Meet Rannie aka @PhotoJunkie. He’s won 3 Bloggies for “Best Canadian Blog” and, I love this part, because he kept winning the rules were changed that once a blog wins three times they are now in the ‘Hall of Fame’ and can no longer win.
We doubled down:
– he’s in a competition to win a Nissan Hypercube – Vote Now Here! He’s been shooting a series of panoramas around Toronto for the contest and I had suggested via Twitter that he shoot one of my favourite places in Toronto, the RC Harris Water Treatment Plant. So we met there and my head is now in the panorama.
– I invited him into the studio for a chat about what it takes to be a successful blogger (and forgot to clean the camera lens, yaaa). He had excellent advice, the stuff that stuck in my head most being:
– be consistent
– be topical
– be timely
– the first 100 visitors/day are the hardest
– and, “Keri, you have to have this video we’re making done by May 5th”.
Okay dude, let’s see if I can. Thanks for taking the time, and good luck winning a Cube.
First off, "successful blogger" is relative to what you want to get out of it. Secondly, if you’re doing this solely to be popular, you’re doing it wrong. Write (blog) about your passions, don’t try to make a passion out of writing (blogging). That’s what people respond to.
Hi M,
> "successful blogger" is relative to what you want to get out of it
Okay, I define success 2 ways then: 1) to excite and entice people to help me celebrate Canada, and 2) this website funds my lifestyle and eventually becomes my sole source of income.
> (blog) about your passions
Agreed. Rannie said that too, and I just assumed that was obvious so didn’t state it above. Bad assuming.
Why people would start up something when they’re not enamored about it is beyond me. I’m shooting for "do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life", you know? So far so good. Also, I’m doing this so my movies and these posts stop writing themselves and playing in my head. Once they’re here they leave me alone, as dumb as that sounds.
Thanks for the advice, appreciate it.
Your site is awesome. That’s the hardest part. The traffic will come.
Hey Keri: nice interview with Rannie. He is a hard working photographer who deserves great kudos! By the way: love your interviews. Keep up the good work. I finally had a chance to take a bit of time to see Rannie’s panoramas: oh man, the man gets around! Nice shots too. Great to see unedited raw video (kind off) in your interviews.
Hey back, Leila! What a motivating comment, thank you.
And I’m with ya re: Rannie… there’s footage from our interview where I tell him how impressive his turnaround time is. Probably my favorite pano he’s done to date is the one with the flowers in some greenhouse. Now I want to go there.