Audience #3: Describe your Audience

Task Discussion

• 
  Stefanie   Aug. 16, 2011, 4:48 a.m.

  First and foremost, I contribute to the group blog ETC-J - which by the way recently features an interview on open learning at P2PU: http://etcjournal.com/2011/08/11/open-learning-at-p2pu-an-interview-with-jessica-ledbetter/

  Second, I also maintain a German blog about the Center for E-Learning at Ulm University.

  Both blogs have a very different audience and purpose. THE CEL-blog serves as a way to document my work and allows my employers to see what I do all day... It also allows me to communicate with instructional design teams from other universities. I have their blogs in my blog roll and follow their RSS-feeds on netvibes.

  The audience of ETC-J is clearly international. Readers / followers are people with an interest in educational technologies - or educational policies, practices .... etc.. Since the group blog is very diverse, I do not agree with all  postings by other authors and I distinguish between the general audience and the adressees of my own contributions. Both are important to me, but matter in different ways.

  At ETC-J, the editor in chief regularly monitors our page views. Currently, we have 5800 (July 2011). Our peak was 8100 this year in  March. The general trend is positive: in June 2010, we had 2260 page views, so there is a substantial improvement in terms of outreach. In the end however, these are just figures: It is nice if the stats are high, but I do not need to have continuous growth  to be content with the blog.

  If I look at my audience from the perspective of my individual postings, I enjoy getting comments and being reposted on other sites, e.g. my ED-MEDIA conference reports can also be found at the AACE blog / website. That's a cool thing when you use a creative commons licence as ETC-J does. This helps me do understand who I am writing for. Generally, people who are interested in social, personal and open learning topics. I case of conference reports specifically for organizers and attendees of the event.

  Why am I contributing to a group blog rather than having my own? Well, I do enjoy the proof reading and editing - a luxurious feature for non-native English bloggers.... Also, a group blog is great  for not being pressured to post all the time. I have phases of high and low levels of contribution - depending on my workload. This does not mean that I only post on the blog if I am not busy. However, some tasks fit very well with writing blog posts - and others just don't... 

   

• 
  nzeribe   July 4, 2011, 4:45 p.m.

  1. How old is my audience?

  My audience are currently extended members of my peer group, so I'd guess they are between 20 and 30 years old with outliers on either side. My blog is hosted on Tumblr, which has quite a young audience. My Tumblr is linked to my Facebook and the average age of my "friends" there might be 25 years old.

  2. Where are they likely from in the world?

  I've connected the account to Google Analytics, so I have detailed information. The vast majority of visitors are from the United Kingdom, with a smattering from the United States. This corresponds to my peer group and presence here at P2PU.

  3. What are their main interests?

  I have a creative background, and that might have a strong bearing amongst my peers. Music, festivals, the arts and technology would be strong influences, too.

  4. Why do they visit your blog?

  I remind them ;-) My blog cross-posts to my social networks, so when I post they know about it. And I like to think my content is interesting, too!

• 
  Stefanie   Aug. 11, 2011, 10:11 a.m.
  In Reply To:   nzeribe   July 4, 2011, 4:45 p.m.

  The refelction is very well written!

• 
  Lynn Cook   June 2, 2011, 5:31 a.m.

  I did small mind maps for each of my blogs: and my primary audience seems to be myself! Ha.

  More seriously, the art blog and the food blog are both meant to become professional blogs, ie ways for people to access information about me and about what I do. My Ofmville blog is a kind of description of the suburb, the things I enjoy, it's uniqueness. So it could be source material for people years down the track, equally, if someone is thinking of moving here they might find it and think, "yes, that's the place for me!".

  I will now get really serious and describe my target audience for each of my blogs.

  My art blog - lynncook.com.au - I want to be able to give the link, with pride!, to people who give out grants, and people who are interested in buying my work. So people who are used to reading about and looking at art. People who will want to see an engagement with the art world and ideas. I also want to use the blog as a way of keeping track, for myself, of what I've done, the things I've made as I keep on learning.

