17 Dec Six months of Symbol Blog: some thoughts on starting a community resource
Balls… I was going to try to avoid giving myself more to do by signing up for an Advent Calendar article but I realised that today (December 18th) marks the 6 month anniversary of the launch of Symbol Blog! It looked a little different when it started back in June 😁 Anyway, I thought I would write a short post about my experiences of running the site and to try to encourage any of you that are considering creating a new Symbol resource in 2022 to take that first step. I am not really sure what I will talk about at this stage actually since, like everything I write I just start typing with no planning and end up with something that, for better or worse, I publish to the world. Let’s see how it turns out 😬
⚠️ This will not be a technical article but I wanted to contribute something to the NEM Advent Calendar even if it doesn’t quite fit ⚠️
Introduction
Well, where do I start? I guess that 2021 was a memorable year for many reasons. For starters, it was the year that Symbol launched (finally!) 😁 It was also the year that NGL was closed down and that both NEM and Symbol forked, essentially ending the NEM Trust’s control over funds and handing that responsibility over to the core developers. It was the year that the pseudonymous character Hatchet was born, the year that Reflections of Space Pirates was written and the year that I saw a real change in the way things were done (TFFT). Is it me or did Jaguar and Gimre become a bit more chatty too? 😁
We now have a Discord server where you can stay up to date with all developments and read daily updates from the team, we are starting to see cool new designs for explorers and wallets, watch new and exciting projects and ideas develop and see the vision taking shape. We have a transparent set of addresses for core funds and legal entities are being set up to take us forward on our voyage. It really has been a new beginning for Symbol and NEM, the phoenix has risen from the ashes and we are getting ready to take on the world. If 2021 was the year of preparation then 2022 promises to be a year of action and results.
On a more personal level, 2021 was the year that I got COVID** 😭 but more importantly it was also the year that Symbol Blog was launched!
**still time to get it again this year too with the current Omicron infection rate in the UK 😬
I’ve told this story before but I will tell it again (in short) here. I fell into running the blog completely by accident after exchanging a couple of messages with OliverMuldoon on Twitter in response to this tweet:
A few days later I had registered a domain name, signed up for a hosting plan and Klim Geran set me up a WordPress site, all done in a single afternoon back in June. I became the proud owner of a blog but I had no idea what to do next. I was a complete WordPress novice, I had never written a blog post in my life, I had no design skills whatsoever and I had to try to fulfil my ambition for the blog: to promote Symbol news and community projects to the rest of the world outside of Japan (who really don’t need any help as they are doing a fantastic job already).
I started small and helped edit a couple of Japanese articles that were translated by Radio-Radio and then tried my hand at writing some of my own content and getting to grips with my writing style (and some basic Python coding!). Unfortunately, I don’t get a lot of time to write at the moment so longer articles have been scarce recently. Instead I have concentrated on my main focus of providing regular news updates to keep people informed about what is going on in the Symbol-verse. Six months on and after a very cool redesign (thanks Kyle!), I am still writing and we are now fast approaching our 200th post!
For those of you that might be thinking of starting a Symbol related resource and contributing to our growing community (please do!). I have shared some of my experiences below to hopefully give you a few tips and to show you how I have got on as a complete novice starting out.
What I have learned so far 🤔
Starting out is hard. Zero followers, zero traffic, not indexed by any search engines. To top that I had no knowledge of (or desire to learn) the mystic arts of SEO. I started with an empty blog and a freshly made Twitter account. Six months later I can’t say that I changed the world but I hope that I have made a small contribution to Symbol. @blog_symbol is not far off 1,500 followers and visits to the site are slowly growing. I’m going to share some stats with you later, slightly embarrassing as I probably should be doing a lot better than I am doing but everyone has to start somewhere. First, I have a few tips to get you started on making your own Symbol related resource, whatever that may be…
Find your niche
I admit I am not a great writer but there was absolutely no way that I could contribute a cool app or website built on Symbol as others have. I have no artistic talent either so my options for contributing to the community were limited. This is why starting a blog was my choice. You will be different, have different passions and strengths so find something that interests you and carve out a niche. Set yourself a clear goal of what you want your site to achieve and strive to be the best at this.
