Hi everyone!
This post will be about the blogging survey which I posted about a while ago, as I now have some results!
People have stopped responding now and the response total is 32, which means that I reached my goal of 30 responses and should be able to make some valid generalisations when I analyse the results in detail in my report!
Here's a brief summary of what I found out:
- People unanimously favour Blogger as their chosen platform, both for blogging, and reading blogs.
- This is closely followed by Wordpress, and then Tumblr.
- A lot of the participants had blogs of their own.
- People are more likely to read blogs if they feel that the writer is genuine and personable.
- Some of the most mentioned responses to what people thought were important features were interesting subject matter, posts being well written, and the layout being aesthetically pleasing.
- Beauty blogs are the most favoured by readers, and help/instructional blogs are the least favoured.
- Things that put readers off blogs most are unpleasant topics or opinions and badly written posts.
- Social media is the most popular way of readers finding blogs to read.
- People enjoy the use of images.
- Vibrant colours and interesting fonts are generally favoured, but simple layouts are liked more than complex ones.
- Occasional variation in topic is favoured.
- People believe that links to social media improve a blog.
- People dislike the use of background music.
- Shorter posts are favoured over longer ones.
- Collaborations and guest posts are liked.
- People prefer image-heavy blogging over text-heavy blogging.
- An informal, chatty tone of writing is preferred.
- Adverts are largely disliked.
Lauren xxx
Showing posts with label study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label study. Show all posts
Blogging Spotlight - The Unmumsy Mum
Hi everyone!
Today's post is going to be about one of my favourite blogs - that of The Unmumsy Mum. I first came across her blog when I was told about it by my mother, who also reads it and tells me from time to time how hilarious it is. Although I am not a mother myself yet (thank goodness), I have to say it struck a cord with me, because when she talks about her experiences, I sympathise. Partly because I have two younger brothers and my mum also used to be a childminder so I have too had many stressful experiences concerning small children and their unwillingness to do as they are told, but mostly because of the way she writes - I feel as if I know her. That then got me thinking, if reading her blog is evoking such emotion in me, clearly she must be doing something right. So, I decided to analyse her blog and figure out exactly why I liked it so much, and pinpoint the 5 key things that I think she is doing right, because these things may be able to help bloggers of all kinds to become just as successful.
"In March 2015, the month I am writing... the blog page went mad. It took off. I started receiving hundreds of comments for every post and new messages every single day. I got recognised by strangers (yes really) and offers of writing jobs started coming in." - The Unmumsy Mum
Firstly, as mentioned, I think that the way she writes is a major strong point. There are near to no technical terms for anything used. She swears and uses slang. She writes how one would speak, not formally, and very down-to-earth and chatty. It makes the reader feel that they know her and can relate, which is something very appealing. Yes, there are some uses of swear words and slang which may put some readers off, but I like it, because it makes her seem more human, and that to me is important, and I think that it works in her favour.
Secondly, she doesn't write about idyllic situations which are already existent on countless other blogs. There are plenty of examples of perfect lives written about by almost every other blogger, and to read about something satisfyingly imperfect is wonderfully refreshing. I realise this point may seem specific to this particular blog, but it isn't. Take beauty blogs, for example. The majority are by people who are expertly good at makeup already, and I feel that it separates ordinary people, who are probably the majority of the readers, from the person writing the blog. I would much rather read a blog by a complete amateur in a subject, so I feel like I am learning alongside them, not being taught. The Unmumsy Mum has identified a clear gap in her market and has been very successful through it.
"... I wanted to read about somebody who felt the same. Somebody who would reassure me I wasn’t going completely mad... That was the blog I needed. So I searched for it, but found nothing that was quite right. I’ll write one, I decided. And the blog was born. I made a vow to myself very early on that I would document parenthood as I found it. Not how I wanted to find it. Or how I wanted other people to think that I found it. But how it was." - The Unmumsy Mum
Today's post is going to be about one of my favourite blogs - that of The Unmumsy Mum. I first came across her blog when I was told about it by my mother, who also reads it and tells me from time to time how hilarious it is. Although I am not a mother myself yet (thank goodness), I have to say it struck a cord with me, because when she talks about her experiences, I sympathise. Partly because I have two younger brothers and my mum also used to be a childminder so I have too had many stressful experiences concerning small children and their unwillingness to do as they are told, but mostly because of the way she writes - I feel as if I know her. That then got me thinking, if reading her blog is evoking such emotion in me, clearly she must be doing something right. So, I decided to analyse her blog and figure out exactly why I liked it so much, and pinpoint the 5 key things that I think she is doing right, because these things may be able to help bloggers of all kinds to become just as successful.
"In March 2015, the month I am writing... the blog page went mad. It took off. I started receiving hundreds of comments for every post and new messages every single day. I got recognised by strangers (yes really) and offers of writing jobs started coming in." - The Unmumsy Mum
Firstly, as mentioned, I think that the way she writes is a major strong point. There are near to no technical terms for anything used. She swears and uses slang. She writes how one would speak, not formally, and very down-to-earth and chatty. It makes the reader feel that they know her and can relate, which is something very appealing. Yes, there are some uses of swear words and slang which may put some readers off, but I like it, because it makes her seem more human, and that to me is important, and I think that it works in her favour.
Secondly, she doesn't write about idyllic situations which are already existent on countless other blogs. There are plenty of examples of perfect lives written about by almost every other blogger, and to read about something satisfyingly imperfect is wonderfully refreshing. I realise this point may seem specific to this particular blog, but it isn't. Take beauty blogs, for example. The majority are by people who are expertly good at makeup already, and I feel that it separates ordinary people, who are probably the majority of the readers, from the person writing the blog. I would much rather read a blog by a complete amateur in a subject, so I feel like I am learning alongside them, not being taught. The Unmumsy Mum has identified a clear gap in her market and has been very successful through it.