  The food blog - currently lynncooks.blogspot.com - I'm trying to develop as a thing that will earn me some income. I see the audience as being hungry Australians with not much time for cooking. So I'm not writing for people who know how to cook and are searching for the next big thing, more for people that just need to learn how to give themselves a good feed. The blog doesn't reflect that right now, I know, but I hope to conform it to my will in the near future.

  The other blog - ofmville.wordpress.com - has rapidly become a blog about Marrickville, the suburb where I live. It's an amazing place. So I guess that I am writing it as a kind of journal, what I think about living here. So the audience is whoever randomly finds the blog for whatever reason. It'll be interesting to see who visits.

• 
  Stefanie   Aug. 11, 2011, 8:12 a.m.
  In Reply To:   Lynn Cook   June 2, 2011, 5:31 a.m.

  "I did small mind maps for each of my blogs: and my primary audience seems to be myself! Ha."

  Actually, I think that is not the worst way to start.... I mean, blogs used to have this flavor of being inharently personal. Reaching an audience, gaining impact, all that to me is second!

   

• 
  Jessica Ledbetter   June 1, 2011, 5:25 p.m.

  I have an about page on my blog that is way too long. I keep meaning to edit it and am doing so for the redesign. I've also been tweaking my brand from Java Web Application Developer to Web Application Developer. I might tweak more to Web Addict since that's more fitting.

  Let's see. My audience.

  I think my audience is in their 20s-40s. I believe they are from all over, though probably a higher concentration in Virginia (where I'm at), Texas (Austin), and California (Los Angeles and San Francisco). I'm not sure why the hits from Los Angeles or Austin but I get a large number from there. I imagine the people that visit would be online a lot. Since I stopped blogging my artwork so much and focus more on open source, coding, and such, the people that are probably most interested in that are online a lot.

  I believe that their interests are diverse. I receive a lot of hits for my old "how to mount art" post as well as a really old book review on what to wear to work. More recent posts that get hits are the list of programming challenges one can do to become a better programmer. As soon as I finish some of the billion posts in draft stage about P2PU, I'm guessing my hits from educators will go up.

  I also get a lot of recruiters or potential employers hitting my site. Considering that I don't have a resume there with all the good keywords, they come from LinkedIn or my resume in a database somewhere. I wonder if I should include a resume to make it easier for them to know where my skills are at this time (and what locations I will consider). I just have a link to LinkedIn right now.

  Based on statistics, people visit from search engines. I would like to have a steady readership but since I blog to share information (and don't blog a lot), they don't have to read me all the time. However, I would hope that if they do find a post that misses a great resource that they post that as a comment.

• 
  Lynn Cook   June 2, 2011, 5:12 a.m.
  In Reply To:   Jessica Ledbetter   June 1, 2011, 5:25 p.m.

  I need your "how to mount art" post! Desperately!

  Thanks for mentioning it.

  L

• 
  Jessica Ledbetter   June 2, 2011, 10:09 a.m.
  In Reply To:   Lynn Cook   June 2, 2011, 5:12 a.m.

  Here it is: http://www.jessicaledbetter.com/how-to-mount-art/

  It's really not a lot. More of a note for myself but it gets hit a lot but no comments. Funny :)

• 
  Lynn Cook   May 15, 2011, 5:11 a.m.

  "If you share this post via your blog you may wish to include this under the "About" text of your blog, perhaps under a section titled "Who this blog is for". Share the link of the final text home here in the task comments."

  This is a great idea! I've always had a hard time coming up with something to put on the About page, so this solves my problem. Thank you!

• 
  MR337   May 13, 2011, 8:41 a.m.

  For my blog, HomeSweetRoam, I feel our audience ranges in ages and locations widely.  Since it will be a blog about living on the road indefinitely in an RV, it could appeal to anyone around the world who is curious about that life style.  A large portion of younger people in their 20's have lately been investigating this as a life style to start out early on, while the older retiring population of the US seems to take it up after they've wound down their careers and a life in a traditional "stick house".  To be honest, I'm not sure I can think of any part of the population who wouldn't possible be my audience.

• 
  Jessica Ledbetter   June 2, 2011, 10:11 a.m.
  In Reply To:   MR337   May 13, 2011, 8:41 a.m.

  Could probably also appeal to those trying to live on less -- smaller kitchens, fewer appliances, leftovers?, etc.