An unconventional fashion blogger trying to find her place on the internet

I started to write this post in July of this year after publishing my blogging goals post (check it out here) as I wanted to add to it throughout the year when I reached some blogging milestones that meant a lot to me as a small blogger.
To say I have loved every minute would be an understatement – improving my content through writing, photography, editing, social media, I’ve been able to grow this space to a standard I’m so proud of!
It’s been a crazy old year for the Fashion Faux Pas of Gabrielle and here’s a round up of my blogging/social highlights and achievements of 2017!

Twitter
This is a social media platform I found really hard to grow at first – I’d not really used it too much before May/June time, but once I got the hang of it, I started to love it! The following screen grabs are times I was crazy excited to reach a certain milestones;

By the end of 2017 I’d grown my following to 1,471 followers and was incredibly proud of this, what was once my smallest platform is now my biggest – I also blew my goal from the summer out of the window which felt amazing! I’ve also made some amazing friends on there recently which I’m really grateful to have (shout out to Sophia, Alice Tulip, Jazzie, Lily, Meg, Ashton and Alice from According to Alice – I’ve linked all of their blogs to their names so please make sure to check them out, they’re a great group of girls and have some amazing content!)
I’d love to reach 3000 followers by the end of 2018 and based on the growth I’ve seen this year, I don’t think it’s completely un-achievable!
Instagram
With the new algorithm, Instagram is hard to build up a following on (make sure to check out my post on why we all hate Instagram here).
I started to take it a lot more seriously this year- upping my hashtagging game, tagging brands of products I featured in my posts for exposure and networking with other grammers/bloggers out there! This helped me massively and I’m very proud of how I’ve grown this platform throughout this year. Here are some of my highlights!
Being featured on the Miss Bella & Gamiss Instagram pages!
But the biggest achievement of 2017 on Instagram was hitting the big 1K!

At the end of 2017 when this post was written (a couple of days before the end of the year) I’d reached 1,050 followers which is INSANE!
I’d love to reach 2000 by the end of 2018 so fingers crossed that’s something I can make happen!
Blog
I think WordPress followers were the most important ones for me as this meant people had subscribed to receive emails each time I uploaded and had been taking the time to read my little old blog! I’ve made some great friends through WordPress and found some amazing blogs this year- shout out to Damn Girl Get Your Shit Together and thanks for making me laugh every Thursday!

And on the 3rd of November I managed to hit 200 WordPress followers! I was unbelievably proud of this milestone as I was aiming for 100 when making targets for myself at the beginning of the year and once I hit 200, they kept on creeping up slowly but surely. To think I started out with twenty-something at the beginning of 2018 and have ended with 263 followers is incredibly flattering!
I’d love to continue this growth and hope to have 500 subscribers by the end of next year.

YouTube
I joined the world of YouTube again in May after umming and ahhing for a good few months. I had a channel a few years ago and I learnt a lot about how not to do YouTube (editing videos is essential) so I decided to invest in a camera, new laptop and get recording! Looking back, I wish this was something I’d stuck with – it’s hard not to think ‘what if’ when you started out doing what the most successful YouTubers are doing at around the same time and seeing how they’ve made it their lives. But that’s the thing about hindsight!
This has been a difficult one to grow and it’s hard to get people to click on your links to watch you waffle (which I admit I do … a lot). I managed to exceed the follower count on my old account (go Gaby!), but I’ll be honest – I haven’t had the same love for it as I do for this blog and haven’t uploaded for a couple of months.
That’s not to say I won’t give it a go again in 2018, but I do think it’s challenging for newbies to come into the game when you’ve got a lot of Youtubers which have been at it for a good few years, establishing their audience and creating amazing content. I guess continuing could only help, so who knows?!

I’d love to reach at least 200 subscribers by the end of 2018 – but have no idea how that’s going to pan out so watch this space!

I wanted to write this post as it was important for me to see how far this little space has come and hopefully could inspire someone else who has been thinking about delving into the world of blogging to go for it! Yes, there is enough room on the internet for another blogger – you just need to shout loud enough through the noise to be heard 😉

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