ScoobySnax.com Two-Year Anniversary: Year in Review

So, I realize I didn't do one of these for the site's one-year anniversary, but I thought the idea up shortly after, and wanted to do it for sure this year. You readers read my blog posts and get info from the site, but you never really hear about the behind-the-scenes stuff that I do to work on the site, the changes that the site has gone through, and most importantly, my hopes and dreams for the site. I try to make most of my site posts formal, but on this post I'm just going to write from the heart and say what I'm feeling.

My first thought here is just...wow. I can't believe it's been a full two years already. For those of you who don't know, September 3, 2014 is the day I published the site. As the site went live for the world to see, I went through a big emotional rollercoaster of overwhelming feelings. Happiness, that I was helping people get information. Nervousness, about what would happen with the site, and how long it would last. Excitement, that I was opening a whole new community in the Scooby fandom. Hope, that people would love the site and it would succeed. And even a bit of relief, that I could finally get my site out there for people to see.

The site flourished and succeeded more than I could have imagined. Right now, the current site stats show an average of 500 viewers a day, and around 3000 viewers a week, with 700 of those viewers being new (meaning they have never visited the site prior to that view).  To some, that may not seem very big, but to me, I feel like it is a huge success. Even if I only help or entertain one person, I think that is definitely success, at least in my opinion.

That first month was mainly work on adding to the site info, and it wasn't until after that when I started blogging. Writing the fun facts for the blog every week has been one of the funnest things for me to do for the site, especially as sometimes even I learn something new! I'll admit, I didn't know how the fun fact thing would really work when I started it on October 13, 2014. For those of you that have been here since the beginning, you'll remember that at the beginning, I was asking people to email me fun fact ideas. I quickly abandoned that, and started finding it easy and fun to write them, and it became a weekly thing. I've personally always loved when sites do weekly things, which is why I started the fun facts in the first place. Thinking back now to myself writing Fun Fact of the Week #1, I think I would be shocked about how successful they became, and the amazing thing I did for Fun Fact #100. I won't say anything about it now, all I'll say is I'm super proud of it and can't wait for you guys to see it on Monday!

I would be lying if I didn't say that the site has changed me a lot, because it has. Firstly, the site has opened a door to many opportunities that I never would have had. The biggest thing is what I jokingly call my "freelance" Scooby work, since I do sooo much for the Scooby community and this site, that I've just started calling separate projects not related to ScoobyAddicts or the site "freelance projects." My first one was the typecast with TS-D/JA Productions, which was a really enjoyable and relaxing first one to do. It really was very little pressure and it was a ton of fun talking about Scooby in-depth with another Scooby fan. Quick shout-out to Scooby-Doom, who runs TS-D/JA Productions, thank you for giving me that wonderful opportunity!

The other big thing that has changed is Twitter. I'll be completely honest here, when I first created my site Twitter account, it was intended to be only news, site promotion and  answering whatever few questions people tweeted me. Almost immediately, I found out that I was completely wrong about what my Twitter experience would be. Through Twitter, I have gotten to meet tons of great Scooby fans, and talk to more people than I would have ever imagined I would have. It still amazes me that over 300 people follow the site! Still, through my site account, I didn't really get to talk to people as much I wanted to and felt distant. So, those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I decided to create a separate account to talk to fans, hoping that I would have at least a few people to talk with. Creating that second account was perhaps one of the best decisions I've ever made, as I've felt closer to Scooby fans than I ever have, and even gained somewhat of a following. For those who follow me on Twitter, I love talking to you all! Whether we've just talked once or if we've had marathon-long conversations (which have been become more and more common now, which I love), I appreciate each and every one of you and thank you for the great conversations!

Well, besides the obvious updates and additions of all the different pages, I think I've pretty much covered everything that's changed in the two years. I really enjoyed writing this, so I'll definitely try to make it a tradition to do this "year-in-review" type of post every year.

So, what are my plans, hopes and dreams that I have for the site in the next year?

Plans -
1. I've been saying since I used to do those "What's coming up for this month" posts back in early 2015 that I would finish the character page, and this is something that (somewhat pathetically) I've not gotten to yet. My goal is to try to have the character page completely finished by the end of 2016.

