Apologies in advance if anyone’s nose is put out of joint by what follows. I just feel like I need to state some things I feel pretty fundamentally about blogging and in particular how this has even changed in the short time I have been posting here.
In short, I’m not really bothered if the blogs I write have ten page views or hundreds. A page view is what happens when someone lands on your site from the world wide web. It’s Internet analytics stuff. But also really a bit misleading, since depending on what is on your site (widgets, plugins, etc.), one person’s click can be interpreted by page view counters (if you have a number thingy that clicks over every time you visit your site, this is what I mean) as multiple page views.
I’m not in this for page views because they are misleading.
But it is a bit more than that.
I am not a famous ELT person. I am starting out (still starting out as I enter my sixth year as a professional English language teacher).
I did not blog to become a famous ELT person. I blogged to share lesson plans and thoughts about teaching and language. I’ve been able to retrieve things I did one, two years ago and use them again. Selfishly maybe, I blogged for me. But along the way, some things happened.
I was lucky to start working on a fab project with the British Council, through a contact I had made blogging and on twitter.
I gained enough confidence in myself to put in a proposal to present a workshop at a conference. I got picked to give my workshop (thanks, Burcu!).
I got involved with a really interesting writing project (Luke and Lindsay, and Ceri – it’s underway again, almost!).
I’ve met people who were previously tiny twitter avatars in real life. I’ve met people in real life who have become tiny twitter avatars. I’ve had friend requests on Facebook (please, no more of these unless we have actually met and spoken face to face).
But I didn’t do this for page views.
I understand the age we live in. It is important to have a strong online presence and identity. People are sharing their writing in many places, they’re blogging, they’re tweeting their blog posts, sharing them in groups and on pages on Facebook. But it wasn’t like that before.
Before, blog posts would be retweeted and shared in Facebook by other teachers. Good writing would out, because someone would find it and pass it on.
I cannot, and will not, post my blog every where, because if it really is good enough, you will find it.
I did not do this for the page views.
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
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YouTube
Vimeo
Hi Mike!
I never knew you had a blog, which kind of brings me to my point! Although I appreciate your sentiments, in that I absolutely agree with you that we shouldn’t blog for the page views, we should do it because we have something we feel we want to write about or share, I also think you misunderstand why people share their blog posts on social networks etc.
Twitter and facebook groups present a convenient way of staying in touch with people who have similar interests to you, and therefore people who also might find what you write of interest. I don’t read a blog because I want that person to get another page hit, I click on the link and read it because I think it might be of interest to me, just as I don’t tweet my new blog for the page hits, but to make it easily accessible for people who might be interested in the article.
I absolutely do not have time to regularly check all the blogs I read, I try to use google reader to bring them all together but I even struggle to check that regularly, the most efficient way to keep up to date with them, for me, is through following the authors on twitter. I actually really appreciate it when people do post a link to their new blog article on twitter or facebook. I do the same in return so that people who might be interested know it’s there and can easily access it.
People I know who do post links to their blog aren’t doing it for the page views , they’re doing it because it’s useful for their potential readers! I think you’ll find it’s more about making the information easily accessible in the hectic world most of us live in.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the comment.
Of course I’m all for sharing, but I do think that sometimes it can get a bit obsessive checking the stats. I also am against the sorts of ‘blog competition’ that we see, and I sadly think I have to include Edublogs in this, which seem to mainly be there to give a fillip to the nominees’ and winners’ blogs. Some people nominated certainly relentlessly promote their blogs to win the competition. I’m not up for that. I realise that some of these are intended as a celebration of bloggers and blogging, but I think that the way it has evolved is unfortunate.
Another thing that I find actually really annoying is the endless messages I get via my contact form at times, which offer to boost my SEO – search engine optimisation – so that I appear higher on google rankings and search results. Again, I’m not interested in that.
Finally, I am not really motivated by the whole blogging endeavour when someone offers to showcase a range of bloggers and they tell me it will boost traffic. People used to recommend other bloggers, and invite them to write guest posts for the subject, not just to promote them or increase the number of people visiting their blog.
