12 years, 5 months ago-
Posts
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Hello all,
Hope everyone is having a good day. I am sorry to come on here and have a bit of a whinge, I just checked out my Networked Blog stats on Facebook and feel really deflated as it seems that nobody is interested in my blog.
The reason I created my blog was to try and encourage readers to take a moment to help animals so I share any petitions and easy but effective ways to help and aim to get as many people as possible to “take action” in order to work together and make a difference. (I hope I have explained this well)
I was wondering if anyone would be available to take a look at my blog and provide me with some constructive criticism please? I am not sure if I should keep plugging away, make some dramatic changes to my blog or just give up?
Thank you for listening everyone!
From Helen
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Hi Helen! The problem seems to be more of a promotion issue. Do you have a Facebook fan page and Twitter handle that you use to help promote your posts? (If you do, I don’t see a prominent link to either of them on your homepage, which is very important). Facebook in particular has been very important to the success of my blog. I also recommend posting your own status updates instead of scheduling them through Networked Blogs, to make them more personal.
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Hi Helen –
I will absolutely go take a look at your blog, BUT there is a real possibility that it is the Networked Blogs app/Facebook that is at the root of the issue.
I was using NB until the “new” Facebook took effecsa while back. Before that Facebook treated each post like a status and it automatically displayed everything. The new Facebook treats it as an “app” which means it treats it the same way it does game posts etc. The top post shows in your feed, but you have to click a ‘show more’ link to see the rest of the posts.
That means if your friends/fans follow more than one person using networked blogs, only the newest post will show and all the others will be hidden usless they ask to see them.
After this change, a lot of big bloggers stopped using NB due to lack of exsposure for their posts. I manually post every blog to my feed now and the traffic has increased dramatically.Stephanie and Catsparella also make a great point – it is A LOT of work to build up a blog following. I would say that I easily soend 5 – 10 hours a week working on commenting on relevant blogs in my field, building links, talking with my Facebook & Twitter audience etc. Facebnook is the #1 link referral to Kol’s Notes, so it is absolutely an important tool to build your blog, but it won’t do it on it’s own you have to really work at it :0)(I’ll check out your blog on my lunch and let you know if I see anything I can suggest!)
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Don’t give up. I know it sounds crazy since you have been doing this for over a year, but your blog is still a bit new, and these things take time. Here is what I would do (you may already do it, but just in case).
Visit other pet blogs, and blogs in general, and leave comments. Don’t link to your blog in the comment, but be sure to fill in the website section of the comment form. Leave nice comments and get to know other bloggers.
Get a Twitter account and add your blog link there. Take part in #pawpawty and other animal themed Twitter events.
Add the Google Friend/Follower widget to your sidebar, and utilize it when you see it on other sites as well.
Good luck! Don’t give up! 🙂
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Hi Helen, ohhhh, don’t give up! You have a good focus and I think it can work. Here are my recommendations:
- How long have you been working on this blog? Most bloggers I know with large followings were blogging for a few years before word really got out. Now, however, thanks to social media, you can get the word out so much faster. How are you integrating social media with your posts? Are you letting similar groups/bloggers know about your latest news? Your subject is so wide, you will need to make an extra effort to get your name out there with groups, but it can be done.
- “Animal News” is a vague title. Don’t change it, but about a tagline that explains what it’s about (in the header)?:
- Your posts are a little long. Try to keep them under 500 words.
- Place your call to action up higher in the post. Maybe a quick summary and then get into details.
Overall though your design is clean and well done! Don’t give up.
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Hi Helen, I am actually writing to you BEFORE I go and look at your blog (which I am going to do in a minute) I do have some questions:
1) How long have you been blogging?
It takes TIME to build a good fan base, it requires patience, interaction, posting on various social media sites…etc….BlogPaws has great tips on this site to help you with that and there are bloggers with even more followers than I have who are here and also have good tips.
One way I helped to build Cat Chat was to follow others and to comment on their blogs regularly. Like you, everyone likes to be noticed!
I will also be candid that I am on Networked Blogs too but Networked blogs isn’t the most productive in the world (for me at least).
If you want to email me my email is cgittleman at mi dot rr dot com
The main thing is BE PATIENT…keep plugging away……your passion for what you do is more important than thousands of followers!
I am looking forward to seeing what others have to say. I am off to look at your blog now
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Thank you everyone for all your comments, I am so pleased you took the time to read my post, check out my blog and give me such good advice!
