Hey all, welcome back! So I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been absent lately. I keep thinking that it’s only been a week since my last post, but as my last post was on St. Patrick’s Day, this week will hit a month since I’ve been here. Sorry to let you down, however, here I am!
There’s a few reasons I haven’t been around, nothing major. However, I do put some of the blame on Daylight Savings Time as it does a number on me every Spring. As someone who lives her life at night, the extra sunshiny hours have been messing with my head a bit and sometimes a step back is needed. (We vampires like to keep it dark you know.)
I haven’t been idle though and have recently hit the one year mark of working on my novel. The only update I can really give is that I’ve cut a few more thousand words from it and I’m pretty proud of that. Still so much to do on it though and I’ve been getting rather frustrated with the process. My determination to finish this book is still driving me and come hell or high water, I will finish this thing!
In the meantime, I’ve been thinking a lot about numbers. Not just the word count I’m dealing with, but numbers in a different way. It hit me after my last post. Almost no one read it. Frankly, I was a bit surprised. I thought it was good, gave a bit of my back story and for once, wasn’t about my writing. Looking at it now, I realize that it may have been the title’s fault. Just stating that ‘St. Patrick’s Day is Here’ gave no indication to what the post was about. So ok, lesson learned and no hard feelings. This was all on me.
When I worked in social media, I had to keep track of lots of numbers. Follower count and best times of day to post to what platform, etc…I dreamt in digits. I also had to figure out what posts worked and what didn’t and then troubleshoot the lower tallies as well as try to decipher algorithms.
While that was ten years ago and pre-TikTok, algorithms still elude me. Trying to get something seen has mystified me since the dark days of social media. Not just blog posts either. This goes for my blog posts, my videos, my photos, my print on demand, Etsy and eBay listings, the list goes on and on.
I was most recently baffled when a video of mine on my #booktok account jumped my counts from hundreds to thousands. Before and after this video was posted, I had numbers that ranged from 109 to 906 views with an average of about 349. Still very low but at least seen. Then I posted this one video about a book I had been reading that had misprinted and uncut pages and had to be sent back in the middle of my reading it. My viewer count at the time of this post? 3065.
Are hashtags the key? The material? The fact that the book was recently released and was taking Booktok by storm? I have no clue. What I do know is that I haven’t been able to duplicate it since and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve had other videos jump past 1000 views which I was always happy with, considering that I currently only have 1068 followers on my NewChapterCove account. However, I’ve also had views as low as 23. Seriously. 23.
Being honest, I don’t have super high views here. That’s ok as this is still a growing site. Sometimes, both posting in a specific niche and not having consistency in my posting as a whole has led to such low views. Again, this is all on me and I take responsibility for it. This isn’t the first time I’ve had such a site, albeit, this is the first one I’ve really posted about my personal life. But in this case, I understand the number counts, which is why I am grateful to every single person who reads, subscribes and shares my site. I know that I don’t make it easy to keep following and I accept that.
But when I’m posting more consistently to a platform in very similar ways to others, using similar subject material and I’m still getting just a handful of views while others get thousands? This is where I lose it. I’ve tried different times of day. Different hashtags. Different filters. Different tags. I took suggestions from the platform itself to post photos instead of videos and then vice versa. And still, the view counts are low.
I think what makes this all the more frustrating for me is that I once made my living knowing just what to do and how to handle the low numbers. I’m not out of touch with social, despite how different the landscape is now compared to when it began. But like many, I learned as it grew and became much more than the old message board and MySpace days. (Dating myself here, but you get my point.) Social grew because of its users and we grew along with it.
As stymied as I am by all of this, I will never stop using social media platforms. There are days when I would gladly throw in the towel and escape it completely. But it is my link to the outside world. While keeping in touch with friends and family this way has been good for me, I also like social because for someone like myself who is trying to promote both products and a blog, these outlets are basically free. I will never be someone who buys follower counts or hires an ‘influencer’. As long as I can keep posting without paying anything, I’ll keep going.
Having said all of this though, it still comes down to how to get the messages out there. Take my last post here. Again, I left a simple title up and unlike all of my other post titles, it gave no indication of what the post was about. Just that Paddy’s Day had arrived. Now had I added a few words? Had I done what I normally do and use a phrase (or paraphrase) something from the post itself? My numbers would have been better and my story would have been read by more of you. Again I say, this one is on me and I know better than what I did…I’m also changing the title today to see if that changes anything.
Basically I need to figure out how to get the algorithms in my favor so that my posts and products will show up more without shelling out money for them. Because it isn’t just social…if you go to say Etsy, Zazzle or Redbubble (as examples) and try to find my products? Chances are that unless you have a direct link, you won’t find me. It’s discouraging too because I have hundreds of designs on thousands of products and sales are few and far between.
Let’s look at my facebook feed. I once, ONCE clicked on a book recommendation ad from Amazon that popped up. Now my entire feed, no matter the time of day or night, is filled with similar ads, with the ads outnumbering the actual people I’m connected with. Granted, I’m interested in the genre and have accumulated quite a list of future books to download, but how did that first title get to my feed in the first place when I’ve never talked about such books on FB? Inquiring minds want to know.
I know I should be better at this. It was what I did for a living. It was what I was good at. I used to keep daily tallies on a white board and post-its at my desk. Watching the numbers grow gave me a sense of accomplishment and drive. Now I feel like it’s a game of roulette and what is barely viewed one day will go viral the next and that the system is set up to have us fail more than succeed. Oh and for the record, I will never rely on AI to try and get me higher view counts. Yes, I’m one of those that despises it.
So here I am. Continually trying to figure things out while I sit, edit, read and contemplate the inner workings of this internet thing. Some days I like the challenge. I love it. Trying to prove myself wrong and finding that post that gets out there? It makes me feel like I’m still doing it right. And then, some days, I step away and pull a Scarlett O’Hara, “tomorrow is another day.” (It works for me ok?)
And that is where I will leave you for today. I hope you are all well and thank you once again for hanging in there with me. I welcome the new followers that have joined over these last weeks and to those who continue to come back? I appreciate you so much.
Until next time…cheers!
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To follow me on social, including my #booktok and to shop my linktree shop (now with a book rec’s section that I will continue to build): Click HERE
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To find my other shops: Click HERE
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If you’ve made it this far, I thank you and will see you soon…promise!
New Chapter Cove 