Are you even a blogger, if...

All the big bloggers and influencers out there, post their cliché photos all the time. One starts in front of the Peggy Porschen Café, all others follow. Or let’s pose in front of a designer store during Christmas time... And then you see their caption: „Are you even a real blogger, when you haven’t taken a picture at this café?!” Of course, it’s more meant in a sarcastic way, but it actually shows the difference between the full-time bloggers and the others.

I always ask myself, why they all pose in front of the same places. It seems trendy, but why not stand out and do something different?! I suppose that’s how Instagram works... Why do people like this?! The bloggers just show the pretty and nice things and it’s just not authentic. We cannot all travel the world and receive things by certain brands.

I mean let’s look at some of these clichés: Yes, we like rose gold, marble, eat avocado on toast... So let’s take pictures including all the food and flowers.

It doesn’t apply to all bloggers, but I feel like a lot of them are not real and authentic and just post what they know will get likes. How about posting things you actually like?!

So, if I don’t post my avo on toast, I’m not a real blogger?! NOT TRUE! We are all bloggers! Everyone has unique content and should be recognized for it. To all bloggers out there: post what you like and not what everyone else does. If you don’t have a marble background at home, it’s ok. You also don’t need to look for a flowery wall anywhere.

BE YOURSELF! STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF!

Things I don’t Understand I: People (Not) Coming to Our Concerts/Performances

Welcome to a new little series on Simona’s Corner of Dreams, there are several things I just don’t understand when it comes to life and people, so let’s talk about them. First up are a few things that are connected to the concerts I sing.

Being part of a choir and a theatre group makes it a given thing that I’m on stage performing or singing quite a lot. The thing that follows after that are friends and family coming to these concerts/performances.

In the theatre group we do musicals and I only do them myself when I like the show and the music. In the choir we mostly do classical thing, mixed with accapella, contemporary or projects like Cinema/Rock & Pop Classics. The classics masses or requiems are not everyone’s taste and I totally understand that. The best example is probably my brother. He only comes tot he concerts when he likes the music. That’s important to him, even though he knows my mum and me and we are both on stage.

I always tell all my friends about the concerts, I usually send them the flyer or give it to them personally. With Chess last year I did a bit more, because the music is just fab (hello the ABBA men wrote it!) and it was huge with projections and more. Of course mum and I did the same with family. Anyway, most people sounded interested and booked immediately. Then there are the others who always tell you that it sounds interesting and that they will book soon. The next time you ask them, they still haven’t booked. Then you tell them that the good seats are gone and they have to hurry up, they don’t though. In the end they don’t show up at all, ask you how it went and said that they just had too much going on. In most cases that’s just not true though. It’s always funny when somebody else comes up and says how great it was, then the ones who didn’t come, come up with excuses.

Then there are the ones who come and afterwards all they can say that it was good. No details, no big words, just “it was good” or “I liked it”. After these comments it’s always great to hear people you barely know say something positive. Sometimes they can’t stop anymore.

I love performing or singing on stage, I love making people happy with it and petting a smile on their faces.

I don’t expect my family and friends to come to every single show or concert, but at least by honest about why you can’t come or about how you liked it. 

Scheduling Tweets

I’ve been blogging for almost three years now and I’ve only started scheduling tweets a few months ago. And I have to be honest with you guys, I don’t do it very often. I thought about writing this post for a while, to explain it to you guys.

I started out as a book blogger only and in our #bookbloggers community the matter never came up, I never heard anything about scheduling tweets and I don’t think my book blogging friends do it (sorry if you do it guys ;)). When I started to add lifestyle posts and also engaged into that community the topic came up. It seems to be very popular with beauty bloggers, fashion bloggers and lifestyle bloggers. Some of the schedule everything: Around four tweets on the blog post for the day, promotion for their Instagram, facebook or youtube and also just random tweets. For me this thought was never appealing. It’s additional work and preparing them for every single day just sounded like too much. If I’m at work, I just tweet whenever I can, I do one before the kids arrived, one around lunch and then two in the evening when I’m back home. Of course that doesn’t work everyday, sometimes I’m too busy at work, I also tend to forget to do it and when days are different than usual, things get messed up anyway. On weekends it’s similar. I schedule my blog posts to go up in the morning, but I only tweet around 11 am for the first time, after I get up. When I got away for a day I tend to schedule tweets about my blog post, if I have one. Then I only prepare them in the morning though and only if I have enough time. Especially when I got to Germany for the day, I can make sure my posts are still promoted. This is something I only started in the last few months though. I I really only do it, when I know I’m away for a whole day.

When I’m away for just a few days, I usually don’t have any blog posts scheduled, unless I’m still in Switzerland and then I just use my data. When I’m away for more than two weeks I didn’t schedule anything either, except for blog tours sometimes and cover reveals and I only promote them with the wifi I find, wherever I am.

I know, that schedule tweets is really good apparently to gain more followers for your blog and get people to read your posts, but for me it’s not worth it, if that makes sense. Of course I’d like to gain more followers and have a lot of people read my blog posts, but I feel scheduling is really an unnatural way to achieve that. I think it’s more important to stay true to yourself, tweet when you have time and be honest with your readers. Scheduling tweets and promoting constantly makes me feel that all people care about is gaining followers and if they are not really there and only promote all the time, it comes across as not authentic and it seems your only after one thing. I don’t want to offend people who schedule tweets all the time, but that is just the way I feel.

When I look at blogs, who are interesting, I look at the person, their personality and their topics. I feel that the true personality only comes across, when you genuinely tweet when you have time and not when you “have to”. It makes a person more real and that makes you relate to them. I also really appreciate when I can talk to bloggers on twitter, I love discussing things with my book blogging girlies and certain guys ;), it’s just so much fun and it doesn’t make you think about competition. Whereas the scheduling tweets is a way to get the attention and get more views than other bloggers. I’m not saying that’s the case for all the bloggers, who do it and most of them are also really active and talking to people, but that’s the way it comes across to me.

I tried scheduling Instagram promotions for a few days in a row and yes, I might have gained some followers, but it just doesn’t seem worth it to me.

For me blogging is also about staying true to yourself, being confident and and not changing who you are. That includes tweeting when I have time to tweet, so no scheduling. I want to show the real “ME” to me followers, so I tweet whenever I can and if I don’t have the time, I don’t have the time, that’s life!

You might ask, why I schedule my posts then?! Well, it’s simple: If I have a post planned for the day, I want it to go up in the morning, so readers, wherever in the world can read them. Scheduling a single post is also way easier and not as time consuming as scheduling tweets.

In the beginning I used to be obsessed with my following numbers, but know I’m just happy people read and enjoy my blog. The number doesn’t matter, that’s why there are also times, when I don’t blog , because I’m busy or on a holiday. Full time bloggers always say they work on a holiday. Well, you make it work, why not just enjoying the time and doing blog related things, while your back, you also deserve the time to relax and forget about daily life.