Stephanie: I do have a Facebook and Twitter fan page and new posts are automatically published on both. I am struggling to add the Facebook and Twitter buttons on to my blog, when I do add them they don’t look right. I will keep trying as the fact that they are missing from my blog is quite a big deal. I definitely agree that my posts need to be more personal instead of just the Networked Blog link so I will work on making those changes. Thanks again Stephanie 🙂
Jodi: Thanks for agreeing to take a look at my blog Jodi and for the info about NB, I didn’t realise it had changed. I have noticed that less people are looking at my blog than they used to and this correlates to what you said about NB changing the way it displays (or doesn’t display for that matter!) I am definitely going to make a change to this as I was originally completely relying on NB. I think I am being quite impatient, it is only recently that I discovered so many animal blogs so I will do as you suggest and comment on the posts I read and make contact with people on Facebook and Twitter more often instead of just expecting them to read my posts. Excellent advice, thank you 🙂
Aimee: I promise I won’t give up, thank you for that. My blog is still new and I am still learning. I completely agree that I need to start interacting with other animal blogs, since joining BlogPaws I have discovered so many of them there really is no excuse! I’ve not heard of #pawpawty but is sounds like fun so I will get involved. As I only had 5 followers on the Google Follower widget I was ashamed to add it but I will take the plunge and do it anyway since it is another way to get people to subscribe. Thank you Aimee!
SureFlap: Thanks for that idea, I will join Stumbleupon. I don’t know how to use it but it sounds like a valuable resource 🙂
Bonnie: I think my Google analytics are even worse than on Facebook unfortunately, I think Blogger has stats as well but most of my readers are via Facebook. I think I might have a feedburner account but I definitely need to check this and see what the stats are. Thanks for your reply 🙂
Renee: Thank you for all of your recommendations, I have been working on my blog over a year and a half (although it was sporadically and I did have long periods of absence now and again) so I guess I have to be a bit more patient. I definitely need to work on my Facebook and Twitter activity as well as interact with other groups and bloggers so I will get working on that first and foremost. I do have a tagline but for some reason I didn’t add it to the title, I will do that as my blog may look like it is just news about animals but in actual fact it is more than that. Good point! Another good point about long posts, this could be off putting so I will try to shorten them. I like your suggestion about a quick summary followed by action required and then the details, thanks very much for this Renee. I have work to do! 🙂
I am going to be busy guys! Thanks so much!
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Hi Helen,
Please don’t give up! Here’s a blog post I did years ago with a compelling story about how a blog saved a woman’s business after a couple of years of “metrics” that would tell a numbers-focused person she wasn’t getting anything out of her blog:
http://www.businessbloggingbootcamp.com/2008/05/what-lessons-fr.html
The big question I think you need to ask yourself is what measurements matter? More specifically, which ones matter to you and what you’re trying to accomplish?
Don’t fret about any statistics until you’ve figured out the answers to those questions. For example, you describe your goal as encouraging readers to take action to help animals, right? So two measurements that might matter could be: (1) number of readers, and (2) number of actions taken to help animals, at least partly influenced by your blog.
As others have noted, I’m not sure Networked Blogs is the most useful tool for measuring either of those items. Google Analytics should be easy to install on your blog for counting visitors and page views. Your comment stream is a great place to find out what your readers are doing.
Even then, don’t get wrapped up in numbers. How many readers do you need to feel like you’re having an impact? If you only had six, but one of them was an influential blogger you met here, or on Facebook, who happened to click through and read one of your posts and shared it on their Twitter stream, leading 2,500 of her followers to donate an average of $10 ($25K total) to a cause you wrote about … would that make you feel good about your efforts?
Whatever number of readers you think you’d like, some of the ways to build readership and comments are a bit counter-intuitive, so here’s the start of a series Caroline, Yvonne, and I did a while back:
http://www.blogpaws.com/2010/06/15-ways-to-get-readers-to-comment-on-your-blog-carolines-top-5.html
Back to the numbers: How many positive actions would you need to inspire? If you found out via a thank you note left as a comment on your blog that a scout troop led by one of your readers had “adopted” a local animal shelter as an ongoing project to provide volunteer work, enabling that shelter to handle 10 more pets per month, would that be “enough” return on your investment of time? Would something like that have to happen within the first year? The fifth?
You may have picked up on the fact that I don’t think much of relying on numbers alone to judge whether or when your blogging is a “success.” If I haven’t turned you off by that statement, here are a couple of more examples of my thinking about social media “ROi” that might help:
http://www.booksblogsandbeyond.com/2009/01/blogging-roi-measuring-the-value-of-one.html
http://www.booksblogsandbeyond.com/2009/05/16-flavors-of-social-media-roi.html
This is a GREAT topic for discussion, btw, and I’m glad to see so many already weighing in!
Please let us know which pieces make sense to you and how things are going over time.
