Whiptips: Starting a craft blog
Whiptips is an crafts advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving your comments. View the Whiptips archive here. You can submit questions, to whiptips@gmail.com. Please include photos with your questions! And a link to your own blog :)
Thank you to all the commenters making Whiptips so helpful!
Valdemar is “stuck in the middle of Swedish nowhere” and just started his own new craft blog. He writes in to ask for some newbie advice saying “I am kind of lost in the internet jungle.”
If you’ve just started your own craft blog, what are the first things you should do? Any services or ideas you should try?
I think it depends on what area work in, or what are your goals with your craft blog. There are alot of advantages to keeping a blog. For example:
- Developing a focus in your life for your hobby/budding business
- Getting help and helping others
- Selling
- Documenting
- Meeting people for swapping
So depending on your goals, the things you try might be different. But there are some ideas for participating in the blog-world in general. I’ll kick this off with four tips, I look forward to hearing from others:
Keeping a craft blog tip 1: Be Yourself
In fancy internet terms a blog is a kind of ‘Online Presence’ (I knew my MSc in Computer Science was good for something!). This online presence connects you to others online, and as with all relationships, building TRUST is important.
Always include a profile or an ‘about’ page on your website. For a while, I had only a very basic one, but for writing here at Whipup, Kathreen asked us to include info about inspirations too. Try reading some of the profiles here on Whipup (in sidebar).
If you can, it is best to follow a ‘Use Real Names’ policy to build trust. Not everyone can use real names, I know! You don’t have to use your last name though, or publish your address. Alot of people in the craft blog world tend to use real names, or at least appear to use real names. However, there is a tendency to refer to someone by their blogname, or community username (like Flickr names).
Photos of yourself also help to build trust. Many people take headless shots of their clothing, but having at least one portrait photo somewhere on your site is really nice to see. (Bah! I just noticed I need to put photos of me on my own site!) Also, linking to your own profile on other online groups you are a part of, like Flickr, or Craftster or Crochetville, etc. will also help build trust to show that you participate in other communities. In a sense, it demonstrates your credibility, and shows how broad your online presence is.
Keeping a craft blog tip 2: Be Friendly
The friendliest things in the blog world are links and comments. The link is the basic structure of the internet, the most important component. Use them widely. If you mention someone or their work, link to their blog! Your readers love links, and whomever you link to will be very grateful.
The next most important thing is leave comments when you visit other’s blogs. If you read something and it gave you a thought, or a chuckle, or reminded you of a link, say so! If you were there and you read it just say Hello! (I don’t know why I am so shy! Let me say, if you keep a blog I’ve probably seen it!)I am really bad at this, and writing this advice makes me want to leave comments more.
It’s the nicest thing you can do though, to leave comments, in this attention economy. You’ll know how it feels when you get some comments. It’s really nice….
Keeping a craft blog tip 3: Consider your goals
When I started my craft blog, my first commenter Michelle from Green Kitchen gave me some generous advice. I wanted to know how to ‘get into’ swapping. She advised me to post images of the fabric/stuff I wanted to swap, and see if others were interested. I ended up posting my images into Flickr and marking them as Available for Swap. I also posted them into Flickr Groups for this. I quickly had people interested in swapping, and even had to turn down some! I eventually got swaps with people whose work I greatly admired. I also learned I like to swap for hand-made not *just* materials.
I think my own goals have shifted a bit, since I’ve found out swapping is really expensive for me at the moment. Now, I would like to ‘get into’ developing crocheting patterns and selling them. So I’m working on making patterns now, and participating in online groups where people discuss pattern making.
No matter what you’re interested in, there is going to be a niche group for your interest. Search online and find like minds! These will be the people who will enjoy your blog the most, and connect to your work and yourself.
Keeping a craft blog tip 4: Etiquette Mistakes I Made about responses to comments.
(Edit! I gladly admit I was wrong in my assumption about Comment Response Etiquette!)
