About a month ago, I decided to start my own blog. I kept it to myself for the most part, I didn’t really even tell my friends or family at first. I was playing around on Squarespace for a while before I decided to actually get serious about starting my own blog. This has been something I’ve wanted for a really long time, probably since I got to college. I didn’t start it sooner because I was afraid. Afraid that no one would like it, afraid that no one would care what I had to say or afraid that I wouldn’t have anything to write about.
I started playing around with a couple names; I mean that’s the most important part, right? It took me awhile to think of cup of t. Growing up, close friends and family always called me T (for Taylor, obviously). I was trying to incorporate my name into my blog somehow and I guess this sort of just came to me. Everything else followed. It took me a really long time to design my site but I’m happy with the way it came out. I know I’ll change it eventually but for now, it’s a good start.
Once I got the design down, I started to actually write my blogs. I chose to focus on three segments to start: wellness, college and lifestyle. I figured once I got comfortable, I could add more categories. I made a blog for each segment over the course of a couple weeks just to make sure I had a couple different posts for potential readers. This was hard. I really wanted people to be able to relate with my posts and to care about what I was writing about. I’ve always been the type of person that has been weird about sharing my writing with others, no matter what. I knew my first couple posts had to be good enough to draw people in.
Before I launched my blog, I knew I had to link at least one form of social media. I chose Instagram because I knew it would be easy to promote my blogs with both Instagram posts and stories. Since I already had a solid following on my personal account, I knew I could promote my blog and have existing followers check out my new Instagram, made for cup of t. specifically. After a week, I noticed that people were hearing about my blog mostly through Facebook. With Facebook, I could easily share my blog posts with a direct link which obviously created more traffic to my page. I decided to make my own Facebook page and invited a few of my friends and family to like and share. Using social media has been a huge tool in gaining more awareness and followers.
A big reason why I started my blog now is because I know in a couple months, I won’t have Her Campus anymore. Her Campus was huge in helping me become comfortable with blogging and has given me the confidence I needed to start my blog. I also knew that my friends in Her Campus would be some of my biggest supporters since they know how important it is to express yourself through writing. Starting my blog came at a really good time for me in my life. I’ve been dealing with a lot of personal issues but it feels nice to sit down a couple times a week and focus on something that makes me happy. I’ve loved to write my whole life and I knew that blogging would be in my future somehow. I thought I had to wait until some life-changing thing happened to me; something that would make me stand out from all the other twenty-something bloggers. I decided to just put myself out there. What’s the worst that could happen? If people didn’t like my blog, then they didn’t like my blog. It doesn’t really matter. This is something that makes me happy and I’m excited to see where this takes me.