So, what are the components of a good crochet blog? Why are some bloggers able to retain a readership and others flounder?
Last June (6/23/08), I received an email from Drew - which I think he sent to everyone he knew with a blog – asking in a sense, “What makes a good crochet blog and what keeps readers coming back?” This was in reference to a class he was expected to teach last summer at the CGOA Convention. I think I handed him the course when I wrote my response to him later that same day. This is what I wrote then:
Pictures: I think the most obvious aspect for our visually-driven society is the use of good quality pictures (What else did you expect an art teacher to say?). And not only should the pictures be clear and discernible, but should quite obviously illustrate whatever the accompanying text is saying. If as a professional crafty blogger you can walk someone through some process, train of thought, or tutorial, or even something mundane as how you sewed on a cap sleeve to your latest sweater and not lose them (because the pictures supported what you were saying), then you’re golden.
Good Graphics: Beyond just the picture, I know for myself that the blog needs to look good in order for me to want to go back again and again. Dark, drab colors and heavy fonts don’t appeal to me, personally. I like to stumble upon a blog with a fun color palette, interesting banner graphics, but no bells and whistles gimmicks (music on queue the moment you land on the site is just horrid).
Humor: You could be talking about the driest topic known to all crafty mavens, but if you don’t employ some humor here and there, people might not get a sense of you. I think this is why both Annie M and are such a delight to read. Here are two people who’ve had the worst of the worst thrown at them (health issues and a divorce) and yet they continue to entertain me, the reader, with all their trials and tribulations. Which brings me to my third point.
Personalization: I think if you share a little of yourself, people feel invested in what you have to say, regardless if they agree with what you’re posting about or like what your craft is. Find me a person who doesn’t enjoy a good story. I think Doris is doing a good job at this. She’s spoken at length about where her inspiration for her garments come from and personalized it with stories about a certain stitch or a family member.
Interaction: No one wants to read a blog that the author choses to have no interaction with the audience. It goes back to my previous point about giving a little of yourself in each post. I think a successful crafty blogger is one who keeps the audience coming back by answering blog posts, or has contests (Laurie!), or poses a question as almost a “food for thought” type of comment in which the readers reply to both the post and each other. Once there’s interaction, there’s a need to return, you know, to see what others had to say.
Behind the Scenes: I know I enjoy reading Robyn’s blog because I feel like as a fellow designer, she shows a lot of her behind-the-scenes process that the average person might not know about. Seeing her though the process from the initial sketch to the swatch to the final product keeps me going back in wonderment of what that little snippet of a picture is supposed to be (a sweater? a vest? a scarf?) I like guessing and she surely keeps me guessing.
In looking at Kim’s list, I draw many parallels between our thoughts on what makes a good blog. The standouts on her list, the ones I didn’t mention, which I agree with emphatically, are about spelling and punctuation. I’m no writer, but I get annoyed at lack of punctuation. I don’t pretend to always get it right, along with spelling, but where there’s ZERO effort to fixing these things, I just get turned off and move on to another blog or website. I think it’s the teacher within me that screams inside upon reading a poorly written news article online.
Do I always follow what I say? Yeah, I can be a hypocrite. Like not posting pictures with any of these posts I’m doing for this topic series. But it’ll be on my mind to find some to add in (maybe later). I won’t assign an excuse for it.
Is there something I missed? Is there some other secret element that your favorite knitting or crafty blogger utilizes that makes you want to go back time and time again?
Thanks for this series. I’ve been feeling guilty lately on my own blog because I haven’t been posting much. But then again, when I started my blog I vowed that it would stay crochet and fiber arts focused. With that, there are times I can’t post what I’m doing, other than to say, “Yep, crocheting, can’t show you yet…sorry.” I feel that likely gets boring. I do try to show off stuff as soon as I can to keep my readers interested. I ended up putting my Twitter feed in the sidebar to prove to my readers (namely my mother who would panic if too much time went between posts) that I was still alive.
All that said, I would rather not post that often than to let my blog turn into a smorgasbord of stuff that at the end of the day had little to do with crochet or fiber. There was a blog I used to read (that has crochet in its title) that is now hardly ever about crochet. Instead it’s about knitting and quilting and children and all that. While I don’t fault the author, I do believe it is important to deliver what you’ve promised.
From the start my blog was designed to be about my struggles and successes as a new designer. Unfortunately, with that, there is a lot I can’t show. I do try to give sneak peeks (when appropriate) and explain the backstory on a design (once it’s published).
Okay, sorry for the rambling.
I vowed the same thing too, Tracie. I wish I had my old database back so I can get back a lot of those old posts that had good info in them, or documented what I was working on, etc. But yeah, I started out all crochet and at some point after maybe 2 years, I started adding other things into the mix, things that were important to my life, or just what was going on at the time. It was a bit cathartic I suppose.
For me, having less crochet content came when I stopped designing crochet and started doing a lot of graphic design stuff for other crochet designers. I’ve been documenting more of what I’ve done for them and not so much the crochet, what little I’m doing now because of that and me trying to get stuff done on my house and home life. But I made a commitment to myself this year that I’d get back on the horse and I intend to honor that. We’ll see how I do.