As it turns out, there are different ways to respond to comments. Probably the easiest one is to respond on your own blog under the comments you receive. This keeps the conversation open for others to join in, and it also takes less time, so you can get back to being creative!
I had kept blogs in other contexts before, and I only found recently that the etiquette was different in the online craft world regarding comments. It seems the onus is on you to respond via email to the comments you get. I didn’t know this, but I have gathered it from reading blogs of those who get alot of comments… they apologize for not responding via email to people who send in comments. Oh! I didn’t know I was supposed to do that!
Now, looking back I got comments from some really interesting people early on, and at the time I was like, ‘Wow! Cool!’ but I never wrote them back. Silly me! At that point, I would have been able to develop some connections with other crafters.
I guess in the end, it’s important to remember that as much as it’s text and photos and links we’re putting online, the end result is to connect to others. We’re social animals!
Any other tips?
I don’t know much about selling, or finding people who are interested in purchasing work. But I have had people approach me about it, just from seeing my own work online. YabbleBabble has a 15 part series on selling crafts online.
Can anyone offer other advice about services or tools to use? Or things to include in a new craft blog?
How did you get connected to others?
What do you guys think the point of blogging is?
July 31st, 2006 at 7:22 am
As far as I can figure out, Blogger doesn’t have a way to reply via email to comments. Because of this I try to reply to comments by 1) by visiting their blog and leaving a comment or 2) adding a comment on my own blog below theirs.
July 31st, 2006 at 8:17 am
nikki, try to activate comment moderation or comment notification in your settings (settings>comments). it will have blogger send you an email when someone has made a comment for you to moderate or just telling you someone has commented. than, i find that sometimes you can replay to the comment and it will be from the actual email address of the commenter (on other times it’ll be the “no-replay@blogger” address). i guess that depends if someone put their email address in or not. blogger kind of sucks about it, but it’s actually not that bad. i just know i have some commenters i wish i could email back.
July 31st, 2006 at 8:54 am
I try to at least reply to new commenters. I use Blogger, too, and they make replies to postings very challenging. Like Nikki, I’ve also been trying to visit the commenter’s blog or leave a message in the comment section. In the comment section I tend to leave general thanks, unless there is a specific question. I hope this isn’t too rude. I just don’t have time to reply to each individual email from my blog and Flickr. I kind of liked Aunty Cookie’s snarky posting on comment and reply ettiquette.
July 31st, 2006 at 9:23 am
I find very hard to reply to all the comments I get because I barely have the time to post in my own blog, but as Nikki and Michelle, I also try to visit those commenter’s blogs and leave my comments. I also think it’s nice to put a little bit about yourself and your life within your posts, that’s what makes me want to go to other crafter’s blogs sometimes, because I get to “know” them in a way and I end up interested to know more about them. I also think that posting often helps.
July 31st, 2006 at 10:18 am
Carmen, I haven’t been putting enough of myself in my own blog, I guess I didn’t realize how important it is!
July 31st, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Wow, it’s so haaaard! Ha.
For me, the hardest thing is #3, considering my goals. If I’m being myself, my goals are… all over the place. I want to meet and connect with people who are into knitting, lace, wacky old fashions, bookmaking, stamp carving, metal etching, sewing… and whatever else appeals to me at the moment.
I also didn’t know about the comment reply-via-email etiquette. I’ve used livejournal, which makes it very easy with threaded comments. Man, I wish WordPress could do threaded comments!
July 31st, 2006 at 2:44 pm
I really struggle with the leaving and replying to comments thing (though I don’t get many comments and I do try and respond). I think that for me, blogging enables me to be less shy. If I’m not actually in front of a bunch of strangers I can be more myself and say things I wouldn’t normally. And I don’t mean rude or obnoxious things, just things. I’m a pretty shy person in real life and I find it hard to speak to people. Perhaps that’s why I find it hard to comment and reply. The barrier to being outgoing hasn’t quite been broken through yet. I also think that having a blog gives you a unique voice. I was (still am really, though I haven’t visited in a while) a member of a craft forum. I found that people didn’t always understand me, especially when I was being silly or funny. It’s difficult to express yourself when people can’t see your face. On my blog though, it doesn’t matter if people don’t ‘get’ me because I’m writing for me, and not trying to fit in to some (probably unintentional) mindset. I can be all over the place if I want.
