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Today - spurred on by a post I read by Natalie over on在40岁上衣- I felt like it was time to share my existential crisis (and it's my blog birthday this month). Let's dive in...

我在2014年开始这篇博客（差不多7年前到了当天）：我被美容虫咬了，作为一个有抱负的作家，它似乎是一个毫无意义的练习。我不知道万博manbext网页版我在做什么，我没有意识到接受Pr是一件事，我了解到我从#bbloggers和#fblchat几小时内了解的一切。在许多方面，这是一个非常纯洁的，有力的时间！一旦我开始获得一些牵引力，人们会一直在问我是否想全职服用它，它觉得有点奇怪的压力。就像，不是每一艺人或让自己的衣服想要的人想要卖掉他们的工作并将它变成一个企业，因为这是一个整体浩 ST的其他stuff。别误会我:发生了什么/ the past year, I've honestly felt so grateful to have something to fall back on that could still cover my expenses if I lost my job or would top me up if I'd had to have take a pay cut, because under those circumstances I absolutely would make a go of it.

我最终思考，我意识到，我越做的是别人想要的，而不是做出我的方式，我摆脱这种经历的快乐越少。最近的“商业”方面诚实地让我失望了，我觉得有些东西不得不改变。我需要记住我为什么要这样做......

I'll start by talking about Instagram, which is a rollercoaster ride. I've always been on the platform as beauty creator but I must admit that my dedication to creating quality content specifically for that platform probably only came into being over the past 2-3 of years. I think the thing is: when you post regularly, you feel like you can't stop without really damaging what you've built. At the same time, my engagement goes through periods of big ups and downs with no obvious cause. Currently I'm in a slump. I did have a look through my stats and realised that my issue is: a few months back 65%+ of accounts reached by my posts weren't following my account and I was getting 1000s of views from the Explore page vs. now when <20% of my reach is to new accounts and I'm getting only 100s of views from Explore. The double-whammy is that (in my experience) I find that if most people are finding your content from their Home page, it doesn't have the same longevity and engagement drops off quickly after posting. I don't know how I get back in the good graces of Explore but it gives me an understanding of what's happening.

It doesn't, however, change the fact that I'll spend an hour setting up the perfect shot, upload it and it will get fewer likes than an off-the-cuff quickie I took on my phone from back in late December. I still feel the shots are good and I'm proud of them, but I began to feel there was a limit to how much time I could spend on a platform that doesn't give me much back. Even when it was good and I was doing well, I wonder if it's been a bit of a distraction. Instagram gives you instant gratification in the form of likes, and (despite the fact my blog viewership figures are as good as they've ever been) it's the primary place where people interact with my content. I probably get more discussion in the Instagram comments under my promotion of a blog post than on the post itself because the way in which we consume this content has definitely changed. I don't want to lose that entirely but it's so easy to obsess over the numbers and feel rubbish that everyone else is doing better than you, instead of just enjoying content as a member of the audience.

The other part of this is enquiries. I don't accept them via Instagram DM because it's overwhelming and impossible to keep track of, instead I direct everything via an email inbox and try to limit the amount of time I spend in there by having an auto-responder and a PR policy. I state clearly that I'll only reply if I'm interested, so if I've not come back after a week, please assume it's not for me. That does help a lot and being upfront with my PR policy, how I work and linking to that in my auto-reply does cuts down on me receiving requests for things I don't do. However, I do still feel like there's a huge administrative burden and it honestly bores me out of my mind. In my day job, I get a great deal of admin support from another team, and that's something I really appreciate! At the same time, when it comes to opportunities, I like having total control over my platform so I'd never want to outsource managing them. I think cutting down on the PR I accept is helping me (I live in a tiny flat so have nowhere to put piles of morestuffanyway) so I'm only getting things that I'm really excited about. Skincare takes such a long time to review too, so it makes no sense to say 'yes' to everything I'm mildly interested in.

