Socialmaharaj Blog Report Card – 2022

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Socialmaharaj Blogging Report Card 2023

December 31, 2023

This is the last blog post on socialmaharaj.com, for 2022. Every year, I’ve made it a point to reflect back on the year gone by for the blog. I usually spend the last few days of the year going through various stats, and reports to understand how the blog performed. The Socialmaharaj blog report card is a tradition that I’ve been following for the last 7 years now and this year I also celebrated a decade of blogging.

If you’ve been closely following my blog, you must be aware of this tradition very well. Before I do a recap of the year, you may want to have a look at the previous years Blogging Report Cards 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015. (That’s quite a lot of years of blogging, while I started blogging in 2012, the reporting started only in 2015)

Blog Report Card 2022

Before I get into the Socialmaharaj blogging report card for 2022, I’d like to thank each of my readers, subscribers, followers, and well-wishers without whom this wouldn’t have been possible. Thanks for interacting, sharing your thoughts, and helping me improve. So without much a do, here’s the Socialmaharaj blog report card for 2022.

The Good

During the age of Instagram, surviving as a blogger is tough. But I’m glad that I’m more than just surviving. I’m hopeful that for everyone who feels that long-form content is dead, this makes you think otherwise. Socialmaharaj clocked over 10 Million impressions on Google search. This is a jump of 72% that 2021. We saw more than 34 articles being picked up by Google Discover.

We also saw close to 365,000 unique visitors on socialmaharaj.com, which is an increase of 18% compared to 2021. There was a similar increase in page views and monthly visits as well.

In terms of Domain Authority, there was an increase of 3 points and we’re up from 30 to 33. On the Page Authority front, it increased by 1 point to 45. These both numbers determine to a great extent, how high the blog posts appear on Google search results.

Lastly, I wrote 105 blog posts (including this one) in 2022. While this is a decrease of 5 blog posts from 2021, I still managed to write about 8 blog posts a month. My personal target has always been to publish 2 blog posts per week, and that is still going strong for almost a decade now.

In terms of social media, I feel I improved greatly on Instagram compared to how it was last year. I spent more team during the first half of the year and managed to improve the numbers. However, Instagram as a platform doesn’t appeal to me much now because of its weird algorithms. And I’m not one of the many people who’d simply buy followers to impress the PRs. I’m sorry, I just can’t.

Areas of Improvement

Talking about areas of improvement, there’s always room for improvement, isn’t it? Things that I feel need improvement in 2023 are as follows:

• Social media presence: While I’ve been active on platforms like Twitter and Instagram, I’m still not where I see myself to be. I was inconsistent when it comes to putting out tweets or Instagram posts/reels. While I do feel that my work does affect this a bit, I feel I need to leverage various automation tools at hand to improve this. Hoping to figure this out in 2023.
• Brand collaborations: 2022 has been relatively damp when it comes to brand collaborations. And I feel that the major reason is my social media presence and followers. Most brands are on the lookout for influencers with 50K, 100K, etc. followers, and I can organically reach there only in my next life. However, I need to focus a bit more on this and plan out a strategy to do more/better collaborations.
• Reading: Though I improved my reading a little at the start of 2022, it dwindled as the year went by. I’m connected to some amazing writers and bloggers on social media and I feel I’m not appreciating them by reading. I did chalk out a plan to read more in 2022, but that didn’t happen. I do plan to spend more time reading blogs in 2023.
• Podcast: If you don’t know, I started The Socialmaharaj Podcast in 2021. While It’s been almost dead for the last year, I have some plans for its revival. I know that it will require more of my time, but I’ll try to push myself to do something and get back on podcasting. Fingers cross that things work out and I get back to podcasting in 2023.

Further, my primary work as a developer advocate involves creating a lot of content – blog posts, social media posts, etc. around my work. I felt that a lot of times, I hit writer’s block and wasn’t able to put much efforts here. And for me, work is always the priority. Hence, while my primary focus is my work, I’ll try to balance both in a way that I can continue to give this much time to socialmaharaj.com.

Looking back at 2022

Below is a quick summary of each month of 2022 and what I did. It’ll give you a good overview of how my life has been 🙂

January

I ushered in the new year in Vizag, one of the cities I absolutely love. It was with my family and relatives that I spent the first few days of the new year. It was also my first time driving from Vizag to Araku. Apart from that, I revisited the restaurants I visited in Gujarat in December during Rann Utsav and shared my reviews about them. Read all my January Updates.

February

It was a good month in terms of collaborations, and I felt the year started on a good note. One of my friends invited me to experience a co-working space in Hyderabad – CoKarma. I also got to spend a night at a glass house at Bliss Farmstay in Hyderabad. Apart from that, I was invited to review Rajthali – a new Gujarati thali restaurant in Hyderabad. Read all my February Updates.