July 31st, 2006 at 5:27 pm
I stumbled over Darren Rowse’s http://www.problogger.net/ and cannot say how much I’ve learned from reading his (and others) entries.
I’m not into using ads on my site to earn money, but reading his sites get me to learn how to better set my goals, how to get past writers block, what to tihng of when redesigning my site, – and many other themes he has written about (and got others to write about).
I’m still trying to get used to think of my blog/ journal like this, and it has helped me to take this “blogging” more serious, – as it’s seems as it’s not just a “flop” but gonna be a habit of mine :-)
July 31st, 2006 at 10:25 pm
I use blogger, too, and am considering switching to something else (probably typepad, although I don’t like the idea of paying for my blog) because the comments thing really irritates me. I have no way of knowing if commenters check back on their comments on my blog to see if I’ve responded! And besides, I really like getting email responses from my comments elsewhere, and I’d like to spread the joy of new inbox messages.
As far as having an online presence, I try to keep mine fairly anonymous. I wouldn’t want someone from my academic life (I’m a grad student) finding my blog. I tend to be a little sillier on my blog than I’d like to be in, say, a job interview or the classroom, and I’d rather that the two worlds never met. But, I do think it’s important to connect with your readers, so I’m considering forgoing other details (like where I live, which university I attend, etc) in order to use my first name. There’s a careful balance between too much information and not enough, and I’m still trying to work it out for myself.
July 31st, 2006 at 11:06 pm
I feel like such a jerk! I didn’t know you’re supposed to respond via email! I’m kind of perpetually behind the times, I think; because it always feels like I’m catching up with the rest of the Craft-Blog-O-Sphere! I guess that’s better than not playing at all! :)
July 31st, 2006 at 11:26 pm
@ Dara: Wordpress does do threaded comments, with the use of a plugin. It can be found at: http://meidell.dk/archives/2004/09/04/nested-comments/.
@ everyone: I think a great tip is to spell out what people can expect from you. On my previous blog, I felt that all I could write about was knitting, because that’s where I started. I felt very stiffled, and unable to combine all the parts of my life together. I know people often run mulitple blogs, but that just wasn’t me. When I started over, I made sure to explain exactly what was going on. I told people I was probably only going to answer comments in comments, because then everyone could follow the conversation.
And, if your blogging software features catagories and/or tags, use them! It makes it much easier to find previous posts on the same topics, because then there is a sense of organization about the place.
Also, for those looking to set up new blogs, or just want to get away from blogger, Wordpress.com offers free blogs that knot the socks off of blogger any day (in my opinion, at least ;) )
July 31st, 2006 at 11:49 pm
I’ve been pondering what exactly I want my blog to be for some time now- sometimes I get overwhelmed when I look at other really impressive bolgs, but than I remember that mine is still a baby and has a lot of growing to do!
I feel the same way, Dara, my goals are all over the place!
I think for now I’m just going to focus on actually updating mine so I have some interesting content that people want to look at.
August 1st, 2006 at 4:29 am
cor, this is useful. I’ve had my blog for a few months and have just made it up as I go along. I had never even read a blog 5 months ago – found one by accident (www.dressaday.com) and just had to get one! I love it now and have made some great connections with people all over the world! It is hard sometimes when you feel like you have nothing interesting to say – or particularly, nothing interesting to show! I tend not to blog if I haven’t taken any pictures. That is a bit silly, but there you go. I resolve to be better about comments, and to find the time to comment on other blogs too – need to keep up the 2 way traffic, after all!
