I've read several articles and blogs about successful blogging, or, more specifically, how to get people to read and keep reading your blog. Inevitably, these articles include a list of "do"s and the first thing on the list is usually "Post lots of pictures to capture the readers' interest." As you can see, I have "adorned" my blog with several pieces of artwork, and do sometimes include photos in my posts, when appropriate. Nevertheless, for some reason, I find the suggestion of using photos to lure readers vaguely insulting to the intelligence and sophistication of readers in general, and it has made me think about what captures my own interest when viewing a blog new to me, as well as what sustains it in the blogs I already follow. Contrary to the suggestion, I'm initially captured by the title of the current post. Usually I see the link somewhere on Twitter or Facebook, or more often on the blogrolls of other blogs. When I open the link, I immediately read the text. If there's a picture, I only give it a cursory glance. If it is a book review, I couldn't care less about seeing a photo of the blogger's copy, unless his/her copy is an aesthetically interesting vintage edition with a stunning dust jacket, or is one of those beautifully designed paperback reissues with a good piece of art on the cover. After all, I don't miss photos of books in The New York Review of Books or The Times Literary Supplement. I care about the review. Travel posts, of course, and blogs that are meant to be family journals, need illustrative photos, in which case I appreciate them very much: for example, Thomas' photos of his recent car trip in England made me fairly salivate with envy. A friend of mine writes a blog for her children about their ancestors; old photographs of those ancestors are both essential to her purpose and enjoyable for her non-family readers.
I suppose (at least, I hope) what attracts someone to read or not to read something largely depends on his surroundings and situation. When sitting in doctors' waiting rooms, for instance, one can't help surreptitiously observing the other patients, particularly if one is interested in human behavior, as I am. I have observed that fewer patients these days pick up the magazines put in the waiting room for their benefit; they would rather pass the time doing mysterious things with their cell phones. Those who do read magazines, and these are mostly older women, tend to choose publications that abound in photographs, such as Architectural Digest or other interior design magazines. Perhaps a long, involved article isn't the kind of light diversion needed while waiting to see the doctor. And perhaps the people playing with their cell phones are doing the same sort of superficial browsing, for the same reason. In this situation, concentration tends to be elusive; even a routine teeth cleaning has my mind anticipating the discomfort of having my gums violated by a sharp metal object; the literary merits of my favorite authors are wasted in these circumstances. Pictures are therefore welcome.
In the privacy and relative leisure of my own home, however, when I choose something to read, I choose it for the subject and the excellence of the writing. That includes blogs. Anyway, there's now Pinterest for people who prefer lots of visual stimulation, and there's certainly nothing wrong with visual stimulation; I by no means mean to demean it (yes, I did mean to write "mean" three times, er, five times). Maybe I'm just a tiny bit indignant at the suggestion that pictures are essential to pleasurable and beneficial reading. Hmph.
I read a similar article several years ago. Since then I always include at one graphic per post. If you are someone like me who has about 200 blogs in your Google reader, sometimes it takes a visual to make me click on someone's blog. Or if people have a blogspot blogroll, if you have a picture with your post, it shows up on the person's blogroll driving people over to your blog.
ReplyDeleteI will say, once I get to know and like a blog and trust that the blogger has interesting things to say, the pictures aren't important to me. But until I get to know a blogger I need the pictures to keep me going back.
Your blog is interesting and well written, so I check it out regardless of weather or not you have a picture. But until people get to know you, it always helps to have a little eye candy.
Thank you, Thomas, I appreciate your comment! I concede that, if I had a camera (isn't that a Peter, Paul, & Mary song?), I would use it to illustrate my blogposts -- probably too often, at first, because it's my nature to go overboard with a new thing. But eventually I suspect I'd taper off quite a bit. I have thought, though, that I'd like to use more paintings in my posts, simply because they are my favorite kind of visual art.
DeleteThanks for reading!