You may have noticed that there were no new blog posts last week. For that, I apologize-- a series of events ensured that my designated times for blog writing were completely and utterly devoured. All you blog writers out there, know this-- it is important to keep up deadlines, even if they are personal deadlines. But sometimes, if keeping a deadline will ensure that you will be dead, reconsider. I'm sure you can come to some kind of arrangement.
I've recently, however, been exploring the different effects of social media on my blog. I created a Facebook page where I can be a bit more informal, link amusing pictures and stories, put videos and other articles between official blog posts, etc. After you get a certain amount of likes, I can see how many people I've reached in a week, how many people are talking about my page, etc. At the highest peak I had reached over 500 people in the space of a week and nearly 40 people were talking about my page. Now that's not bad by my count.
I've been expanding who I follow on Twitter (because apparently the way to get followers is to follow...and it's eerily been working. I follow 10 people, I get 6 new followers myself. Odd.) because I also post a link to every new blog post on Twitter in the hopes of establishing further readership that way. I now have 11 followers (don't laugh) as opposed to the 5 from before. I'm still working on that.
But the real truth, to me, of how well this surge of social media experimentation has worked is this: after a week of nothing new, no new blog, no new blurb, not even an apology for not posting-- my page views per day are still double and triple what they used to be on average between posting days. The views would spike when I had a new post out, but they'd trickle to a handful on the off days. Not so any longer. Last month alone I had almost 500 views to my blog. That may not be a lot in terms of professional blogging standards, but folks-- that's a huge leap from what I'm used to.I suppose the moral of this story is: social media works. You have to keep up with you and work with it, but it gets you out there in ways word of mouth and frantic pleas for help and just plain begging won't. Many authors can thank their success to the workings of social media-- by serializing their work in an attempt to get it published, by pushing their own personal marketing scheme, by sheer good use of informational networking. If you have a project, an organization, a fill-in-the-blank-here, chances are a facebook page will help you. It keeps you organized, it keeps you up to date, and it keeps you in the loop. Also consider, everything you post gets seen by your friends. If they like it, if they comment on it, if they do anything to it, it then gets seen by their friends friends (depending of course on their security settings). Still-- I can tell you, I don't have over 500 friends. And I reached over 500 people in a week.
Something to think about.
In other news, the new Hobbit movie comes out in less than a month! Have you watched the video production blogs? Have you made plans to be available for the midnight showing on the 14th? Are you already suffering over all the new merchandise you can't wait to purchase (and know you'll have to wait to purchase for lack of spare change)? I know I am!!
Maybe I'm a bit...too excited?
Nah!
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