Better late than never, right? The annual Pet Blogger Challenge hosted by Go Pet Friendly and Will My Dog Hate Me was actually yesterday, but I fell asleep last night writing it. Although we’re a day late, I still thought it would be a good reflective exercise to participate in.

Here we go: 

1. Provide a link to your post from last year’s Pet Blogger Challenge so we can refresh our memories.

Here is our link from last year’s Pet Blogger Challenge. Doesn’t time just fly?!

2. What do you consider the most important goals you set out in last year’s post?

The most important goal was to write, and post, on a more consistent basis.


3. Have you made progress toward those goals, or have your goals changed over the past year?

Yes, and yes. I have definitely posted more, but it hasn’t always been something I had to write. I think I’ve started to stop worrying that everything has to be a novel and sometimes will just post a fun photo of Toby. In fact, that seems to go over just as well, as writing a product review sometimes.


4. Has your opinion of blogging on a schedule or as the spirit moves you changed?

I do plan out posts a little more than I did, but I don’t keep to a tight schedule. If I have five product reviews to do, I strategically plan when the best time to write and post them will be, but that doesn’t mean things can’t change or if there is something else interesting that I see, I can’t write about that, too.

Which are you doing now?

Based on my answer above, I guess I’m doing a little of both.

Do you still worry about lost traffic, momentum, etc? 

Oh, traffic… When I first started, I used to freak out about traffic, but then I stopped because of several factors. Very simple, numbers aren’t everything. You have to build relationships. What good is it to have 1 million followers, but only three people are talking about your brand? It’s the old saying quality over quantity.

I preach this to all my social clients, too. I would rather have 100 people who care about what I’m saying, engaging, listening and talking about my procust rather than 1,000 people who aren’t listening at all.

That said, Blogger’s new dashboard has made it easy to see your daily post views and I do watch them, but I don’t stress over them. It has, however, given me insight into what my readers like to hear about. What I pay more attention to are the social buttons at the bottom of each post. If someone “likes” or tweets something I’ve written, I feel like I’ve accomplished more than if 500 people read my story.

5. Are you generating income from your blog?

No, but I would like it to. My website has helped me get jobs, so I guess inadvertently it generates income, but then I get so busy at my new job that I don’t have time to write my website. It’s a vicious cycle.

Has this changed since last year?

If not currently, do you hope to in the future — and how?

Ironically, last year, I sold an ad and was all excited about trying to monetize it. Now, I think because over the past year, I’ve changed what I want to do with My Tail Hurts From Wagging So Much, I’m not as focused on selling ads, and such, but am working toward a different goal, and way of making money through this.

6. Have your likes and dislikes about blogging changed since last year?

I think overall my likes have stayed the same — I LOVE connecting with other people, writing about an industry that I enjoy and sharing my life with Toby. What I dislike is the commercialization of blogging — the race to gets sponsors, the 20-blog giveaways for a $10 Amazon card … The pet blogger community has changed quickly.

Personally, I just want to write, share, create conversation, meet new people, take pictures and shoot video, but I know sometimes that’s not enough, and those other things help generate new readers and build traffic — so it’s creating that careful balance and still staying true to yourself.


7. Overall, are you pleased with the progress you made in 2011?

Yes! My audience has grown, my journalism experience combined with this gave me the very fortunate ability to be the online editor of Tails Magazine for a while {unfortunately, I was offered another amazing professional opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, so after three months I had to resign} and I’m getting more comfortable in my pet lifestyle writing skin.


8. How do you see your blog changing/growing in 2012?

There are some fun ideas in the works to expand My Tail Hurts From Wagging So Much, but it takes money, time and some luck … so I don’t want to jinx myself by sharing those.

I would really like to become more involved with companies and products — and not just through reviews and ambassadorships. Last year I attended several industry trade shows, including the Global Pet Expo, and really enjoyed learning about product development, and the overall pet industry. For me, those events were extremely beneficial.

It’s one thing to have an executive in your pet industry related company who excels at business development, networking or social media. It’s another to have an executive who does all of that AND loves pets.

Visit the other bloggers participating in the Pet Blogger Challenge: