Happy New Year! I hope you all finished 2016 with a laugh and a smile, and are enjoying a great start to 2017. I’ve learnt a lot from running my blog over the last twelve months, so I thought I’d kick this year off with a summary of what I want to achieve for 2017.
- I want to provide more active commentary on current affairs. When I started this blog, way back in 2015, I had a vague idea that I’d try and create a running commentary on current affairs. As time went by, I quickly discovered that this could be extremely time-consuming, and quickly switched to writing what I hoped were ‘evergreen’ posts. Designed to last a little longer than current affair items, these posts are longer and possibly a little more ‘click baity’ than I’d always like. In 2017, I’d like to try to get a better mix between these evergreen posts and more current pieces on business and politics.
- Providing higher-quality content. I’ve never really had aspirations to charge money for the content on this blog. A lot of bloggers get into the field to earn passive income, but I genuinely enjoy writing and hope that you enjoy reading my work. Rather than pumping out low-quality content, I’ve tried to focus on providing thought provoking and useful articles. With this in mind, I want to produce some high-quality PDF/Whitepapers which you can download for free.
- Write and publish an eBook. I’ve had this on my ‘to-do’ list for several years, and I’m hoping that this year will be the year I tick it off. Similar to the PDF/whitepaper content I want to produce, it’s been a lack of time which has prevented me, but if I can write 1500 words a week (just over 200 a day), I should have the content of a book by the end of the year.
- Enhance my social media presence. Through good networking and what I hope is a friendly personality, I’ve managed to create a reasonable social media network. More than 2000 people follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Pinterest and I’d like to increase that number by the end of 2017.
- Produce more ‘Q&A’ posts and ‘Interview’ posts. I always enjoy getting emails from friends and family, and my readers are no different. This year, I’ll be running a monthly Q&A session built around questions I receive. I’ve also got aspirations to try and track down a couple of my business heroes in 2017, but you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for the posts to see whether I manage to convince them into having a coffee.
- Publish more video content. As a marketing and communications specialist, I like to think I’m a reasonable writer. In addition to this, I’m not a bad public speaker, but creating video content is something which has never been a priority for me. I’m always hearing that millennials love video (personally, I’m pretty ambivalent), but it can’t hurt to add an extra channel to my network in 2017.
If you get a chance, send me an email with some of your goals for 2017! I love hearing about what targets people are setting and it motivates me to pursue my own!