For a long time, my idea of career was lacking. I hadn't found anything I found a passion for with photography. I enjoyed researching, and looking at all forms of photography such as street photography with Vivian Maier, documentary, editorial and travel. But I had never found something I felt I could carry on with as a career past my education. Until I spoke to tutors about my interest in blogging, and spoke about how I have had a beauty and lifestyle blog for nearly 2 years. I had never thought about this being a career, even thought I know it is possible.
For close to 2 years, I have written, photographed and talked about beauty, travel and food, every week. I create the content from scratch, and talk about the things I am passionate about. I want people to want to come back each week and read my posts. I want others to feel how I do when I read my favourites bloggers. Ive learnt how to reach readers with social media accounts, and learn what people want to read. I have had to keep up with trends and the new products being released. Girls like me do their research before buying a product, and blogs are our first port of call.
Over the last few years, my page views have increased. When I first started the blog I had around 100 views a month, now 1 get around 1,000. I think this is mainly due to my coverage on social media, and spreading the word about my blog. I talk to other bloggers, and I am part of the community online. Keeping up with my blog is hard work, with a lot of organisation. I have a check list with all my posts (below) with each part of the post ticked off as I go. I have to take the images for the post, write the post and find the links to websites and other previous posts. I then need to schedule the post, and schedule tweets and Facebook posts to go up at the same time, and for the next few days to get more readers. I will always read other blog, who may be not as well known as others. I feel like we are in the same situation, and any support is well deserved.
Even though I am yet to get any sort of advertising, or brand income from my blog, I am prepared to keep working hard towards my blog. I feel all the work I have done up to now has prepared me for the career I am aiming for. My skills in photography have helped me and my images to be at top quality. I feel this is something that separates me from others and would like to build up on this in the future. Doing something I enjoy so much as a job, before this, would never have crossed my mind. I feel more and more confident in myself pursuing this career.