A reflection on Love the Limelight

My first forays into the world of blogging were short lived. Being unsure of how to generate traffic, attract readers and create suitable posts means that I have been searching for the right formula – in terms of style and subject matter – for years.

Why celebrity?

With Love the Limelight I decided to utilise the obsession with celebrity to my advantage by creating an accessible celebrity blog. I knew the celebrity content would be easily available, but I wanted to offer something different to the sites already in the blogosphere.

 

Cheryl Cole has frequently been featured on Love the Limelight

My blog is different…

Many of the amateur celebrity blogs are wordy and lacking in pictures, whereas the professional ones pride themselves on being overtly critical about the celebrities they feature. I wanted to strike a balance between the two, and produce something punchy, informative and entertaining but not judgemental. I also got around the picture issue by using photos from the site picapp.com which offers photos for people to use legally on their blogs.

I’d initially planned to use videos to complement my content, but after blogging for a few weeks, I decided against this. I felt that keeping my identity private heightened the tone of my blog. The idea to link readers to Youtube videos, however, worked well and I did this in the post about Nadine Coyle’s poor single sales as well as well as in two posts about Cheryl Cole.

I also decided to use polls on both Love the Limelight as well as Girl Meets Blog as I felt this was a good way to engage with readers. Asking them to vote for their favourite X Factor judge was not only a way to get them involved, but it also allowed me to gauge the most popular celebrities.

A change in style…

Whilst I hadn’t considered writing style and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in my strategy, it’s proved to be the biggest change since the blog began. My early posts used puns in the headlines, like ‘Over before it’s even begun,’ with pictures slotted between the various paragraphs. However, I quickly realised that this was an ineffective way to present my material.

The first change in style was on 28^th October where I used the SEO friendly headline ‘Mariah Carey announces pregnancy.’ I also changed the layout of my posts by using a headline, a photograph of the celebrity, a list of bullet points and then the story itself. I have continued this format in the posts since. This provides consistency and improves SEO. 

The hit factor

Most of my entries have received a steady number of hits, but there were two which stood out. The first was a post about Cheryl Cole on 8^th November which received 70 hits. This was at the time of the X Factor furore around Cheryl’s selection of contestants. I think this, combined with the general interest in Cheryl Cole, was the reason for the story warranting so many hits.

Sweet Monday’s blogger Kim Parslow did this guest post on my blog

It was the guest post by Sweet Monday blogger, Kim Parslow, however, which received 100 hits in one day. I decided to feature Kim because she has a mass following and blogs about fashion. Because many of my readers are female, I thought combining fashion and celebrity would make for an interesting post.

I generated interest in this post a few days before by tweeting about the feature.  On the day it went live, I tweeted and Facebooked my followers, and Kim did the same so collectively we generated a huge volume of traffic.

This proved that engaging with other bloggers really does drive readers to your site, and since publishing this post, my hit rate has remained high. Having a guest blogger, or featuring on someone else’s blog is something I’m keen to continue. 

My social media strategy has changed quite considerably. My initial plans to create a Twitter account for the blog didn’t seem to work. However, once I began tweeting from my personal Twitter account the hit rates increased. I created a Facebook page for friends and followers to ‘Like,’ but Twitter generated interest and helped me engage with readers more effectively.

The future…

Engaging with readers is something I plan to improve as I continue the blog, by increasing the amount of time invested in Facebook. I don’t think I posted links to stories or asked for reader feedback enough on Facebook. Whilst it isn’t as instantaneous as Twitter, Facebook is currently still more popular so investing more time in it can only be positive.

I’d also integrate more guest posts and engage with other blogs. I had planned to comment on other celebrity blogs in the hope of exchanging readership and creating more interest in Love the Limelight. I didn’t manage to do this as much as I had initially hoped. As I continue the blog, I want to interact with other bloggers much more.

Editorial franchises?

I’d also like to make more of longer features. I’d planned to write a weekly round—up called ‘Rant of the Week,’ which I managed to do only twice.  Time restraints meant that writing these longer pieces became secondary to posting the shorter stories which kept the hit rate up and provided readers with the latest news.

