In 2008 on the campus of Stanford University, Evan Spiegel meets Reggie Brown. They are both young freshman on the sprawling campus and are settling into the college life. Soon after, they meet Bobby Murphy who is a software developer.
Fast forward a few years to 2011 and Spiegel and Brown are about to complete their junior year and Murphy has already graduated. Brown has an idea. He wants the pictures he’s sending to a girl to disappear.
The three of them put their heads together and in July 2011 they launch an app called Pictaboo. By the end of the summer, they have 127 users.
Over the summer there is infighting and Brown gets the boot. Spiegel and Murphy take the “company” over by themselves and change the name to Snapchat. By April 2012 they have over 100,000 users and the rest is history.
Why is this story important to your blog or online business goals?
Five years ago Snapchat barely existed. Today it’s a media juggernaut that makes the mighty Facebook jealous. Bloggers, online creators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses leverage Snapchat as part of their social media marketing and it’s fast becoming a core strategy for business growth.
Industry moves at lightning speed and you never know what the next big thing will be. As a blogger, trying to figure out what platform to follow and ultimately adopt is a nonstop game of frustration.
Need proof? Have you heard of Triberr? Spreecast? Have you heard of blab, Anchor, Periscope, or Meerkat?
Too often part of your planning for the upcoming year revolves around the current environment in which you work. Unfortunately, that environment is constantly shifting, sometimes unbeknownst to you, and may result in a completely different strategy in the future.
So, when it comes to your blog goals, forget about the long-term goals. Don’t even write them down. They are worthless.
Do you really need to waste time today trying to predict and plan how you will operate in the online space in 5 years? That’s an exercise in futility.
Instead, focus on understanding and assessing the past year so you can better position yourself with short and mid-term goals for the upcoming year.
Dig into your online platform to better understand how it is operating so you can determine the best path toward optimization.
Focus on the short-term goals and action plans that will grow your online business in the next 6 months to a year. At that time you can reassess and pivot accordingly.
If you still want to keep long-term goals, make sure you keep them high-level. Don’t focus on particular platforms or technologies as they may not exist when your long-term becomes a current reality.
Pay attention to industry and understand how various technologies and platforms are shifting so your blog and online business can quickly adapt. Only then will your goals serve the value in which you intend.
