SECURE INTERGALACTIC TRANSMISSION
TO: The Mighty Potentate
FROM: Alien Jones, the Esteemed Brainy One
RE: Results of Bookshelf Q. Battler’s One Post a Day for a Year Challenge – 2015
DATE: Jan. 1, 2016
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY POTENTATE!
Alien Jones tallies BQB’s 2015 stats.
Your lowly servant, Alien Jones here to report on the results of Bookshelf Q. Battler’s One Post a Day Challenge. As you recall, Your Potentosity, you have identified BQB as “The Chosen One,” the only Earth writer capable of putting out a book that will convince the humans to abandon the reality television programming that you despise with such magnanimous enthusiasm.
HOW IT BEGAN
BQB only intended to write very brief posts for the purpose of drawing some attention to his blog. However, he quickly became hooked on seeing his stats improve and spent the year focusing on his blog instead of his languishing career as a novelist.
Further, BQB made daily postings on social media. He had Twitter at the beginning of the year. He got onto Google Plus early in the year. He had been on Facebook but finally began pushing harder on it in the Fall.
WHAT DID BQB DO?
- Posted 1 or more (and often, more) posts on his blog daily. Did not miss a day.
- Posted daily on Twitter from the beginning of the year.
- Posted daily on Google Plus when he started it (his pitiful human brain doesn’t remember when that started but believes it was early in the year.)
- Became more active on Facebook, by the end of the year he started posting there daily. Also, he spent a bit of his human money to buy some Facebook ads.
- Joined and became active on Wattpad, posting stories and offering comments on other writers’ works.
BQB’S BEGINNING STATS
BQB, ever unsure of himself, blogged every day in January, 2015 just to see if he could do it. He then announced Feb 1. that he’d see this through to the end of the year.
WHAT BQB SAID ABOUT HIS STATS FEB 1:
“At the time of this writing, I’m averaging 35-40 site visitors per day. I believe this is due to daily postings.
I’m also seeing an increase in blog followers. I had 400 at the start of the year, and about 450 now.
I had 2000 twitter followers at the start of the year, I’m at around 2500 now.”
STAT COMPARISON A YEAR LATER
WORDPRESS
FOLLOWERS
JAN 1, 2015 – Approx. 400
JAN 1, 2016 – 1,520
INCREASE of 1,120 approx.
2014 vs. 2015
BQB began this blog in 2014, but did not blog daily. In fact, he often let a lot of time pass between posts.
2014 Stats
VIEWS – 4,658
VISITORS – 3,623
LIKES – 895
COMMENTS – 227
2015 Stats
VIEWS – 28,103 (Up approx 24,000)
VISITORS – 14,880 (Up approx 11,000)
LIKES – 7,836 (Up approx 6,000)
COMMENTS – 2000 (Up approx 1800)
TWITTER
JAN 1, 2015 – 2,000 followers (approx)
JAN 1, 2016 – 7,168
GOOGLE PLUS
2014 – BQB didn’t have it. He started in 2015.
Jan 1, 2016 – 858 followers
FACEBOOK
Likes were barely existent starting 2015. BQB experimented with buying some Facebook ads in the Fall. Currently, the Bookshelf Battle Facebook Page has 169 likes and the Pop Culture Mysteries Facebook Page has 107 likes.
SOCIAL MEDIA OBSERVATIONS – IS SOCIAL MEDIA WORTH IT?
Human writers often debate whether social media is worth their time. Some praise it as a free marketing tool. Others complain it takes time away from their actual writing.
For all of the social media activity BQB engaged in…
TWITTER – brought 527 views total to BQB’s blog this year.
FACEBOOK – brought 368 views total.
GOOGLE PLUS – 270
Thus, it is clear that having more followers on social media does not mean they will all visit your website. However, BQB feels his social media efforts did help to raise awareness of his blog and to make contacts with other writers, such as the fine authors who helped him out of the East Randomtown Zombie Apocalypse in October.
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
SEARCH ENGINES – gave BQB 6,898 views. It pays to write a lot. The more content you have on your site, the more likely people will visit your site through a search engine.
WORDPRESS READER – 1,156 – The more wordpress followers you have, the more people will seeing your blog in their wordpress reader.
DAILY VIEWS – BQB found that for the most part, his efforts attracted somewhere between 30-50 visitors (more or less). Occasionally, it would push 100, a few times over 100, but never over 200.
To BQB’s credit, his view rate is high, meaning that there are a number of visitors coming to the site, liking what they see, and giving it a few more views.
OVERALL – WAS THE ONE POST A DAY CHALLENGE WORTH IT?
Yes. The Chosen One has gone from dabbling in a blog to building a platform.
BQB has a tendency to doubt himself, but will keep up with something if he sees progress and there was definite progress this year.
THE FUTURE
As a pitiful human, BQB can’t do everything, so in 2016 he will have to divert his attention to his novel writing career. However, the time he spent building this site’s readership will likely payoff one day…some day.
Somehow no matter what happens, BQB only reports having 3.5 readers though. That is likely to continue.
MY RECOMMENDATION
Spare the Earthlings, Mighty Potentate. BQB is doing his best to write a novel and build a writing career. He will do his best to convince the pitiful humans to stop watching reality television and read books instead.
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY POTENATE!
Alien Jones, out.
Bookshelf Battle 