Here in the Philippines, most of us are getting ready for the summer break! I myself is pumped and can't wait to put on my rush guard and ride my favorite banana boat. But before this season kicks off, I wanted to take a quick look back for the month of February.

Hello Steemit Community and to all Steemians, noobs and regulars, it's me C'est La G once again.

For today's blog, I will be doing a personal assessment of my first month here on Steemit.

You may probably ask, if am I going nuts?

Of course not!

Why am I doing this? The answer is as simple and complicated as it can be, "IMPROVEMENT".

According to Heidi Cohen, "The beginning of the year is a good time to go through your blog and change things up."

Beginning of the year? I couldn't get any weirder am I? Hahaha.

Well, well, well here's a quick fun fact about me. Did you know that I don't celebrate New Year every January 1st?

On my previous blog I talked about my journey to my newly found faith. Part of our doctrine is to follow the calendar observed by the Lord Jesus Christ, commanded by God in Exodos 12:2 that says,

"This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you."

Hence, this coming March 16, 2018 sun down which is the 1st of Nisan, 5778 we will be celebrating the Christian New Year.

SO LET'S GET STARTED.

Here are my top picks from Heidi Cohen's checklist to do my very first assesment.

#1 BLOG METRICS

Peter Ducker, a management thinker, once said, "You can't manage what you can't measure". This quote is logical and certainly applicable if you wish to be better at something. Aside from constant practice, setting a measure will let you know where you are at.

In fact the wisdom of counting is written in the Holy Scriptures in Psalms 90:12 (KJV) it says,

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

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Here are some of the metrics that measures my previous months performance:

1. Which posts yielded the highest reads last month?

Last month my 4th blog called Blog # 4 : Cloud of Smoke of a Bad Decision garnered 103 reads.

2. Which posts received the most comments?

My introduce yourself entry with the title, "I decided to leave BPO industry: Self Introduction of a new Steemian!", reached 25 comments.

3. Which posts received the most number of upvotes?

The same post got the highest number with a total of 25 up votes.

4. Do headlines make a difference in blog post?

Indeed headlines makes a huge difference. People clicked to the most intriguing title which in my case Blog # 4 : Cloud of Smoke of a Bad Decision.

5. How much time did you spend to create your blogs?

Four out of five blogs I have posted, each took me 4-6 hours to complete. Yes! I gave my all before hitting that publish button.

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#2 EXAMINE BLOG COMPETITION

This is something I haven't done to be honest. I lack the time to read some of the hottest steems/posts for the month of February. It's now on my to do list for this month.

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#3. BLOG POST CONTENT

Majority of the content I made was about my life. This is the path or direction that I intend to focus on my contents. I made sure that the quality is something that people would appreciate. I made sure that I sounded like a real person.

However, I didn't get much comments from Steemian's who isn't aware or familiar of the main topic I chose. If you haven't read them (my blogs) yet, please see for yourself.

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#4. BLOG LOOK AND FEEL
Blogging is indeed a challenge. As much as I could, I tried to learn to be stylish and create that feeling that they are present while they read my story. I never imagined that on my first month, I made that mile stone when @eastmael commented on one of my blogs. He wrote, " It felt like I was with you while reading your story."

When I saw his comment, I felt so blessed. I was even more inspired to write better.

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#5. PUBLIC CONSUMPTION READY BLOG
This is where I wanted to be very careful of. Unlike other social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on, Steemit requires minnows to give quality posts.

Hence, I can't just post a random picture without proper credit and flood people with my selfies unless I look like Pia Wurtzbach. People would not mind, hahaha.

Kidding aside, I just wanted to focus on how my posts speaks for me. I aim to have a voice that would mainly benefit my readers in all ways possible. Inspire them, inform them, and enlighten them. This is why I take my sweet time to publish my blogs. I am still learning the technicalities to ensure readability.

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#6. BLOG ENGANGEMENT

I admit, I'm not pretty satisfied with the number of comments I received for my first month. Yet, I do understand that it will take time. I believe that success doesn’t come overnight.

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#7. OPPORTUNITTIES & ACTIONS TO TAKE
When talking about opportunities, it will be a long list to write. Hence, I will choose 3 most important things that I felt require my attention:

First, I take too much time thinking on what to write.

It's hard to pick a topic, often times this slows me down in producing contents. I plan to make a list of topics that I wish to discuss, or stories I wanted to tell. This way I don't need to waste my time thinking. This would also let me write and edit faster.

Second, posting frequency is lacking.

The answer would be a time table. It will be very challenging yes, since I am not used to setting schedules. I would have to make lots of research to do this effectively. If you have a suggestion, I would love to have them.

Lastly, engagement and public reach.

I have to work on optimizing my reach to other contributors and encourage more followers without spamming them. I wanted to engage to them by reading and understanding their work, let them feel my presence through consistent and high quality comments.

OUTRO

To my fellow "Noobs", whether you are a wannabe photographer or a frustrated blogger like me, or a struggling artist making his way to the main stream, or a new entrepreneur trying to learn the ropes of business, or a new parent raising your child, and so on. We all know that we will all experience different kinds of bumps along the way on our Steemit journey.

Just don't give up, keep going! Time will come we will all have our own reach.

I'm hoping that this personal assessment I did would also help you in some way. You can do your own assessment too! Feel free to use the same checklist I used.

You see we don't have to be perfect, we just have to be better than we are yesterday!

To the rest of my fellow minnows, how do you find this blog? My fellow newbies and I, wishes to learn your best practices and would like to try them ourselves.

What kind of assessment do you practice on a regular basis?

I would also love to hear your point of view and constructive criticisms for the following blogs I have already posted last month:

I decided to leave BPO industry: Self Introduction of a new Steemian!
Blog #2 : Humble Beginnings Of My Photography Journey (iPhone 4s)
Blog #3 : I Accepted The Color Challenge | Friday Skyblue
Blog # 4 : Cloud of Smoke of a Bad Decision
Blog #5: Fear not! You never know when the lightning strikes.

Don't hesitate to express your thoughts about it. I would be very happy to get a piece of advice from you.

Also, have you voted your witness already?

Consider casting your witness votes for @curie, @surpassinggoogle, @steemgigs, @precise, @cloh76.witness, @ausbitbank, @teamsteem, @gmuxx, @hiroyamagishi, @elizahfhaye, @bayanihan, @papa-pepper, @steemph, @daveks, @jerrybanfield, @boomerang, @teardrops, @donkeypong, @davidpakman, @minnowsupport, @themarkymark, @blocktrades and @sndbox who have been adding invaluable contribution to the community.

To cast your votes, just go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses

I can't wait to read all of your comments.

Keep on Steeming! See you on my next blog, God willing.

Thanks be to God!

TO GOD BE THE GLORY.

C'est La G <3