Not only is it the end of 2017, but it has also been one year since I started blogging! I’ve really enjoyed it, not least because of all the interesting people I have met on line. Thank you for reading and for engaging in such thought-provoking (and sometimes just plain fun) conversations. Before I review some of my blog stats for the year, I would like to thank my fellow bloggers, particularly in the Richard Armitage fandom, for making me feel so welcome and for giving me a “leg up”. In particular, thanks for all the referrals from Me + Richard Armitage, Guylty Pleasure, and The Book of Esther. I am happy, too, that readers clicked their way from my blog to other blogs around 385 times.
When I first started blogging, I was not sure if I even wanted anyone to read what I would write. I was looking for a creative outlet and a place to record my feelings and observations about various books, shows, movies, and music. And while that is still primarily what I’m here for, I definitely appreciate those people that have dropped in to read my posts, to the tune of 6,347 views from 64 countries this year. Thanks for visiting!
As I started this adventure, I wasn’t sure how much I would be posting about my favourite actor, Richard Armitage. As it turns out, however, around 40% of my 105 posts so far touch on RA in some way. Never far from my thoughts, it seems! And that’s good, because my top-viewed posts this year were all Armitage-related:
- Oedipus and Antigone – A tongue-in-cheek April Fools’ Day post, with “news” about Richard Armitage, Dawn French, and Chloë Grace Moretz appearing in a Broadway musical version of the classic story.
- Romeo and Juliet: The Audiobook – A January review of the then new audiobook written by David Hewson and narrated by Richard Armitage, comparing some of its elements to the original Shakespeare play.
- Could This Be Richard Armitage’s Next Audiobook? – A link to an April post by J. Dawn King, an Austen-style writer who had had some contact with Armitage’s representatives, hoping to have him narrate her latest book. (Unfortunately, there has been no update on her blog, so presumably a positive response was not forthcoming.)
- Alternative to GUY-liner? – A suggestion that an appealing alternative to GUY-liner (as worn by Sir Guy of Gisborne) can be found in Tom Ellis in the series Lucifer, which I was enjoying in January and am still enjoying this season.
- Call Me Shallow… or What I’d ReAlly Like from a Message – My reaction to Richard Armitage’s Christmas message to fans, which he posted to Twitter on December 20. Surprising to me that this post so close to the end of the year was actually my fifth-highest-viewed post!
I also posted on non-Armitage topics. My posts on movies, theatre and TV all had a similar number of average views per post, with those on books and music having a bit less. Still, I enjoy sharing some of my thoughts on what I’ve watched, read, and heard and will continue to do so.
I’ve been thinking about some blogging goals for 2018:
- Try to write a bit every day, so that the twice-weekly posting schedule I’ve set for myself is easier to maintain. Sometimes that’s hard though, as I’m not a morning person and I’m often too tired late in the evening, especially if I’ve been doing any writing at work.
- Write down my thoughts on what I’ve watched, read, and heard more immediately — my memory sometimes fails me when I try to do it after the fact.
- Explore publicizing my blog a bit more, maybe through bloglovin.com and/or Twitter. Any suggestions?
- Venture more frequently outside of my comfortable group of followed blogs to read and comment on other posts that I might enjoy.
- Try to write some fiction, although this may not be on the blog.
Thanks for following along… See you in 2018!
I'm Feeling This 
Happy 2017 and congratulations on all the blogging data!
re: publicizing further — there’s a sharing page somewhere in the WordPress software that lets you distribute your post automatically on various other networks (I do FB, tumblr and Twitter). In order for this to really work as a way of generating significant traffic to your blog specifically, though, you need to get active on those networks as well. Also, you may need to tweak what you’re writing slightly (e.g., if I want a post about Richard Armitage to show up in the Richard Armitage tag on Twitter, I need to put either his full name, his Twitter ID or the hashtag in my post title — which is more than occasionally oxy. Tumblr, OTOH, picks up the WP tags automatically. There are specific FB engagement techniques that you have to do.) My impression is that the big places to target if you want to increase traffice are pinterest and Instagram, though.
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Thanks and Happy New Year to you! That’s really useful info. I’ve seen that you do that with your titles and did wonder about it. I’ve never done any social media even personally, so it would again be something new for me. I am a bit hesitant because of the additional time commitment — I keep adding things to my life but don’t really give anything up! I may have to stop sleeping!
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Another thing to consider — change the settings on the push emails for your blog so you only distribute the first three lines of the post rather than the whole post.
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OMG. I had NO idea that my push emails were coming out in full. Not something I would have wanted. I am looking for the setting now. Thanks for letting me know.
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Congratulations on your first blogiversary! Great date to remember! I have really enjoyed reading your blog – and not just the Armitage-related posts but also your other ruminations and reviews. (In fact, I sometimes wish I hadn’t restricted my blog to RA only – I often feel like talking about other things that are totally OT…) In any case, your post on the Christmas message was really great – I always appreciate it when bloggers are not afraid to write their opinion on a controversial matter. And I think that is what attracts other readers, too!
As for publicising – Servetus has already said everything that is important. It is very easy to push your posts as links to all kinds of social media, i.e. Twitter. But as Servetus points out – if you really want to engage new readers, you need to communicate on those platforms, too. I have the impression that Facebook is actually more useful in that regard than Twitter – as in: the community on Facebook is bigger than on Twitter. (But maybe that’s a false impression – I am not active as a fan on FB.) The other thing that drives engagement, is commenting on other blogs as bloggers usually return the compliment.
In any case, wishing you lots of fun with your new blogging goals in 2018. And a happy new year!
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I think the issue with FB is that it’s hard to figure out how to get other people to actually see your posts, and then when you’ve figured it out they change the rules and don’t tell you. I do think the absolute numbers there are larger but I don’t think the total engagement is larger, except perhaps in some enclaves. And then you have to decide to engage really actively with those enclaves (or not), which can be tricky. If someone wanted exposure on FB I would suggest either partnering with someone who’s already got an existing page, or else making overtures to those page mods to distribute the content.
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Valid point.
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Thank you for the good wishes and the kind words. WRT the Christmas message, sometimes the writing comes more easily when the feelings are stronger, I find. My only issue with having several topics in the blog is that it’s harder to establish a clear identity. Armitage readers might not be as interested in other movies, but movie readers might not be interested in Armitage. (My sister says she likes my blog but has to skip over most of the Armitage stuff!) Re: Facebook – my husband keeps telling me that the pictures he posted there of his new barbecue in the summer got more likes than anything I posted about RA. LOL! Ah well, I will explore something this year. Happy new year!
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This raises another issue with FB — you can try to create a FB pseudonym, still, although FB is cracking down on this. However, the best next step, given the way wordpress works, is to create a page for the blog, which people can follow. (WP doesn’t want to post directly to your personal page, or at least it didn’t last time I checked.) If you can connect the page to your pseud and you’re willing to operate two FBs, that’s okay (that’s what I do — but it means I spend almost no time on Michaela Servetus’ FB, because I have a RL FB that I spend a lot of time on). But if not you have to connect the page to your RL FB, i.e., you end up outing yourself.
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Well, luckily I do not have Facebook at all (yet), but I would definitely not link to a RL Facebook. In RL, I either email, text, or call the people I like to stay in touch with. But my husband has FB, so there are a few people who connect through his FB.
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