I totally agree that putting links out via social media is great for reaching the widest audience you can, and this is good, because not everyone can easily find your work. My argument was that people used to recommend each other in this way. I find it a little annoying if I see a blog post tweeted, shared in multiple Facebook groups, etc. Why not do it once and if it’s good enough, someone will share it in other social spaces. For example, I have auto tweets and Facebook posts on my Page set up so that when I publish a new post, they will show up shortly after. What I don’t do is post it again in the IATEFL, EU Educators, ELTchat, etc. groups. I just don’t feel comfortable with that.
Thanks again,
Mike
Sounds like this was prompted by some discussion or indication somewhere that you or someone else does blog for the ‘fame’. Ha! Sure, being some sort of a nerd, I do like checking out statistics about my blog, but it doesn’t fuel my writing. I wish something did these days.
Thanks for the comment, Tyson. Much of this is going to be the same as my response to Alex, so in addition to my reply here, please check that out too.
I meant ‘fame’ in the sense of the traditionally famous ELT people. The ones who are names on our shelves, the ones who trained us, the big plenary speakers.
I didn’t mean to suggest that people blogged to become famous. Although, I am sure that it is sometimes a side effect! I am more interested in the amount of blog competitions, people posting multiple times on social media – e.g. when you tend to see the same post again and again in multiple Facebook groups – it isn’t something I’d be comfortable in doing, and it doesn’t look good to me. I think one post on Facebook is enough, if it’s good enough then people will pass it on. But don’t automatically post it in the IATEFLs, TESOL Frances, etc. etc.
Thanks again,
Mike
Same as Tyson, I do check out the stats on my blog but it’s my inner-nerd that drives that rather than any self-interest or desire to see how popular my posts are.
There is an element of ownership and self inherent in blogs and there is also a natural degree of socialisaiton as you build up a network of connections and a ‘core audience’. This can be misinterpreted by some (both blog authors and people on the outside looking in) as ‘self-promotion’ or ‘fame-seeking’ (there were some interesting comments on my recent blogging survey along these lines but I’ll go into those in more detail another time
) but I believe the majority of bloggers are just like you and me – seeking like-minded teachers to connect, share and engage with.
Also, I am not a fan of seeing the same blog post tweeted and shared on multiple Facebook groups – for me, one auto-tweet and whatever shares and retweets other people want to send my way are enough.
I’m really looking forward to reading your paper, Dave!
Mike =)
Hi Mike
We met once, briefly, in a pub near Russell Square, post ELTons. That doesn’t make us friends or even qualify us yet, as I guess you would agree. Like Alex, I understand your sentiments. Blogging is not about maximising the numbers of page views. If it were, I would write something incendiary and post it everywhere I could. Well, maybe I could do it once and people would quickly tire of me.
I do, however, check my stats, which are still relatively small, as it is only this year that I have started blogging with anyone other my immediate family and close friends in mind. That’s why I have so few followers. One of my blogs, which started in Jan 2012, was a marked module on my course and attracting views and building a PLN was a minor part of the marking criteria. With Twitter, I subsequently learned how to effectively link the two and generate interest. Previously, I was a Twitter skeptic. So the last 6 months have been something of a revelation for me, and I am still enjoying the growth of my PLN and have used it/them to generate interest not only in ICT tools in ELT but in being to access respondents for my recent survey questionnaire for my dissertation.
I also see your point about posting in several places (groups) and as the person who set up the IATEFL FB group – please correct me if I am wrong – I am sure you witness this a lot. Although that something that often gets overlooked is the TIMING of a post. Most groups are populated by people from all over the world. Both Facebook (with its News Feed) and Twitter highlight recent posts and unless a person is directly tagged or mentioned, there is a high chance of them never seeing the posting, unless as you suggest, it is good enough to generate comments and keeps popping back up again. That is way, sometimes, I post a similar message at different times of the day. Maybe you will still say that once is enough and there are mechanisms for it to be reposted, retweeted etc.
I note that many ‘famous’ ELT bloggers do not show the stats counter on the blog, it’s probably more ‘classy’ that way, as is WordPress over Blogger, although I use the latter.
Thanks anyway for provoking me, for one, into a response. All the best.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Many thanks for the comment!
