Self-Assessment

My pageviews increased significantly at the beginning of the third quarter. This was when I started offering the link to my blog on facebook, adding labels to my posts, and telling my friends and family about it. Other than that, my blog remained fairly constant - I did not change my subject matter, or the frequency of my posting, nor did I add social media very often. And yet, in the month of January, my views jumped by about 150. They have since dropped back down to below 100 - this is possibly because the facebook statuses are losing effectiveness, or maybe the graph is not accounting for the fact that the month of March is not yet over.

My most popular post by far was about religion. I think that this is because it incorporated several cultures and religions under one idea, which made it appealing to many. This is also the post with which I probably still agree the most upon re-reading. Facebook, Blogspot, and Google are by far the most common traffic sources (in that order), which means that about 4 out of every 5 of my readers have been a personal acquaintance, and about 1 out of 5 readers has been primarily interested in the subject matter. If my posts were more consistent, or perhaps thorough, I think that this ratio might be a little different.

My readers are not yet invested enough in my blog to recognize the label "scooter-pootin" as a point of interest. I am still mostly receiving new readers who stumble upon (no pun intended) my blog and read it out of curiosity, not attachment or necessity.

It seems that, for the most part, theoretical posts that could apply to a large number of people are what receive the most views. With some exceptions, the posts that focused on my personal situation, or even that of my high school, got fewer hits. This makes sense to me, because as a class, we were talking about the effectiveness of keeping a constant theme on one's blog - it keeps people coming back for more when they can rely on the subject matter. I, however, have no theme, and was not lacking readers by any means. This is because, although some of my posts went rather unnoticed, the ones that were appreciated were appreciated by a rather large, indiscriminate group of people.

Remaining uncertainties include how to "follow" other bloggers, as well as how to keep blog advertising from losing its effectiveness. Facebook statuses and labels worked well in attracting readers. Word-of-mouth was less effective, because it's not documented on the internet. It's said once, then forgotten. I would give myself a B minus, because I although I take pride in not compromising any aspects of my blog for more readers, I could have gone a little further in the advertising side of it.

I have learned that blogging audiences are different than audiences of literature, films, or any other type of fictional media in that they are much more concerned with the information to be obtained that with the style with which it is presented. Eloquence, although it helps, does not draw in readers, because one cannot search for a particular writing style or level of skill via internet. I have also learned that what may seem like mundane thoughts to me might actually seem interesting and different to other people. In the future, I will try to take advantage of my unique brain and opinions when writing, instead of trying to conform to what people might want to hear. This has proven to me that I do indeed have something to say, even if and when I don't know it.