What to Expect from Skylish in 2019

My photographer asked me recently – “what are your plans with your blog in the new year?” The question sort of took me aback – it’s similar to when people ask me where I’m going with my career. I realised that I’d given it no thought (blogging in 2019, I have thankfully given my career many thoughts), and actually, I had no idea where I was going with my blog in the new year.

Over the course of 2018, I feel like I found myself in a good place with my blog. As I’ve mentioned before, I started focusing on writing blogs with more substance, blogs that I would like to read myself, blogs that were honest, raw and little less fluffy around the edges. I liked writing these blogs, and actually, people seemed to like reading them too (grateful)! Towards the end of 2018, I became a bit fatigued with my blog. I mean, blogging isn’t what is used to be. Stunning photos on Instagram is where the focus lies right now and a number of names have been slowly dropping out of the blogging landscape. I guess it felt like tumbleweed was blowing across the blogging world as we know it and I decided to go with it.

That said – it’s a brand new year and, like many other bloggers, I’m setting some goals and changing things up around here a little bit in 2019.

 

Quality over quantity

For the past 1.5 years I have always aimed to blog twice a week. Most of the time I’ve been really good with this but towards the end of last year it’s something I started to find really difficult. Blogging. takes. time. Between writing the post, editing photos, going through the post with a fine tooth comb to make sure the spelling, grammar, links and SEO essentials are in place, to posting it, promoting it and re-promoting it. It takes multiple hours to just get one good piece out. Away from blogging, there’s other stuff I wanted to start focusing on more – from my career to side hustles that are building. I work 9-5 (and I use that term very loosely – I work in investment banking which requires a lot more hours), plus I love hitting the gym after work which also takes up time and tires me out. Basically – there’s a lot going on in my life and I feel like I can deliver the best quality, consistent blog posts if I kept my blogging to once a week. It frees me up in so many other ways, and at the same time quality way out trumps quantity and if I just need to pour my soul into one post a week… I think I’ll get better pieces out!

With this one, we’ll see how it goes! Blogging once a week has typically seemed fairly low to me but, given how the industry and my life is changing, I’m going to give it a little trial and see how it works for me. But I really hope it means I’m able to get out way more A* pieces for you guys.

 

Picking up social media activity

Staying active on social media is actually harder than it looks! It’s not a thing I ever really used to take into consideration (I post when I post, I tweet when I tweet…), but we are moving into an age of social media where much of your brand is built on social media so it’s something that definitely does require some additional consideration. Consistency is key afterall and this year I want to make a mindful effort to be more active and more consistent whilst still keeping quality at the forefront!

 

Monthly newsletters

I’ve had the option to sign up to my newsletter for a while now, but I only really tend to send them out when something has happened. For example, I’m holding a giveaway, there’s something significant I want to share, or something significant I want to promote. Most of the time though it seems as though there are cobwebs over that email list and I want to revive it (or really, “birth” it) in 2019. I think it’ll be a good way to connect with readers on a more personal basis, and a cute way to build a loyal little Skylish fam. So – please do sign up when that little box pops up! I hope to share a lot of what I’m up to, what I’m loving and what’s inspiring/motivating me this year – lots of exclusive content essentially – and hopefully we can all grow together!

 

Seek out more opportunities

One of my goals in 2019 is to put myself out there more, and this applies in all areas of my life, including in blogging. This year I want to seek out more opportunities with my blog (rather than always waiting for opportunities to find me first), I want to share my knowledge more, build my network and do new things… essentially I want to solidify my own little spot within this industry by being totally and absolutely fearless (or at least, following the “fake it til you make it” principal here!)

I said it in my year review post but I’ll say it one more time – I feel like I’m have quite a lot of momentum behind me at the moment and I’m excited to see where it’ll take me this year. Usually I’ve always wanted to transport myself to whatever “finish line” I felt I needed to reach, and whenever things fell short, I’d feel completely deflated. I learned this year to just enjoy the journey, the lessons and the good times as they come.