Kikolani features a weekly series called Fetching Friday. It has been exciting to see the series take off, and I thought I would share some of the elements, benefits and tips of writing a weekly blog series.
The Consistency Element
I chose Fetching Friday because I wanted an article that really summed up the best of the week. Fridays are not usually that popular in the blogging world, so I thought it was a great day to catch people’s interest. Also, the basic items in Fetching Friday are generally consistent from week to week. Readers can expect to find the resources mashup at the top, which contains the best articles I have found over the week, #FollowFriday recommendations, related news, previews, and a random video – sort of a TGIF treat!
Benefits of Consistency – Having the article appear on a consistent time interval, plus regularly including the items that readers like the most makes the articles more sticky, memorable and likely to attract regular readers. Also, keeping a consistent style for each article in the series allows you to create a template, further simplifying the process of creating the new post each week.
Tips on Consistency – If you choose a particular day of the week for your weekly series, pick a catchy, short title with the day included. I researched a lot of different titles before coming up with Fetching Friday – you want to make your series title unique and memorable! Also, don’t abandon the post just because it is late. While it is best to get it published as early possible on the chosen day, giving it to your readers a day later is better than not at all, disrupting the rhythm.
The Reader Interest Element
Chances are if you have been blogging for awhile, you have a good idea of what information the majority of your readers are interested in. This knowledge is what I use to guide my choices of articles in the Resources Mashup. Currently, the top subjects my readers are wanting to read more about is blogging, social media, personal development, business, SEO, and technical articles.
Benefits of Focusing on Reader Interest – This one is pretty simple. If your articles cater to your readers, then your readers will return for more and share with members of their community as well.
Tips on Reader Interest – How do you find out your reader’s interests? Start in your comments section – read and respond, and follow the author’s link to their blog and see what they write about. Chances are you will see a pattern across all of your commentators’ sites. New to blogging or do not have a community yet? Why not visit more established blogs on the same subject, and do the same thing – check out their comments and commentators!
The Link Love Element
While I do include some articles from the top authorities on subjects in the resources mashup, I also give a lot of link love to those in my community. Why? Because I believe that if an article could be beneficial to readers, it should be shared.
Benefits of Link Love – Again, this one is pretty obvious. It shows your community that you do read their content as well and, thus, care about their interests. It shows your community that you want to bring them the best information possible, whether or not you were the one who wrote it. And with the trackbacks, it notifies other bloggers that may not have visited your site before that you found their article useful, which may bring them in as a new reader to your series as well.
Tips on Link Love – Don’t include articles just to get a more popular blogger’s attention. Your first goal in link love sharing is to benefit your readers, not just to flatter other blog owners. Also, keep the articles that you want to include in your weekly series in one place – either tagged on a particular social bookmarking network or as you find articles, go ahead and add them to the template for the upcoming article.
The Twitter Trend Element
Since I love the idea of recommending your favorite Twitter members to all of your friends, I thought I would extend special #FollowFriday recommendations on the Fetching Friday series as well.
Benefits of Riding a Twitter Trend – By having #FollowFriday recommendations in my article, I can include that tag into the article title. So anytime the article is shared on Twitter, it is not only exposed to the followers of the Twitter member who shares it, but also to everyone searching and interested in the #FollowFriday trend.
Tips on Selecting Twitter Trends – Not interested in #MusicMonday, #FollowFriday, or other weekly Twitter trends? Why not check out the top trending topics of the day (via sites like What the Trend, Hashtags.org, or the Trending Topics section of the Twitter sidebar) and write a blurb in your article about that topic to include in your title?
The Related News Element
The related news section of Fetching Friday contains site updates, social networking news, or simply personal updates on other projects.
Benefits of Related News – This is a great section to share with your readers any changes that is going on in relation to you or your blog. New sections (archives or categories) or opportunities (advertising or guest posting), communities based on your site (Facebook pages or groups elsewhere), and something personal to let readers know about the person behind the blog (wedding photos or other goals) are all things that can be related news.
Tips on Related News – This is a great place to announce things that you want to bring attention to, but don’t necessarily want to write a full blog article about.
The Preview and Review Element
Up until now, I have been including a preview for upcoming articles in the next week. I also plan to start adding a week in review section starting this coming Friday.
Benefits of Preivews and Reviews – Since there are readers that may be coming in for just the Fetching Friday, I hope to draw their attention to other articles that have been written during the week, and peak their interest into returning earlier the next week (or better yet, subscribing) to catch the previewed articles as well. The bonus for doing previews is that it forces me to plan ahead on what the next week’s articles will be, as opposed to finding myself on Monday in a slump because I haven’t a clue what I want to write about. And of course, let’s not forget the SEO benefits of internal linking to your own posts.
Tips on Previews and Reviews – If you know your reader interest, especially related to your weekly series, make sure that any articles you are trying to draw their attention to is related to those topics.
The Video Element
I include random videos that I have added to my favorites over the week on YouTube or Vimeo. Since I have a lot of friends that are YouTube junkies, and lots of people in my StumbleUpon community that share videos, it is usually not too hard to come across an interesting video each week.
Benefits of the Video Element – One statistic that is overlooked when counting pageviews and referrers is the bounce rate, or the amount of time people spend once they arrive on your site. Aside from writing essay – long articles, there is nothing better than a video to keep your reader on your page for a longer amount of time.
Tips on Videos – You can go two ways with videos. Either you can search for videos that are related to your topic and reader interests. You can go for humorous and otherwise interesting, as most people with any area of interests like to laugh or learn something new. Or you can go for something that is just something you like, to show your readers a more personal side of you, the author.