2. Another major goal of mine is to create a "VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray Releases" page, which will be a complete guide of all Scooby Home Media Releases.
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3. I'd also like to finally complete the site's episode guide. I'm very close now, right now the only series that does not have a guide is Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and I'm happy to say I've already started work on it!  

My goal is to try to have all of this on the site by the end of December, but of course I have to factor in real-life busyness (I'm an incredibly busy person!), so although these are goals that I'd love to happen, I unfortunately can't guarantee that I will meet that goal.

Hopes - I could sit here all day listing my hopes for the site, as I've really grown attached to it, but just for the sake of not having this post be 30 pages long I'll just list my biggest ones. 

1. Of course, this is and always has been my biggest hope since the day ScoobySnax.com was published. I want people to get knowledge and learn new information from the site, I hope that the site helps people with things they're looking for (I've been really happy to get the emails from people saying that the site has helped them in some way!), and most of all, I hope people get enjoyment out of coming to the site. I know a lot of people, whether it's a site about Scooby or something completely different, just want to get "as many people as they can visit their site" but my main goal has always been to help and entertain people.

2. I want to get a bit better at time management and meeting my own deadlines with the site (and my post from March 2015 saying "my plan is to have the character page completely finished by April 2015!" is a great example of that lol). While I don't feel procrastinate-y (I don't care that it's not a real word, I'm inventing it lol)  with the site, I often let real-life stuff overwhelm me too much and I don't really have a good balance between real-life stuff and working on the site. I tend to just sporadically add stuff and then disappear for a while. Especially in terms of Twitter, I'll be super active on there one week and then fall off the face of the Internet the next week due to busyness (which I still feel really sucky about, sorry Twitter followers!). I got a bit off topic there, but I'm working on finding a good balance and being able to be more regularly active on both the site and social media.

3. This last one is kind of a hope mixed with something that's already happened, I hope that ScoobySnax.com becomes a popular resource that Scooby fans know about, and feel like they can trust and rely on. I'll explain this a little more in-depth as it sounds a bit contradictory to my above statement about how I'm not about getting as many people to the site as possible. While I don't care about the number of site views or promotion I get, my hope is that it does become popular so that people can benefit from the info on here. As I believe I've mentioned once before, I think people mistake Scooby site owners for trying to "compete against the other sites" but we're really not about that at all. At least from my experience, I feel like all the Scooby site owners are very kind and generous and want to be friends (or at least friendly) with one another. In my opinion, whether it's the pioneer Scooby sites like ScoobyAddicts or ScoobyFan.net, the newer sites in the last couple of years, such as SDMI Knowledge and this site, or even the upcoming Scooby sites like ScoobyGuru's site or the Scooby-Doo podcast that are coming out soon (looking forward to it, guys!), I feel like we can all benefit from collaborating and talking with each other, as in the end we all have the same goal. Sorry, I got a bit off-track there, but my main point is that I feel that ScoobySnax.com is already pretty popular and people have definitely benefited from it, which I'm super happy about!

Dreams - Maybe this is just my imagination, but I feel like all of us die-hard Scooby fans have a "dream" of something big they want to achieve or add to the fandom. While I'm going to be very vague with this part (sorry, don't want to ruin any surprises for you guys!), I do have several bigger "dreams" that I'd love to do, some of them related to the site and some of them separate. Just so you guys know, I do have several really cool things planned (which will hopefully happen in the coming year) that I think you all will love!

That's about it for this year's "year-in-review" post, a few quick last things I want to mention:

• First off, thank you for reading this very long post! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!
• I mentioned this very briefly in the beginning of the post, but be sure to read this week's special 100th fun fact (which coincidentally lined up with the 2-year anniversary, totally not planned)! I just finished writing the post yesterday, and it turned out really awesome, so please be sure you check it out this Monday, September 5!
• If you have any suggestions, comments or any other things you want to share related to this post, please comment on this post! I always love reading all your suggestions and comments :)
• This has been a fantastic two years for me and I want to thank each and every one of you again for making these two years for me and the site so great! Here's to another great year of ScoobySnax.com!