I’ve been a little MIA from the blog. I know. And it doesn’t feel like the other small breaks I’ve taken in the past. I understand that the title of this blog post is quite dramatic, but I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m actually having a lot of fun creating on TikTok. So that blog has kind of taken a back seat to that. For a while, I was caught in the mindset of “omg you should really be focusing on your blog” and “TikTok is so fun!”.
I still firmly believe that you should have a website that you OWN. I mean, are you following the saga of Emily Gemma? She has over 1 million followers on Instagram, and she was hacked. Instagram is a HUGE part of her business – and while she definitely keeps her blog well maintained — I can only imagine what she’s losing in revenue. Buzzfeed reporter, Stephanie McNeal, wrote an interesting article about influencers breaking up with Instagram.
I’ve even written my fair share of posts about my relationship between my blog and Instagram — having an Instagram worth life, how Instagram made my blog better, and what happens if Instagram didn’t recover from an “outage”. But clearly, my blog has taken a back seat. And I think that’s for a few reasons.
Work is busy.
I’m now two years into my career with Lou & Grey. I have more responsibilities than any other company I’ve been with. When I was at my previous companies, I was at a level where I didn’t need to REALLY be on top of my shit. I didn’t have too many responsibilities, and I was even able to get some blog stuff done during the hours of 9-to-5. Now, I’m really committed to this career of mine, so I subconsciously put my website on the back burner. I knew what I was signing up for when I made the decision to not take It’s Casual full time. That’s the easy answer.
I’m having fun on TikTok.
Rob encouraged me to get back on TikTok (I had an unhealthy relationship with the app, so I deleted it for 6 months) in December. And honestly? I’m having fun creating random videos. I’ve grown almost 7,000 followers since late December, so that’s been pretty exciting for me. It’s unlocked another creative side for me. I was really against video content for a while because I didn’t think I was good at it. I guess I had that thought process because I already had an established following on IG, so I felt like I needed to take video content seriously. When I got back on TikTok with only 100 followers, I took it less seriously. And that’s when I started having fun with it! It’s unlocked a lot of new followers and markets, I’ve seen some followers translate over to Instagram too! I’ve also seen an increase in pageviews as well because I’m able to add a link in my bio on TikTok.
I want to work on more of an exclusive community.
In addition to TikTok, I’m working on my newsletter. Don’t put your eggs in one basket. I feel like it’s a cool thing to have. So that’s where I’ve been doing my longer form content. I’m trying to find ways to grow my newsletter. I’m doing some research, taking polls on IG, and figuring out something that is beneficial to both myself and to those taking the time to subscribe.
…and that leads me to also answer the question, “What’s the future of It’s Casual?”
Right now, I have no plans on never blogging again. But I think I want this actual website to be more of a “one stop shop”. I mainly just want a place where everything I want to share can live forever. So I’ll continue updating my monthly favorites, my shop page, and of course, I still want to write. But for the most part, you’re not going to see a new post every day on here. I’m still trying to figure out a schedule, but I think Wednesdays are going to be my day for It’s Casual (the blog). If you want to see those longer form/more in depth posts from me, you’ll be able to find it in my newsletter. You can sign up here! I only send newsletters twice a week, so you’ll never have your inbox flooded from me.
