For me, the Montana Bear Paw blog has been a passion project since I started it way back in 2017. It began as a college assignment and became a mountain I wanted to master. Over time it has become the place where I express my ever-evolving interests and adventures. Moving from WordPress to WiX was a big step in that evolution. It has meant going from almost 200 followers to 6 followers. In my mind, it has also increased the value of my content and the goals I've made for where I go from here.
Here is the first month on the new platform, May, in review:
For the month of May I wanted to begin consistently posting Monday-Friday at 8 am MST. I wanted my social media promotion to be just as consistent. With life circumstances being life circumstances that didn't always work out but the work I poured into what I could post paid off.
In May I had 56 visits to the new website, 32 of them were unique visitors. Which means many of you kept coming back for more content over time. This was up about 50% from last month. The bounce rate was 68% which is 5% worse than last month. That makes sense to me, though, because many of you are showing up for the blog post of the day and I haven't quite mastered the art of conversion that would give you the desire to binge my content.
Most of my visitors are coming through Facebook, so let's check out how I did on that platform this month next.
My main focus this month was to increase reach and engagement with my Facebook page. I did this by going live on Fridays at 5 pm MST. The exciting thing is that is worked! My reach is up by 39% and my engagement is up by 3%, now I need to get that to transfer into Page Likes and actions. We're ending this month with 71 Facebook followers.
For some reason, I'm really struggling on Instagram. We'll round out the month with 86 Instagram followers but that hasn't changed since April. I'm also not seeing the engagement that I would really like to see there. According to WiX data I've received no traffic from Instagram in the last month.
The biggest change in May has been my new commitment to serious video content creation. It has taken so much trial and error to get going on the YouTube path that any growth in my audience for that platform has been a complete shock to me! In May I added 5 subscribers giving me a grand total of 30 YouTube subscribers. I've had 1,082 impressions which believe it or not is down by 35%. Unsurprisingly my watch time went up significantly, because of all the added new content. Now if only my technical difficulties will allow me to be more consistent!
I know this post is probably not the most interesting, however, I want it to really say two things: I couldn't do this without you and keep me accountable. I will be posting my June Goals on Friday, I need your encouragement and support to continue to grow as a creator!
You can engage with the blog most directly by becoming a member. I value your opinion and your input on my content. Being a member means you will receive extra benefits like being the first notified when a new post drops, behind the scenes stories in my monthly newsletter, and more as the blog continues to grow.
How would you like me to improve? Are there any specific topics you would like to see me cover? Are there any places you would like me to visit or review?
Thank you, fellow adventurers! You can follow The Montana Bear Paw page on Facebook and Instagram @littlemissbearpaw, and on Twitter @lilmissbearpaw for sneak peeks into upcoming posts and my adventures. This will also be a great place to share your own adventures!