Heat magazine's Torso of the Week is a brilliant editorial franchise. I'd like my 'Rant of the Week' feature to take on a similar must read quality

However, as I continue the blog, I’d like to explore the possibility of turning these posts into editorial franchises. For example, instead of calling the features ‘Rants of the Week,’ the names could be changed to ‘Love of the week’ or ‘In the Limelight’ to not only reinforce the blog’s name, but also to offer more scope for subject matter.

The blog has acted as an outlet for me to write regularly and hone my skills. Celebrity news lends itself well to blogging – it allows the writer to create short, punchy news features, and use photographs and social media tools to enliven the content. With changes to be made and plenty of room for development, I hope that Love the Limelight will continue to grow.

A few links…
1. I used polls like this one on my blog, Girl Meets Blog, to engage readers. It’s a good way of gauging how readers feel about a certain topic.

Something I feel I need to strive to do more of is ask my readers questions – about what they like/how they feel and what they’d like to see on my blog.

2. SEO and clarity are key.
I changed my blog entries from this rather jumbled early entry with a headline which isn’t SEO friendly, to this more accessible and coherent style.

I found this website about SEO really useful when honing my style.

3. This guest post received 100 hits in one day. It just goes to show that engaging with other bloggers and collectively linking readers to one another’s sites can drive huge volumes of traffic.

Here are some other ways to drive traffic to your blog.

Capturing Cardiff: Cardiff’s role in saving the Welsh language

Whilst investment in education is important, Welsh speakers need the chance to consolidate their knowledge. Bilingual translations, like this one at Cardiff Central Station, aim to help facilitate this.

• The Welsh language is more endangered than ever.
• The Welsh Language Measure has been modernised in an attempt to protect Welsh.
• But as the capital city of Wales, what is Cardiff doing to help save the language?

Cardiff is an exciting, vibrant place. The centre of employment, tourism and business in Wales, it’s not only Europe’s fastest growing capital, but a cosmopolitan city in terms of its design and citizens. Yet in a cultural country which has its own language, just 11% of the capital’s booming population speak it.

7th December 2010 saw the Welsh Assembly Government pass the new Welsh Language Measure. It aims to revive Welsh by placing duties on public bodies to incorporate the language into their services, enabling it to play a role in the day-to-day lives of Welsh speakers. Whilst this is a positive move, the very need for a change in law serves to demonstrate that without some preventative measures, Welsh will soon become extinct.

A focus on education

Cardiff is doing its bit to help save the language with numerous strategies presented in the Welsh Language Scheme 2009-12. One of Cardiff Council’s key commitments is investment in education.

The 2001 census revealed that the proportion of children between the ages of five and 15 able to speak Welsh had risen from 12.7% in 1991 to 24.5%. Cardiff now has 17 Welsh schools, (these can be seen on the map below) meaning that 20% of Cardiff children will receive their education through the medium of Welsh by the next census. This education drive is reflected in the plans for a new Welsh-medium school in Canton.

Ffion Gruffudd, Welsh Language Officer at Cardiff Council,recognises the importance of education in restoring Welsh in Cardiff: “Parents are aware of the benefits of choosing a Welsh school for their child, and the demand for Welsh education continues to rise at an astonishing rate.”

Dissatisfied locals

Many locals agree, but feel that the proposals for new schools have been a long time coming: “There’s been a demand for a new Welsh-medium school for ages,” says Cardiff mother-of-two, Mandy Jenkins. “The demand is so high that it’s always a game of catch up. The result is overcrowding.”

The Chair of the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Bill Kelloway, however, disagrees: “The proposals for an increase in Welsh-Medium education provision in Cardiff underlines the Executive’s commitment to the Welsh language. We want to ensure that we are in a position whereby all parents who wish for their children to have a place at a Welsh-medium school have that provision.”

‘A lack of opportunity…’

Despite these provisions, there is a lack of opportunity for Welsh speakers to consolidate their knowledge in day-to-day activities such as reading. There are very few Welsh bookshops in Cardiff, and in those that are present in the city, even a popular Welsh book is unlikely to sell more than 5000 copies.

It was also revealed in March that whilst there are 99,068 English books in Cardiff Central Library, only 6,717 Welsh books are held and 22% have never even been borrowed. Providing education is essential for the preservation of Welsh, but that alone is not enough to increase the use of it.

