We’ll celebrate the 15-year blog-aversary in January, which I’m pretty sure is 60 in “blog years”. My goodness how it’s changed and I’m seriously so grateful to still be here, with my team, doing this job in this wild digital world. It’s been four years since we did our last reader survey (December 2020) and the world has changed a lot. I’ve changed a lot. You’ve probably changed a lot. The internet and social media have SURE CHANGED A LOT. Instagram disrupted blogs, and now TikTok has disrupted both (becoming the de facto search engine for so many). Don’t get me started on AI, lol. It’s WILD. That’s all to say that people are reading/consuming in a different way than in 2020. Some of us – ME! – still enjoy longer-form articles with beautiful “photographs” on a laptop with our coffee. I scroll on my phone, but not much. I’m not on TikTok. But I’m a different generation of content consumer and that’s ok! But it makes it hard to make decisions. We have ideas – SO MANY IDEAS – but my time is finite and design content creation is labor intensive and requires so many resources. So guidance from the people who we want to serve is INVALUABLE to us. We aren’t a retailer who can easily see that everyone is buying this one style of shoe and then simply make more of those in different colors (Stanley, much?). What “goes viral” isn’t necessarily what we want to chase.
So I need a favor. A survey sounds SO BORING, but it’s not, y’all, I promise. The questions are fast and fun – geared more towards gathering data (not long-form questions) – you can do it easily on your phone by clicking a bunch of boxes. If you aren’t a commenter but want to give some input in a casual and fast way – today is your day. IT’S SO EASY. In fact, skip the rest of my personal thoughts below and just do it HERE if you are in a hurry.
In short, we are gathering data to help us figure out what we can do to make the blog better for you. I get really nervous about this question because I fear that the answer lies in me – that it requires more of me, my time, and my personal life on display. It often feels impossible to do right by all (readers, partnerships, team, family), and when I mess up (often) – it’s public and painful. But this is part of having a career on the internet and I chose and continue to choose this job because I love it more than I think I could love any other job. No job is perfect. All jobs are full of challenges and require sacrifices. Doing it clear-headed, with the most information is our best shot 🙂 It’s absolutely worth it.
Please, please please, if you are a first-timer or a long-timer take 2 minutes to click some boxes and fill out the survey. HERE. I can speak on behalf of the team when I say we are so grateful. xx
Opening Image Credit: Photo by Kaitlin Green
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
