How to Make a Grow Journal

[Regrowth]

Older posts can sometimes get buried before they have a chance to be noticed. Update regularly so your journal has a higher likelihood of being discovered by people browsing the forums.

Add tags to your journals so people searching for something specific (i.e strain name, nutrients, lighting...) can find their way to your content.

Upload pictures to the gallery instead of just uploading them using 'attach photo'. The gallery is another avenue of discovery.

Interact with and befriend others. If you take the time to visit and comment on others people's journals they'll be more likely to do the same. Sometimes a friendly nudge doesn't hurt. Tag friends in your posts to help them find your journal.

Be patient and consistent. Rome wasn't built in a day. Overtime you might develop a certain reputation and gain traffic from word of mouth. i.e "This guy grow some wicked autos" or "This guy taught me how to grow hydroponics".

Add a link in your signature so when people see your posts in other threads, they may find their way to your journal.

...

@420 I'm a bit tired atm but if I think of more I'll let you know.
Not that my journals are that active but figured I'd try helping anyway. I'm pretty much socially inept and I feel that's the biggest thing to emphasize that sometimes you need to specialize in flattery and scratch some backs lol.

 

[420]

Older posts can sometimes get buried before they have a chance to be noticed. Update regularly so your journal has a higher likelihood of being discovered by people browsing the forums.

Add tags to your journals so people searching for something specific (i.e strain name, nutrients, lighting...) can find their way to your content.

Upload pictures to the gallery instead of just uploading them using 'attach photo'. The gallery is another avenue of discovery.

Interact with and befriend others. If you take the time to visit and comment on others people's journals they'll be more likely to do the same. Sometimes a friendly nudge doesn't hurt. Tag friends in your posts to help them find your journal.

Be patient and consistent. Rome wasn't built in a day. Overtime you might develop a certain reputation and gain traffic from word of mouth. i.e "This guy grow some wicked autos" or "This guy taught me how to grow hydroponics".

Add a link in your signature so when people see your posts in other threads, they may find their way to your journal.

...

@420 I'm a bit tired atm but if I think of more I'll let you know.
Not that my journals are that active but figured I'd try helping anyway. I'm pretty much socially inept and I feel that's the biggest thing to emphasize that sometimes you need to specialize in flattery and scratch some backs lol.

THIS is a great start, thank you bud!

I look forward to seeing what else you and the others come up with

 

[CaptainLucky]

Does anyone have any ideas or interest in creating a tutorial for our members to guide them on how to gain subscribers to their grow journals?

Over the years we've seen a lot of people start a journal, post in it for a few weeks, then disappear.

Sometimes it's because they didn't get any subscribers or feedback, which may have been their sole intention of doing it.

Some people think they can just post a journal and their photos will be like honey to a bear.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work like that, so weed like to teach them how to socialize a bit to gain these followers.

Things like subscribing to other journals and making comments, helping someone in a FAQs thread, etc.

There are many tips and tricks that some of you more seasoned online growers could help the others with.

They might not be tech oriented, or maybe impatient and over expecting, or maybe just challenged with poor social skills.

It would be great if you all could have some discussions about it and have someone edit it into a tutorial

Welcoming new members to the site and making them feel welcome is always nice. Especially when you take an interest in what they are doing. Getting them involved in the monthly contests is also important because they have a vested interest that way and they are sure to socialize by involved. CL

 

[Regrowth]

Be informative.
Whether you're just getting started or you're an OG, your journal can be a valuable resource to others.
Share your knowledge and experiences as people will often follow a journal to learn from it.
Sometimes members can be hesitant to engage until they feel they can contribute,
but if you ask questions they may offer their guidance and follow your journal to help you.

Be bold, innovative or adventurous.
Experiment and push boundaries.
Test new growing techniques or hypotheses and take advantage of trends.
For example droughting, SIP... whatever is 'hot' at the moment can provide traffic to your journal.

 

[Azimuth]

Have an interesting and descriptive title to your thread.
As people scroll through the new posts section, having something in the title to suggest the thread's content will help.

"Joe Blows' Grow Project" isn't as good as "Joe Blows' Coco Grow using Geoflora Nutes." The latter will attract other growers interested in either of those specifics.

 

[Fenderbender]

The front page of the grow journals moves fast indeed.
What i see most veterans do is they have a post where they tag everyone a calling to arms.. then usually a bunch stick around.. of course as a new subscriber that prolly feels a bit too forward.

