Confession time. July was NOT the most fast paced month for us. We had three of the team missing in action (this author included), which of course meant that productivity wasn’t at an all time peak. But worry not, for now all the musketeers are back in action and we are going ahead full steam ahead at the Cucumbertown office. We do have a few interesting updates for you from July 2016. Without further ado, here they are!
Changes in Blog Navigation
For quite a few months now, we have been trying to understand the reading behaviour of the audience of food blogs, in an effort to understand what’s the optimal way for content consumption. As a result of this research we have effected a few changes in blog navigation.
In addition to this we also revamped the way the authors could manipulate settings, posts and so on. This was changed into a more user friendly experience.
The admin bar on mobile used to take up major real estate on the top and hide elements. It’s moved down to the section instead of follow for the author :
that opens up to a side panel:
Notice, that you can do just about anything to the blog content here and it features a very simple analytics section for each page
Some of the changes for the readers were, the more prominent Follow button, the increased emphasis on notifications, an easily accessible comment section, and prominent share buttons. We have hashed it out in detail for you earlier in the magazine, but don’t forget to check it out for a refresher!
Testing Subscriptions
We have been testing our premium features for a while now and last month we had some elements added to this experiment on Marc Matsumoto’s blog, No Recipes. We already had the ads free experience, nutritional labelling and priority support as part of the premium package, we also included a customised ebook last month to this package.
The results so far have been pretty promising. In fact, we have now extended the ebook concept and are working on more convenience related features like a meal planner. Watch this space for more on that .
Sponsored Content Team Has More Campaigns and The First Case Study is Coming Soon
Monetisation efforts are continuing as always and there have been uplifting results from the sponsored content team in particular. Following on from the campaigns initiated in July, one more new campaign was started. This pilot campaign was a review based one, where the products were sent to the bloggers and they had to try out the product and write reviews about their experiences with the product.
The team is putting together a case study of the performance of the sponsored content efforts so far , complete with the reach and traction that the brands got with each engagement. This is going to make future associations a lot more seamless, structured and efficient.
If you are a brand that wants to reach out to us, check out Partner With Us page on the Cucumbertown website.
More Migrations and More Happy Bloggers!
We have had a few new bloggers joining the Cucumbertown bandwagon and as always, it has been such a humbling and empowering feeling. Amongst the many that joined us last month, we also had long time Cucumbertown friend Teena Sunoj’s, Oonuready too. Very special for us when our old friends become official Cucumbertownie.
And the love just keeps pouring in!
Now For What’s Coming Soon
Unlike July, August was pretty packed for us. We have some new features being tested, slight tweaks in the RecipeWriter, some more monetisation pluses and many more. So stay tuned and subscribe to the magazine for all the exciting updates.
