Tuesday 17 March 2015

Blog topicality experiment

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Following a semi-topical post on Jeremy Clarkson, which got a lot of hits (at least ten times the usual number) due to being linked from some bigger impact blogs, I did the experiment of 'manufacturing' a blog post from my usual opinions applied to the day's headlines.

It was not such a success as JC, probably because it was about 12 hours 'late' but still got at least three times the usual number of page views.

(BTW: I have since deleted it.)

The lesson: if you want to be a successful high-impact blogger - then take your lead from the mass media, talk about today what everybody else is talking about today.

Don't try to beat 'em: just join 'em.

Tempting?...

No thanks.

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3 comments:

Mark Minter said...

Funny, I didn't read that one. I usually stick to the ones with the moral and religious lessons from you.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

I read that post and actually thought, "That's odd: Bruce taking his cues from the 'current events'!" Glad to know it was just an experiment.

(I was also pleased to realize that I did not know, and probably would never have known, about the original mass-media story if I hadn't read about it on your blog. It's encouraging to know that I've had some marginal success in "unplugging.")

Bruce Charlton said...

@Wm - I used to be 'a journalist' (in medicine, science and cultural criticism) part time (I mean as well as a full time job). I published quite a lot (typically, something every two weeks) and got reasonably well paid for some of it; and being a 'hatchet man' came to me fairly easily. I got to a point where I had to decide whether to do this kind of thing as the main thing, or try to do something more. In the end, the decision was made for me by the sudden collapse in well paid freelance journalism in Britain, in the middle 1990s.

It is quite interesting to know how to run a 'successful' blog, and be able to do it, and not do it. But it isn't all that much of a sacrifice, as I know it would make me feel bad. In a way it is for me a self-indulgence *not* to be topical.