ideas for blogging project

[Soviet]

Hey everyone,

I've decided that I'd like to start a long-time blogging project, but I'm stuck coming up with an idea...

I could write for one of two audiences: homebrewers, or just people that enjoy trying new craft beers.

On one hand, I could write a blog chronicling my brew days and experiments in home brewing (ingredients, flavors, etc.). On the other hand, I love talking to non-brewers about new beers, styles, and the universe of flavors that are out there in good craft beer.

I have done some research and I've noticed that there's a lot of "beer writers"/bloggers that write on a variety of subjects—industry news, reviewing specific beers, festivals/local scene, "1000 beers in XXX days", historical info and beer styles, cooking with beer, and many other subjects. They seem to be all over the board. I really want to niche it down, but I'm having trouble deciding what to do.

Any thoughts?

 

[Soviet]

any ideas?

 

[porcupine73]

First question ... are you doing this strictly as a hobby, or are you intending to make a profit? Because the answer is a little different depending on your goals.

 

[ktblunden]

The issue is going to be differentiating yourself from the thousands of other craft beer/homebrew bloggers out there. It's a seriously saturated specialization and coming up with a unique twist that no one else has thought of is going to be extremely difficult.

 

[inhousebrew]

The issue is going to be differentiating yourself from the thousands of other craft beer/homebrew bloggers out there. It's a seriously saturated specialization and coming up with a unique twist that no one else has thought of is going to be extremely difficult.

Yep, I thought about this for a long time and then I just decided to blog about what I was doing. It's a continual learning process so I have blogs about researching new brews I'm doing, blogs about recipe formation, new techniques, reviews on homebrews and craftbrews, ect. It in no way separates me from other people out there but apparently I've been averaging about 15 visits a day with a max of 118 when I posted something on here with a link to a video in my blog. Avg visit is about 2.5 minutes apparently (I'm checking my stats for the first time in a long time right now). More than anything it has made me think more about my brewing so I like doing it. If it's not fun for you it's not worth doing.

 

[ktblunden]

Yep, I thought about this for a long time and then I just decided to blog about what I was doing. It's a continual learning process so I have blogs about researching new brews I'm doing, blogs about recipe formation, new techniques, reviews on homebrews and craftbrews, ect. It in no way separates me from other people out there but apparently I've been averaging about 15 visits a day with a max of 118 when I posted something on here with a link to a video in my blog. Avg visit is about 2.5 minutes apparently (I'm checking my stats for the first time in a long time right now). More than anything it has made me think more about my brewing so I like doing it. If it's not fun for you it's not worth doing.

Cool man, you're doing it for the fun and the experience. Writing something out gives you a chance to review exactly what you did and can let you look at your process from another angle and think of ways to do things differently. That's a good reason to do a blog. It's not clear what the OP's intent is, but it kind of seems like he intends to make money at it, which is going to be extremely difficult to do.

 

[inhousebrew]

it kind of seems like he intends to make money at it, which is going to be extremely difficult to do.

Agreed, this seems like a difficult way of bringing in some cash but I still think you should do something that you will like doing. Of course that's coming from this guy whose closing in on student teaching so obviously money is not my first priority in life. Whatever you do you need to do it really well, do it really often, and give a lot of high quality pictures and videos if you're looking at a revenue stream.

 

[bchurch]

I personally don't know why you have to choose between two audiences. Many of the people that enjoy finding out about new craft beers also want to know about the process and be well informed. I think there is common ground to be found.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

really enjoyed that bacon explosion re-creation. Going on the shopping list for this weekend!!
as to your OP. Keep doing what makes you happy and youll see the benefits in the end
cheers to yoU!

 

[inhousebrew]

really enjoyed that bacon explosion re-creation. Going on the shopping list for this weekend!!
cheers to yoU!

Make sure you have people around you for that one. One slice was more than enough for me and there was still plenty left over. I think people were afraid their hearts would explode so they only tried a bit of it.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I agree with OP. People who read homebrewing blogs don't necessarily want to read beer reviews and vice versa. However, if you're just writing about beer because you love writing about beer, just write whatever you want. The search engines will push your posts into the right searches for the subject matter of each post. Having multiple topics means people probably won't stick around to read as much and it's less effective for SEO but none of that matters if you're writing just to write. If you're trying to turn it into a cash venture, you will probably need to target a specific subject in homebrewing to becomes the blog of authority on the subject (e.g. The Mad Fermentationist and Shut Up About Barclay Perkins).

You can always tie in discussions about styles, history and particular beers to your homebrewing posts. It helps give context to your particular recipes/experiences/techniques. I do it fairly often as do many other bloggers. I ramble occasionally about craft beer in general or beer vacations I've taken. Those aren't well read posts but they are very helpful to me to go back and see what I thought about those beers/breweries.

 

[Soviet]

I want to write because I like to write—I don't expect to monetize the blog (at least for a long time). I do, however, want to have a successful blog with engaged readers that visit frequently and comment. Another objective of my potential blog would be to keep a record of my brews/lessons learned. A lot of blogs out there have virtually no traffic, and I suspect it's because they're trying to write too broadly.

 

[Jakeintoledo]

Brewing experiments. THe more exotic, the better. such as:

-brewing batches of different hops only, or malt only, or yeast only
-brewing batches of beer at different gravities
-brewing with exotic adjuncts
-brewing with uncommon ingredients (a packet of Fleischmann's baking yeast, maybe?)