我也发现，即使我超级兴奋了关于产品和品牌，也同意所有产品索赔/突出显示的功能（我不接受），繁琐的赞助都不适合我并吸吮所有在我正在做的事情中快乐。他们创造了一个压力的气氛，在那里我担心击中谈话点并获得舌头，因为我不自然地说话。对我来说，赞助是一个“很高兴”，帮助我投资像我的新相机这样的东西并提升我的储蓄，他们对生存不是必不可少的，我能负担得起非常挑剔。我现在的方法真的不会超过两个月的合作，所以我可以真正地平衡事情和：如果他们喜欢我所做的事情，他们看了看我的博客/ Instagram帐户，他们想要类似的东西，然后我们可以做一点事。但是，我有一个不同类型的镜头或颜色的代理商mustinclude and reems of information thathas在那里;这是不me.

我也意识到我不是，为什么每个人都有他们在这个社区的地方。如果您有一个大型活动，您想要一个有趣的短窗体视频，这将在短时间内收集一个兴趣的流量：那不是我。如果您想有帮助，详细的产品评论将继续在出版后一年内甚至在谷歌上获取数千次点击：我可以做到这一点。我不是一个“互联网个性”，我在一个巨大的厨房里，我看起来不毫不费力地凉爽，我不希望从互联网上的“茉莉是个人”的重点放在互联网上：我只是想查看产品并提供有用的信息，那没关系！我不是品牌的诽谤，我并不害怕发布负面评论：我只是想分享我想知道我是否正在购买。有时候我继续Instagram只是看看漂亮的东西，如果在标题上有关于所描绘的产品中的信息并没有任何信息，它并没有真正打扰我;它会得到我的样子，因为我发现它美观愉悦，我只是做了不同的事情，这很好，因为每个人都有空间。如果有一个详细的评论与人格驱动的内容，绘制美容大师的比较：我绝对看到自己的方式走向汀汀省一边，远离Jeffree Starr结束。万博manbext网页版

Ultimately, I'm a writer who sometimes shares photos, despite not being a natural at photography. I'm endlessly grateful to brands who send me their products to review which helps me create so much content here, but the admin and 'business' side of this is not something I enjoy, so I really want to manage this without burning bridges like sending out a few emails along the lines of 'thank you so much for including me within your PR list, I still absolutely love [insert brand] but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment so would it be possible to drop me a line to see if I'd like to receive new launches before they're sent out?' I think because I've just been knocking around a long time I've ended up on a lot of lists! And it's best for everyone all-round if I just have things I want to review coming in. This isn't my job, I shouldn't be worrying about the numbers or feeling anxious at how many unread emails are sat in my inbox and I should be focusing on what's rewarding to me.

I sometimes wonder if people think 'why is she still doing this? It's been 7 years and she's not progressed at all...' but the truth is that, whilst it's true a few people from my blogging cohort (2014) have gonestratospheric和广泛的n't into the beauty side of things any more(the Sunday Chapter, now @angelagiakas, Coco Chic, now @itsstephtoms, @ellenextdoor and Em Ford @mypaleskin) the vast majority of people I used to look at as always doing thatbitbetter than me don't blog or Instagram any more. In all honesty I could count the number of people still creating content on the fingers of one hand because so many come and go, despite being very outwardly successful. So, if nothing else, I've achieved longevity! And, in itself, that's something I think has value. I can only be me and I just want to get back to focusing on this as a fun hobby and a bit of a side-hustle, it needs to be an endeavour I enjoy and I need to not worry about which brands have validated me or what anyone else is doing.

I actually wrote out the whole of this post then randomly came across an interview with Abigail Thorne (Philosophy Tubeon YouTube) where she was talking about the criteria for success and the importance of having your own standards for what you create that are independent to how others receive your work, and it really struck me. She effectively said that if she concerned herself with views, the feedback she gets or anything like that there'd be a constant pressure and worry about 'oh, this video got 50k fewer views than that one - what went wrong?' or she'd obsess over that one negative comment in a sea of praise, and this really made me think about how I can keep myself on course. What do I want to do? Well, my criteria is to: 1. talk about things that interest and excite me, 2. have fun making the content and never create anything that feels like a chore, 3. be helpful and educational, providing the information that allows people to make good decisions. That's it.

I'm not sure what the point of this ramble was, perhaps it was just catharsis but whenever I feel I'm getting bogged down in numbers or feel stressed about the 'business' aspect of being a creator: I'm going to revisit this post and remind myself that this is meant to befun！假设您在这里所有内容创作者，您如何处理创造者不安全感？