The blog that I chose to analyse the audience for is called
“The Bloggess”. The first thing that I
noticed when I went on the page was that everything is pink. The background is pink, the links are pink,
the titles of the entries are pink, and the numbers of comments are pink. My first thought was that this blog was aimed
directly at women. I felt as though my thoughts were
confirmed when I looked at the advertisements along the right hand side of the
page. Among the advertisements were
“This is Mommyhood”, “Mommy Shorts”, and “Pregnancy Calendar at Alpha
Mom”. Clearly, these advertisements are
aimed at women. The advertisements led
me to believe that perhaps this blog is aimed at women who are in their 20’s or
30’s – getting ready to start a family, have a career, and just get life going.
I then decided to check out the comments on one of her
recent posts. Although the vast majority
of people commenting on the blog were women (judging by their usernames), I was
shocked to see how many men were reading and commenting on her posts! The only reason I can see for this is that a
lot of her posts are humourous, and talk about the things that happen in daily
life – perhaps men are just looking for a good laugh!
She also has a link to the summary of her book called “Lets
Pretend this Never Happened”, which is basically a memoir of her funny yet
embarrassing childhood. I think that a
lot of people who read her blog have probably read her book (because her fan
base seems to be fairly committed to her), and therefore relate to her based
on events that have happened in her life.
It is a possibility that the events she has experienced are common to
many of her readers, and therefore they feel as though they can understand where she is coming from.
The readers of her blog definitely seem to feel as though
they are forming a community with her – they comment on events in her life,
wish her luck on future endeavors, and even offer her support in her times of
struggle. They comment as if they know
her in the real world – which seems to be the type of environment that she has
fostered through her funny, “let-it-all-hang-out” type of posts. She also has a link to her store where
readers can buy clothing, office supplies, and other products that would make
her followers feel more related to her – which likely also fosters a sense of
community. The interesting thing is that
when I clicked her store and went to “clothing”, the majority of
clothing is for men!
On her “about me” page, she has a very limited amount of
information. I feel as though this is on
purpose, so that her readers do not feel separated from her because she is “more
famous than they are”. She welcomes
people to email her, to follow her on twitter, and to use other forms of social
media to contact her.
Even though males still comment on her posts, I believe that
the blog is aimed mainly at women. She seems
to connect best with them through the stories that she tells (often about
womanhood) and through her advertisements.
There are some entries that she posts that seem to be gender neutral (i.e.
about her cat) but never anything directly aimed at males. Overall, she seems to be able to connect
better with females, without ignoring the fact that males are interested in her
blog as well.
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