August 1st, 2006 at 4:47 am
I’m new to blogging and my blogs on the fringes of crafting with my knitting as well as gardening and this post has been very useful to pick up etiquette and peoples expectations as it is hard to know if you’re being a ‘courteous blogger’ and it’s easy to be shy about building up contact with other bloggers beyond commenting.
August 1st, 2006 at 9:24 am
I am new to all of this, and am feeling my way. I often respond to a comment in the comments. If I have a way of contacting a commenter (they have left email info, or blog info), I will do that, and if I don’t, well, I figure they don’t want to be contacted…..
I think that answering right in my own comment section makes the most sense — the opportunity for a conversation is greater.
If I email someone, then the … stream of consciousness ?? … is broken, and it is much less clear how the conversation is going.
I do still contact them, to let them know I saw their comment, but I prefer to keep the conversation together (especially if more than one person comments!), rather than fragmenting it into email…………
(Easy for me to say “I contact them” — I get so few comments it’s not really a problem!)
August 1st, 2006 at 9:57 am
Thanks for the heads up about responding to comments in an email! Who knew! Luckily I’m new at this blogging and haven’t neglected many commenters. But I’m with Vicki in Michigan, I think I’ll post in the comments to keep the conversation going then just copy and paste it into an email so they know what is happening.
This is just the latest thing I’ve learned from your wonderful blog!
August 1st, 2006 at 12:01 pm
I don’t think it is feasible to respond to every comment by personally e-mailing everyone back. It would really become a full-time job to maintain a blog that way. If a commenter is really interested in your response they should come back to check on it. Well, that’s what I do anyway.
August 1st, 2006 at 9:15 pm
This is great! Ive just started trying to blog, it’s a whole new universe. I have been checking out crafting blogs for about a month, getting very excited and inspired, even bought a book on the subject. This post and all the comments have been so helpful, I have learned even more. Thanks so much. (This is my first comment ever).
August 1st, 2006 at 10:22 pm
I’ve become an blogdict. I read waaaaay more blogs on any given day than a person has a right! Yep, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. :-) I do leave a comment every now and then when something I’ve read has made a termendous impress on me, but never did I think that it would be responded too…hmmm Although I have to admit, I don’t read the comments either. I wonder how many bloogers I have offended by not reading their comments to my comments!! Egads!! I read the comments the first couple of weeks and found them often to be casual comments such as ‘nice picture’ ‘I like that colorway’…mostly the ooo’s and ahhh’s type thing. Kudos for the blogger (which is good) but not much substance for the casual reader. I’ve always felt that if I had something to say that actually “required” a response form the blogger I’d send it in an email directly to her/him. Seems most bloggers do have that option available to their readers.
Obviously I read these comments today because you requested comments/more info from others and I thought perhaps there was more for me to learn there. I’ve been comtemplating starting my own blog, but haven’t a clue as to go about it. Think I’ll give wordpress.com and bloglines a look-see, unless one of you lovelies would like to point me in another direction. And of course I’ll go checkout Darren Rowse’s site too. Thanx I learned about that here in the comments section!!!…..go figure!!!
August 2nd, 2006 at 4:01 am
Totally helpful post today – although I am still confused. I have people leaving comments w/ no way to contact them. I don’t answer their questions because I figure they won’t check back on my blog – because I never do check back after I leave a comment on someone else’s blog. In fact, I barely ever read the comments sections on other people’s blogs. I guess I’m wrong.
I have the slowest connection in the universe and not a lot of time for this. Although I have really enjoyed meeting people via my blog from all over the world. Maybe I should start leaving answers to comments in my comments section. I have been feeling guilty because I have been being rude by not answering questions. I’m on blogger because it is really easy and I’m not much of a techo-type person.