Sioned Wyn, Welsh Language Assistant at Cardiff Council, agrees: “Children learn Welsh at school, but young people must have an opportunity to use it outside the school gates and in the community in order for it to be seen as a living language.”

By 2012, all road signs in Wales will be printed in English and Welsh

Investment in bilingual communication is one way of integrating Welsh into the community. Correspondence between citizens, educational establishments, the police and council in Cardiff are now printed in English and Welsh. Furthermore, all road signs will be translated into both languages by 2012.
However, these efforts are stalled by a lack of positivity and cultural reinforcement around the language.

The recent cuts to Welsh broadcasting channel S4C’s budget gives the impression that Welsh carries less importance than English – something Cardiff has been working hard to eradicate.

TV programmes such as ‘Gavin and Stacey’ do little to help. Despite the show’s tender portrayal of Welsh life, the comedy frequently referenced the characters’ inability to speak or understand the language.

Ffion Gruffudd reveals that these negative attitudes towards Welsh have “always been a battle,” but that the council are seeking to rectify this by training staff: “The training will involve Welsh Language Awareness and we’re hoping this will go some way to recognising the needs of Welsh speakers and learners and help change people’s attitudes and views for the better.”

Winter warmers at Abergavenny Christmas Food Fair

Endless queues and fights over the last turkeys can turn Christmas food shopping into a nightmare.

Abergavenny’s Christmas Food and Drink Fair on December 5, however, promises to change all that.
Arranged by the people behind the world famous Abergavenny Food Festival, the event will offer a mix of produce, chef demonstrations and tastings to get everyone in the festive mood.

Over 60 of the most impressive local and regional food producers will seek to tempt you with fresh and cured meats, cheese and chocolates as well as wine, cider and liqueurs.

Aside from the array of market stalls, there will also be master classes hosted by a cast of local chefs as well as CBBC’s food adventurer, Stefan Gates.

Organisers hope that this unique charm will help them repeat the success of the September Fair, “What’s so exciting is that it’s about Christmas food and drink –no crafts or tacky gifts or over the top Christmas stuff, but simplicity set in the atmosphere of a wonderful welsh market town,” said Kim Waters, the Food Festival’s CEO.

The Abergavenny Food and Drink Festival will be held on December 5, from 10a.m to 5 p.m.

The Box Office is now live, for visitors to purchase entry wristbands to avoid queuing on the day. The wristbands cost £3.50 for adults and children under 16 get in free.

For more information about the festival, as well as other upcoming events, visit the blog

The Abergavenny Food Festival, held in September, attracts 25,000 visitors from around the world. The food festivals stem from the fact that the area is a historic market down in the heart of lush farming land.

It is home to a weekly Tuesday market, a Wednesday flee market and a monthly farmer’s market. “On market days, there is a real buzz around the town,” says Molly Graham, an Abergavenny local.

It’s unsurprising, then, that Abergavenny has numerous excellent, award-winning restaurants, the details of which can be seen on the map below.
View Abergavenny’s best restaurants in a larger map

Swansea’s Meridian Tower takes dining to new heights

The Grape and Olive will take pride of place at the top of Swansea’s Meridian Tower when it opens as the new penthouse restaurant later this month.

The restaurant, which combines traditional Welsh produce with Mediterranean recipes, will boast impressive 360 degree panoramic views of the bay with floor to ceiling windows.

The venue’s history has been controversial. Last year bankruptcy forced the restaurant, opened under different management, to close three months after opening. However, after investing thousands of pounds in redevelopment, the new owners SA Brains and Company are hoping their venture will complete the Meridian Quay development.

Brains retail director, Philip Lay, is positive about the future: ““It is always a challenge with a new venue, and it won’t be easy. With our experience and the fact we are a company involved in dining, both in pubs and hotels, we feel pretty well equipped to work with it.”

The Grape and Olive will be opening at Swansea’s Meridian Tower later this month. The date is yet to be confirmed, but you can call on 01792 462617, or check the website for more details.

The venue has an interesting history. The restauarant originally opened under different owners last December but closed three months later in April after the owner was declared bankrupt

At 350ft the tower is Wales’s tallest residential building. The £70m building has become a skyline landmark and the key feature of Swansea’s waterfront redevelopment.

