It’s My 6 Month Blogiversary And There’s So Much To Celebrate!
6 months ago today, on Earth Day (April 22, 2018), I launched this blog, Eco Friendly Mama. That means that today is my 6 month blogiversary! So I decided to take a look back at the past half year and record all the progress that’s been made, both by myself with this blog and by the world in becoming more eco-friendly.
Overall Stats
In 6 months time, I’ve published 32 posts to Eco Friendly Mama and have an additional 38 drafts in various states of editing! This is in addition to the 2+ posts per month that I write for Orange County Moms Blog, and the many more that I review for OCMB as Managing Editor, and being a stay-at-home-mom for two young kiddos, and a preschool board member, and being my own IT staff for the website, etc. etc. etc. So all in all, I’m pretty proud of the work I’ve been able accomplish while juggling all these responsibilities!
The Eco Friendly Mama website has had thousands of page views since it launched (4,485 to be precise). It’s is pretty wild to think of all these people reading what I’ve written and hopefully learning how to be kinder to the planet as a result.
Some bloggers track their success by how much money their site has earned. Of course it’d be nice to earn a ton of money doing what I love, which is writing and making the world a better place. But I’m not just here to make money. If I were, you’d see ads all over the page, in the side bar, within the text, and as annoying pop ups. My mission statement for Eco Friendly Mama is to help bring environmental awareness to others and to encourage people to live more eco-friendly lives by sharing information and advice here. So if you do see me recommend a product or include an affiliate link, it’s because it’s an eco-friendly item I truly believe others would enjoy and benefit from.
Top Posts
I’ve had a lot of fun writing all different kinds of posts for Eco Friendly Mama, from travel logs, to product reviews, to eco-friendly tips, and more. Here are the top 5 posts from the past 6 months, based on cumulative page views!
This Is Why I Stopped Collecting Mini Hotel Toiletries
Whole Foods Market 365 Long Beach – Media Preview Day
Is Amsterdam Airport Schiphol The Most Eco-Friendly Airport In The World?
All The Details On Target’s Car Seat Trade-In Deal
2 Days In Beautiful Bergen, Norway With Kids
Eco-Friendly Advancements
Despite some disappointing setbacks in environmental news, there’s also been a lot of encouraging news in just the past 6 months as well. I wrote this post about plastic straws and the companies that are moving away from them. Disney recently announced they will no longer be using single-use plastic straws and stirrers in all their resorts and theme parks worldwide as of 2019. Other giant corporations such as McDonalds, KFC, and Starbucks have also joined the plastic straw ban-dwagon.
Speaking of fast food companies, according to the Wall Street Journal, McDonalds announced that it’s removing artificial preservatives, flavors, and coloring from some of its items. It’s already eliminated antibiotics from their chicken, as has Wendy’s, at least in the US. Chick-fil-A says it will too.
On the plastic bag front, grocery giant Kroger, which currently distributes 6 billion per year, plans to eliminate them from all their stores by 2025.
As I mentioned in my post about hotel mini toiletries, both the InterContinental and Marriott Hotel companies have announced that they are phasing these out of all their hotel rooms across the globe.
And this is just a small portion of the small steps we’ve been taking towards becoming more eco-friendly!
Partnerships
Somehow, through a lot of elbow grease, hard work, and never giving up, I have been able to forge relationships with some really fantastic eco-conscious brands in just 6 months of blogging. I have big hopes and dreams for Eco Friendly Mama, and if this early success is any indication, I look forward to partnering with even more companies to spread the word about their eco-friendly products and services! Click on the links below to read the posts I’ve written as as result of these partnerships:
Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa in Hawaii
Posting tomorrow…Great Wolf Lodge!
Also coming soon: Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and Scandic Anglais Hotel in Stockholm!
Media Events
I’ve also received invites to many eco-friendly media events over the past 6 months. I wish I could attend them all to be honest, because they’re a fantastic chance to learn about eco-friendly activities and businesses in my area. But my job as Mama comes first, so I’ve had to be extremely selective about which events I attend. And I have to say, I’ve enjoyed all the ones I’ve attended! Here are the posts I’ve written about these media events:
Whole Foods Market 365 Long Beach – Media Preview Day
Groundwork Coffee (Long Beach)
Yellow Fever (Long Beach): Restaurant Review
Celebrating Kids Ocean Day With Big Waves And A Day At The Beach
4 Free Kids Activities At The Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks
I also attended the Grand Opening of the first Orange County location for Salt & Straw, a wildly popular sustainability-focused small batch ice cream chain out of Portland. I’m currently working on a post that includes an interview with co-founder and mompreneur Kim Malek, and will link that here once it’s live. In the meantime, here’s the Instagram pic I posted from that day!