"... I wanted to read about somebody who felt the same. Somebody who would reassure me I wasn’t going completely mad... That was the blog I needed. So I searched for it, but found nothing that was quite right. I’ll write one, I decided. And the blog was born. I made a vow to myself very early on that I would document parenthood as I found it. Not how I wanted to find it. Or how I wanted other people to think that I found it. But how it was." - The Unmumsy Mum
Another thing I like about this blog is that it stays on topic. Every post is on the same lines, talking about parenthood, yet still manages to be new and interesting, which is a very hard balance to strike. When people come back to blogs, they often do so because they want to read about a certain thing, so to stay on topic is a very good idea. Some blogs jump about far too much and they feel very hit-and-miss because they can't then build a proper audience who solidly enjoy all their posts. Some interest them, and some don't, which isn't helpful at all to a blog's growth. Having a clear audience and appealing to them is infinitely more powerful than trying to please everyone in my opinion.
Although it may seem obvious and simplistic, the next thing I like about the blog is the layout. There are no harsh clashing colours, no dancing GIFs flashing at you, hundreds of advertisements aren't popping up everywhere, and the text is clearly visible. I know it's fun to mess around with formatting, but at the end of the day, people come to blogs to read, and the last thing they want is to feel unfocused and for it to be a task. This blog uses simple, clear text, a very traditional layout, is easy to navigate, and is quite literally, very black and white, which I feel works very well.
The final thing I love about The Unmumsy Mum is something that I think most of its' readers will love, too, and it's probably the reason it's so popular: humour. The blog is hilariously funny in a very honest and plain way, no clever jokes that only some people will get, it's just simply hilarious. Not everyone actually has the ability to write humour and to create something so funny which has the power to brighten someone's day hugely is a very skilled talent to possess.
I feel that all of these qualities could apply to any blog, and in most cases, would change it for the better; I know I'd certainly read it. I think that this blog is brilliant, and I think that the blogging community can learn a lot from studying how successful bloggers write and taking a leaf out of their book.
Lauren xxx
The Blogging Survey
Hey everyone!
So, as you know, the purpose of this blog is for me to write a report on blogging, investigating why it is so popular and how blogs become successful.
However, for me to do this, I need to do more than talk about it from my point of view on here; I need to find out what other people think about it. So, I decided to create a survey.
I used a site called SurveyMonkey to create my survey, and it was really easy to use. In fact, it was a lot better than I was expecting originally. There were loads of different question formats to add into it and it was very easy to add your answer choices and edit them. I would recommend this site to anyone, I found it very easy to use and it was very simple to navigate. If you're thinking of creating your own survey for any reason, I suggest you check it out.
Before choosing my questions, I had to figure out what I wanted from the survey, what the purpose of my research was and what I was wanting to find out. As the 'free' version of the survey maker on SurveyMonkey limits your survey to 10 questions, I needed to make sure that every question counted and I managed to fit in everything that I wanted to know.
As my report's aim was to understand people's attitudes towards blogging in general and how to blog, I decided to take the approach of asking people what their blogging habits were like, and what they liked and disliked about certain features of blogs; after all, these people are the audience, and a blog's success is largely down to them, and to get them on side you need to find out what they want to see and what they don't.
After deciding on my questions, I posted links to my survey on all of my social media platforms for maximum traffic, as I needed as many responses as possible. It's important that surveys have lots of participants to make the results valid enough to create a generalisation and balance out any extreme anomalies.
And now, I sit back and wait! My aim is to get at least 30 participants to take part in my study so that I have enough data to analyse and create graphs and charts from to use in my report, as this will be the main body of work which will be discussed in it.
I'll probably be posting again eventually when people have participated in the study to talk about the results! For now, if you would like to see the survey or take it yourself, click here.
Lauren xxx
So, as you know, the purpose of this blog is for me to write a report on blogging, investigating why it is so popular and how blogs become successful.
However, for me to do this, I need to do more than talk about it from my point of view on here; I need to find out what other people think about it. So, I decided to create a survey.
I used a site called SurveyMonkey to create my survey, and it was really easy to use. In fact, it was a lot better than I was expecting originally. There were loads of different question formats to add into it and it was very easy to add your answer choices and edit them. I would recommend this site to anyone, I found it very easy to use and it was very simple to navigate. If you're thinking of creating your own survey for any reason, I suggest you check it out.
Before choosing my questions, I had to figure out what I wanted from the survey, what the purpose of my research was and what I was wanting to find out. As the 'free' version of the survey maker on SurveyMonkey limits your survey to 10 questions, I needed to make sure that every question counted and I managed to fit in everything that I wanted to know.
As my report's aim was to understand people's attitudes towards blogging in general and how to blog, I decided to take the approach of asking people what their blogging habits were like, and what they liked and disliked about certain features of blogs; after all, these people are the audience, and a blog's success is largely down to them, and to get them on side you need to find out what they want to see and what they don't.
After deciding on my questions, I posted links to my survey on all of my social media platforms for maximum traffic, as I needed as many responses as possible. It's important that surveys have lots of participants to make the results valid enough to create a generalisation and balance out any extreme anomalies.
And now, I sit back and wait! My aim is to get at least 30 participants to take part in my study so that I have enough data to analyse and create graphs and charts from to use in my report, as this will be the main body of work which will be discussed in it.
I'll probably be posting again eventually when people have participated in the study to talk about the results! For now, if you would like to see the survey or take it yourself, click here.
Lauren xxx
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