April 30 of HiveBloPoMo and the prompt is - Share your HiveBloPoMo experience
I'll be happy to do that in this post. And I want to start by thanking @traciyork for organizing HiveBloPoMo here on the Hive blockchain and for putting together 30 blog prompts for each day of the month. Sure, I didn't follow the prompts all the time, but they did save me quite a few times. It was also interesting to see how many national/international special days there are 😆. Who knew? Not me!
As the cover for this post, I chose to make a collage of all the individual cover images I used. Should you count them (which I hope you won't) you will see that there are only 26 and that I cheated a little to make the collage fit. So, I missed the first couple of days because I forgot - boooh me! = 28 and then there were two photos that weren't mine (Splinterlands and a stock photo) = 26, I can't, well, didn't add today's cover = 25, so I added another image from my last March post into this collage. Fits all nicely, right?!
Now to my experience... I am sorry, Traci, but never again! Okay, never say never but never again in the foreseeable future. Why? Several reasons but these two are the deal breakers:
Too much pressure creates stress
I do not need any more stress in my life. If you have read any of my - previous - blog posts you know that I have a pretty demanding job. I happen to like that job most of the time so I am putting a lot of effort and time into it. And time is the keyword here. My job takes up most of my days and being in management I sometimes have a hard time switching off when I shut down my work computer.
Then there's working out, making dinner, having dinner, and hopefully, having a little free and fun time in between and after. Usually, that means blogging or commenting or playing a little Splinterlands and watching a film or series with the hubby.
With my commitment to HiveBloPoMo I found myself under pressure in my free time to fit it all most of it in. That was really stressful, and I'm not doing that to myself again.
Content quality
I felt that over the course of the month the quality of my content gradually declined. There were some posts here and there that I am happy with but especially over the last week I barely made a few days. If you look at my blog you will know exactly which ones I'm talking about.
That is not okay. I want to be able to like all of my posts. And by liking I don't mean getting lots of upvotes and payouts but me liking them for the quality of words I wrote, photos I took, or pictures I painted. It is my own personal standard that I am committed to and I failed to meet it in order to just post each and every day. That is no bueno, and I am not going to do that to myself again.
Now, having said all that, there is definitely a lot of positive about HiveBloPoMo.
If you do something daily for a longer period of time you are getting into a routine and will form a habit. That is not a bad thing especially if there are other positives. Let's start with the one that most seem to be focused on
Rewards
Over the past month I have grown my HP from 870 to now 970 but within the next seven days and their payout from April + a little HivePUD tomorrow I'll cross that magical line of 1000 HP and will also - probably - reach a reputation of 65. That means that my really small vote on other Hivians' posts will be a tiny little bit bigger - that makes me happy 🙂.
Building relationships
There are three Hivians that I know of that were on the same HiveBloPoMo journey and we have upvoted, commented, and replied to each other's posts over the course of the whole month.
Big thanks to @the-bitcoin-dood and @epodcaster and @greensandpinks for following along. I know we'll continue our journey further together.
On these two graphics, I highlighted my three new HiveBloPoMo friends in pink while the yellow crosses are members of my Splinterlands guild whose posts are upvoted by me and vice versa.
Engagement on your posts
These four pictures are my comment and replies stats for my posts of the last month. Some days weren't great, they were probably the ones where I just didn't have the energy or time to do the post PLUS comment as well. It shows - I didn't comment/reply hence there was less engagement. The effort, time, and energy you put into Hive anything will determine what you'll get out of it.
You might wonder if comments and commenting equal rewards? Yes and no. You will get a little monetary crypto reward for every comment. However, the real reward IMO is the engagement and relationships you are building. Most of my posts will get very few comments, maybe 2 or 3 or 4 and that's o.k. And then there are those that rack up 15 or 20 or a whopping 42! Okay, half of those comments are my own replies to other Hivians' comments. Since Hive is a social platform so I recommend that you do take the time to read and reply to comments on your posts.
In conclusion, I am very happy that I pushed through, it really wasn't easy - just ask my hubby who had to wait for dinner more than once 😂 - but it was worth the experience, the HP, and the relationships. Will I do it again? Not in the near future. Will I post more and more regularly? Absolutely, that is my goal.
Also, the above screenshots were all taken from my Peakd dashboard. If you haven't looked at yours yet I urge you to change that. Have a good look at it, it is able to tell you tons about your Hive experience here.
These here for example are my 5 most viewed posts of last, well, this month incl. time spent on the post i.e. you get a pretty good idea if people are actually reading your post or just skimming over it.
It makes me happy to see that these five posts include a lot of what identifies me and hence my blog: Photography, painting, writing, our pets, and stars.
And with that - this was my final post for HiveBloPoMo April 2022 - have a great weekend!
Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee
However, both blog dividers you see all over this post are up for grabs!
If you like you may use them in your own posts, no need to credit or tag me. Enjoy!