I’m Having a Bit of a Blog Identity Crisis

When I first started this blog 14 months ago, I decided that I wanted it to be a place for me to share pictures of my kids, funny stories, struggles of motherhood, and do the occasional product review and giveaway.  I wanted this to be a place for me to write.  To be creative.  And for the most part, I’ve done just that.  I’ve shared happy times, not so happy times, and tons and tons of pictures.  You probably get sick of seeing my kids so often.  But again, that was the main point of this blog.

And yet lately, I feel that the review and giveaway part of my blog has taken over.  I’m posting 2 and even 3 times per day to make deadlines with brands.  Don’t get me wrong, I love working with brands, but it’s come to a point where I feel like I’m passing up personal content to write reviews and giveaways, and I’m not okay with that.  What was initially supposed to be a very small part of this blog has become a very big part of this blog.

Recently, I’ve found myself questioning, “Is there still enough of me in this blog?  Are people getting to know me?  Or has my blog become a long list of reviews, giveaways, and sponsored posts?”  Because I don’t normally follow review and giveaway blogs.  I want to get to know a writer, meet their family, and follow their journey.  I can’t stand reading a blog where there isn’t personal content.  Or a blog where they only tell you enough personal detail to lead into their next review.  I’m not judging those blogs, I just don’t want to be one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the reviews and giveaways.  I love helping Etsy shops and letting my readers win some cool stuff in the process.  I love trying out new products that you might not have heard of and featuring them here.  And I’ve recently started to get invitations to local events, which is perfect because I’m always looking for new things to do in my area with my kids.  It’s a huge perk to blogging and I love it.  In fact, as I was writing this post, I got an email from a shop that wants to sponsor a giveaway (gorgeous, gorgeous stuff, let me tell you!).  Even though I was literally writing a post on this very issue, my very first thought was “Absolutely!  How about next week?”.  But again, I’m just afraid of losing myself in a sea of sponsored content.

I don’t want to stop the giveaways or reviews.  I’m not even sure I want to cut back.  And certainly I don’t want to start a new blog for the giveaways or the reviews, because let’s face it, I have no time for that.  But I feel conflicted.

Is there a point to all of this?  I’m not sure.

I just wanted to check in with you and see if there was anything that you wanted to see more/less of here.  Do you like the giveaways or do they get on your nerves?  You want more personal content or are you tired of seeing my kids?  I don’t know what I’m going to change or if I’m going to change anything at all, but I’d love to get some feedback if you read regularly (or even not so regularly).