Big Changes Are Coming!

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Do you ever have one of those days when everything just starts coming together? As if right before your eyes, all the thoughts flooding your mind somehow connect and, well, make sense? That was me yesterday. And it was beautiful.

Yesterday was huge. I’ve been thinking a lot about this blog recently, and my future hopes for it as well as myself. My laptop is cluttered with lists of new ideas, hopeful dreams, and a million things I need to do to accomplish those. But those millions of things started coming together. And it was beautiful.

I was practicing yoga, telling myself, “STOP THINKING, JUST RELAX,” which worked…for about ten seconds. I can only go so long without my mind wandering off and thinking about what to do next. What could I be filling this time with? What can I do now that will make me a happier/better/more successful person tomorrow? So I started thinking about something that’s been nagging at me for weeks. Something that I feel like most bloggers would understand, because they’ve all been through this frustrating time. And finally, it hit me. And it. Was. Beautiful.

But I can’t tell you about it. It’s just that big.

All I’ll say is that big changes are coming for Seeking Individuality, and I think y’all are going to love them. I don’t exactly know when they’ll be happening, but my hope is by the beginning of summer. Whether that be a month from now, or June 21st, depends on how smoothly these changes go. I have a huge feat ahead of me, but I’m beyond excited to begin this journey!

Until then, I’ll be running Seeking Individuality as normal, and I have a ton of new content ideas to roll out. Thank y’all for supporting me and this blog over the past few months, it means the world to me!
Hint #1 – Let’s just say, coffee is brewing…#EEEEEP

6 Tips For Growing Your Blog With Twitter

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I’d say Twitter was the last social network I really got into, and I still don’t use it very often. I kept seeing posts from other bloggers about their success with it though, so a few weeks ago I decided to start investing more time into promoting my content through it. I won’t say I’m entirely in love yet, but that’s mainly because I’m super impatient when it comes to waiting for results. I just want to get a thousand new followers and 50 retweets and have people tagging me and all that jazz, and I think a lot of bloggers can relate to that feeling! I have picked up a few pointers along the way though, and I can definitely tell that they’re making a difference in my Twitter stats.

USE IMAGES

This is something I didn’t pick up on at all until, well, yesterday (see it here). I’m not sure why it took me so long, considering this is something I tell every blogger when it comes to making a great post. It’s been shown that tweets with images receive more interactions (like retweets and favorites), which of course is what we’re going for! The minimum size to have your full image shown is 440 x 220 pixels, but I made my image slightly larger (880 x 440 pixels). Just be sure to keep the main content at the center so it shows up correctly!

ENGAGE

Like any form of social media, engagement plays a huge factor in becoming a well-known user. By engagement, I mean tweeting at other members, tagging them in tweets (#FollowFriday?), retweeting their content, and just interacting with others in general. I love retweeting my blog friends when the tweet about a new post, because it gets their content in front of more eyes and connects them to new people. Engaging also gets your name around to more users, which could lead to more followers for you!

SHARE CONTENT FROM OTHER BLOGGERS

This goes along with engagement, but rather than just retweeting what another blogger already said, try being more organic and tweet about their content yourself! It can make someone’s day if they see a tweet about a positive reaction to their post. If I find a post I absolutely love, I’ll grab the link for it and tweet about what I liked in the content. Don’t forget to tag the author—extra engagement points!

JOIN GROUP CHATS

The first group chat I participated in was with @FireworkPeople. It was so energetic and positive and I met a ton of new people! Group chats are basically scheduled times when the host will tweet about something, or ask questions to their followers, and anyone that’s available at that time can just join in on the conversation! They’re super casual, and oftentimes everyone will follow each other afterwards.

SCHEDULE YOUR TWEETS

I know there are quite a few tweet schedulers out there, but I’ve been using Buffer for a while now and I don’t think I’ll be switching anytime soon! Most schedulers work about the same though. You make tweets beforehand (hours or days) and schedule the exact time for them to be posted. When I make a new post, I schedule 3 or 4 tweets about it for the next day scattered between 7am and 7pm. Then I don’t have to worry about forgetting till after dinner!

