Ok, honestly am I totally neurotic? Once daily (sometimes I wait 2 days) I check to see if the numbers of my cakes going into someone's favorites have increased. Anyone else do this? Or does EVERYONE else do this? Have to admit, when I went over the 100 mark on one cake I was THRILLED!! It's partially because I'm a beginer and am learning what is appealing....but mostly because I'm curious. One day I'd love to make the all time favorites, but am not getting my hopes up.

I don't. I wait until I get a message that someone left a comment. When I bring the page up, it will tell me how many hits the pic has had.

If my pic doesn't get that many hits, it means it didn't spend that much time on the homepage. There are new pics loaded to the galleries all the time, so the rotation is sometimes very fast. When someone does a pic search using one of the keywords, they'll get to see it.

I always appreciate both receiving comments and having people just look at my pics.

So, thanks for looking, Everyone!

Theresa

OMG I do everyday, sometimes multiple times per day. It makes me feel sooo good when 1 of my cakes is someones favorite for 2 reasons. #1 it makes me feel like someone else shares my insanity! My BF is probably going to strangle me if I mention cakes 1 more time & I really have no one around to talk to about this. Reason #2 is we can all be hard on ourselves about the outcome of our creations. I know I get discouraged when a cake doesn't come out exactly like I had envisioned. So it raises my spirits & makes me think "maybe that cake wasn't so bad after all, I shouldn't give up." Pathetic I know, but since I'm a noob, I can use all the pep talks I can get, even if they come in the form of a number!!

I do like playingwithsugar I look when I get a remark, I was getting discouraged at one point but said oh well different people different tastes. One of the cakes I did and HATED was one of the most saved. Go figure. That makes sence what playingwithsugar said.

I wonder sometimes why some NICER cakes have less hits than others during the day. Keep baking I say.

I guess that's the protective point of being new is that I don't get bummed when my cakes don't do well, because I am a beginer. However sometimes I see AMAZING cakes that get no attention and then know it's all about how long they're up on the frontpage.

We were all beginners at one time. You're just going to have to get over the anxiety of being a newbie, like we did. All it takes is passion and practice. Apparently, you already have the passion. You know what to do.

Good Luck!

Theresa

I too get excited when one of my cakes turns into someone's favorites but I don't care whether or not it has a lot of views or comments. I think a lot of it depends on how long it was on the front page as well as if it fits a popular theme.

For example, if it's valentines day and you have a valentines day cake recently uploaded, it will get a lot more attention than just a normal cake, non-themed would during the weeks coming up to valentines day. Also, if it is a popular searched cake, such as care-bear theme, or the ever-popular whimsy style cakes, I think they would get more attention than say, a basic buttercream cake.

I don't. I actually don't think I ever have. Granted, I didn't know about it before and then I took a 10-month hiatus from cakecentral and I haven't posted any new pictures yet.

It's nice when others like your cakes, but the one who counts is the one you made it for!

Best,
Karen

Funny! I check all the time. I was so excited to get a pm the other day. It was to let me know I didn't have my "allow comments" on. So...I turned it on and got my first comment!

I don't look anymore. I get too depressed. LOL.

Yes, I'm a newbie too. And it does make you feel good to get comments and "your" cakes get put into other peoples favorites! I just joined this site last month and the people on here are soooo nice! I am so glad I found this site. You feel free to PM people and ask questions. I think I will learn a lot from this site. Thanks CC.

I usually check. I'm am amazed at how many views/favorites some of my cakes/cookies get and I think to myself, really????? It's not one of my favorites. Then I'll spend a ton of time on some cakes/cookies and think that everyone and their grandma is going to view or favorite these! Then I'll check and see that I need to humble myself because hardly anyone has cared enough to look. It's interesting to see what other people think. I need that kind of reality check from time to time. Sometimes it' makes me happy and other times it makes me say, step up your game girlie! You're not all that!!!!!! I know I have a long way to go before I measure up to most of the artists here at CC!!!!!