The business model will be based on the Grape and Olive restaurant on Wedal Road in Cardiff. Alt.Cardiff checked the restaurant out to see what it’ll have to offer. The restaurant has a lovely atmosphere and modern decor. The menu is varied, offering light bites such as ciabatta sandwiches as well as main meals including pizza, a few varieties of pasta and meat based dishes. Alt.Cardiff plumped for the wild mushroom ravioli with butter sauce which was delicious. If this is anything to go by, the new restaurant should go down well.

Can the Grave and Olive reach the dizzying heights of these world famous restaurants with a view?

Le Jules Verne, situated in the Eiffel Tower, the restaurant offers views of the city, especially stunning at night.

Views of London can be seen from The Roof Gardens on the roof of a seven story building in the city.

A restaurant with a view and a twist, The Summit Restaurant in Australia not only offers spectacular views of Sydney, but it’s also revolving, meaning that wherever you’re sitting you can admire the famous landmarks.

On the roof of the Peninsula Hotel, the Pen Top Bar and Terrace in New York serves food and snacks whilst offering stunning views of Manhattan.

The importance of data in journalism

I’ll be honest: maths, numbers, graphs, statistics all scare the living daylights out of me. In fact, my maths teacher told my parents that I didn’t stand ‘a hope in hell’ of passing my GCSE. I managed it, however, but it was the first (and last) maths exam I’ve ever passed.

Imagine my concern, then, when I walked into a lecture last week on the importance of data in journalism. Just the sight of a pie chart or line graph literally makes my palms sweaty and my heart pound.

But then it was revealed that data shouldn’t necessarily be daunting. We can use it to our advantage by asking it questions, making it do what we want it to.

This notion was an unusual one, but it makes perfect sense. We interview our sources, ask questions we hope will trigger suitable responses, select our quotes carefully and construct the piece around it. Data should be no different.

There are so many facilities to produce data in an interesting and visual way. My favourite example is Wordle.net – a really simple tool which allows you to produce a graphic full of the words you’ve pasted into the site. It works especially well for displaying the main elements of a speech. Pasting in a politican’s speech demonstrates the key points they’ve made, and is a more visual and interesting way of displaying this information.

In feature writing, research and information is essential, yet pages of statistics or figures are offputting. Finding new and interesting ways to show these details is hugely important, and knowing how to manipulate it in the first place is the starting point.

So, from now on, I’m going to be looking at data in a new and much more accessible light.

Engage with the audience

The prevailing theme of recent lectures has been the importance of audience engagement.

What’s clear, is that creating and writing for a magazine which doesn’t have the audience at its core is destined for failure. Sometimes it’s easy to forget or disregard the audience’s opinions or wants; Nick Brett highlighted this notion when discussing Good Food magazine. Before a revamp, the writers were intent on producing content that they wanted rather than adhering to the feedback from the readers.

Even the most successful magazines must maintain a relationship with their readers – whether it’s by meeting them, reading comments on forums or asking for editorial contributions. Without doing so, brand development and expansion will be impossible and a mutual respect between writer and reader will disintegrate – and so too will the magazine.

24 hour news: a help or hindrance?

A fascinating lecture from Rory Cellan-Jones today opened my mind to the question: does rolling news actually create fewer stories?

In a world of fast paced multi-media, news reporters and broadcasters are now continually sourcing stories and telling them as quickly and originally as possible. Some would argue that 24 hour rolling news is the epitome of this new way of working. It allows audiences to be continually updated, knowledgable and active in the stories: they can comment, tweet and email their views whilst keeping abreast of the latest changes.

However, look at this reporting more closely and a different effect is revealed. Rolling news can often make a story which would otherwise be covered once on a 6pm or 10pm news bulletin, far bigger and more significant. Journalists feeling under pressure to break and update the news will often be reporting on the same story for hours – even when there’s been no developments.

A recent example is the Raoul Moat case this summer. The coverage was broadcast on BBC 24 for the best part of 2 weeks. Cellan-Jones pointed out that before rolling news, the story would have perhaps been covered on an evening bulletin but would not have turned into the ‘monster story’ that it became.