August 2nd, 2006 at 5:27 am
I have a ‘recent comments’ section in my sidebar which allows everyone to simply flick their eyes to the sidebar and see responses. It is one of the reasons I like Wordpress as a result I respond to comments in the comments field as it allows everyone to read the answer and keeps a conversation open. I see blogs as a conversation not a closed discussion between two people.
Wordpress is free and very flexible just go to wordpress.com
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:39 am
[...] Whipup has a very good piece on Starting a craft blog . Craft blogs are commenced for a number of different reasons and their piece has made me consider why I keep a blog. [...]
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:30 pm
i’ve edited the original text i wrote, it seems alot more people are in agreement that it’s ok to respond to comments in the page. but having the email is handy, to make contact with people.
i guess we’re all just figuring out what works best!
August 2nd, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Great post – I have a question, do commenters (should commenters) read comments left by others? I’ve only done that a few times… I not so comfy with that….
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:59 pm
I tend to leave replies to comments in the next post unless it is of a personal nature (i havn’t come across one yet that was too personal to publish). Because I sometimes don’t have time to respond individually. Also, I don’t go back and re-read the comments section of where I leave one. I read almost 200 blogs – I use bloglines to read them, and sometimes it is just enough to get a comment left, much less remember WHERE I left comments to!! Another reason is I am sure if there was a question left, others might want to know the answer too, if they see someone ask the question, they might not ask the question in hopes that it might be answered on the blog.
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:53 am
On my own blog I reply to comments on the comment page because so many people have “no reply” set up making it impossible to contact them. Many of my most favorite blogs have been found by clicking on a link in someone else’s blog comments. I read other people’s comments and many times find answers to questions I might have.
I did a post about this recently and I think I confused a lot of people by my comparison to old-time calling cards. I wasn’t implying we should some how use calling cards again but just seeing blog comments as a sort of modern-day calling card. When we leave a comment, we want to get one in return. To me it doesn’t matter whether it is on the comments page or in a personal email but I do like to be acknowledged.
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:25 am
I’ve only been blogging for almost a year now. My challenge is to post more than once a month on my blog because being very busy with work and other commitments. I also tend to be all over the place because I have a variety of interests – sewing, decoupaging, ATC’s, jewelry making, thrifting, swapping, etc. I have enjoyed swapping on Flickr and some personal swaps which I started by personally emailing someone whose work I admire and asking if they would like to do a personal swap.
I have gotten creative inspiration from blogs all over the world and have their blog links on my sidebar – a whole lotta them. Some don’t know that I’ve linked to theirs and some do. I have to start commenting more often on all of them and let them know I’ve linked to their blogs. Maybe some more bloggers will link back to mine.
Overall, I’ve met some fascinating and talented people online and have enjoyed the blogging scene very much. I’m still finding my niche and immensely enjoying the journey in the process of finding it.
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:31 am
whoops – think I’ve been getting that one wrong!
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:03 pm
I have enjoyed your blog and the comments. I am a blogger ‘wanna be’ and webmaster newbie so all of the ideas have been invaluable. This is my initial comment to a blog so I guess I am taking the plunge into the blogosphere. I have been reading everything I can find on how to get started setting up a blog… it’s quite confusing, and still have a lot to learn. Thanks for the advice.
August 8th, 2006 at 2:50 am
[...] I recently read a post on sharonb’s blog about why she blogs. I also read the entry by Heather James on whipup that had caused sharonb to write hers. [...]
November 5th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Buon luogo, congratulazioni, il mio amico!
December 11th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
I just started my blog at wordpress.com (which I love) and Whipup is one of my absolute favorites!
These comments have been invaluable to me as is this whole site. THANKS!
Tam
January 1st, 2008 at 6:43 am
[...] then, if you decide to jump in and start one, there is a great article on Whip Up about starting a craft blog. If you are not feeling like it is working out the way you had expected, read this other Whip Up [...]
April 8th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
[...] 8, 2008 WhipUp has an interesting (and ancient) article on starting a craft blog. From my cursory search, there doesnt seem to be a lot of information about starting (or [...]