2,000 Followers: A Thank You

This March -slash- April -slash- May, I would have been blogging for 4 years, (I can’t remember exactly what month I started; I seemed to think it was March but WordPress tells me it’s May but whatever) so I won’t be doing any giveaways with this post, as I normally would, because I’d like to wait until my 4th blog anniversary and go completely and utterly overboard then but for me, hitting 2,000 unique blog followers (I say unique blog followers because that is just including WordPress reader followers, email followers and bloglovin followers – it doesn’t count twitter and Facebook) is somewhat of a milestone and I think it warrants a little blog post, mostly just to say a big huge thank you to everyone who follows and reads my blog. 

I mean, as a blogger, I’d say I was a pretty scrappy one. I take extended blogging breaks with no intention or warning. I won’t post for a month every now and again and I can’t keep a schedule. I can’t stick to a niche. My photography is crap. So on a whole, I’m pretty rubbish. I don’t drink Starbucks or eat maroons or own a marble slate for picture purposes only. I don’t schedule tweets, I probably plug my posts far too much and don’t share other people’s nearly enough. I have no idea what I’m doing with graphics or HTML or layouts or cameras. Like I said, pretty rubbish. But in a way, I’m kind of proud of that. Not being completely and utterly useless but that knowing and showing that bloggers don’t have to be perfect or know everything to actually have a semi-successful blog.

We definitely all have our own definitions of success. To some, me announcing I have 2,000 blog followers may be something of a mere stepping stone onto the greater plane of Internet star-domhood (2,033 followers to be precise, thank you very much) but to others, that may seem like a goal they feel they will never reach. We’re all successful in our own ways and our own rights. I run my own, small online business along with this blog and I consider that successful. Other bloggers are fantastic artists and have etsy shops and sell their work and I also think that is successful. I also know bloggers who have just started on this immense but stressful blogging road and finally taken the leap to start a blog. I also think that is successful. We define success and therefore define our happiness towards our achievements (goodness me this has got rather deep hasn’t it?) but wherever you are in your blogging journey, you’ve already had some amazing successes. And you will have loads more to come, I promise. 

This post is mostly for the newbie blogger in me, back in 2013, when I didn’t know anyone, had no idea what I was doing (even more so than now) and had almost no followers and literally did not know where you got them from. I was exceptionally naïve and I didn’t realise a lot of things – including how much hard work this was all going to be. But I’m still here, 4 years on (almost, I think) and I’m still going and I’m still learning and I’m still slowly gaining those followers and I can’t thank you enough for following me, interacting with me, reading my posts, liking my posts, commenting on my posts and just generally being amazing because if I didn’t have followers, I probably wouldn’t have blogged for very long. If you’re a new blogger reading this, make sure you persevere. Perseverance is key. In life and in blogging.