March

This was a really good month in terms of content visibility. My blog post on Panchakattu Dosa was picked up by Google Discover and it went Viral! It saw more than 1M impressions and close to 600K views. For a blog post, that’s virality! Alongside that I was also invited by Akshaya Patra to experience their kitchen that feeds millions of students in India. Lastly, I was also invited by Gujarat Tourism, this time to witness the world’s tallest statue – the Statue of Unity. Read all my March Updates.

April

April was when I shared my Statue of Unity experience. From a detailed guide of the Narmada Tent city to a 2-day itinerary of the Statue of Unity from Ahmedabad. It was a surreal experience. I also collaborated with The Leela, Gandhinagar during the same trip and got to experience their hospitality. Lastly, there was a collaboration with Unilever for their Cif range of kitchen cleaning products. Read all my April Updates.

May

May had something interesting in store. I learned that my workplace organized success meet trips every year this month. And this time, it was going to be a cruise trip! Yes! My first cruise trip. We took the Cordellia cruise from Mumbai’s high seas, back to Mumbai. But it was an amazing experience. It was also the time I decided to slow travel to Mumbai. Since this was my first time in the city of dreams, I wanted to spend a good amount of time feeling the city. Read all my May updates.

June

In June, I was mostly home. I shared my stories from Mumbai, from the cafes in Bandra to the beautiful South Bombay. The trip was also my first time experiencing the Mumbai local train, another wonderful experience. Later, I was invited by Hyatt Place to experience the Turkish food festival. However, one of the highlights of June was that I was invited by the British High Commission to celebrate the Queen’s birthday party. Who’s who of Hyderabad was present in the part and it was a surreal experience. Read all my June Updates.

It was also in June that I moved out from the center of Hyderabad and started living on the outskirts. This meant that attending events and receiving PR packages was reduced drastically. For me traveling to Hyderabad is almost 50kms now and I need to carefully choose the places and events that I want to visit.

July

July was a relatively damp month when it came to venturing out. I was anyways staying outside of the city and the commute was difficult. I continued to share a few posts from my Mumbai trip. Wrote about Prithvi Cafe, and Soam. Read all my July updates.

August

August was a very special month as I bought my first car – Tata Punch. A second car in the house came after more than a decade. Since commute was becoming a major issue, a car was needed. After proper analysis, and consideration, I bought Tata Punch. And in the first week itself, I drove to Nagarjuna Sagar. I wrote two extremely detailed blog posts for new car buyers and I recommend everyone should read them – post 1, post 2. I knew more traveling was on the cards 😉 Read all my August updates.

September

For someone who loves to drive, how could I stay at home especially after buying my own car? I went on road trips week after week. I drove to Srisailam Dam and witnessed the beauty of the dam. I also drove to Ramappa temple to witness the UNESCO world heritage site. My office had called us for a team meeting in Pune, so I went on a solo road trip from Hyderabad to Pune. And when I was back, I was also invited to experience Hyderabadi food by Luqma at Novotel Hyderabad Airport. Read my September updates.

October

By this time, I had understood my Tata Punch and was always looking forward to driving it. And a totally unplanned road trip came up, thanks to the rising airfares. My family had to travel to Lucknow and the fare was Rs 20,000 per person, which is usually 8-10K. That’s when I persuaded everyone that let’s do a road trip and everyone agreed. I did my longest road trip from Hyderabad to Lucknow and back. Drove close to 3000kms and it was the best road trip I’ve had. That was pretty much what I did in October. Read my other October Updates.

November

Even before I realised, the road trip was over and I was home. On the work front, I traveled to Bengaluru to attend my first tech conference. I also spoke over there about my work, and it was indeed an amazing experience. One of the things I love about my job! In Bangalore, I also had breakfast at Vidyarthi Bhavan, and my god, what dose! Once I was home, I attended a couple of cake mixing events in the city as Christmas was arriving. Also attended the Sri Lankan food festival at Novotel HICC. Read more about my November Updates.

December

And in the blink of an eye, it was December. I also completed one year at work. It was a leap for me on the word front and I’m glad that I was able to manage both my work and this blog. The team at work grew and I was given a few more responsibilities, just what I like! December 2022, also marked my 10 years of blogging. I started my blog in 2012, and I’m glad it’s going strong, thanks to all of you. Nothing much apart from that. Read more of my December Updates.

Looking forward to an exciting 2023

While I was hoping to do more travel, possibly an international one, the news of the new COVID variant might derail a few of them. I’m just hoping that there’s no another lockdown! The last few months have been quite hectic at work. In fact, there were many weeks this year, where I sat and wrote two posts on the weekend and published to achieve my target of writing two blog posts.

And the least I can do is thank each one of you for your support. Wouldn’t have been possible without your inputs. So a big thank you!

So see you on the other side, wishing you and your family a very Happy & Prosperous New Year. Stay safe and be happy and continue to support Socialmaharaj 🙂

Drop-in your suggestions, feedback, criticism, appreciation in the comments below, Tweet to me at @Atulmaharaj, DM on Instagram or Get In Touch!