I saw this on Twitter, and thought it was a joke.
But it works!
Numbers
Enough Followers?
I checked my Stats earlier, and realised that I am fast-approaching 9,000 followers on WordPress.
8,395 WP followers.
47 following by email.
382 following on social media.
Total : 8,824.
Okay, we all know that most of those don’t really ‘follow’. Some probably don’t even exist, or have long since stopped blogging.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I have 2,000 active followers. They produce around 325-475 views a day, and generate a lot of comments, depending on how many posts I publish.
Many people begin blogging hoping to get 10,000 followers. Some would like to have 100,000 followers, or ten times that.
But if you love to interact with the community, as I do, and if you love your fellow bloggers and cherish them, as I do, then how many followers is too many?
Would you have time to comment on all the blogs you follow, or to reply to the comments you receive from your own followers?
If you are a serious community blogger, with a love of blogging, and a sense of responsibility to your followers, then there is a limit, based on what time you have available on a given day.
So I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but almost 9,000 followers, active or not, genuine or not, is enough for me to cope with.
The Blogging Years
If I make it to this (my 70th) summer, I will have been blogging for ten years. I know many of you have been bloggers for a lot longer than that, but it only feels like last week since I tentatively pressed ‘Publish’ on my first ever blog post.
A lot has happened since then.
I have made amazing friends, and lost quite a few of them too soon too. I have had stories/articles/blog posts published online, in paper magazines, and even in a published anthology book. Outside of my family, and Ollie of course, blogging has become ‘what I do’, and I have even been recognised in Beetley by strangers, because of the photos I have published of Ollie.
I have published 4,608 posts, including this one, and had 580,000 views of my blog from 188,000 visitors. On one day, I had over 820 views, still the best so far.
My posts have been shared almost 16,000 times on Twitter, 6,800 times on Linkedin, and 6,700 times on Facebook. I am not even on Facebook, so that’s a bonus!
I have been ‘Press This’ 42 times, and I still don’t know what that means. 🙂
16 of my posts have been shared by email, and each post has averaged 45 comments. (As I reply to all comments, you can halve that to 22)
As of today, the lovely Jennie Fitzkee at https://jenniefitzkee.com/ is currently my top commenter. But Jennie is American, and very polite, so always adds ‘You’re welcome’ when I thank her for her comments.
Could there be a better hobby/pastime than blogging? I don’t think so. You can do it anywhere, inside or out, and you will meet some marvellous people from all around the world, if you do it right.
So, to all you ‘New Year’ bloggers. Keep at it. Don’t give up.
It will enrich your life.
A Follower Milestone
When I opened WP this morning, I saw on the side column that I had now tipped over 8,000 followers
I checked the Insights, and these are the totals.
WP Followers. 7607
Email only followers. 44
Social Media Followers. 356
Total. 8007
Regular readers will know that I always mark such milestones. The last time was when the number of followers exceeded 7,000.
As usual, I would advise everyone that the number means very little. Well over 2,000 of those were only trying to sell me something. Around another 2,000 or so only followed hoping I would follow back, then never looked at my blog again when I didn’t do that.
Far better to have 750 followers who read your posts and leave comments, than 20,000 who never look at your blog.
To all my genuine followers, old and new, I once again send my sincere thanks.
Marking A Milestone
At 10 pm last night, I noticed that I had 7,001 followers, according to WordPress stats. The total is made up like this.
WordPress Blog Followers. 6605
Email only followers. 45
Twitter Followers. 351
Total, 7,001
Whenever I exceed another 1,000 followers, it is my habit to celebrate that with a blog post announcing my good fortune. I last did this when I reached 6,000 followers.
Somehow, I feel this is the right thing to do. Not only marking off the significant moments in my blog, but also thanking the followers.
But of course, as we all know, this is only ever a number, and does not relate to the popularity of my blog in the real world.
Around 35% of those followers have never read a post, or left a like or comment. They have only followed me in the hope of selling me something, leaving a link to their own site, or hoping to be followed back.
On a good day, this blog might get 600 views. Most days, it now gets between 400-500 views, as long as I have posted some content.
Even the most popular blog posts will rarely get more than 50 likes, and perhaps 45 comments. The majority of those comments come from people who have followed my blog for more than five years, and are in regular contact on a daily basis.
My reckoning is that I actually have around 700 real followers, or 10% of the stated figure. I’m not complaining about that, as they are 700 of the best followers any blogger could ever hope for. And I suspect that if I ever reach the figure of 8,000 followers of higher, it will be those same loyal stalwarts who are still around, liking and commenting.
And for that, I thank you all. And of course send you my best wishes.
SIX THOUSAND AND ONE
I noticed the follower numbers had ticked over to 6,001 this morning.
I usually mark such milestones on my blog by writing about how so many of those followers never actually follow, and why the numbers don’t matter in the least.
But I won’t do that today. 🙂
I will just say a big “THANK YOU!” to everyone who follows this blog.
Best wishes to you all, Pete.
The Best Blogging Day
Yesterday, the 10th October 2019, turned out to be the best-ever day so far for views of this blog.
620 views in 24 hours beat the previous highest figure by more than 30.
Once again, I have to thank all my readers in America, as that country’s contribution of 342 views made up well over half that number.