I find myself in agreement. Much like Tyson and Dave, I think there is something of the inner-nerd-stat-checker in every blogger! I think we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t get slightly motivated by looking at how well we are doing. It can also show you what people are interested in reading, or what they find most interesting.
Your point about multiple posting and time zones is completely on the button. I’m not against multiple postings on twitter to cater to a worldwide audience. The transient nature of twitter I think makes this easy to do, and I think should be done.
However, I think that Facebook is far ‘stickier’ – i.e. the post won’t get as lost in the Group or Page News feed as it would on a twitter stream, which might be receiving 100s of new updates every minute. I think multiple posting in Groups on Facebook (that is, posting it in the morning in Europe in the IATEFL Group, then for Africa’s lunchtime, Asia’s tea time) would be even more infuriating.
Another point is people posting ‘blog posts’ in these groups that are actually thinly disguised adverts, or that lead to some sort of pay wall provision of an article or resource. That is something that riles me even more, and have found to be most difficult to track/police with the IATEFL Group.
Thanks again for the comment, and for prompting me to think further.
Mike
As one dog says to another in the almost famous New Yorker cartoon:
“I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.” -Gregory in The New Yorker
ttp://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/I-had-my-own-blog-for-a-while-but-I-decided-to-go-back-to-just-pointless-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8546224_.htm
Every time I think about starting my own blog I think of this and then I stop
Jokes aside, though I am no stranger to wanting to get my work out to a wide audience, I have to confess that I feel a little tinge of something every time I see someone post the words “just blogged” anywhere except on their own personal channels — as if just blogging something would be reason enough to click and find out what it is that’s been blogged. It’s like anyone saying “just played a song on the piano” or “just did an oil painting” or “just wrote a poem” which are all fine activities for people to do and get better at doing, but I’m just old enough to remember when such things were done in the quiet of one’s own mind and home, shared with a few close and forgiving friends perhaps — not the whole world. In a previous time, a lot of what passes for blog posts today was written in the privacy of one’s personal journal and publication was saved for particular pieces that had been around the block a couple of times and even thought through before they were shared and circulated. I have a bookshelf full of these pieces of writing done by people I admire on mimeograph machines and lovingly stapled together. Those are the ones that got saved. Tons more went right into the trash with a move somewhere. I know, I sound like some luddite, but I know you know I am actually pretty connected on the social media scene as well as the curator of an increasingly popular group blog and what I have learned and continue to see is simply this: what you say about the past is still true Michael: good writing gets “outed” because it’s good writing. I personally out a lot of it because like always, when a reader reads something that resonates, that reader wants to share it. That’s where the clicks come in. Even the famous writers have an off day and the writing goes nowhere, but then there are so many good new voices out there (like yours) with something worth saying and when that gets put together into a piece of writing that comes from the heart, it becomes unstoppable. Truth: if you write it right, the clicks will come. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the rest incessant barking, but it is noisy out there in the online world with so many sharing so much in so many places. I’m glad you’re writing though Michael. Keep it up.
Chuck
Thanks for the comment, Chuck.
I really admire the work you are doing with itdi and have done previously helping foster community online between teachers. That is the type of social media supportiveness that I don’t have a problem with at all. Similarly with ‘group’ blogs like Teaching Village that Barb Sakamoto curates. Those are all fab initiatives and I am behind you all 100 percent.
I actually wrote a guest post for Teaching Village when I was starting out blogging, but that was out of a desire to experiment and try a slightly different style of writing to what I had posted on my blog at that point. Similarly, I wrote for Anita Kwiatkowska and Karenne Sylvester. But for the same reasons, to experiment and foster connections with those teachers. Never for the sole sake of getting more people coming to read my blog. I won’t lie, it was nice, but it was a side effect. For the same reasons I’d write something for itdi (a post I still have on the back burner…) =)
Mike =)
Thanks for the good words Michael. I feel you. I’m sitting here now hoping you will do a post for iTDI. Would love to have you follow up on that almost long ago literacy level / disabilities discussion that came up on twitter awhile back. Fingers crossed you will or on anything else that strike your fancy. I’d love to work with you
Good things!
