Blog Berry Juice: 4 Moves to Keep

This Blog Berry Juice marks the end of the second tertile of 2017.  This is my opportunity to xatu about the progress of The Grown-Up Pkmn Trainer.

It has an average of over 35 unique visitors a day, with an average of over 300 unique views every weekend.  The most popular posts are still the monthly financial reviews and net worth updates.  At the time of posting, there are 52 people following on Instagram, 56 people following on Twitter, 36 people following on Facebook, and 13 people subscribed to the weekly emails.

Recently my husband and I threw a big party and invited a number of friends and family.  Our wedding was such a fun celebration of our love and commitment to one another.  Since we are both theatrical designers and have designed, planned, prepared and opened numerous large shows, we thought planning a wedding couldn’t be much different.  For the most part, it wasn’t.  The biggest differences were that the wedding happens just once, we were the actors who never got to see the show and the stress affected me differently than show stress usually does.  The stress levels were the same, but my moody emotions made it more draining than usual.  I needed extra recovery time to relax, slakoth and do nothing.  The wedding planning and recovery time steamrolled everything I hoped to accomplish with this blog four months ago.
 
With that in mind, I look in the past and toward the next four months, and it looks busy.  There are a bunch of events, a honeymoon and the release of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.  It still appears less stressful than wedding planning, and I want to keep it that way.  This is my plan for what moves to continue making with my blog for the next four months, with a few small, additional things.

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Continue Saturday Post Schedule
One of my original goals was to post on the days of the bug catching contest held in Johto’s National Park.  I started with one post a week because my research strongly recommended it.  I started to understand the recommendation as I began writing the Shadow Sneak Peeks last November, there’s a lot more work to it than a novice thinks there is.  I believed I would adapt quickly and would post more than once a week shortly after February.  Yet... here I am at the end of August, still posting once a week.
 
Posting once a week is working great for me.  Pairing the one post a week with my day job leaves me available time for relaxation and fun.  My goal is to continue posting every Saturday for the next four months and rexatu in December.
 
In order to post on Saturdays, I will need to improve the amount I write during the week.  For the last three months at least, the wedding planning recovery time stole my evenings and even some Saturdays.  Then I spent most of Saturday catching up and almost forcing posts.  That’s not fair to the readers or me.  The laptop I bought in May was my sitrus berry tree.  It provided time for writing while traveling by subway and plane.  I will start working on this the last week in August, since I’m posting on a Sunday again.
 
Continue Writing about Personal Finances
Another original goal I had was to write about an assortment of topics involving adulting.  I chose personal finances to start with because friends were telling me it was the hardest part of adulting.  My original plan was to write a post about personal finances Tuesday and Thursday and then health, exercise, food, relationships or sex on Saturday.  That has not happened and it will not happen over the next four months.
 
I intend to suction cup to writing about personal finances.  Once 2018 nears, I will start to evaluate how often I can post and then if I can or should evolve the blog from a personal finance type blog into a lifestyle type blog.
 
Continue Talking with Readers
My wide guard goal for this blog is for me and the readers to share our experience points with each other.  I understand partly why there are few comments.  No one wants to comment.  When I’m reading blog posts, I usually won't comment because it takes times and I feel like I have nothing to add to the conversation.  The thing to remember is that our experience points are valid and everyone grows when we share them.  That’s why I ask questions each post.  I want to encourage readers to join the conversation.  With enough of people’s two cents, we can make a dollar.
 
The wedding steamroller also made my emails flinch.  If you have contacted me through the website or email, I will start responding soon.  As my life returns to normal, I will have more time to write well-thought-out replies.  If you haven’t contacted me and would like to, here's is a good place to start.
 
Continue Social Media
As for social media, I have a better grasp on it than I did four months ago.  I have a nice skill link going with Instagram where I post the newest blog post email during the weekend.  Then, I post the post’s illustration near the end of the week describing the story behind it.
 
I have started doing Shadow Sneak Peeks for each week’s post on Twitter.  Either the day before or the day-of I post a work in progress of that week’s illustration.  I also have discovered Pokémon GIFs, and they have been making Twitter even more fun for me.
 
The Facebook page has not developed at all.  I think the biggest reason is that I personally don’t go on Facebook often.  I log on about once a week to share the newest post and that’s about it.
 
As a reminder, the quickest way to find out when a new post is live is to subscribe to the emails.
 
A Few Adjustments
There are a few things that I would like to adjust over the next four months:
First, I want to start retweeting older posts to expose new readers and followers to older material.
Second, I want to complete the survey I wrote about in April.  Look for it over the next few months on social media.
Third, I am debating handing out The Grown-Up Pkmn Trainer swag instead of business cards at the Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon release this year.  If you have an opinion about if I should or what I should pass out, please let me know either in the comments below or contact me.  It might help me make up my mind!

Let’s Chat:
What are some of the things you like about this blog?  What improvements do you recommend?

Further Reading:
10 Great Reasons to Start Blogging, and 3 Horrible Ones- Montana Money Adventures
Why I’m a Lousy Personal Finance Blogger- Free to Pursue