Stats don’t mean everything to most of us bloggers, I know. But hitting the highest ever figure was notable, and very pleasing to me.
I thank everyone who keeps reading and following this blog.
You make it all worthwhile.
Best wishes, Pete.
Seven Years: A Blog Appraisal
I tipped over my seven years as a blogger at the end of July, and I am looking forward to the eighth year in 2020.
I thought to have a look at the current ‘All Time’ stats provided by WordPress in the ‘Insights’ feature.
Total views as of today.
277,610
Total visitors so far.
82,270
Follower totals.
WP 4,561
Email 37
Social media 218
Total 4,816
Posts Published.
2,710
Most popular day.
Monday
Biggest views on one day.
Sept 2nd, 2019
Most popular category.
Blogging
Most popular tag.
Guest Post
It’s important not to become obsessed with blog statistics, but I always find them interesting.
If you have just started out, take some encouragement from these figures.
And remember, my blog is small!
Posting By Numbers
I failed to notice that I had tipped over the 2000 posts mark on this blog recently. This one makes 2044. I have been blogging for six years, since my first post in 2012. That averages out to 340 a year, though of course recent years have seen a marked increase in my output.
Having such a huge archive can play tricks with your memory. I have to try to remember to always use my search facility before writing a new draft, in case I have previously posted something very similar on the same subject. A random flick through my old posts will show that I have written about the same films and songs on numerous occasions, albeit for different reasons. Annual themes of weather changes, seasonal events, and Ollie’s adventures always crop up of course, and the only posts that are really original are the fiction pieces, and the Thinking Aloud series.
This blog started out, as for many others, as something of a personal diary. I intended to look back on it much later, and remember what had happened, and what had changed over the years. But it got much bigger than that, becoming a part of my life, rather than a reflection of it. I had never imagined at the start that I would write about Blogging itself. But a quick check on my figures shows that almost a quarter of my posts, 478, are mainly about that.
I never intended to ever publish fiction on this blog. But I later succumbed to the desire to do so, and have since posted 184 original pieces in that category. My lifetime love of film and cinema soon began to transfer to the blog too, becoming one of the categories that attracted a lot of new followers. Posts appearing in that category now number 330.
Almost two years ago, one of my earliest followers dropped off this blog. She had usually commented on most posts, and we sometimes communicated by email outside of the comments threads. I was concerned that she might have been unwell, so sent her an email expressing concern for her absence. She sent a short reply, telling me that she no longer followed my blog. “You post too much, too often, and I can’t keep up”. That was a surprise for me to hear, as I know a lot of bloggers who post five or six times a day, every day. But I thanked her for her previous contributions, and wished her well. I did think about what she had said though, and gave it serious consideration.
But I just couldn’t stop myself. Sorry.
Blogging: Mind-boggling statistics
I was reading another blog post today, this one https://jrliming.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/409-million-people-read-blog-today.html
That got me thinking about just how many bloggers are out there. So I did some research. When we start blogging, it always feels very personal. We write about what we feel, things we enjoy doing, or what we have a passion for. Very often, those posts remain unread, floating around on the vast ocean of the Internet, waiting to be discovered one day. Like me, you might have thought, ‘But surely someone out there will see it?’ It is all-too easy to be discouraged, when views are low, and you seem to be getting little attention for what inspired you to start in the first place. Take heart, there is so much stuff out there, it is almost a miracle if one post was ever noticed, let alone read.
In fact, there are now so many blogs, that it is impossible to provide an accurate figure. New additions every day, dormant blogs, and those started but never completed, the numbers are just too huge to even imagine. Take just three of the most popular platforms as an example, and you will start to get the idea.
Tumblr, WordPress, and Squarespace. These three alone host almost 410,000,000 separate blogs. That number does not include Blogger, which does not provide figures. However, as they had almost 1,000,000 individual blogs as long ago as 2002, it is safe to guess that has increased to many millions now. Self-hosted blogs are not included, and we know that there are millions of those too. Taking all that into account, I believe we can assume a current total of around 450,000,000 blogs to be out there, not all of them active. And if you count Instagram as a blogging platform, then these figures could be increased greatly.
Many of them are active though, and posting regularly. Each month, more than 100,000,000 blog posts are created, suggesting some 25% of bloggers are still posting. Blog readership is also on the increase. Estimates suggest that 22 BILLION blog pages are read every month, by over 400,000,000 people. This continues to increase exponentially, as more and more people turn away from mainstream news media, and search the Internet for information about what is happening.
For some bloggers, and online companies, this is a very lucrative market. Pay-to-read blogs are on the increase too. The well-known Huffington Post earns over $14,000,000 every month, from advertising and online subscriptions. I cannot even begin to imagine how much WordPress earns, with advertising on all of its free to host blogs, as well as the millions who pay for the Premium and Business services. They also run the company using volunteer admin staff and moderators, so their staff wage bill is very low.
Since the first ever blog post was written, in 1994, the world of Blogging has exploded beyond comparison with anything except mobile phones. Talking of which, most blog posts are now read on those, or Tablet computers. Laptops and tower systems are on a rapid decline, at least as far as social media is concerned.
So, the next time your tip-top blog post gets two likes, nine views, and no comments, don’t be downhearted. You are a member of a very big club.
beetleypete 