Champion of the Uncommon Blog

As you are aware of, blogging has become my favorite pastime, a great source of pleasure, enlightenment and my identity. It has improved my self-mastery and self-motivation over these past 17 months. The process has also empowered me to broach a number of subjects and topics that are near and dear to me and to common people everywhere, turning me into an established blogger. Now, however, I want to improve my blog and to turn it into my career, however long it will take to achieve that pinnacle of success. Most of all, I want to interact with my readers and to continue providing them with good quality entertainment.

To grow as a blogger I plan to blog much more frequently, posting to my blog at least once a week, usually on Mondays. Thus, I will become a dependable writer with timely content. I am currently reading an inspiring self-help book in order to motivate myself to adhere to writing deadlines that I've set up for myself. I'm a routine person and structure is what helps me reach my potential; this was true at NCC and it's true now! I want people looking forward to my Monday blog posts.

As my readership increases, I want to come up with interesting, fun, useful topics that people will enjoy reading about. I desire to observe everything around me and always be on the lookout for new blog topics. As I reach out to others, they will suggest worthwhile topics that are of interest to them. This is just one way in which my readers will have a hand in creating blog content. For an extra medium of communication, I want to start adding videos to my blog, with links to YouTube channels. In today's competitive social media environment, videos are more important than ever. Being in tune with the Internet of 2018 will keep me relevant and confident.

In order to keep improving, I strive to become more creative over time, trying out new types of blog posts. I am creating a product, and any product must always be new and exciting, in order to remain fun and marketable. Soon, I will begin what I call "urban exploring" - going out into urban neighborhoods and just walking around, so that I can write about the experience, provide some pictures and familiarize myself with the layout of the Lehigh Valley's three cities and bustling boroughs. Eventually, I want to provide such coverage of the many cool areas of Philadelphia, New York City, along with other Northeast cities! I hope to begin a process that will lead to a successful online career lasting several decades. It is something that I really enjoy doing, and it would be awesome to make money doing a job that I love! Who doesn't want that?

 

I am constantly reading up on how to improve the quality of my blog’s content. The blogosphere is extremely vast and complex, involving marketing concepts and jargon that I don't yet understand. Over the course of the coming weeks, I do plan to learn more about how to better promote my blog and to pick up the jargon used by experienced, successful bloggers. I have found a lot of useful information online, of course, but I also plan to take out books from the library to enlighten myself. I sometimes need the aesthetics of a good, old-fashioned textbook!

With an eye toward the future, I am starting to focus on marketing my blog, with the hope of attracting new readers and generating some income. I now have Google AdSense, but plan to develop other streams of income via numerous fundraising methods. My next way of earning money will be to respectfully request donations, eventually culminating in crowdfunding campaigns, hopefully collecting money from all over the world! There are always money-making opportunities on the Internet for anyone ready to seek them out. My short-term goal is to start making a small amount of online revenue by September. I plan to use that revenue to support further blogging activities aimed at expanding my reach and the scope of my blog's subject matter. If you're not growing, you're shrinking!

I hope to meet up and socialize with many of my blog readers in real life, away from the computer or smart phone. I have already had this experience and it is very rewarding, socializing with friends such as Shannon Clarke from Terra Cafe in Easton! It's a case of meeting someone that you already feel connected to and know a little about. Eventually, I want to host events at local venues, gathering my readers into a growing, but tight-knit local community. I value my readers as individual persons, not just numbers on a spreadsheet!

My blog page on Facebook has become a major part of my blogging effort, a conduit from my blog itself to my community of Facebook friends, including those from my daily visits to area coffee shops. My coffee shop persona and my blogger persona are closely tied together, because I find both worlds mutually compatible. This makes it easy for consumers perusing social media on their smart phones or other devices, having everything at the swipe of their finger!

Now that I am a bona fide blogger, I want to reach out to other, more experienced bloggers. I plan to connect to these bloggers and to share their blogs with you, the reader. To accomplish this I can use the Blogger.com web ring to connect with a number of successful, interesting bloggers. Bloggers like to appeal to each others' readers, often through guest blogging, something very common in the blogosphere. Eventually, I will also share blog posts of fellow bloggers on Facebook, so that many of you can sample their works, expanding your world view. A blog is like a good book; once you find one you enjoy, you should seek out similar ones.

I hope to feature some readers in my blog posts, whether it be pictures of friends, or just a person's basic bio and simple, heartfelt accounts of that person’s impact upon my life. I’ll keep it general and respect your privacy, so don’t worry! I do plan to interview a few of you, to provide quotes and ideas from my long-time readers; this will be a teaching tool for myself. In time, I hope to be interviewing influential, innovative people throughout the Lehigh Valley and beyond. I am preparing myself for this process by promoting local small businesses, bands and artists on my Facebook, using my timeline, blog page and coffee shop group.

As part of my overall personal growth, I have many ambitious goals and aspirations for my blog. I want to follow the progressive, grassroots business model. To avoid compromising my principles, I will only promote the products and services of businesses that I like, especially of friends that I'm close with. Both my writing and my marketing will rest on my reputation for authenticity, so that I will truly remain a man for the average person. I'll continue creating a winning product that will be worthwhile for all!