Great advice! Rather than get caught up in the nitty gritty numbers, pay attention to the trends and what influences those trends.
I think too may people get caught up in the numbers and miss what's really going on with people.
Cheryl Allin
· 10 months ago
So true! Numbers can get skewed... like when an app neglects to discount your own manic clicks ;) Plus, it's easy too easy to get caught up in numbers and lose sight of the goal. Like mashable noticing the sudden increase in Facebook use due to the 25 things meme - that's was a great job at watching the trend. It certainly resonated with me and now I feel 'closer' to Mashable. ;)
Mike B.
· 10 months ago
Just by being online and taking part in social media will allow us to see trends that most others will miss. We need to focus on the whole picture rather than just one point. @bookerx3
Peter Efland
· 10 months ago
only Chris can write about graphs and make it sound like poetry, lol... the Haiku analyst! But bull...t aside, its an important point, if social media is all about conversation, we better reflect on how we actually look upon and interact with conversation.
Viral Marketer
· 10 months ago
Simple, yet great post Chris! I find it especially entertaining when clients micro manage their own analytics and call me up when the slightest downturn happens. Enough to drive one crazy :-)
Andi Narvaez
· 10 months ago
Homeostasis!
Nature's way of finding balance and dealing with entropy. Great post. Great insight.
Saravanan Sahadevan
· 10 months ago
The rule : Just do it! Pump your content & Rock on.. Dont worry about stats.. Just be happy and rock on.. Stats would improve by itself slowly.. Only if you be sincere and you must have fun on what you do!
Sophie Lagace
· 10 months ago
"Are you watching? What do you see? "
I see that some topics have a sharp short peak for readership and comments. It's easy to get a quick bump by writing on a hot topic, especially with controversy, but these are the quick calories of blogging. Then some posts make little or no splash when they are posted, but because they offer lasting value (e.g., resources, advice, insight) they continue to get read over a long period or quasi-indefinitely. (This blog has many examples of both, as phrased a different wain a recent entry.)
I also see that it's good to have a few different themes running through one's blog, crossing and mixing and splitting again. Say three or so different themes you can weave like threads, which appeal to slightly different but overlapping readerships. After a while, you can pretty much predict which posts will get a bump from which reader group; alternating the themes provides a chance to reach out to the different readerships one after the other. I think there's not so much an average as a few different averages overlapping and interacting!
Chris Gordon
· 10 months ago
Have you read The Black Swan?
Nicholas Chase
· 10 months ago
Chris,
So true! It seems in our attention-deficit society, anything long-term is forgotten, or placed on the back-burner. Twitter, Facebook, SocialSpark and other social media sites create a time-management issue, deciding what content to place where for maximum benefits etc.
Companies are trying to 'embrace' Social Media due to the fact that it is all over the news, and like lemmings they believe this is the pathway for their continued growth and sustainability. In their desire to engage the reader, they may exhibit some initial failure at convincing there customers that they are now instantly the 'kinder-gentler' company than perceived in the past.
I'm just trying to discover an online marketing approach and products and campaigns that will make me an honest, long-term living.
Ya, good lesson to embody. If you take the absolute numbers too seriously, and lose sight of the important trends... Instead you might have a mild heart attack at the sight of a sudden drop in traffic for single day.
Dan
· 10 months ago
I just came across your blog (2 thumbs up by the way!) and I completely agree. Its an issue all across the culture today. Its like the way people live and die watching the stock market every morning, when they should be, as you say, watching the trends. As someone new to the field of social media, your site is one of the first that I came across offering such good info. Thanks for the great posts and insight.
Currently what I see on a lot of blogs is all about the Tweet. And the new add on for this and for that. So for that ebb, there's a flow. Just like my ying has a yang. And winter leads to spring
Gary McElwain
Adriel Hampton
· 10 months ago
Chris, thanks for sharing the graph. One again, it reinforces community (and just as I was starting to think more about my trends). While your lines are surely higher, I'm encouraged to find the peaks and valleys have similar trends. I just sometimes wish the things I care most about were what others do, too! Thank God for community, because (especially) on the slow days it's good to have friends.
Susie Blackmon
· 10 months ago
I like being constant, predictable (most of the time), and memorable. Yes, I'm watching too.
Dmitri Eroshenko, Relenta
· 10 months ago
"It’s okay. It’s how things go."
Exactly! Accept things as they are, not as you think they should be. That blue line is your Rosary.
Erika Owens
· 10 months ago
Great post! statistics are skewed but the one thing that remains relevant are trends.
The Fitness Diva
· 10 months ago
it's true, everything does run in cycles. It takes you many years of living to figure that out! But once you know it, it can be a calming influence in the midst of turmoil. No matter how bad a situation or time period is, you know that it eventually has to even back out again and even get better at some point.
Roundpeg
· 10 months ago
thanks for showing you blog stat chart, without the raw numbers. My shape looks just like yours, with one spike. It was good to see that is more common then I thought.
I usually look at my weekly numbers, that tends to flatten the trend and give me a much better perspective on the general trend of my blog.
The peaks are fun, if valuable if you learn from them.
All Comments
I think too may people get caught up in the numbers and miss what's really going on with people.
@bookerx3
But bull...t aside, its an important point, if social media is all about conversation, we better reflect on how we actually look upon and interact with conversation.
Nature's way of finding balance and dealing with entropy. Great post. Great insight.
I see that some topics have a sharp short peak for readership and comments. It's easy to get a quick bump by writing on a hot topic, especially with controversy, but these are the quick calories of blogging. Then some posts make little or no splash when they are posted, but because they offer lasting value (e.g., resources, advice, insight) they continue to get read over a long period or quasi-indefinitely. (This blog has many examples of both, as phrased a different wain a recent entry.)
I also see that it's good to have a few different themes running through one's blog, crossing and mixing and splitting again. Say three or so different themes you can weave like threads, which appeal to slightly different but overlapping readerships. After a while, you can pretty much predict which posts will get a bump from which reader group; alternating the themes provides a chance to reach out to the different readerships one after the other. I think there's not so much an average as a few different averages overlapping and interacting!
So true! It seems in our attention-deficit society, anything long-term is forgotten, or placed on the back-burner. Twitter, Facebook, SocialSpark and other social media sites create a time-management issue, deciding what content to place where for maximum benefits etc.
Companies are trying to 'embrace' Social Media due to the fact that it is all over the news, and like lemmings they believe this is the pathway for their continued growth and sustainability. In their desire to engage the reader, they may exhibit some initial failure at convincing there customers that they are now instantly the 'kinder-gentler' company than perceived in the past.
I'm just trying to discover an online marketing approach and products and campaigns that will make me an honest, long-term living.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
www.twitter.com/nachase
Dan @ www.thefatherlife.com
And the new add on for this and for that. So for that ebb, there's
a flow. Just like my ying has a yang. And winter leads to spring
Gary McElwain
I just sometimes wish the things I care most about were what others do, too! Thank God for community, because (especially) on the slow days it's good to have friends.
Exactly! Accept things as they are, not as you think they should be. That blue line is your Rosary.
But once you know it, it can be a calming influence in the midst of turmoil. No matter how bad a situation or time period is, you know that it eventually has to even back out again and even get better at some point.
I usually look at my weekly numbers, that tends to flatten the trend and give me a much better perspective on the general trend of my blog.
The peaks are fun, if valuable if you learn from them.