Chuck
Visible page views = social proof = something that some people enjoy either for sharing the stats or the ego-boost.
Bottom-line, as you’ve shown, is what are your motivations for writing and I think you’ve laid yours out well here, Mike. And yet, having those kind of motivations doesn’t prevent someone of the same motivation from still seeking social proof of some sort, or even out of a good heart, over-sharing.
For me it’s about the interaction, which means both qualitative and quantitative feedback. I’ll typically throw my posts twice on twitter (morning/evening), maybe in a linkedin group and then a facebook group or two at different times as well, changing among them to not be too ‘present’ with my own stuff (as I know exactly what you mean about overposting to too many groups). Each time, it hits a different group of folks opening up a different interaction, which is why I’m doing it. Any group that doesn’t provide feedback (a like or comment) is a group I typically no longer post too.
Merci 4 the reflection and glad to hear what the others think too. Cheers, Brad
Thanks for the comment, Brad.
I think time zones came up in a previous comment. I’m totally with you there. If you write something, you do seek some kind of validation for it. Even if that is just you reading it back in its ‘published’ form.
I also take what you say about a need for social proof – this is our currency nowadays, and people do come to know you from your blog or from your tweets (although this irks me at times!).
Cheers for your thoughts.
Mike =)
Not much I’d disagree with here Mike, and I’m very much with you on most of it – especially the blog competitions and paywall links. Promoted tweets that squat at the top of hashtags and links to doorway landing pages are other pet hates; especially URL shortened links that make you sit through an ad before you can view a link that someone has shared. Way too in-your-face for my taste, and bordering on bad social media manners, I’d say.
I agree that over-sharing can be annoying sometimes, but I actually don’t mind people posting on multiple Facebook groups as long as it’s relevant to the purpose of the group, and on topic; though I’m less keen on people churning out big blocks of nearly identical stuff out within a short time frame. Not that I tend to see that kind of thing very much myself as I turn notifications for groups off these days, along with apps. Makes for a more peaceful Facebook experience, I find
As you say, things used to be different, and I’ve noticed many people I connect with seem to be spending a lot less time on twitter. Maybe there is simply less retweeting going on these days, and people are promoting themselves more in a bid to compensate? Just a thought.
Sue
Ugh, instant pop up ads are an instant turn off. If I get one of those, like you, I’m usually off that site never to come back!
Thank you for the comments, Sue =)
Hello Mike. I’ve been a subscriber to your blog for at least a year now and always find it informative, helpful, inspiring and, to use a cliché – out of what can be the tedious box. I’ve successfully shared many ideas and lessons with my students. Stats or not, please keep up the wonderful work. Thank you!!!
Hi Gail,
Thank you so much for your kind comment. This is truly one of the best side effects that keeping a blog can bring about.
Mike =)
Very thought-provoking, Mike. The fact that you’re writing for yourself is probably a good step to having a great blog, as you indeed have. I guess if you’re pleased with what you’ve written and find it useful at a later date then others will also gain something from reading it.
I’ve become fairly well known as a result of my blog, which kind of frightens me as, 1) I can’t believe anyone would actually read what I write, 2) I’m just some bloke who likes his job and likes talking about what he does, and 3)I don’t think I deserve to be famous for just doing something I love. I currently feel that my online persona is somewhat *beyond* what I consider myself to be in terms of this profession and I find that worrying sometimes. Consequently, I’m trying to avoid the total overkill that some of our contemporaries seem to just love (I could name names but they’re obvious enough anyway). I’m glad you seem to feel the same way that I do, as you’re a diamond geezer!
Keep doing what you’re doing and people will value you for what you are.
[...] then, I have managed a fairly respectable regular 50-100 hits a week. Which is nice, but not, as Mike Harrison has said very eloquently, the point of a [...]
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
Would you also write if nobody but you ever read your posts?
adi,
That is a good point. I think my answer would have to be yes – I’ve used this blog as a repository for ideas that I have come back to time and time again, like certain lesson plans I’ve written or tips that I’ve found, and I’ve been grateful that I could. If I wrote them on paper, I most definitely would have lost them!
Mike