by Cowboy Bob Sorensen
Those who write weblogs and have websites naturally want to have people read their material, so they use various strategies. These include SEO, publicity, optimizing for mobile devices, submitting sitemaps to search engines, and more. Naturally, we want to be noticed on social media.
There are how-to guides on many of those subjects, and there are numerous guides about the best times to post on social(ist) media. Why? Because that is where the people are — potential readers, customers, converts, and all that good stuff. But those guides are lacking.
Smart phone social media, Pixabay / geralt (Gerd Altmann)
Up the trail a spell at Slimjim’s spread, there was a discussion about “Thoughts on Decrease of Blog Views Over the Years.” All of those things mentioned earlier play a part in decreases as well as increases, and the conditions also change. That’s one reason those “best times” lists are incomplete.
From what I saw, various social media have times when they had the most activity, therefore, those are the best times to post. (Those things focus on times in the Eastern US, since the rest of the world apparently isn’t as important.) One astute writer pointed out that yes, they are busy, but to schedule posts for those peak times also leaves you open to a lot of competition for attention. He suggested using the best time for you. Also, my audience at The Question Evolution Project is more active away from peak times.
Shared links from friendly people in our own tribes also help.
Those of us who have had experience in the retail world know that there is a plethora of merchandising based on motion pictures that are (or expected to be) blockbuster hits. If one of those has subject matter that sparks the interest of the public, they will search for it.
Weblogs on Christian theology, presuppositional apologetics, biblical creation science and that sort of thing are unlikely search subjects for people who are all het up about Avatar: The Way of Water. (Conversely, this child is not interested in that movie.) For certain niches to be noticed, it seems that they need a boost from a celebrity like Chris Evans or someone who publicly expresses an interest in one of the niches topics. If Patrick Mahomes mentioned our subjects, we may have ridden that popularity bronco through February 2023, but that would have probably calmed down in a couple of weeks.
Of course, if you have sloppy writing and poor content, tricks of online optimization are not likely to be much help.
Something else that should be mentioned is that people are using all sorts of browser enhancements (be careful you don’t add something that spies on you, check them out before adding) that add security and secrecy. Many browsers themselves also do that. My statistics counter promises to record hits, but I have serious doubts that it gets them all. F’rinstance, someone quoted part of my text back to me but his location (known to me) did not register, well, you get the idea.
Those of us who are not doing marketing for a living and want to follow the Lord’s calling for our lives should remain faithful. It gets difficult at times, boy do I know! We should desire to please him, not to get a prairie schooner-full of hits and the dopamine rush. If our areas of study and writing/speaking get popular for a spell, fine, be ready and go with it. Or not. Stay faithful.
The Creation Cowboy 