January 2, 2015

2015 for Nonsensible Shoes (uh, in case you were wondering).

There's some interesting things going on here at Nonsensible Shoes.  Firstly, after 6 years of blogging, I'm closing in on 1 million page views.  Having not checked that in some time, I was surprised by that.  It's higher than I expected and yet less than I had hoped for initially.  I had also hoped for 100 followers by the end of 2014.  While the tracking isn't exact, it would appear I'm close but a bit shy of that number as well.  Additionally, I had hoped to be able to make at least 500 posts each year.  In 2014 I fell a bit shy of that, even though I probably could have made it with a late December push.  As one additional consideration, I do a have a time consuming day job that has kept me busy this year.  I also have the domain name locked up for more than another year (although no one is breaking down my door with offers to buy the ridiculous moniker).

So much for context.  Where do we go from here?  Get ready for short.  Obviously 1 million page views is an immediate goal.  But that's not a far off event horizon given the historical rate of page views. But I'm still enjoying the blogging and I do plan to continue with it into the foreseeable future - well beyond one more year.  However, there's probably a change coming in terms of the approach I've been taking.  In fact in recent months you may have already noticed that some of my posts have been far shorter than in the past.

I enjoy crafting essays, but blogging does not lend itself to that sort of readership.  Given the social media influence on attention spans (Vine videos max out at 6 seconds for Pete's sake), shorter makes more sense to capture attention.  I still am holding myself to a minimum of 500 posts this year, and shorter posts certainly lend themselves to being able to reach that goal.  So expect more posts of a much shorter, more to-the-point nature.  It's a win-win: easier for me (even though I normally like to fuse multiple points into a longer narrative) and it's less taxing for readers. I will still try to work in the occasional longer, more analytical essay type posts, but they will be less common than in the past years.

Getting more followers is no longer a goal for me, but rather a potential outcome of good posting and more importantly more outreach (it's something I've been preaching the GOP should be doing, so it wouldn't hurt to do a lot more of that myself).  Shorter posts may be an attention grabber, but getting more directly and frequently involved in social media is probably a healthy approach to achieving that.

A little more in the way of background/direction that is probably salient here.  I've spent a lot more time invested in an NFL pool this year.  Consequently I am in striking range of first place going into the playoffs (4th place of 29 competitors, only 2 games back of first).  That's been at odds with the previous few years where I've ended up in the middle of the pack mostly.  So that's something that has reduced my ability to focus on blogging in the fall and winter, and will continue to be the case in later 2015.  Lastly, and far more relevant, I've begun writing outside of the blog and in addition to the daytime job I have, and that has been consuming a considerable chunk of my free time.  That is likely to persist throughout 2015 and 2016.  Both of those factors lend themselves to shorter, more direct and distilled thoughts on my posts to Nonsensible Shoes as well as Left Coast Rebel, where I am also a contributor.

2 comments:

  1. Don't worry about number of followers and how many posts (I'd really be down if I worried about that with my posts. LOL! Not enough time in a work week sometimes to do it justice) :-) I've followed you for quite sometime as you know and I can say you put out quality product. That is what we look for in anyone. quality and facts.

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  2. Quality is important, but I like to have goals. It's not really "worry". Nevertheless, thank you for the kind words Joseph, they are appreciated.

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