What Worked & Didn't Work in 2022 (Plus My Action Plan for Q1 2023)

In today's episode, Jenna reflects on 2022 and plans ahead for 2023!
You'll get insight into her yearly wrap up plus an overview of business goals for the new year.

Craving community? Join the Content Creators Collective for weekly accountability, monthly challenges, co-working calls, and more!

Ready to monetize? The Ultimate Guide to Pitching Brands teaches you how to pitch paid brand deals.

Resources

• Show Notes
• How to Start a Blog
• Blogger’s Guide to Google Web Stories
• Everything You Need to Know About PinTV
• Microsoft Start (Apply with "Jenna Urben" as your referral)

Transcript

Welcome to the BloggerBytes podcast. I'm your host, Jenna Urben. This is a podcast for bloggers, influencers, and content creators. Here I'll share transparent advice plus emerging tools and platforms to empower you to establish your brand. Serve your audience and monetize your influence. I'm so happy you're here.

Happy, Happy New Year, my friends. I know we're halfway through January at this point, but. I am still reflecting on 2022 and planning out what I want this year of 2023 to look like. In this episode, we'll be looking back on what worked and what didn't work in 2022, and what I'm most excited for in terms of business in 2020.

I'll be sharing my top takeaways from the previous year and diving into my hopes and goals for this year ahead. I always love to hear about what others are up to, so hopefully this is a fun listen and possibly gives you some things to consider. As a quick reminder, if you've been enjoying these episodes, I'd love to ask you to please leave me a review.

It really does make a difference and truly means a ton to me personally. Addition. Always feel free to message me about the podcast, something that resonates with you. If there's ever any questions or if you have a topic request, I'd love to hear from you. All right. Let's dive in. Before we get started on what worked in 2022, I wanted to share my words of the year last year.

My word of the year was foundation. This year it's expand both in 2022 and 2021. and really all of the previous years I've been blogging, I've been laying the groundwork or the foundation for my blogging business. I wanted to be especially aware of my foundation last year, hence the word of that year.

this year I chose expand as I hope to continue to expand my knowledge, reach new people, and explore new corners of blogging and content creation. I named my primary blog The Urban Life as I wanted to document pieces of my life to hopefully, Inspire or encourage somebody else, whether that was through sharing allergy friendly recipes, traveling tips for those with food allergies, or navigating life after college into adulthood.

I really wanted my blog to be able to grow with me during all of life's experiences and transitions. So I'm excited to continue sharing dairy-free and egg-free recipes. Also tap into more personal lifestyle type posts. All right, so before we get into that, let's talk about what worked in 2022. A lot!

Actually. I've narrowed it down to six bullet points in no specific order. Number one keyword research. I truly cannot believe that I had been blogging for over five years without using a keyword researching tool or having truly any idea what that even meant. So if you are listening to this and you're like, What the heck is that?

What is keyword research? What? What is this lady talking about? My biggest piece of advice to you is to do some research and find a tool that works for you. I personally loved the cooking with Keywords course and use key search as my tool of choice. In short, keyword research is the process of researching popular search terms.

Actual real life people are typing in to search engines like Google. I'll let the experts tell you how it's done, but let me tell you, it is a game changer. I discovered this back in Q4 of 2021, but really utilized keyword research and key search throughout 2020. Number two, you knew it was gonna make the list web stories.

I have a full podcast episode over Google Web Stories, so head on back to episode eight to listen to their benefits, how to create them, add them to your workflow and more. I continued to see great traffic referred to by web stories last year, so it wasn't as explosive as in 2021, but there was a sustainable base.

Throughout the year with bursts and spikes of truly incredible traffic. Number three. Let's just get it out of the way. Pinterest, y'all know I love it. Again, I actually have two episodes covering Pinterest already. One with a focus on my overall strategy and the other specifically on its newest feature pin tv.

Pinterest continued to work great for me in 2022. Standard pins drove traffic. Pinterest tv, lit a spark inside of me for. 30 minute virtual cooking classes and we ended the year with the great news that idea pins will be getting links in them in the coming months. If you wanna hear more about how I utilize Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog, check out episode two.

Number four, creator funds. I was beyond surprised that bonus programs were my third most lucrative income stream behind sponsored posts with brands and ads on my website. What was also surprising about them was the fact that I didn't join a majority of them until well into the. If you're curious which creator funds and bonus programs I participated in , well, there's quite a handful, but the ones I suggest looking into are Facebook Reels and Microsoft Start.

Unfortunately, my favorite one from Pinterest ended at the end of the year, but knowing now, These things can pop up. I have hope that we'll see more of these this year, so let's keep our fingers crossed. What's truly great about these is that in my experience, you can repurpose content thoughtfully and just really recycle your photos.

