Blogs are a bit of a new territory. So many people are beginning blogs about whatever interests them: cooking, their family life, fashion. Social media is another thing that hasn't been around for too long yet. The two have taken off, and in the process they've become intertwined. One of the pieces of advice most given to bloggers is that their blog can't succeed without social media.
You're supposed to tweet in the days leading up to your post to build success. You're supposed to interact with your followers. You're supposed to upload excerpts of your posts and photos of you writing. If we go back in time to March, though, we'll find this post, which explains why I went off social media and continue to be off it. A few months after I logged out of my Instagram and Twitter accounts, I was at peace with not being at school. I was getting used to online school, and school events were a bit more sparse in the months before spring. Even so, I figured that it wasn't a good idea to go back on social media. The pictures could destroy the peace I'd been feeling, or distract me from my busy school year.
Which presents the issue of my blog. Without a way to tell people that I'm posting, my blog's read whenever someone stumbles upon it or has seen it before and remembers it again. That's not exactly helping its popularity, though, and that's the point of blogging for many people. They want people to read what they're saying, and catch an audience. They want to feel like their blog has a purpose, and that their writing is worth the time and effort. For me, though, knowing that I don't reach dozens, hundreds, thousands, etc. of people is more of a comfort than a setback. When I first got this blog for my birthday, I was worried that I couldn't be myself. I was worried I'd change what I wrote, or how I wrote it, if I knew others were reading.
If I go back on social media one day, I would probably tie my social media to my blog again. If tomorrow people randomly came across my blog, I wouldn't be apprehensive. Having time that I've been able to post without the pressure of a large audience has been an opportunity for me to get used to blogging, try a few different types of posts, and not have to worry about readers liking or disliking my style. Writing has never been something I do for others, but rather myself. Getting used to blogging in the way I did enabled me to cary that thinking into all my literary ventures.