Furthermore, the pressure to deliver news meant that one journalist present in the final showdown which ended in Moat’s death, was tapped on the shoulder by a policeman for getting too close to the scene. A fellow student questioned whether the desire to create news meant that the journalist in question had over-stepped the mark.

Sometimes, in the course of creating 24 hour news, it is found that there isn’t much of a story to tell at all. Celebrity divorces, for example, tend to escalate. After the announcement of Cheryl and Ashley and Katie and Peter’s splits, many 24 hour broadcasters spent hours devoted to examining and questioning why the splits had happened and what would occur next. In both cases, the couples quickly divorced – nothing much happened.

Perhaps we need to strike a balance between maintaining the fast paced and informative journalism the public have come to expect, and not stringing stories out for the sake of coverage.

Let me tell you a digital story…

A website dedicated to the digital stories of people affected by cancer will be launched at the University of Glamorgan on November 25.

The stories have been created by Storyworks, a digital storytelling project, and Cardiff University’s Cancer Genetics Research Team. They’ve developed the digital stories of 23 patients, covering a range of issues from living with cancer to its implications on family life.

Storyworks’s founder, Karen Lewis, hopes that the website will not only help those involved, but be accessed by members of the public as a source of support and understanding of people’s cultures and experiences.

Speaking about the project, she says: “Stories work as a way of discovering people’s experiences and views. By allowing ourselves to listen and enter the narrative world of another person, we begin to experience life from their point of view.”

Further Info…

• Storyworks was established at the University of Glamorgan in January 2009 with the aim to find stories from patients and service users in order to feed back into staff development and raise awareness of the importance of listening to real people.
• The unit is run by Karen Lewis, who joined the University from the BBC, where she was the producer of the BBC’s digital storytelling project, Capture Wales, working closely alongside Dr Daniel Meadows of Cardiff University.
• Daniel Meadows believes digital storytelling is crucial for allowing people’s voices to be heard: “We live in a world where the story of our lives is told by people who have power. Digital stories uncover people’s otherwise invisible histories.”
• The new website will be launched at an event held at the University of Glamorgan’s ATRiuM campus in Cardiff on 25th November 2010 and will be attended by the storytellers and their families and others interested in cancer, genetics and promoting patient involvement in healthcare across Wales.

St Fagans Quilting Club

New quilting club starting at St Fagans museum in November

A quilt made by one of the children’s clubs at St Fagans Museum

St Fagans Museum is set to launch a new quilting club on November 6.

Aimed at adults of all abilities, the club will be a relaxed and informal meeting where people can bring along a piece they’re working on or start something new in guided sessions.

The club differs from the usual activities at St Fagans which are primarily for children. It aims to take inspiration from the museum’s impressive collection of quilts, some of which were displayed at the recent V&A quilting exhibition.

The first meeting will be focused on patchwork quilts and Samantha Jenkins, who founded Cardiff’s Yarn and Yarn sewing club, will be on hand to offer expert help.

The club’s founder, Sian Lile, is excited about the venture: “I felt the quilting club would be ideal for St Fagans. It’s an activity aimed at all ages, something informal and fun as well as a chance for people to get together and socialise.”

Blogging: The art of conversation

Adam Tinworth made numerous salient points in his lecture, but perhaps the one that stuck with me the most is that ‘If you went down the pub with your mates and brought out a script and read it to them, they’d probably leave.’

The same notion applies to blogging.

In the wake of Marr-gate (yes, it’s still going) this point is important. In his rant about ‘single, spotty’ bloggers, Marr seemed to be attacking unfounded opinion as much as he was bloggers’ marital status.

Blogging has perhaps gone too far into the realm of ranting opinion. There are hundreds of thousands of posts of the web consisting of nothing much other than personal grievances. I should know. I did it after a bad breakup.

But what we need is a conversation. Blogging should be a two-way process. After the breakup I merely flung the angry words out into cyberspace without a thought. I posted weekly entries which were read by my closest friends and very few others. Since then, I’ve had numerous messages from people I know saying they enjoyed and could relate to the entries, but in terms of ganering a wide readership and engaging with the blogging community, the blog failed.

And so, it seems that it’s not enough to write words and publish them.  links work especially well, as do niche blogs, but equally important is getting out there, finding stories, breaking news and encouraging reader involvement, something which I’ll be working hard on for the next few weeks.