. This year I really tried to improve the photography on the site, from the header shots to the product photos and any swatches or other examples of the product I was reviewing, and I think it's gotten a lot better. The lighting in most of the posts is natural light now so the exposure and saturation are more consistent, and I switched cameras this year so I think the quality of the photos has also improved. Again, not quite what I'd like it to be just yet, but I'm making it work with the resources I do have.  

5. Apply for more reviewing jobs  ❌

At first, I'd given myself both a 'yes' and 'no', but when I actually thought about it, I switched it to 'no', and I'll explain why. A lot of the reason why I haven't been able to apply for reviewing jobs is because there either aren't many coming my way to apply for, or more commonly, I didn't meet the social media criteria and influencer reach that the company required. I can see the issue from both a blogger and business perspective and from the latter side of the problem, I don't have the influencer stats that would make hiring me a profitable experience for the company. I have nothing to give them in return, least of all an increase in sales that would create a return for the price of the product they sent me, so it makes sense that I wouldn't be able to get the job. But from the blogger side of things, this is largely a labor of love until your reach meets the criteria for many companies. Almost every review is an out-of-pocket thing while you build up your audience, and if your pockets are as small as mine, it can be difficult to keep the content feeling fresh if you're not reviewing current products. So in short, I didn't apply for more jobs because there weren't many out there with criteria that I could meet, but that was why I ultimately gave myself a 'no.' 

6. Be more consistent with posts ❌

LOL. You see the timestamps on these posts. At the moment, there are way too many gaps between the dates, but as always, that wasn't the intention. When the late posts are finally published, it will present the consistency that I was aiming for from jump, but the reality is that I couldn't achieve the consistency I desired in time, which is why those posts are now late rather than already being live on the site. The lack of consistency and falling off schedule always leave me feeling overworked because I stay playing catch-up, but because there are so many obstacles in the way when I'm trying to keep to said schedule, this will probably be an ongoing issue until I change some things in my personal surroundings. I haven't learned to work around or through those things completely and they throw me off, creating the lack of consistency and failure to remain on schedule. This is a big failure for me so even if I accomplish nothing else on my list of goals for 2017, if I can switch this to a check mark next December, I'll consider my goals as a success. 

7. Build up posts in all blog categories ✔ ❌

This is the other one I gave myself both answers for. I gave myself a 'yes' because there are more entries in some of the sections that weren't there a year ago, mainly the 'Things' and 'TV' sections, the latter of which just started a couple of months ago. Overall, however, I still give it a 'no' because the busiest section is still the 'Beauty' section, and I don't want to review just beauty products. They're the most fun by far lol, but I get bored when that's all I'm reviewing. I keep so many sections here because I am legitimately interested in all of them. I can't effectively prove that, however, when one section is pages longer than the others. So this one gets both on technicalities. lol 

8. Resume old blog series ❌

This is another one that I consider to be a huge failure on my part. The goal here was to revive the SBS and Pinterest Project series, and I've been planning a couple of new ones that I was really excited to roll out. There are a cocktail of issues at play, which negated the time I needed to put my effort into growing these series the way I planned. As a result, this too is now a rollover goal for next year. 

9. Grow my audience ✔

This one I do consider to be a success, although it again isn't quite where I'd like it to be. I now promote more posts on Instagram and I'm steadily building up followers there, but I've also started promoting on Google Plus, which has also started getting my posts more views. The promoted posts have more views than the ones I didn't promote, so for me that's growth. I haven't found my audience yet, and by that I mean regular readers who leave comments and interact with me, but to be fair I probably haven't given them reason to do that yet. This is still an improvement from last year, where I was averaging an all-time high of like 3 views per post. lol I've got a long way to go before I'm satisfied, but I do see improvement. 

Overall Grade: D-

So overall, this wasn't the year of come-up that I'd originally anticipated. It was a good reality check that I needed to see in black and white (....and red and green. lol) If this was a regular business and the check/cross marks were profits and losses, this would go on the records as a loss. A big loss. I understand that but I'm not discouraged. Despite the final result being a loss, the profits were large profits that I think have helped the blog overall. I would prefer if there were a few more profits, but I can take what I've gotten so far. Now I just have to maintain those categories and try to bring a couple more into the mix. I don't know how well I'll do, but I'm hoping that next year's report card reads a bit better. I know what my goals are for the upcoming year, and now I know that the goal is to work smarter and harder if I'd like to get around my obstacles and achieve them.

Right now I think I work harder, not smarter, and as a result I stay overworked with tons of content unpublished. If I know what my obstacles are, then the goal should be to figure out how to work around or through them--to me, that'd be working smarter because they would no longer negatively impact what I'm trying to do. But anyway, I hope you have an awesome New Year's, wherever and however you choose to spend it. Please, please please stay safe--driving under the influence is never the answer and even if you're driving sober, please be careful on the roads because there will inevitably be more than a few drunk drivers out there. I hope you have tons of fun tonight and do me a solid--get that New Year's kiss; I'm not going to get one tonight so I'm living vicariously through you. That sounds so creepy when you think about me living vicariously through your kisses. LOL Happy New Year!