Keep it simple to start with
There’s no point making a huge investment of time or money when you first start out. I might have found that blogging wasn’t for me or that nobody was interested in reading my posts 😁 Start with a simple site and try things out then, if you decide that you like running it and the community appreciate what you are doing, you can make improvements and add more features as you go. If you try to create a perfect site or tool on day one then you are really going to struggle so don’t be a perfectionist!
For example, in October Symbol Blog got a makeover. At that point in time (actually, it was probably in July that discussions were started about the redesign) I knew that I was fully committed to the project. If I had focussed on the design at the outset I wouldn’t be writing this post now. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kyle for his work on the site redesign (and to Klim for the original setup) – thank you both!
Don’t be scared – just go for it!
We are lucky and have a great community that will support you in your efforts. People are happy to lend a hand or give advice or promote what you are doing. Don’t be afraid of failing before you start. I was nervous about starting the blog – What if no one reads it? What if I get something wrong? What if I make a fool of myself? Well, the last one is easy, get a pseudonym and nobody knows who you actually are in real life 😁
The truth is, you probably will make mistakes, I make loads in my writing but I learned that nobody will attack you for it. If you have an idea, go for it – you really have got nothing to lose and you will get respect for having the courage and drive to contribute.
As a side note, I am worried about posting this on the NEM Advent Calendar series as it doesn’t really fit with the other articles. I am not sure whether people will appreciate it or not but the date was free and I wanted to write something to support the initiative so here’s the article, like it or not 😉
Wave goodbye to your free time 👋
Finding time to work on a project can be hard. Job and family commitments mean that I post as and when I can. I’d love to do more but realistically I just can’t devote the hours that I would like to researching and writing articles at this point in time. If you want to contribute to the community then be prepared to give up a significant amount of your spare time and be in it for the long haul – you will need stamina! For some of you young free and single people, this might not be an issue (I am slightly jealous of you) 😁
If you are passionate about your project and have a desire to see it succeed then this won’t feel like a chore. I have to admit though that I am slightly upset by the fact that I have a stack of PS5 games that I am still waiting to play. There should be more hours in the day, maybe I will find some time over the Christmas break to get some playing time in 🤩
The real plus for me is that it is rewarding doing something to help the cause and to feel like I am an active member of a global community. I can now hold my head up high and say that I am giving something back (in my own small way) and best of all I actually enjoy doing it! As I said before, my individual contribution isn’t going to lead to much but if more people took the plunge and did something rather than sitting on the sidelines watching on (or complaining!) then together we really would have a significant impact.
Get your site known on Twitter
Setting up a Twitter account for the blog was the first thing I did when the site went live. It is absolutely the best way to get your voice out there and drive traffic to your site. The community is fantastic and really helped spread the word for me. This will get you visibility from the existing Symbol and NEM community but attracting new visitors who were previously unaware of Symbol (for me the holy grail) is tough. I still haven’t cracked this problem and I am not sure how to. Perhaps writing about more general crypto topics would pull people in and then give them some exposure to what the Symbol blockchain and community can offer. This is something that I still need to work out so if you have any suggestions then please let me know!
Feedback will keep you going
Feedback is key and it is what will keep you going if and when you lose a bit of motivation. People seem afraid of leaving comments or likes on the blog but I have had some nice feedback on Twitter and Discord and this really means a lot. It can be slightly soul-destroying spending time writing and not knowing if anyone reading actually likes what you are doing. Hearing some nice words about your site and its content make the whole thing worth it. It really made my day when I found out that the core developers and pirates were Symbol Blog readers 😊 It was also a huge boost to the site (and me!) that Jaguar chose to support us by posting his NEM Advent Calendar articles on the blog – thank you!
Constructive criticism is also a good thing, it can help you to grow and improve, give you ideas for new features and correct any mistakes you might have made. Take it on board and don’t take offence, people are usually genuinely trying to help.
