BLOGGING: Is Social Media Necessary for a Small Blog?

The short answer is: yes. Social Media is necessary when it comes to ensuring a blog has traffic. But this blog post is more about my own hurdles to overcome not just my own social awkwardness but being able to interact with social media itself. For the record, I don't use Facebook, I use Instagram, Pinterest and some other smaller social media. I'm fully aware that Facebook owns Instagram but I genuinely find Facebook a lot more obnoxious and a pain to deal with than Instagram. This is a blog-post about creating an Instagram for my blog.

Source: OMKAR on Pexels

I have a perfectionist streak when it comes to blog content, vlogging and any social media, but not the type that will do one thing over and over until it's perfect. Oh no, my style of perfectionism is be so afraid of messing up or not getting it right the first time that I don't do it. Which is one hell of a hindrance when you want to have a successful blog and social media presence. I've written about this in the past (click the link to read) in which I get so scared of not getting it right that I just keep delaying and then feel terrible when I didn't do it.

It's weird to even think of a blog as anything but a hobby, but when I decided to relaunch this blog as a lifestyle and just plain life blog, I had to consider the fact that I wanted traffic in here. So many advice posts are out there as to how to grow a blog, but two of the recurring pieces of advice are:

1. Consistency 

2. Social Media Presence

On the Consistency front, I've been doing somewhat well, as I schedule out the week's content on Sundays (though that will change once I'm on the Bar Exam Review circuit), and try to maintain an active content creation rhythm. I believe that if I at least have one post a week, I'm doing okay. I do pat myself on the back seeing my blog have at least weekly content. 

But on social media? Social media magnifies that pressure to be perfect to an insane degree. I found myself questioning each and every time I wanted to post a picture with a link back to this blog. What if it's not good enough to post? What if I'm coming off as disingenuous? What would my family and personal instagram followers think?! I have no idea where this imaginary judgment comes from but I suppose it's part of life in this new world. 

Social Media can make or break a blog's traffic and stats, there's no denying that. I can tell you from experience that a blogpost that's shared on a social platform will have a significant draw of new people coming in and seeing the content presented. And of course, there's the power of Search Engine Optimization or SEO, in which a blogger can maximize their presence by becoming more visible to search engines, such as google. It's kind of insane how one can really optimize their blog to have a better reach with just simple changes. 

So one day, I decided to rip the metaphorical band-aid and made the second Instagram account for the Blog and Vlog. And something I discovered was that I had overhyped the consequences in my head to the point that when I finally did it, it was a relief. It was merely a step to take to try and bring more traffic to my blog. I don't plan on making a twitter account because twitter is even worse than Facebook when it comes to interacting. Being frank and honest on my blog is something I take some pride in and I hope this will continue in my blog instagram post. It too will be somewhat scheduled because I have a hectic enough life to keep tabs on statistics and other things. 

- SP