Simply called Doll, Mimi Kirchner’s blog is one of the best examples I’ve found of an artisan/craftsperson blogging their creative process with tons of pictures. This turns the process of creating each doll into its own story.
There are so many advantages to this in so many ways, I get excited even just thinking about it!
- People get to be in on the story of your creative process, which makes them feel close to you and they establish an emotional bond with you and what you make, which leads to sales.
- Blogging increases your search engine rankings because freqently updated sites are crawled more often by search engines.
- Blogging increases your search engine rankings because your posts are always chock full o’ the same keywords people use when searching on the web for what you make.
- Your peers and your customers get to see your expertise displayed through what you write about on your blog and, even better, through any pictures of your work you post.
- Journalists often use blogs as resources in their stories.
- Blogging, and all it entails, is the exact opposite of big box retailing and economies of scale, and is a way for the independant artisan, craftsperson, artist, and specialty retail person to ensure not only their own survival, but their own success.
I asked Mimi about her blog, and this is what she had to say:
I am horrible at PR but I realize that just making my dolls and no one ever seeing them is sort of pointless. Blogging is a painless way of putting my work out into the world.
-I use the blog as a storage place for links and other information… sort of my online filing cabinet.
-It is a way of keeping track of what I have actually done- ever since I had babies (the oldest is 20 now!), I am always feeling like I never get anything concrete accomplished. The blog is a constant reminder.
Update: Mimi is still rockin’ the dolls. As an interesting side note, doll is one of the most popular referral keywords for my blog because of this post.