Hi Guys,
2016 have been great for my blog - reached out to new brands and some of
the brands said Good bye too! Change is the only constant thing in this world
and I came up with terms that sometimes your passion will take a hit for the earning of bread and butter.
Year 2016 being the 4th year of #TheLifesWay brought 518917 pageviews in 12 months from 396 blogposts and for the first time ever it crossed One Million pageviews on the eve of my birthday 22nd July. This was a proud moment as it happened on my birthday and was the biggest gift of the season. To celebrate this occasion I bought myself a Samsung Gear S2 smart watch from Incredible Connection in it's Cyber Monday sale.
The most important thing along with this one was the moment when I won a smartphone Samsung A5 (2016) model from a movie premier show for Trolls (movie) by Fanta South Africa. I always wanted to win one but all these years I could never so this was a great feeling and I gifted the same to my mom in India. Sponsored posts wise this year didn't brought that much money/vouchers like 2015 but this year's Indiblogger PR posts helped me buy a Nikon DX 35mm lens for my Nikon DSLR camera which I always wanted to purchase.
The most important thing along with this one was the moment when I won a smartphone Samsung A5 (2016) model from a movie premier show for Trolls (movie) by Fanta South Africa. I always wanted to win one but all these years I could never so this was a great feeling and I gifted the same to my mom in India. Sponsored posts wise this year didn't brought that much money/vouchers like 2015 but this year's Indiblogger PR posts helped me buy a Nikon DX 35mm lens for my Nikon DSLR camera which I always wanted to purchase.
2016 brought the biggest travel in a Cruise from Durban to Mozambique and Portugese Island in MSC Sinfonia sponsored by Flight Centre and Cruise About. It was a great time spent on the ship and I really enjoyed all the activities there. I did felt sea sick first night but took a medicine and was sorted for rest of the trip. Also, this was my first trip to Durban and really loved seeing the old local Indian populated town. The second trip was my first time to Kruger National Park which was sponsored by Protea Hotels at Paul Kruger Gate. I really loved watching the animals but eyes were too tired to keep up on the searching all day in sun and sand.
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| Braham Sarovar, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India |
I was part of most of the events at Silverstar Casino and did several posts for them and posted a lot of pictures too on my instagram page. I was lucky enough to win in one of their media events and stayed again at the Vega Presedential Suite. Also for the first time in 2016, I attended an event by Logitech and got my own #TheLifesWay printed UE Roll 2 bluetooth speakers. Huawei remained a prime sponsor in my life for inviting me to all their launch events and goodies bags they give are amazing. Year 2016, I received Hugo Boss Sunglasses for P9 launch and Huawei Band for Mate 8 Launch event. Though I still feel sad that they have not sponsored me their smartphone despite my instagram page filled with Huawei hashtags and also I have not seen the likes of P9 and other recent smartphones for review also.
I also got Go Budds bluetooth earphones by DJ Fresh which are really amazing and a surprise package of SunStream's Portable Mobile Charger using Solar technology. This really made my car in India charge my mobile as it didn't had that 12V charger in it. Checkout this product in Builder's Warehouse starting from ZAR 250 onwards. I was part of several new launch events and shared the same across my channels. There had been so many small small items that I received from brands which I regularly distributed to my friends and family. I am so grateful to Universe for each one of them. It's just because of my blog www.thelifesway.com I am able to get them.
In the year 2017, I surely would love to get sponsorship in terms of a smartphone, tablet and laptop as my Dell XPS L501 was bought way back in 2010-11 from London and tablet Google Nexus 7 my parents bought from San Francisco in 2012 and smartphone is HTC One M8 which was gifted by HTC South Africa (old review device) in 2015. They have helped me shape my blog and twitter handles but it's time to say Good Bye to these devices too! Are you listening Universe?
Also, this year I plan to increase my Instagram followers and post more snaps every month to the amount of 5 each day on average. I also plan to venture into Youtube this year as I am trying to make video's on my DSLR camera and started learning the same too using Youtube channel of Nikon India. I have also missed my writings on several of the series I used to publish in 2016 but will revive all of them in 2017. Also, I intend to post all the pending reviews of all the electronics items I have bought and used for some time. I also missed all the time I could devote in 2015 on my blog as professionally my role in my job now demands a lot of office work to be done at home too. So I hope to bring in more efficiency in my work to get some hours of open time for taking my blog and social media channels to next level.
Let's see how to fulfill all these aspirations in Year 2017 but thanks once again to all the brands and PR companies for investing their time and money in me. I am eternally grateful to all the PR companies who left me in 2016 and to all of those which embraced me further. I will always work towards giving everyone fair returns on their ROI but won't work for their brands if I am not getting anything in return.
Cheers!!!
Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com to blog, share and influence about your products and services on all my Social Media channels #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra !
