This past weekend I attended the BlogHer annual conference.  Not only did I have a chance to meet fabulous bloggers and influencers such as Gina of  What About Our Daughters, Britt Bravo of Have Fun Do Good,  and Jenn Pozner of Women in Media and News,  I was also forced to think about my development and goals as a blogger.

I attended one panel on the joys of having a blog with a small audience.  It is really easy as a blogger to get sucked into statistics as the primary way of determining if blogging is worth the effort.  However, the panel really got me thinking about other ways of exploring the progress of blogging beyond visitors and page views.  Afterall, your community may not be big, but it is still a community.  Your voice may not reach thousands of people but it is still your voice.  So how can we tell that our blogging has had some sort of impact on ourselves and others beyond analytics?

1.  Your growth as a writer: One of the things I enjoy doing is looking at earlier posts and seeing how my voice, comfort with writing, and style have changed.  I’m a much more thoughtful and focused writer and can put pieces together much faster than before.  Have you noticed a change in your writing style or your writing process?  Do you write faster?  Are you more focused?

2.  Your comfort with technology: The time you spend tweaking your blog layout and content, making sense of statistics, and using other social media tools to create more conversation result in a better familiarity with those tools and marketable skills.  Can you dance circles around blogspot or wordpres?  Have you noticed different traffic responses to different types of content?  Have you come across better tools for connecting with people and staying on top of trends?

3.  Your awareness of your field: By virtue of writing a blog about nonprofit work Im inclined to pay attention to nonprofit discussions in the blogosphere.  What I learn may not always result in a blog post but it does result in a better understanding of issues in the nonprofit sector that can help me on and offline.  What have your learned about your topic?  Have you come across new resources?  Are you better able to help other people who want to learn more about your topic?

4.  Your exposure to new people and opportunities: This follows with the previous point: increasing awareness leads to me connecting with other people who share my passion and me knowing about amazing opportunities to grow professionally and personally.  What events have you learned about and attended through blogging?  Who are the  fun and fabulous people you’ve gotten to know through your blog?

Also keep the following in mind:

~Fame is relative: For each blogger whom we assume everyone has heard of, there are tons of people who have absolutely no idea who that person is.  Dont get caught up in comparisons.

~Most people dont know your stats: and they dont care.  When people contact me for advice or to work with me they never ask about my stats.  They are interested in my content and how I have presented myself.

~One size does not fit all: Different sized blogs have different responsibilities.  For example, you can experiment more with a small blog without worrying to much about loss of readership.  But if your blog is your bread and butter, such experimentation can be costly.

If you have specific goals in mind when you start blogging (wanting to make money or attract clients for example) some statistics are important to ensure you reach those goals.  But many bloggers, including myself and many of the people I met at BlogHer, started blogging for personal reasons.  For exploration, for practice, for fun, for connection with others.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to build a larger audience.  Yet there is also nothing wrong with enjoying personal and professional development that comes with being a blogger, regardless of audience size.

Other tips in blogging:

Five common challenges in blogging and how to overcome them

Becoming a better blogger

Photo credit