And Azi that might work both ways a bit... as Joe Blows' Grow Project I might be inclined to check out... what's he doing over there? In Joe's Garage... versus Joe's Coco & Geoflora grow I might skip as there's no connection to the things.
But then again I'm weird and mentioning it probably gets you some followers for that particular thing

 

[Sativa1970]

There should be a sight "how to" guide that is not a forum discussion. The basic information is all here but it gets buried in discussion. Under the HOW TO MAKE A GROW JOURNAL tab, The instructions on how to start the actual thread are on page 20. Somewhere there is a post explaining pics have to be 960 x 1280 or less and accepted file types. I don't remember where it is. Is it even possible to fallow/subscribe to a journal other than posting a comment? When new members post you can often hear them fighting there stranger danger sense in the subtext.

A question for the members. Do you agree once a week is a good rate for updates?
A question for the founders. What is your highest traffic day on this sight?

 

[Mike Wright]

IMO, @Regrowth identified the biggie:

Interact with and befriend others. If you take the time to visit and comment on others people's journals they'll be more likely to do the same.

When I started a decade ago, I was trying to learn as much as possible and I subbed and posted to dozens of journals. Lots of those people reciprocated. And when that happens, your journal becomes very visible and active, which makes it more visible and active, etc.....

All the suggestions so far are great for improving the "quality" of the journal, but the social part is what makes it shine. I think the top journallers spend more time reading and posting on others' journals than they do their own.

 

[CaptainLucky]

There should be a sight "how to" guide that is not a forum discussion. The basic information is all here but it gets buried in discussion. Under the HOW TO MAKE A GROW JOURNAL tab, The instructions on how to start the actual thread are on page 20. Somewhere there is a post explaining pics have to be 960 x 1280 or less and accepted file types. I don't remember where it is. Is it even possible to fallow/subscribe to a journal other than posting a comment? When new members post you can often hear them fighting there stranger danger sense in the subtext.

A question for the members. Do you agree once a week is a good rate for updates?
A question for the founders. What is your highest traffic day on this sight?

Thanks for your input but I’m of the opinion that to keep an interest in a new journal updating daily is necessary. If you keep checking daily you’ll prolly give up after a couple of days. I could be wrong but that’s my buck 2 fitty. CL

 

[Melville Hobbes]

Is it even possible to fallow/subscribe to a journal other than posting a comment?

There's a "Watch" button at the top, no matter what page of the journal you're on.

 

[Roy Growin]

Recap:

Introduce yourself/start your own thread
Have an interesting and descriptive title to your thread
Add tags to your journals and images
Upload pictures to the gallery then import them into your posts
Update regularly and provide specific information
Be informative/Be bold, innovative or adventurous or ask questions/start a conversation/debate
Add a link in your signature
Interact with and befriend others
Be patient and consistent
Unsavoury or derogatory comments are not tolerated - please use the report button [?]
Have fun and be proud to be part of the 420 community!

Have we missed anything? Usually something blindingly obvious lol

 

[bluter]

there are simply too many grow journals to keep up with them. i wind up following people more than journals. most new folk won't garner much attention immediately in a journal.

new folk get faster help and better answers in the various faq and trouble forums. they can drive traffic to their journal from there, but most will fall back to the faq as soon as another issue is encountered.

grow journals by established growers can offer a lot of help to new growers as long as they find one with a similar grow style to their choice. this in effect narrows the number of journals folk spend time following.

 

[CaptainLucky]

there are simply too many grow journals to keep up with them. i wind up following people more than journals. most new folk won't garner much attention immediately in a journal.

new folk get faster help and better answers in the various faq and trouble forums. they can drive traffic to their journal from there, but most will fall back to the faq as soon as another issue is encountered.

grow journals by established growers can offer a lot of help to new growers as long as they find one with a similar grow style to their choice. this in effect narrows the number of journals folk spend time following.

I like to follow several different styles of growing but I favor journal’s that grow Sativas. Just my preference though. CL

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Recap:

Introduce yourself/start your own thread
Have an interesting and descriptive title to your thread
Add tags to your journals and images
Upload pictures to the gallery then import them into your posts
Update regularly and provide specific information
Be informative/Be bold, innovative or adventurous or ask questions/start a conversation/debate
Add a link in your signature
Interact with and befriend others
Be patient and consistent
Unsavoury or derogatory comments are not tolerated - please use the report button [?]
Have fun and be proud to be part of the 420 community!

Have we missed anything? Usually something blindingly obvious lol

Reply to those who post on your journal, or at the minimum hit that like/love/thanks/laugh right away, and respond when you have more time. It's important for your followers to know that you appreciate them and are reading their posts or comments.

 

[CaptainLucky]

Reply to those who post on your journal, or at the minimum hit that like/love/thanks/laugh right away, and respond when you have more time. It's important for your followers to know that you appreciate them and are reading their posts or comments.