Growth
It’s pretty amazing to see how fast the audience for Eco Friendly Mama has grown in just 6 months. It’s been a ton of hard work, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been blown away by how much that hard work has translated into increasing numbers beyond my original expectations. Here’s a brief accounting:
This page started with zero, and now has 200+ followers! If you’d like to follow me on facebook, and I’d really love it if you would, please click on the header title above.
Though this account started from my rarely-used personal one with somewhere around 100 followers, it’s had the greatest growth by far. I refuse to play the follow/unfollow game (where unscrupulous people follow folks they think will follow them back, and then quietly unfollow them a day or so later). This is done to make it appear as if they’re really popular by having a much bigger number of followers than they are following. I find this on par with a snake oil salesman to be honest. If someone has to trick people into following them, and deceive potential brand partners into thinking they have a bigger fan base than they actually do, how can they ever be considered a trustworthy source of information for others?
Anyway, I’ve chosen to grow my social media accounts the honest way – by seeking out like-minded people and genuinely engaging with their feeds. It’s relatively slow-going. Still, my original Instagram goal was set for 500 followers by my 1 year mark. When I hit 500 over the summer, I revised my 1 year goal to 1000. And then revised it again to 1000 by my 6 month blogiversary. At press time, I am just 20 followers shy of this goal for 1000! That, to me, is still a huge win.
This account also started with zero. It currently has 3k monthly viewers, which is actually down from its peak at 4.5k because I’ve been ignoring it a bit the past couple months. I’ve got 168 followers here, and am going to try to put more time into Pinterest going forward because when I do add pins, they always seem to do quite well.
This account started from one I used only for entering contests and liking random stuff. So it’s been an evolution since the blog launch, but now has 630 followers!
YouTube
This channel only has 3 videos on it so far, but includes an Unboxing Video for the Disney x TOMS Shoes Cinderella Collection that is still to this day the NUMBER #1 result on Google for “Disney TOMS unboxing” out of 84,000 results! Right now this channel has 11 subscribers, but hopefully as I add more videos it’ll continue to grow!
Email Newsletter
This has a small audience, and in fact it’s so small I won’t even bother to count it. I don’t push my newsletter at all with pop ups or other annoying things that some websites have. And you just get one email every week with links to whichever posts that have gone live recently on the blog. It’s basically a weekly RSS feed to your inbox. Ideal for someone who isn’t big on social media, but just wants to know what’s new on Eco Friendly Mama. If this sounds like just your speed, you can use the Newsletter Sign Up widget in the sidebar of any page on the website!
Approx. Total Social Media Followers – 2,000!
Goals For The Next 6 Months
Obviously, my number one goal for the second half of this year is to keep writing. Write, write, write. Just keep spreading information and advice and positive energy about living a more eco-friendly life.
I’d also love to see my website traffic and social media followings increase. If you haven’t done so yet, please please sign up for my newsletter and any/all social media platforms that you are on. I never spam or over post. If anything I probably don’t post enough. And your support truly means the world to me!
I’ve got a couple new brand partnerships percolating already, but am going to continue to work hard to develop new relationships with entities that are doing good work that everyone should know about. I’ve discovered that it’s a huge thrill when a reader lets me know that they tried something I recommended and loved it! Just knowing that I’m playing a small part in improving our collective environmental footprint is a huge motivator.
So, by the way, please leave me comments on my website or social media if I’ve had this kind of impact on your daily life! Please also let me know if there’s anything you’d like advice or recommendations about. I’ve got a ton of post ideas, so it’s possible I’m already working on it. But if you let me know what you want to learn about, I will do my best to fast track it and post asap!
And finally…
THANK YOU! Yeah, you! For reading this post, for visiting my blog, for being a social media friend, for maybe thinking twice next time you reach for a plastic straw. I am doing this for YOU, and for our planet’s future, but I couldn’t do this without your support. So sincerely, truly, thank you.
Here’s to another 6 months of Eco Friendly Mama!
Sylvan G
Great job. Love, daddy