Tom
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I dont trust Facebook Network blog’s stats as I have found sometimes they are not as accurate. I use Google Analytics. As mentioned below Facebook has been rolling out a TON of changes and causing headaches ha ha, but I have been at it for over a year and in August, I did a complete overhaul to my site. Now I am starting to pick up but as mentioned I lost some viewer ship due to issues out of my control (and a big one that was moving).
Another part is that I have been actively out promoting my blog, showed it to a few people and they loved the idea so much that we are currently working together to promote their idea in a addition to ‘A Dog’s Journal’.
BTW thanks for following me on Twitter as I am now following you 🙂
I have also been helping others in fundraising and one of my biggest spikes was a post about ‘Save Lennox’. But that is a HOT topic and I did research it before writing about it. Also if you want I can add you to my slideshow on the home page (I do that for fundraiser’s and rescues I stumble on 🙂
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An interesting follow up to my note about Facebook and App Posts, seems the rules might be changing (again)!
http://blog.bufferapp.com/facebook-stops-penalizing-third-party-apps-focuses-on-posting-quality
Jodi Chick said:
Hi Helen –
I will absolutely go take a look at your blog, BUT there is a real possibility that it is the Networked Blogs app/Facebook that is at the root of the issue.
I was using NB until the “new” Facebook took effecsa while back. Before that Facebook treated each post like a status and it automatically displayed everything. The new Facebook treats it as an “app” which means it treats it the same way it does game posts etc. The top post shows in your feed, but you have to click a ‘show more’ link to see the rest of the posts.
That means if your friends/fans follow more than one person using networked blogs, only the newest post will show and all the others will be hidden usless they ask to see them.
After this change, a lot of big bloggers stopped using NB due to lack of exsposure for their posts. I manually post every blog to my feed now and the traffic has increased dramatically.Stephanie and Catsparella also make a great point – it is A LOT of work to build up a blog following. I would say that I easily soend 5 – 10 hours a week working on commenting on relevant blogs in my field, building links, talking with my Facebook & Twitter audience etc. Facebnook is the #1 link referral to Kol’s Notes, so it is absolutely an important tool to build your blog, but it won’t do it on it’s own you have to really work at it :0)(I’ll check out your blog on my lunch and let you know if I see anything I can suggest!)
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Caren: Thank you for your reply, I have been blogging for about a year and a half although I have taken a few long breaks due to moving house and location twice within that period. I am so glad to have found BlogPaws and all of you friendly, helpful people. I have picked up so many tips! To begin with I couldn’t find many animal blogs, but I obviously was looking in the wrong place as there are tons out there and I am now subscribing to them and commenting, in fact I have just won tickets to an event through this! Thank you for your e-mail address, mine is laughinggravy at gmail dot com (funny address I know, it is after a dog in an episode of Laurel and Hardy) I am definitely going to be patient and my passion has been renewed after all the support I have received here!
Rachel: Good observation, yes I did have quite a few long absences from my blog which didn’t help matters and I noticed I lost a few readers during this time. Unfortunately it couldn’t be helped but I will try and avoid this in the future by planning ahead and scheduling posts well in advance.
Tom: Thank you for your reply and for the interesting links, you are right about not fretting about statistics. It is all about how many people take action and help animals in the long run. As you said, if one of my six readers was an influential blogger that generated a large response to one of my actions I would be absolutely thrilled! The link about generating comments on your blog has some excellent ideas so I will get to work on this as well. I certainly have a lot of useful advice from everyone to work on.
I think I just needed to know that someone was listening and signing the petitions and taking an interest in what needs to be done to improve the lives of animals, I definitely need to be patient and realise that numbers don’t really matter it is the quality, not quantity of followers I have. I will keep you posted Tom, thanks again!
Brit: Thank you for your reply, for following me on Twitter and your support. I am going to install Google Analytics as I am completely turned off Network Blog after all the information I have been given. I would love it if you could add me to your slideshow, that would be brilliant. I will add you to my Inspiration section. If you could help me with the Facebook and Twitter icons in a straight line on my page I would be really grateful, I just haven’t been able to do this myself! Any help or support you need, just ask 🙂
Jodi: Thanks for that link, changing again! It makes my head spin!
Once again thank you all, I have been busily following your blogs, adding you to Facebook and Twitter so hope to stay in touch. Take care.
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I use to worry about all those numbers, etc. but honestly I gave over that responsibility to my husband and he gives me updates. I felt that if I focused on that then I couldn’t do my best writing. I needed to write from my heart and not worry about if this search engine will list or what my klout score it, etc.Now granted I didn’t stick my head in the sand either but you can’t let it become the focus of your blog. If your blog is making you happy and giving you full-fulfillment then don’t give up and keep writing!
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