TWEET FOR YOURSELF

While scheduling is fantastic for the busy blogger, you should avoid using it for everything you tweet. If your dash is filled with links to your blog posts and that’s it, people will get annoyed and unfollow you. No one likes over advertisement, especially on their Twitter feed! Do include those scattered scheduled tweets, but tweet organically throughout the day as well. Your followers want to get to know you, not just your blog!

Btw, you should definitely follow me on Twitter.

p.s. grab your freebies and check out these fantastic apps

7 Must Have Apps For Bloggers

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For those of you who don’t know, I’m sort of a major tech-lover. My life pretty much revolves around technology in one way or another, whether I’m blogging, using social media, or just doing school work (electrical engineering major over here). One of my favorite little gadgets? Apps.

I use them for everything. I’m pretty sure there’s an app out there for anything you could possibly need, and if there isn’t, you can bet someone will make one within the next year. They simplify my life in so many ways, and they’re just fun to use! After decluttering my phone and narrowing down which apps I actually need (I still have over 50), I realized there are a few apps that I love just a little more than others. With a blogger’s perspective in mind, I came up with a list of apps that I can’t live without, and I think you’ll agree!

 

Sunrise (Free)
A friend told me about this app last week, and I think it’s my new favorite. Sunrise is an all-in-one calendar app, meaning it combines your Google Calendar, iCloud calendar, and Exchange calendar in one beautiful layout. You can also connect it to your Facebook and Reminders app, so even your to-do list shows up. I absolutely love all of the details they added in, like a little weather icon that shows the expected weather at certain times of the day. 
 

Any.DO (Free)
Everything I need to do, from homework to writing blog posts, ends up on this list app. Its super simple design puts the focus on the only thing that matters: your to-do list. I love the swipe-to-complete feature, as well as the ability to make multiple lists on the same display. I even have a list for blog ideas! 
 

VSCO Cam (Free)
Most bloggers know about this app already, but I had to put it on here for the sake of making sure every blogger knows about it. This camera app has every filter a blogger could need for getting that perfect Instagram photo. My favorites? C1, M3, and T1.
 

Pocket (Free)
This is also one of my more recent discoveries, and wow is it perfect. Pocket is kind of like Pinterest, but specifically for reading material like articles and blog posts. Rather than bookmarking a page and having it get lost in a list, Pocket displays your favorite pages in a beautiful feed where you can tag pages, choose your favorites, and save articles for reading offline. Perfect for saving your favorite blog posts!
 

Paper (Free)
If you’re a minimalist at heart, this app is for you. It converts your Facebook into a newspaper-style feed, getting rid all the extra ads and fluff to put the focus on actual post content. It takes a little getting used to, but there are a few features that have me thinking it’s better than the Facebook app itself!
 

Caffeine (Free)
These last two apps are actually for Macs, and they’re more about productivity than anything else. Caffeine is like the coffee for your Mac. It’s a little button that goes in your menu bar, and when turned on, it keeps your screen from dimming or turning off. I wasn’t sure how useful this would be until I started watching The Office for hours on end and constantly had to get up and move my cursor to wake up the screen.
 

Flycut (Free)
This one is especially useful for designers and coders. If you’ve ever had to deal with copying and pasting different chunks of text, like color codes or code pieces, you’ve probably gotten annoyed with the hassle of recopying over and over. Flycut is a little tool that saves a history of text you’ve copied, and with a few keyboard shortcuts, you can select what you want to paste from that history list. It only pops up when you’re using it, so you don’t have to worry about another app cluttering up your screen!
 

Do you have any favorite apps? Share them in the comments!

 
ps: don’t forget to grab one of my hand drawn phone backgrounds to go with those fancy apps!