FanningSparks is celebrating a birthday this week—the blog turns 3! It’s the perfect time to stop and say Thank You! Thank you for following along with my blogging adventure. Thank you for taking the time to read the stories and look at the photos. Thank you for your words of encouragement, kind comments, generous likes and shares. I sincerely appreciate your support. To mark this special milestone, I created this elaborate flat lay featuring a variety of projects.
For today’s post, I’d like to take a step back and share some of the blog’s accomplishments from the last 3 years. There are 3 sections in this post: FanningSparks Blog, FanningSparks Social Media Platforms and FanningSparks Recognition and Feedback.
Stories and photos are published on the blog, at www.FanningSparks.com, every Tuesday. This post marks the 159th time I’ve hit the publish button. Readers sometimes ask if I’m worried about running out of things to post about. Surprisingly, I’m not— I keep a running list of ideas that has far more topics than I could ever address. This endless list of things to see, to learn, to try and to share is what keeps me energized and the blog in motion.
The blog’s audience continues to grow. Over 21,500 people have visited the blog since its launch and the growth trend is positive: Year 1 -> 3,000; Year 2 -> 6,000; Year 3 -> 12,000. Below is a trend chart from Google Analytics that shows the number of active users (ie visitors to FanningSparks) over the last 3 years. As indicated, the 3 trend lines represent the average number of visitors in 1 day (77 daily), 7 days (449 weekly) and 30 days (1,600 monthly).
Google Analytics also calculates which posts are the most popular. Shown below are photos from the top 10 FanningSparks’ posts since the beginning of the blog. Long-time readers may recognize some of these from last year. The post titles are linked below the photo.
1. DIY Turkish Mosaic Candle Holder Tutorial
2. Flat-Plane Carving with Harley
3. Getting Started with Woodcarving
4. Artisan Transforms Quahog Shells
5. Our Pony Wall and Banquette Combo
6. DIY Pyramid Trellis Tutorial
7. A School for Makers
8. DIY Bluebird-Approved Birdhouse Tutorial
9. Pair of Mosaic Mirrors Completed
10. DIY Woven Statement Necklace Tutorial
Interestingly, the DIY tutorial post for a Turkish Mosaic Candle Holder shot to the top after being picked up by a couple of aggregator blogs. When The Spruce Crafts blog mentioned FanningSparks in their April 20, 2020 post 10 Mosaic Ideas to Try at Home, I noticed an immediate increase in the number of viewers. Here’s the coverage from that post.
The FanningSparks presence on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Bloglovin’ continues to be well received. Surprisingly, Pinterest is the channel with the most action. I’ve created over 3,600 pins (ie saved photos) and I’m thrilled to have 268 people following my Pinterest boards. It took a while to create this momentum but the amount of exposure Pinterest now provides to the FanningSparks blog is astonishing! In the last 90 days, Pinterest has shared FanningSparks’ pins over 1 Million times showing them to over 872,000 Pinterest visitors. This has resulted in over 27,000 engagements (meaning clicks, saves or shares)—27,000 engagements in only 90 days! Amazing! This represents twice as many Pinterest engagements as last year.
Here are the most popular FanningSparks’ pins from the last 90 days. There’s a noticeable correlation to the top posts especially for the DIY tutorials. The posts that originated these pins are linked below the photos.
1. Lucet Cordmaking – DIY Tutorial
2. Our Pony Wall and Banquette Combo
3. Getting Started with Woodcarving
4. Hello Marvelous Photo Embroidery
5. DIY Bluebird-Approved Birdhouse Tutorial
6. Camellia Road Trip
7. Spring Into a Garden Tour
8. DIY Turkish Mosaic Candle Holder Tutorial
There are a number of ways to follow along with FanningSparks: Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin’ and email subscription. I announce my weekly posts via each platform so readers can stay up to date via their preferred channel. Each platform has a healthy number of followers. Instagram → 123 followers. Facebook → 62 followers. Bloglovin’ → 85 followers. Email Subscription → 56 followers.
Some visitors find their way to FanningSparks via a general web search. Google’s Search Console explains which queries (ie terms in the search box) were used. For instance, the top performing queries in Feb 2021 were:
. “flat plane carving”
. “flat plane carving knife”
. “what is flat plane carving”.
While the top growing queries compared to the previous month were:
. “DIY Turkish lamp”
. “Quahog shell”
. “Scandinavian flat plane carving”.
It’s amazing to me to see results like those shown below—second hit of 3,160,000 results! You may notice Harley Refsal, the flat-plane carving expert I rave about in my post, is featured prominently on this page.
Statistics and analytics are all well and good but hearing from readers directly is better. FanningSparks got some great exposure this last year.
In Aug 2020, FanningSparks made an appearance in the Neighbor Spotlight in our Homeowners Association e-Newsletter. It was an honor to be featured in this neighborhood publication. (Thanks again Mary!)
More recently, I had the privilege to share the FanningSparks story with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) Picture This! special interest group. I joined this local photography club just before the 2020 lockdown and we’ve been meeting virtually every month. Fellow members wanted to know how a blog could be used to gain exposure for one’s photography. My presentation was well received. (Thanks again Gary!)
Early last year, I received a request for citation from Atlanta-based ceramic artist Keok Lim. I had the pleasure of seeing her work at the Georgia Pottery Invitational Perspectives shows and posted about it on the blog. I’m thrilled these posts are now quoted on Keok Lim Ceramics’ website Press page. (Thank you Keok!).
It’s always a pleasure to hear from an artist I mention on the blog. Jeffrey Waller, a local intarsia artist I featured in the post Intarsia: Mosaic of Wood, sent me a delightful email. He said it warms his heart to know that something he has created from an idea in his mind “brings a smile, joy, excitement, and sheer amazement to the viewers. I thank you again for your wonderful words and exposure of and about this little ole country boy here in Georgia.” (Thank you Jeffrey!)
Knowing others are making the projects I share on the blog makes all the effort worthwhile. I’m so appreciative of a regular follower who let me know she’d followed my Fern & Flower Press tutorial to make one for her daughter as a Christmas gift. She sent a photo with this note “Thank you for the inspiration (and directions) for the most popular Xmas gift this year.” (Thank you Robin!)
Thanks again for your support and encouragement of FanningSparks!
Cheers,
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