I am very honored to be the catalyst for this week's Blogging Archaeology question from Colleen over at Middle Savagery. Last week I ended my post with a quandary: if an archaeology blogger writes and no one reacts, are we really changing opinions or moving the field forward? To this Colleen has added more: how do you attract readership? Without too much in the way of SEO chatter, who is your audience and how to you interact with this audience? What do you want out of interactivity by means of blogging about archaeology?
Until most recently (i.e., this blogging "carnival") the primary audience for my blog has been my many friends and family who are not archaeologists and who might only vaguely have an idea of what it is I do for a living. That has always been my motivation to start Dig Girl and it is why I continue. I like to think it offers to that very small audience a window into some of what is happening in the world of archaeology in the Middle East and some of the issues and arguments that archaeologists who work in that part of the world are actively engaged in.
Of course this information is offered with a healthy dose of my opinion, so it is certainly not the most balanced report of archaeological news. However, I think my "pre-digestion" of the plethora of news stories helps my audience better understand what the importance and impact of archaeology and cultural heritage issues have on social, political and economic issues of the world at large. This also makes my job harder (and likely affects the frequency with which I post) because instead of simply copying and pasting an article from the New York Times, I am reading, summarizing, and analyzing to offer my readership that "to the point" kind of post. In this way, for me at least, blogging has thus far been an outreach mechanism for a lay audience. I have not been blogging for any field or laboratory project as of yet, but given the opportunity I certainly would/will.
In the early years of Dig Girl, readership was gathered through word of mouth mostly. I think I had a link on my email signature back then too, but honestly, garnering interest has not been a priority. With the development of MySpace and more recently Facebook, adding a link in my profile was the easiest way to let my friends know about the site. Now, with my semi-savvy FB skillz, whenever I post a new entry, a link is automatically generated on my profile, alerting friends and family. A downside to this type of notification is that my friends often comment on the FB link instead of the blog post itself. But I suppose if people are talking, through whatever medium, I'm happy!
On my professional websites and social networking tools, I have never shared a link to this site, primarily because I have wanted to keep Dig Girl as a place for friends. In fact, my real name has actually never been used in association with Dig Girl until MS, but I don't want Colleen to feel bad about that. Maybe the anonymity wasn't to keep the site personal after all, but instead to protect my opinions from prying professional eyes, notably, eyes that might be looking at me across a conference table at a job interview in the future. But really that caution is unfounded. I certainly do not sling any mud about people and most organizations on this site, and my opinions I stand by and would openly share them in the same manner if someone, from within my field or not, were to ask about them. Still, I like separating my tongue-in-cheek commentary from more professional diatribes.
With my blogging for Dig Girl being an expressly outreach activity, it is hard to say what I want out of interactivity. I would certainly like more comments and dialog from my readers, but I think perhaps the subjects upon which I write are too narrow or technical for a lay audience to feel comfortable reacting to (?). This thought might ring true. My "top" posts that have received the most comments are for stories about Noah's Ark, the archaeology profession in World of Warcraft, and privacy issues for mummies. The fact that these types of stories (i.e., biblical stories, video games, mummies) are familiar, and therefore comfortable, for a broad audience make it a little surprise that people have jumped in with their opinions.
On the other hand, blog entries about very specific topics have sometimes resulted in dialog. For example, a post about the on-going legal battle over the Persepolis Archive garnered extensive comments from a close friend who is a lawyer. Still another entry about the misuses of archaeology initiated a dialog with a new commenter who I had never met (in the real or digital world) and resulted in a fruitful discussion about (not surprisingly) the role of public outreach in not only educating the public about archaeology, but also combating the dirge of pseudo-archaeology alive and well in today's mass media of cable television and popular books.
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