Videos or blog posts to stretch the content you've already created. Number five. This one's a little different, but we're talking about what worked in 2022 and honestly, recharging my batteries really benefited me in the long run. Coming off of 2021, I was constantly pushing out new content and showing up.

All of the places trying to boost my blog sessions to qualify for Mediavine Plus working with brands one after another, and now I loved it, but I was rarely taking breaks and definitely working through the weekends. So 2022 taught me to prioritize rest and really taking the time I need to recharge.

That way when I come back to the computer, I'm ready to. . I'm certainly taking that into 2023. Last up, number six, passive income worked really well for me in 2022, specifically having ads on my website. Prior to 2022, I was earning revenue via ads with a different network, but not even at a comparable level.

So while I still worked with brands on sponsored posts and freelance projects, it was incredibly reassuring to know that I also had passive income in the background doing its thing. Hopefully hearing those were helpful. If you're looking for a sign to add something new to your content workflow or. If you're just curious, like I am sometimes moving on to what didn't work for me or my business in 2022, and I'm sure there's plenty more that didn't make the list, but here are the top three.

starting off with number one, Instagram. Yikes. I know some people may stop listening after this, but I've gotta keep it real for me. Instagram drives hardly any traffic to my blog. Most people, even my most loyal followers, rarely click on affiliate links or call to actions and. They're just totally different audience, so I understand that, but then I have to consider what am I doing on Instagram?

Why am I here showing up, spending time on this app? For me, it's always been another place to form connections. And while that's still true, a majority of people have jumped ship to TikTok or just reduced their scrolling in general. The other big reason why Instagram had been a priority for me was that's where brands were hanging out, and they still do.

If I'm working with brands, I want to keep my account up to date, be sharing on stories organically and making those connections. After I wrapped on my last long-term partnership towards the middle of 2022, I decided I wanted to take a step back and I wouldn't put feelers out or pitch for the holiday season.

I still ended up doing a handful of freelance projects, but. , it was really a relief for me to take a step back from both. All that goes into working with brands, but also keeping up my Instagram. I know some content creators still use and love Instagram, so I promise this isn't a personal attack. It just hasn't aligned with my goals and priorities lately, and that's okay.

Number two. TikTok, another yikes. I'm scared, but you know, admittedly, I haven't given too much attention to the app as a creator. However, I would still share repurposed content from my reels with a new song or voiceover. I totally understand that. The same content shared to different platforms may not resonate, but I was working with what I had.

So posting on TikTok did get the attention of at least a couple brands I was able to work with. So that's a win. But in general, similar to Instagram, it just doesn't drive a ton of traffic for me. And again, that's really my top priority. . I wanna emphasize for me, because I know that this totally varies creator to creator.

I was actually really excited and encouraged by the fact that you could add a link to recipes with the Whisk integration. But once that capability went away at the end of the year, so did my interest for TikTok as a creator. At this moment, at this time, we shall see. I still know how powerful it can be for.

I'm just not currently in the season of wanting to pump out those short format videos again. It's okay. I'm just reflecting. Number three. This one surprised me. All influencer platforms in 2022. Out of my 20 brand partnerships, only one came from an influencer platform compared to previous years. That's a significant drop.

I actually did notice a decline in opportunities on these influencer platforms in 2021, but I still did get a handful through them. . So it wasn't as obvious to see that pitching brands directly and making myself visible for brands to reach out to me was how I secured almost all of my collaborations was very telling.

I think it's so important that we as creators really understand what goes into negotiating and finalizing a. I foresee that this wave of pitching brands directly and working closely with their team will only increase as brands continue to see the value of hiring content creators for various types of projects.

Enough of 2022. Let's quickly chat about what I'm looking forward to in 2023. In 2023, I'm excited for continuing to grow my passive income streams primarily through ads. I'm also eager to post new recipes that people are actually searching for. Thank you. Keyword research this year. In addition to new posts, I plan to continue updating old posts so that my website provides a better user experience.

And lastly, I'm extremely excited to explore the lifestyle niche and document experiences outside of the kitchen. So heading in to the second month of the year, my priorities for the first quarter are to keep up with new blog posts, share web stories, utilize all of Pinterest's features. Form connections with my audience through my email list, rather than solely relying on social media.

Continue to share podcast episodes with y'all that provide insight or value every week. Schedule social posts to free up deadspace, share more educational resources like my Pitching Brands Guide, and really embrace every task that comes from this type of job. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

Please reach out to me with your list of things that worked or didn't work in 2022 in what you are looking forward to in 2023. Chat soon, friends. Thanks again for joining me, Jenna Urben, and this episode of BloggerBytes.