Chasing Stats
The simplest advice here is: Just don’t. Don’t worry about stats. At all. Ever. For any reason.
If you think you can actually do that, awesome! That’s the advice to you. No need to read any further. However, I think the most simplistic version of this advice doesn’t exactly fit well with general human nature. Heck, I’d be lying if I tried for a moment to suggest I didn’t care about my stats at all.
But there’s a far cry between caring about stats and making them your number one reason. If you’re doing this whole crazy thing for the main purpose of becoming internet famous with huge engagement metrics… Eh. At the very least, know that you’re in for the long haul. It doesn’t happen overnight, and you’ll have to find a reason to keep going when your motivation is low, and the numbers aren’t yet telling the story you want them to.
So if I were to offer an advancement to the simple advice, it would be: It’s OK to care about your stats, but do not make them a driver for what you do.
A practical example of this in action? I used to do a monthly post on the Humble Choice bundles. I started doing them just for me, as I often lost track of when I’d picked up certain games — particularly if they came from Humble. But turns out… These posts pulled big numbers. Over half of 2021’s top ten posts by views were Humble Choice coverage posts, with thousands of views each. But… I stopped enjoying writing them. Humble Choice as a whole seemed to be falling off a cliff in quality, with my excitement for it following closely behind.
I kept going with those posts for longer than I probably should have, just because of the views they pulled in.
Ultimately I stopped, though. The last one I did was in January this year, and I’ve been much happier since.
I couldn’t tell you the actual impact on views, and the picture I’ve included in the title doesn’t really give you that insight either. I’ve been posting very lightly since April, even March was down a bit from what I’d normally do. Life circumstances have forced my hand on this.
The loss of posting time leading to the loss of stats has certainly been a blow I’ve felt, but not one I’m going to let stop me from returning as I’m able. Honestly? Trying to post every day in Blaugust is madness given everything going on — but hey, here we go. :)
So I suppose, in a rather roundabout way, that’s the final version of the advice for this particular post: Post regularly, about the things that interest you, and the rest will follow.
Not a lot more to it than that! Sometimes life will get in the way, though, as it has for me, but that’s OK. I’m pretty curious where things land by the end of August but wherever that may be, I’m going to keep going.
Also! I will do a follow-up to this post if you’d like a little more advice specifically on how you might speed up the growth of your content viewership, without draining your soul or irking those around you. ;) That’s for another day, though.
This was posted during Blaugust 2022, the annual blogging event hosted by Belghast. Blaugust is an event aiming to welcome new blogger blood into the fold and revitalise those who’ve been at it a little longer.
The Blaugust Discord is still available to join in year-round!