Results 📊
This is the part that I am slightly ashamed about 😳 I feel like the site should be doing better than it is but thinking about it, writing a blog about Symbol in English is a tough ask and is not going to take off overnight. I am guessing that in the long run, traffic will scale with the growth in popularity of the Symbol blockchain in English speaking countries. I hope that I have pulled in one or two new Symbol users since we started and if that is the case then I would feel like I have been successful 😊
Visitors
According to Google Analytics, I have received around 5,300 unique visitors since around July when I enabled it, and, as you can see the vast majority come from Twitter click-throughs. Organic search is growing (very slowly) which is still encouraging as it was at zero for a long time. I figure the more content indexed, the more chance of popping up in someone’s search results so maybe quantity wins out over quality here (or at least both are important) 😁
Awstats shows reasonably consistent growth in visitors although the numbers are way out of line with the Google results so take them with a pinch of salt!
Japan – the spiritual home of Symbol
What I find fascinating is that although the blog is written in English most of my visitors (by far!) come from Japan. This makes sense in terms of the strength and size of the Japanese community but I never thought that they would want to read my blog as it is written in English. Thank you, Japan! 🙏
It is great to see that there is good coverage across the globe though, even if it is at low levels. Not doing so well in Africa and some parts of Central Asia but maybe we can fill in those gaps over time – it is my goal to turn that map completely blue 😁
You can see the stats better in the tabular view. I am really pleased to see that my home country is well represented at number 4 on the list! They are not all me using different IP addresses either! 😁
Oh, and if you are thinking of starting a blog then there is definitely a niche for a Korean language site!
Twitter – my number 1 source of traffic
Twitter has been a great source of traffic to the blog and I am blown away that my tweets have had 1.2 million impressions in the last three months – that is double that of the 3 months previous. I know many people receive more in one day but for me, this feels like an achievement!
You can also see that Twitter has been a great source of click-throughs to content (6.5K over the 3-month period). I would never get this number of visitors any other way so it shows how valuable it is when building a new site.
Thoughts
So there are the numbers laid bare for all to see. I think it’s OK for six months but it is getting harder to grow and maybe we have stagnated a little recently. I think a lot of this could be down to content so I really need to up my game in 2022!
Symbol Blog’s new year’s resolutions
I intend to keep writing, I hope I will get some time to make some more meaningful. well thought out posts in addition to the news updates at some point in the new year. What I would also love to see happen is more community members contributing their own knowledge and expertise by writing guest posts. I’m pretty ill-informed about most things but there is a wealth of talent out there, as can be seen in the other advent calendar articles. If you have something Symbol or NEM related that you want to share with the world then we would love to publish it!
We have seen a few contributions this year which is great (and hugely appreciated!) but next year I will try to entice more people to provide quality content. We are a community blog so the community should be able to share their articles on the site. I am happy to format and proofread (I can do this, I am just lazy and I tend not to for my own posts) 😁 I am also happy to set up contributor accounts so that you can log in and write – just let me know and we can sort that out.
There is also a ton of outstandingly good content out there in Japanese and I would love to translate some of it to English. I may need some help but I think this information needs to be spread far and wide so keep an eye out, I may be contacting some of you to ask for permission to translate and repost in the next month or two 😊
Other than that I’d obviously like to grow our readership so if you can help out by linking to the site or have any ideas on how we can improve then please let me know. It would be nice to see some more followers and retweets too – we need to support each other and increase our collective global reach 🦾
Also, I know that the site has been slow recently (seems a bit better now) so a move to a new host is on the cards soon. I hope that that frustrating wait for the site to load will be a thing of the past.
Thank you all!
Thanks to everyone that has supported Symbol Blog over the past six months, you are all awesome! I really feel that 2022 will be Symbol’s year, there is so much coming soonTM that I am sure that I will be kept busy writing!
Thanks also to all of the community developers, writers and creatives out there who have worked so hard over the past year, there are too many to name but you know who you are! It really is an exciting time to be part of this community, we are still small but that means that you have a chance to really make your mark so if you are thinking about starting a site or making a new resource or tool then now is the time to do it! I guarantee it will be a rewarding experience 😊 You can also count on everyone’s support as they will want to see you succeed. Oh, and if you do decide to start a new Symbol or NEM project then good luck(!) and let me know as I would love to write it up for the blog!
Finally, to all of the Symbol and NEM community: Have a wonderful break (if you get one) and I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year! 🥂
I’m a Symbol and NEM enthusiast and run this blog to try to grow awareness of the platform in the English-speaking world. If you have any Symbol news you would like me to report on or you have an article that you would like to publish then please let me know!
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