What she said . CL

 

[420]

These are all great!

Please keep them coming and we'll organize them this weekend.

@Sativa1970 you're right; I also had that revelation after posting, that we already have the tutorial to add it to. I updated the opening a few weeks ago, but never thought to scan the thread for more good ideas to include. I've reported it to the team so we can review and update the opening to include the stuff from page 20 and anything else we didn't add yet

 

[Azimuth]

versus Joe's Coco & Geoflora grow I might skip as there's no connection to the things.

Yeah, but even if you check it out with a vague title, once you see the particulars you won't be back anyway and that won't help that new member's engagement. I follow enough threads that I skip over non-informative titles since I don't have tons of extra time to add more stuff to my plate.

But, you's is a good point, we're all different in what catches our attention.

 

[SmokingWings]

Just a few of my thoughts, for whatever that is worth.

Remember to put some sort of info in the profile or whatever indicating where the member is from. It does not need to be specific, just the area of their home country or of a US state. I find that I am more likely to visit and eventually follow with the occasional comment on a journal when I can relate to where the member is from. Makes it easier to relate to or understand what the member mentions in their journal when they talk about weather or availability of supplies, etc.

A question for the members. Do you agree once a week is a good rate for updates?

Thanks for your input but I’m of the opinion that to keep an interest in a new journal updating daily is necessary. If you keep checking daily you’ll prolly give up after a couple of days.

Updating daily with several photos and explanations of what is going on might be causing some people to burn out before they are done with that particular grow. At the same time the member should check for new comments from others and answer or at least recognize that the comment is there and then answer within a day as mentioned earlier. Then do the update every of the actual grow every other or every 3rd day. I would think it is a lot easier to do that than a daily update with new photos and repeating some of the same info over and over.

No need for 10 photos every day just because it is the limit placed for each individual message. One or two can often say more about what is going on than those 10 when 9 of them are out of focus or the camera or phone moved. Maybe it is me but looking at 6-10 photos of a seedling every day, often from the same angle, does nothing. If a problem shows up most of the visitors might not notice any changes because they stopped paying attention to the photos.

Spent yesterday afternoon going through part of the Abandoned Journals forum. Most of it was looking at and reading through journals that lasted under 40 msgs while I tried to figure out what was common to them. Incidentally there were a couple of the longer, sometimes over 100 msgs, that I thought were Completed but ended up moved to the wrong forum.

 

[CaptainLucky]

Just a few of my thoughts, for whatever that is worth.

Remember to put some sort of info in the profile or whatever indicating where the member is from. It does not need to be specific, just the area of their home country or of a US state. I find that I am more likely to visit and eventually follow with the occasional comment on a journal when I can relate to where the member is from. Makes it easier to relate to or understand what the member mentions in their journal when they talk about weather or availability of supplies, etc.



Updating daily with several photos and explanations of what is going on might be causing some people to burn out before they are done with that particular grow. At the same time the member should check for new comments from others and answer or at least recognize that the comment is there and then answer within a day as mentioned earlier. Then do the update every of the actual grow every other or every 3rd day. I would think it is a lot easier to do that than a daily update with new photos and repeating some of the same info over and over.

No need for 10 photos every day just because it is the limit placed for each individual message. One or two can often say more about what is going on than those 10 when 9 of them are out of focus or the camera or phone moved. Maybe it is me but looking at 6-10 photos of a seedling every day, often from the same angle, does nothing. If a problem shows up most of the visitors might not notice any changes because they stopped paying attention to the photos.

Spent yesterday afternoon going through part of the Abandoned Journals forum. Most of it was looking at and reading through journals that lasted under 40 msgs while I tried to figure out what was common to them. Incidentally there were a couple of the longer, sometimes over 100 msgs, that I thought were Completed but ended up moved to the wrong forum.

When I said that it’s necessary to update daily I didn’t mean that it had to be done with pictures. But I do think even if you’re just telling followers that nothing noticeable is happening with your plants you can still be sociable. We all have lives outside of growing weed. CL

 

[Mike Wright]

When I said that it’s necessary to update daily I didn’t mean that it had to be done with pictures. But I do think even if you’re just telling followers that nothing noticeable is happening with your plants you can still be sociable. We all have lives outside of growing weed. CL

Honestly, I don't think there is a "right answer" when it comes to posting frequency. Some people love a lot of details. Personally, if I want to support a journal, but I miss it for a few days, and there are twenty posts, I feel a bit discouraged that I can't do it justice. I favour the weekly update myself and tend to look for journals that match my own habits. I think daily and weekly both have their merits and their supporters.