SCC 5-Year Blogversary!

Five years ago today, I started sport card blogging, wow.

I had just started my journey in learning the new age of collecting via social media as I wasn't much of an internet fiend up to that point. I set up the Sport Card Collectors Facebook page and ran it for a year before deciding that I wanted more. In the meantime, I read/joined forums and had discovered a couple of sport card blogs along the way and because of them, one was The Knights Lance by Panini and the other was the now retired Sports Card Blog.net, I started this one up.

I am not sure what it was, but something to do with the posts on The Knights Lance in February and the contests that Sports Card Blog.net was running, it was one of those instant "duh" moments that I needed to start up a sports card blog. Something simply led me to it and I just can't explain it fully.

So began my journey in figuring out how to blog and what platform. It seemed blogspot was the easiest to use, so I set something up, put in an obvious name (I regret the name still as creativity was not in my books at the time but guess I am stuck with it) and tried to figure out all of the nooks and crannies on how to post. With lots of help/guidance from the one and only Tracy Hackler, who I consider my main inspiration for blogging and my Yoda on getting me going, I was able to put up some posts and get underway. It definitely didn't come easy as I was still a rookie making rookie mistakes. You know, taking poor pictures, copy and pasting pics from my Photobucket that disappeared over time and simply not understanding what/how to fully post with many errors.

None of that got me down however and it only drove me to work harder at it.

My sophomore blogging year things improved but I still ran into rookie mistakes. However, with that year and each one after, I continued to tweak things up to try and keep readers interested. I ran many, many, many contests and surprise mail days as I love giving back to the hobby community that has given so much to me. Glad I am still able to do that today and hopefully beyond.

I sometimes can't fathom how long I have been blogging on here and the many changes and shifts I have made over these amazing five years and the many great people I have met in the online community.

I think going into year five I feel the best I have felt about the blog yet and don't feel I need to make anymore changes. I just wished it hadn't taken me five years to figure it all out haha.

So let's see how Year 5 matched up to previous years, here is the breakdown:

Year One, Sport Card Collectors blog had 68,169 overall views. 695 Twitter Followers and 118 Facebook LIKES.

Year Two, Sport Card Collectors blog grew to 205,240 overall views, 2,206 Followers on Twitter and 147 Facebook LIKES.

Year Three, Sport Card Collectors blog grew to 340,841 overall views, 3,576 Followers on Twitter and  159 Facebook LIKES. 

Year Four, Sport Card Collectors blog grew to  483,217 overall views,  4,494 Followers on Twitter and 431 Facebook LIKES. 

Year Five, Sport Card Collectors blog grew to 679,331 overall views. 5,325 Twitter Followers and 541 Facebook LIKES.

Year Five has seen tremendous growth all around and I hope to build upon Year Five success.

I was surprised how well Facebook has grown however. I only post my links on there now. I used to interact more, but it felt the more I interacted, the likes went down. Same goes for Twitter.The one number I wished that would grow is the number of blog followers. That has floated around 115 forever and doesn't seem to be going up anytime soon.

I have had many highlights that I am very proud of among the five years as a blogger, include being named a 3-time Panini Player Of The Day Blog Champion (2 years co-winner), receiving a tremendous UDRAK (Upper Deck Random Acts Of Kindness) for all that I give back to the hobby, and finishing second out of hundreds of blogs for the 2014 Blog Of The Year in the Bip Award and finishing second place in The #HasAVote #BestBlogger Hobby All-Star Award On CollectorSaurus Site. Not to mention being contacted by Pawn Stars to help spread the word on them.

I have also had a 4200+ view day on here as well, which far exceeds my average of now 500. Another proud moment is also never missing ONE SINGLE POST DAY on here in 5 years even after a tough health year last year and I have totaled over 3300 published posts. I have accomplished a lot to me for something I did on a whim.

Before I close up today's post, I want to say a few thanks as well to those who have played a role in the success of Sport Card Collectors. 

Thank you to Tracy Hackler and the Panini crew for their continued support of five years with providing prizes with reviews.

Thank you to BCW Supplies as well with providing prizes for contests and their support over 4 years.

Thank you goes out to Cryptozoic for their support as well in helping me reward you guys through non sport card reviews the past 2 years.

A HUGE thank you goes out to newbie Topps who has been a tremendous support in year five giving you guys a chance at some pretty sweet prizes through reviews. I am extremely happy to have them on board now.

Make sure to check all of the companies above out and give them a follow on all social media sites and let them know the many thanks for the support of Sport Card Collectors. Also, go buy their products ;)

Not all cards in the past five years that have been given away on here have come from companies either as I thought I should clarify that. A lot has come from my own personal breaks as well and cards that I have picked up specifically to be given away. I just love to make others happy and to grow the hobby anyway I can. The card companies help with what I started myself.

I also wanted to thank the other sport card bloggers who added me to their blogroll this past year and that I have added to my trading circle. I hope to add more blogs to my blogroll and I hope others will add me to theirs in this next upcoming year. It's a very nice community to be apart of and one that I hope to get to know more of and be more apart of this year.

I wanted to also take a minute to thank all of the new traders I have added in 2016. All of you helped support my hobby addiction in a year I couldn't afford to do much in. Thank you.

Finally, I also wanted to give an extra shout out to my top trading buddies Shane over at Project Pedro Blog and Bryan over at 90's Niche Football Card Blog and of course top reader that is always overly generous and a good guy, Grady M. I truly appreciate what you guys helped me with over the years and especially 2016. @JGfan24ever deserves a throw in here to with all of his generosity towards me. I appreciate every surprise you send me in my mail box.

In closing, I wanted to thank you guys, the readers. If it wasn't for you, why bother posting. Thanks for reading and checking out Sport Card Collectors blog. I hope you find what I post interesting, inspiring, fun and informational as that was my aim when I started up this blog. Hope to see you back here again tomorrow or again today :)

Now that my Golden Globe speech is done and I can picture all of you in my mind giving a standing ovation and hopefully not a middle finger, God Bless all of you and have a great day. A contest celebration will be posted later so come back to join in!
SCC