Today officially marks exactly one year since my first ever post!  Back then I didn’t bother with an introductory post and instead just headed straight to posting up my first review, which is this one: A First Book of the Sea.  Since then I’ve taken to posting daily on this blog and about more than just books.

The Last year

As a lot of you know, if you’ve read my about page or some of my posts, that this is not my first time in running a blog so I did know a thing or two about how to go about getting involved with the community.  Despite that though I still feel overwhelmed by just how much support I’ve received and how many of you lovely people have visited, liked, commented and even followed this blog.  On WordPress alone I have over 400 followers already and when I add all my social media followers too, it comes to an amazing 1,550 (at my last count).  You are all such amazing people and I really have felt motivated to continue blogging throughout the whole year and it’s thaks to your wonderful support, so THANK YOU!!!!

The past year has just been amazing.  I’ve felt so free to post about what matters to me and I just love blogging here every day.  I love reading and reviewing books and other items, but I also love writing about the things that matter to me, including mental health, health, education and even ranting a bit about current affairs in the media.  I have also loved how supportive everyone’s been of my creative posts, some of my colouring posts (which I plan to share more of in future) as well as my poetry, both the happy and the not so happy poems.

The last year really has felt like it’s flown by, and I no longer feel a bit wary of whether my blog is going to stay a permanent thing or not, instead I know I’m going to continue blogging for the foreseeable future (I have no plans to quit…ever! lol) and having established my tagline too: The Strawberry Post: Here to Entertain Educate & Inspire! I feel like I’m ready to not only keep this blog going but maybe, just maybe I might put myself on YouTube one of these days too (cue someone who talks waaaay too much and drones on in a silly way about whatever she’s talking about!).

birthday one candle

Next year?

I hope my blog will continue to be successful and I do plan to keep going at the rate I have been.  I keep sharing a few of my older blog posts from previous blogs and when I’m done sharing them all I’m going to close down those blogs for good.  In the meantime though I hope you’ll continue to want to read some of the book reviews I write and won’t mind more colouring book reviews as well as more poetry, and general random posts on all sorts of stuff.  I know not everyone will like every topic I write about, but I do hope you’ll all want to stick around and read something that you do enjoy 🙂

I’m not quite up to going on YouTube yet, I have to get myself more organised and ready for that (currently without any form of tripod to hold a camera/phone pointing downwards – not ready for face shots quite yet 😮 !) but I do want to get more active, without pushing myself too much, on other platforms like my Pinterest page and Instagram which I admit I have neglected a bit.  I’m better on Insta, I still really have no clue what I’m doing on Pinterest but if anyone wants to advice me I’d very much appreciate it! 😀

You are amazing!

I want to thank all of you again.  If it wasn’t for such wonderful feedback I don’t know if I’d be in such a high vibe and happy mood right now, and I don’t know if my blog would be just as active as it is.  I’d probably still be posting stuff, but it’s through your support that I’ve felt so able to push myself and keep going every day, even on the bad days which I don’t always tell you about but which do still sometimes happen.

The best part of having my one year blog anniversary/blogiversary now, is that it brightens up my mood which is good as the darker months do make me suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) plus there’s the bonus of Halloween coming up, which I always view as just a fun time to dress up and be silly, as well as my birthday the following month!  Thank you again everyone.  You made my blog so amazing, and I hope you will still like to continue visiting this next year 🙂 ❤ ❤ 🙂

If you’d like to continue following me please just click the follow button or the email follow button on my main page as well as following me on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram (click the links and they’ll open a new tab).  You might find me on Goodreads too if you’re bookish although I don’t like to share the link here as my previous account got spammed when I shared it, by authors and strange people who seemed to be non-bookish , had werid names and wanted lots of followers… 😮 😳I’m also a bit slow at updating my reading status, lol!

Party hat

A message to new/small bloggers

I didn’t want to go without talking to those of you who are starting out your blogging journey or who feel that your blogs are  really small.  Now, 400 WP followers might seem like a lot for me to have but it’s very small too when compared to some of the bigger bloggers out there who’ve been going a long time.  However if you are someone who is starting out or who feels like your blog just isn’t reaching people then please don’t worry.

There are lots of things you can do to boost your blog traffic in general, including posting on social media, getting search engines to notice you and being more active in the community.  I think I’ll share a post about this soon to share what I’ve used which might help you get more established (if you think it would be of any use to you?).  In the meantime though my biggest piece of advice to you is just enjoy blogging and do it from the heart.  What I mean is that, even if you’re worried that nobody is reading your work or maybe you haven’t gotten any comments or likes then please don’t despair because blogging is ultimately about expressing yourself and sharing/writing/posting what you want and love.  Don’t feel pressured to write about stuff you’re not interested in, just because you think it will get more views.  Also don’t feel like you are stuck to your niche, you don’t need to even have a niche, ntot if you really don’t want to.  I’ve done that before on another blog and I felt exhausted and overwhelmed in the end because I ended up feeling trapped and hating what I was posting.

Instead just post about what you really want to talk about, even if it doesn’t get any views right away, because trust me, someone, sonewhere out there will read your post and it may be just what they wanted/needed to read.  Blogs always start off slow and it takes time to build up a decent following.  for some that will take weeks, others months and still others might take years before their blog has what is considered a big following.  But the most important thing to do is just post from the heart.  When people post from the heart, posting/writing something because that’s what you want to talk about, you can feel their passion and you just feel this good vibe from their writing.  When someone posts something just to get views, for the sake of posting, then you can often feel how uninspired it is.  So whatever you enjoy blogging about, be it photography, pets, pancakes or Pokemon, just blog because it’s what you enjoy doing it and you’ll eventually find a community of others who love your blog too (a community you should get involved in by the way, don’t be afraid to search out other bloggers who post similar stuff you’re interested in). 🙂

May you all, be you established bloggers or just starting out, have a wonderful day, week and month.  Lots of love to you and thank you for making me feel such a great part of this community ❤ ❤ 🙂 🙂

-Additional images sourced from Pixabay.com

How is your blogging journey going?  Have you reached a milestone year or more?  Do you have any advice you’d share about blogging?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂

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