Survey

The cricket blogger survey 2014

The method

The cricket blogger survey ran from 15 – 25 October 2014. It was a web-based survey hosted on SoGoSurvey and comprised 21 questions.

I promoted the survey on twitter, Linkedin’s Cricket Players and Fans group and the Association of Cricket Statisticians forum. Other cricket bloggers and writers promoted the survey on twitter. I contacted bloggers whose work I am familiar with directly by twitter, blog comments or email. I used the blog roll on Idlesummers.com to contact other blogs and left comments or sent emails to invite their participation.

The sample

98 responses were received: 96 to the main survey and two to the pilot survey. There is no definitive list of cricket blogs, so comments on the sample in relation to the population of cricket blog are not definitive.

Around 35-40 of the blogs/bloggers that I proactively contacted did not complete the survey. Over two-thirds of bloggers that I was, or became, aware of in conducting the survey did participate.

There appears to be a bias towards UK based bloggers (48% of the responses), which reflects the blogging circle that I and some of the people who promoted the survey for me are part of. The blogroll on Idlesummers.com provides a useful base to compare with. It has lists of bloggers from or focused on Australia/New Zealand/South Africa (63), England (83); the Asian sub-continent (49); USA (29); other (35), as well as women’s cricket (4) and statistics (10).  Compared to that distribution, UK based bloggers are over-represented by 50-60% in this survey’s sample and Asian blogs most under-represented. The sample included no non-English language bloggers.

I attempted to redress the balance by using the Idlesummers.com blogroll to invite participation from the non-English bloggers. This was only partially successful.

Location or national team supported are just two of many possible sampling dimensions. Unfortunately, it’s not possible with the information available to comment on the sample, compared to the population, on many other potentially relevant variables: gender, age, subject matter, size and age of blog etc.

The questions

1.How long have you been a cricket blogger?

2.What kind of website(s) do you contribute blogs to?

3.Over the last year, how often have you posted new content?

4.Over the last year, how many ‘views’ has your blog received daily on average?

5.Which of these methods do you use to promote your cricket blogging?

6.Which method of promoting your blogging do you find most effective?

7.How many social media posts do you make on average per blog post (i.e. total tweets, FB posts, etc)?

8.How many cricket blogs do you read regularly?

9.Complete this sentence: I blog about cricket because…

10.Thinking of how often you post new content, how do you see that changing over the next year?

11.If you don’t already, are you planning to develop any of these kinds of content?

12.What are the main challenges facing your blogging?

13.What kind of assistance or opportunities would you value most in developing your blogging and getting more fulfilment from blogging?

14.Which of these subjects would you like to read more about on cricket blogs?

15.Please share your thoughts below about the ‘state of cricket blogging’. For example, is it healthy/in decline; stimulating/predictable; over-crowded/under-developed; outward focused/insular; narrow in focus/diverse?

16.In which ways, other than blogging, are you involved in cricket?

17.Which country do you live in?

18.Which international cricket team do you support most strongly?

19.What was the first cricket match that caught your attention and began your passion for the game (if possible, state the teams, location and date)?

20.What is your blog’s name?

21.Would like to receive a full set of anonymised survey results? If you would, please leave your name and email