Steff Metal Reader Survey results

Firstly, I’d like to say a huge thank you and “Up the Irons!” to everyone who took the survey. I received hundreds of responses, and I really appreciate your imput and have “hopefully” combined some of your ideas and suggestions into making Steff Metal a better blog.

the Fox and the Raven print, $14.50 from Etsy

About Steff Metal Readers (that’s you!)

Steff Metal readers are 76% Female, 24% Male. Due to the high level of “fashion” and “wussy” content on the blog, I’m not surprised by this.

I’m also not surprised that 96% of you identify with at least one subculture, the most popular being Metalhead, Goth, Steampunk, Geek, and Medieval / Viking / Faery. Most of you ticked “I’m Just Me” than ticked three or four more boxes.

86% of you are below the age of 35, with 5% being below 18. (Does this mean I can talk about “grown-up” things? heh heh). You’re an educated bunch: 33% of you have Bachelor’s degree and 14% have professional qualifications, and a whopping 10% having earned a Doctorate.

You’re a truly international bunch, with most of you living in the US, Germany, the UK and Australia / New Zealand. I also have readers from Scandinavia, Argentina, Singapore, Canada, Austria, Holland and Russia. Most of you live in urban (43%) or suburban (38%) areas.

You’re all rather internet savvy: 76% of you use Facebook, 57% of you are on Twitter, 48% love YouTube, and 28% use Flickr. 28% of you shop on ebay and 38% use blogspot or wordpress to make blogs. Only a few of you use Myspace, LinkedIn, Polyvore, Formspring, Tumblr, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Last.FM.

62% of you regularly read other metal blogs, 28% read other fashion blogs and 43% read other “lifestyle” blogs. In print media, only 25% of you read metal magazines, 62% enjoy fiction books, 48% enjoy non-fiction books, 37% read webcomics and 5% read or contribute to zines.

98% of you consider it extremely important to buy from independent, subculture labels, designers and musicians. This is important, because y’all spend a LOT of money on clothing, accessories, music, DVDs and concert tickets each month.

What you Want

“Ask a Bogan” was voted the best Steff Metal column by 51% of you. The next most popular columns were Cthulhu’s Closet, Kvlt Fashion, Linking Horn and tr00 metal life.

As I expected, most of the male readers rated the fashion-related posts – Cthulhu’s Closet, Kvlt Fashion, etc – as their least favorite columns, and the metal book and movie reviews as their favorites.

Most of the girls wanted to see more of the fashion columns. And 45% of you didn’t like the “get a real job” column. Thank you all for being honest with me – I’m still trying to come up with a mix that pleases everybody.

I often wondered if I was doing somethin wrong, because of the low level of comments verses my high level of traffic, but 84% tell me you just don’t like commenting uness you have something important to say. That’s cool – I’m not going to force you. But … the comments are there if you ever want to. Likewise, feel free to email. I love meeting you!

48% of you want to see more ‘Funny Shit’ – for which I can only promise that I will try. Apart from that, you would like to see more life advice, alternative fashion, outfit posts (I have to get better at taking them, first) and wacky metal articles.

A whopping 65% of you wanted to see articles on medieval and viking history (yes!). Others want to see me cover travel, weddings, the publishing industry, sex and satan. Only 4% of you wanted to see me cover hair removal creams, and 1 person wanted me to cover metalcore.

In the Steff Metal shop, most of you want to see Jewellery (this I wasn’t expecting, as I’m not known for my jewellery-making skills), other apparel, artwork, art prints and ebooks.

1 person wants to see naked pictures of Steff. No, I don’t know who this was.

Most of you said you liked Steff Metal just the way it is (awww, shucks). Only 1% of you thought the blog needed a discussion forum or flickr group, for which I breath a mighty sigh of relief, because the thought of coding and monitoring one gives me the shivvers. It’s bad enough trying to keep spam out of comments. Phew!

Postcard Set, $6, in the Steff Metal shop

Improvements

I’m working on a site redesign. At the moment, I use a generic WordPress theme, which is quite a metal theme, I must admit, but I’d like something a bit more “grymm” looking, with a few more features.

It will take a few months before I get the redesign concept in my head and find a designer I like and gel with. I’m just letting you know, in case you have any ideas or you happen to be a designer looking to work on a site such as this.

I’m toying with a more “magazine” style layout, but will probably end up with something similiar to what we’ve got, just with a third column down the left-hand side, and better graphics.

Since many of you prefer to find out about new content on the site through Twitter and Facebook, and so many of you asked for it, I’ve caved into pressure and set up a Steff Metal Facebook Page. You can become a fan by clicking on the button in the sidebar. The blog automatically imports to the fan page, so you can read all the posts from Facebook.

58% of you want me to post more often, so I am trying to post 5 days a week now, instead of just 4. One day I would love to increase this more, but at the moment I just don’t have time.

I am starting a NEW column on the blog: Metal History – which is not about the history of metal music – although that would be fun – but historical essays about things that interest metalheads.

Also, y’all wanted more content about travel. I am happy to oblige. Grymm and Frostbitten Lands will be coming back with a vengeance – I haven’t blogged much about my travels recently, so look forward to a series of posts about various “metal” places to visit all over the world (I’ve been to 26 countries, so I know a few good spots). Also, if anyone out there wants to write a “guide for travelling metalheads” for their city / country, shoot me an email.

My first Steff Metal ebook – the Grymm and Epic Guide to Blogging – will be released … maybe April. The next ebook will be Grymm and Epic Cookery. The Third will – most likely – be “Living a Grymm and Epic Life”. I’m hoping to have all three released by the end of the year.

I might see what I can do about this jewellery thing.

I’m working on getting some giveaways, but I don’t want to come at this half-assed, so it could be awhile away.

Thoughts, Comments, Opinions?
Steff