31 Days to Build a Better Blog: Pretend Your Blog is a Barbie
Day 17, and I'm supposed to pretend my blog is a Barbie.
Well, sort of.
The real mission is to watch a first-time reader use the blog. What does the reader do? Bend the knees? Pull off the head? Show it to her friends?
You may not know this, but 99 out of 100 American households own a Barbie. This means the toy sort of... succeeded. And it all began when Ruth Handler watched little girls playing with paper dolls. She noticed they weren't drawn to kid-like dolls but rather to grown-up looking paper women that came as part of comic books.
Fascinated, Ruth watched the girls change and change and change the paper clothes and mimic adult conversation. This led her to the theory that "little girls want to be women." And this led her to the idea of a shockingly different kind of doll. One with an undeniably grown-up shape.
Ironically, this doll, which some people see as demeaning to women, is a women's success story. Handler fought tooth and nail to bring it to market in a male-dominated industry.
Okay, enough about Barbies. The real point is that you're supposed to watch how new readers use your blog, because one day it might help you figure out how to have 99 out of 100 households subscribed to you.
(Maybe you should offer a bonus zebra-striped bathing suit, Christian Dior party dress, and pink plastic high heels. It worked for Barbie. :)
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Total aside... this post is secretly serving as a contribution to Tweetspeak Poetry's Barbies Giveaway and Writing Project. Stop in for a chance to win Barbies at Communion, a new poetry book by Marcus Goodyear, or just write about the Barbies in your life, for a link and possible feature.
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LL's Day 1: Bambi in the Database, Day 2: The Dalai Lama Effect, Day 3: Darren Rowse, Please Link to Me, Day 4: Oprah, I Wanna Be Like You, Day 5: Email a Blog Reader, Day 6: Shakespeare and Company's Top 24 Blog Tips, Day 7: How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Link the Ways, Day 8: Entertaining Aliens, Day 9: Meet Me at the Mother Ship, Day 10: My Dog Ate Darren Rowse's Google Alerts, Day 11: Hey, Darren, It's My Turn, Day 12: Darren Gets on the Scale,, Day 13: I Will Not Be Swayed by Sales on Boxer Shorts, Day 14: Update a Key Page, Day 15: Honk if You Like, I Prefer Cake, Day 16: Buy a Velvet Couch
ProBlogger's Day 17: Watch a First Time Reader Use Your Blog
Paul's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Project
COMING TOMORROW
Gesundheit, a companion to ProBlogger's Day 18: Create a Sneeze Page for Your Blog.
Would you like to follow Bambi's efforts at better blogging? Here's a button, if you like :)
Belle Barbie at the Window photo, by Sara B. Used with permission.
Labels: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, Barbies at Communion
posted by L.L. Barkat at 7:00 AM
6 Comments:
Ah, Blogger Barbie. She does it all.
I'm the one home out of that hundred that doesn't own a Barbie. lol.
Kelly, we make up for it at our house. We have a veritable Noah's ark of Barbies.
My daughters had Barbies until their younger brother got a hold of them. They soon ended up without heads or arms and legs. Some of their body parts were exchanged for other items and they looked like mutants. Ah, boys! whoever said boys and girls are alike never had both.
How do you get this information? I have Google Analytics but I'm not sure how to use it like that!!
Where's my Dior?
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