Your Thoughts & Opinions on Weekly Series
Are you a fan of Fetching Friday and have a particular favorite element? Does your blog have a weekly series with other unique elements? Do you think a weekly series would be beneficial to your blog? Join the discussion below with your thoughts, ideas and tips!
Kristi,
Talking about consistency. We used to have what was called TWIB (This Week in Blogoshere). It was almost like Fetching Friday, but not as much of the resources you provide. I noticed a trean was developing where bloggers would check in to see if the received any link juice.
It truly works having a weekly series. I wish we didn’t end it, but maybe will start something different.
Frank Js last blog post..How to Increase Web Traffic Through Search
@Frank: I had a weekly series that I started last year, but it never seemed to take off, so I just canned it. Then I started Fetching Friday as a fresh series, and it is going much better. So maybe starting something new would have better results now! 🙂
You pointed in a very analytical way all the necessary ingredients for a successful series. Among all, I think consistency is the best. Having a balanced structure (including related news and entertaining content like videos) comes second.
I think your Fetching Fridays is more than just “taking off”, it’s quite established. Which reminds me of that short Twitter chat we had several weeks ago 😉 If I would be you, I would do it.
But obviously (and thankfully, for the diversity sake) I’m not you. 🙂
P.S. really liked the way your wrote this post.
Dragos Rouas last blog post..ADD stages – Decide
I am amazed by your series, and I wish to have a good one like yours! well done kristi
Heshams last blog post..How to Create a Forcing Comment Post and get more than 100 Comments?
Kristi, this article breaks it down very nicely. All of the things you mentioned are absolutely true, and yet there is more to Fetching Friday. Let’s call it the “Kristi Factor.” You have created something that can’t really fit into a formula because your personality is what brings it to life. It’s way more than just a resource, even though it is a great one. Fetching Friday carries with it your enthusiasm and energy. It has a feeling of generosity and community that can’t be missed. It’s you!
@Dragos: Thanks! Diversity is definitely a great thing in the blogging world. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much in the way of new information and new ideas.
@Hesham: I think everyone can build a great series with the right elements based on their readers interests!
@Jonathan: Wow, I have my own factor. I never thought about that, but I do like to add some personal touches to each article, that way they don’t come off sounding too generic. Thanks! 🙂
I love your weekly fetching Friday series. I never thought of do a series myself, but now I am going to give it some thought. Thanks for the great idea.
Jennifer/Connect with your Teenss last blog post..13 Top iPhone Apps for Students
Amazing! It’s really informative post for me, and I think also that business videos are very important for online marketing and advertising, and videos play a major rule to make money online. Thanks for sharing.
You know Kristi, ages ago I started a category on my Load Of BS site called ‘Friday’s Funnies’ for just those reasons that you stated in your post. Alas, unlike you I missed a couple of times and then I just got jack of the whole thing and let it lapse. I haven’t posted in that category for ages, and so I commend you on being able to stick to your Fetching Friday routine, but then you were always an exceptional person.
Sire@ Cool Blog Linkss last blog post..Using CJU’s Rotating Banner Function
Hey Kristi, thanks for this post. To be honest, I’m actually considering if I should have a regular links-mashup (perhaps not weekly, but maybe monthly or so). If I do move in that direction, this post will definitely help me in that. Thank you for all the work you put into your articles! They really come through to us readers.
Celes | EmbraceLiving.Nets last blog post..101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time
Just saw your photo at the other blog, that’s the reason why i became interested to see what’s in your blog. Nice article here by the way. I’m still reading. Regards.
Interesting series, Kristi. I agree that everybody can build-up his/her own series according to reader interest + the niche of blogging too. Reviews are interesting idea for bloggers who don’t find regular stuff to post about and/or don’t have specific niche of blogging.
It’s quite amazing how I find consistency in trends like FollowFriday, Wordless Wednessday, Music Monday. I wonder whether there is SleepingSundays or not 😛
Hichams last blog post..Relationship Status
I am a big fan of your series and this post was a big service to me. I am thinking of creating something like this on my blog. Thanks for the inspiration.
Tycoon Bloggers last blog post..Do you want 25,000 Twitter followers in one second?
Wow Kristi!
You’re really smart girl! what an excellent post with great reasoning behind it. I’m at a time in my life where I can’t start with a consistent blog post series but as soon as I’m able to I will definitely come back here and reread what you just said and implement these tips.
These are some excellent tips for bloggers in general.
I’m gonna tweet it right now 😉
All the best,
Eren Mckay
Eren Mckays last blog post..And I Await (poem about hope in the midst of trials)
I have been experimenting with weekly posts and series concepts on my blog, thanks mainly to Keg of Wisdom and your site. I appreciate you sharing the tips that you do as I am constantly trying to learn and try new things, thank you for taking the time to be so detailed.
Extreme Johns last blog post..Why Write a Blog?
Amazing! It’s really informative post for me, and I think also that business videos are very important for online marketing and advertising, and videos play a major rule to make money online. Thanks for sharing.
Kristi,
Excellent write up, you’ve really got something neat going on here. I haven’t heard much talk about forming “blog template” if you will for certain days of the week, interesting. Organization is central as one if bring these various elements together. Is there a point when it could become overbearing? How do you determine what to exclude?
Thanks for sharing, all the best.
-Mig
Miguel |Simplyblogs last blog post..The Android Apps I’m Using…
Hii Kristi,
This post was awesome, I completely agree with your Consistency Element, because if you are a regular blogger with good no. of fans then fans eagerly wait for your every post just to read something new and interesting at that case your consistency is very essential.
Thanks to share this…
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