I must confess, I look constantly. It's so nice when someone leaves a comment. I try to leave one everytime I look at someone elses pictures. We all know how much hard work goes into each and every cake (or cookie) so it's nice to get acknowledged!

Guilty as charged!!

I check it once in a while, only because I don't always get a notice that someone commented on them (I'm not sure why...it seems like hit or miss), I feel bad if they asked a ? and I didn't know. However I have to say that I found it interesting that my two cakes with the most favorites are the free cakes I did just because, that I kept simple and didn't spend a lot of time on. Sometimes I get discouraged when I spend a lot of time on a cake and am feeling accomplished and hardly anyone has noticed it. I know I am quite new and hardly compare to the great talent on here. It does inspire me to continually learn new things and improve.

Sarah

I too have to admit that i am always checking to see how many favorites my cakes have. I am my own biggest critic so when i get comments or my cake is saved to someones faves it makes me feel good but sometimes on the other hand i also get dissappointed because alot of the cakes that i have done don't really get the turn out i thought they would sad i know but we all have to admit that it feels nice to get good feedback. I i to have to agree there are some really pretty cakes on here that don't get the attention they should but it is because they don't stay on the home page long enough i just found out not to long ago that you could go to recently uploaaded photos and view all the knew pics.

if you go to the gallery section there are little tabs i think it says last uploads it is by the seach tabs and all the other ones.....

Tinygoose: I couldn't agree more! I rarely save pictures (although they're amazing!) of cakes I have no chance of ever of making successfully! I just don't have all the skills to do all those things. Doesn't mean I don't like them, I just can't make them! I went to a competition a few weeks ago, although it was great the winning cakes weren't my style. They were SOOOOOOOOOO ornamental they were no longer food. That's fine...just not my thing.

I check sometimes, b/c I don't seem to get any e-mails when comments are left......but I'm not really hung up on it. It is very interesting though, to see all of everyone else's cakes and which ones are very popular and which aren't. Sometimes the most popular cakes don't interest me in the least and the one's I am really impressed with are not really popular with a lot of other folks. Everyone is so different and that's a good thing.
I also will mark as 'favorites' cakes or cookies with a really neat idea or theme that I like, even if the execution is not all that great....because I think it's an idea I might use some day. And along the same lines, if I know I'll never have any interest in something similar, I probably won't mark an obvious masterpiece as a favorite, unless it speaks to me especially.

Thanks shelly101.

I haven't uploaded very many of my cake pictures partly because I don't think that they are that good. Not compared to all the great decorators on this site!!! Also another reason is because I get a lot of ideas from cakes on here and I don't want to put up a picture of a cake that is very similar to a popular one on here.
But to get to the topic, when I first put up my pictures, I checked CONSTANTLY to see if anyone was looking at them and what they said. I really appreciated the comments people made.

I agree 100% will msulli10's comment! As a newbie it feels good because there are so many talented cake decorators here, and I have put so many cakes in faves and made so many comments and that (all four! LOL!) people liked one of my cakes, made me feel good, like, wow, it wasn't so crappy after all! LOL! It is an ego boost. Of course, it isn't why I decorate. I just love it, but if I wasn't looking for a little validation that what I am doing is ok, then I would never have posted in the first place!

I check maybe once a week or so. Although not many of mine ever get saved to favorites. Guess I still have a lot of learning to do! I sometimes wonder if it has to do with watermarking pictures. I didn't do that until recently, but I've seen too many threads about people passing off your pics as their own, which rather irks me. I don't have a business or anything, but I still don't like people stealing pictures.

Like you, champagneibo, I don't always get the notification if I get a comment, so I do like to see if I've missed any questions. I always try to leave comments on the ones I look at. There are just so many beautiful cakes and talented decorators on here!

I check mine! I get excited when I see people are actually looking at my cakes.

I do think that the photography has a lot to do with how many people look at your cake. You may have a beautiful cake, but take a bad blurry picture and people won't look at it. Or the opposite - you could have a so-so cake with a nice background and good lighting and it will grab people's attention.

I check mine sometimes. Most cakes zoom by the homepage and get overlooked, so I spend more time on the newly uploaded cakes pages too!