On Saturday morning I got a message from a friend on Facebook saying that HYA was in The Guardian. To say I was surprised was something of an understatement, my little blog being mentioned in one of the UKs most respected newspapers? Surely it was some kind of typo.
But no, I rushed out and bought the paper, threw away the part with actual news in it and opened up their award-winning Guide section. In the internet guide in the Guardian Guide is a fairly light-hearted affair, the larger site reviews featured a fishing blog, and Totally Looks Like, a site about celebrity look-a-likes. But on the right of the page there was a column called “Blog Roll: T-shirts”, where I happily found myself featured, even if I don’t think that the description is all that accurate.
For dedicated followers of the hoodie and advances in loud slogans.
Loud slogans? Oh. Here’s a list of the other blogs that were mentioned:
Fat Seagull
Thunderfrogs
Banned T-Shirts Blog
Crucial Headache
Spreadshirt UK
Rumplo
I’m surprised to see some of the choices they made (where’s Tcritic? Since when is Rumplo a blog?), and I do wonder where they found their links considering Thunderfrogs, Banned Shirts & Crucial Headache aren’t that widely known in the world of tee blogs, but I’m still really happy to see Hide Your Arms being mentioned in a printed publication for the first time.
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Even I’ve never heard of Crucial Headache, and I don’t subscribe to Banned T-Shirts… but good for all of you who got mentioned! ‘advances in loud slogans’..?
P.S. Nice test ad space.
I thought it seemed odd that dozens of people were suddenly googling for Thunderfrogs.
Awesome! Hi five!
@Joe I can only presume that they were going for a diverse selection, after putting me and fat seagull, who both cover new releases, they must have wanted to cover other niches, like music tees and the much neglected tee & horse racing niche. I don’t really need to leave the test up, it was just so that the advertiser could see where their new spot would go, but I think its kinda funny so I’m just leaving it.
@henryv when I asked my friends how much traffic a mention in a major national newspaper would get they all thought it would be thosands, I think it may have got me about a hundred extra visitors over the past two days, but its hard to tell.
Yeah, I’d put it at about an extra hundred and fifty unique hits over the weekend. It’s easier to tell with my smaller visitor base.
I could be wrong, but I think the idea was that they are UK based blogs, with the exception of Rumplo – hence no Tcritic etc.
Congrats Andy and all the other guys mentioned, this is very cool. I’m not sure Tcritic is so well known in the UK, only 7% of my traffic originates from the there.
My experience with mainstream media mentions is that I get very little traffic, I’ve been in the New York Times recommended blog list for a year, and had a big write up in San Francisco magazine in July but got very little traffic from it. Get a link from BoingBoing, Gizmodo or Uncrate is much more impactful
Maybe people that read mainstream media online are not clicking out to other sites more, maybe they are less curious than the people reading cutting edge blogs?
Oh, and an interesting article on how newspapers are no longer the social currency they used to be http://www.slate.com/id/2196485/
The thing about getting in a newspaper is that I can tell my friends and they’re really impressed, my cousin even told me I should frame my first ever press clipping, so I think it helps the people I know to understand what it is I do, but I knew it wasn’t going to lead to a rush of visitors. It might have had more impact if it was available online, I think the chances of someone reading a supplement in a print publication are pretty unlikely to be doing so whilst surfing the web, or reading that page with the intent of checking out everything listed.
Congrats! That is a nice mention.
Great news and find! I was wondering what the spike in traffic was from. Can you send me a scan of the full t-shirt part? Also, I appreciate the link to banshirts above but it is incorrect.
Matt
Yeah, i got a mention aswell, but actually the traffic spike wasn’t that big, got around 400-500 extra visits on both the Saturday and Sunday, mind you, it’s better than nothing and spreads the word
That’s more than I got out of it Mark! I guess that if even 5% of the people that visited because of it ended up being regular readers then I’d be a happy man.
Yeah definitely – I saw my feed subsribers go up slightly, it’s all encouraging really. Free publicity – can’t complain