The Magic of Social Media

In My last Blog Post I started tall King about social media and how a sudden spike in Twitter followers suggested that I should be paying more attention to My Twitter account, so I did.  I paid all kinds of attention to My Twitter account when it first started to take off in April of last year but I didn’t really know what I was doing; Twitter was completely new to Me.  Although initially the increase in followers was related to a Blog Post, very few of My followers seemed to be linking to My Blog.  WordPress analytics allows Me to see how many people reading My Blog are linking from Twitter and Facebook.  It would be fair to say that it is My Mystical perception of the Universe that allowed Me to know there was a strong connection, that a presence on social media is important to My overall success, and the Universe was suggesting Twitter would be My best platform.

I did get some readers linking to My Blog from Twitter but the majority were still linking directly to specific Posts or finding My Site (Sight, View) with search engines like Google and Yahoo, most of the time revealing little more information than ‘unknown search terms’ to find Me.  I don’t believe in coincidences and one of the people who provided some of the tips I’m going to share and apply to increase My social media influence, is a blogger who talks about how exciting it is to get Your first few visitors.  I don’t even remember how long it was before anyone was reading My Blog unless I specifically asked someone I knew to read it, just to make sure My stats were working – sadly, it always seemed they were.  I actually got a message in My WordPress notifications one day saying “This Blog is on fire”.  ‘On fire’ was something like 87 views over a couple of hours and for Me, that is on fire!  Just to put this in perspective a little, My studies indicate a ‘successful’ blog gets thousands or even hundreds of thousands of views every day! I felt blessed to have a single visitor on any given day, especially if I hadn’t written anything in a while.

It was difficult to understand how My Twitter account was relevant to My Blog at all because even when I was active on Twitter, it was motivational and inspirational quotes I was posting that were getting retweets and creating what are called ‘impressions’ with My audience (followers).  Depending on how many Blog entries I was able to Write in a week, tweets linking to My Blog made up a very small percentage of My overall Twitter feed, often a couple to several days worth of tweets without a single mention or link to My Blog.

After virtually abandoning both My Blog and Twitter for a couple of months while I was busy painting and trying to create attention in My microcosm (real world) I made a few Key observations about My Twitter and WordPress stats when I returned.  My Blog had daily visitors, even though My Writing had become sporadic.  That’s truly one of the first ‘big’ successes for Me as a Writer; One daily visitor is infinitely better than none, especially when I hadn’t been writing anything!  It has been several months since My Blog has gone a single day without at least one visitor!  It is one of those things that is so deeply personal to Me that I still give thanks and feel immense gratitude when I get that first view of the day.  The other Key thing I noticed was that it wasn’t just My homepage or most recent Post that was getting views, many readers were linking to specific archives.  The other Key detail is that I was paying attention to all of this data.

Analytics are important.  WordPress tells Me how many visitors, if they are ‘Googling’ Me, linking to Me directly, linking from Facebook or Twitter, what Post they are reading and what country they are viewing My Blog from.  There are many more statistic features but those are the ones I check daily.  Twitter tells Me how many impressions My tweets make per month, how many people view My profile, My top follower every month (follower with highest influence/followers), how many mentions, retweets, likes and new followers I gain every month as well as how many I am gaining on average per day over the last 28 days.

My Blog continued to gain momentum even though I hadn’t been writing as much and I continued to gain roughly 500 followers a month on Twitter, though My impressions on Twitter had dwindled to roughly 5,000 a month from over 180,000 last April when My account first exploded.  As soon as I wrote My first Blog Post after more than two weeks of inactivity, I noticed My Twitter account take off again.  The increase in followers actually decreased to roughly 300 for a couple of months but impressions jumped from 5,000 to 50,000 as soon as I returned to Writing on My Blog.  I also noticed that even though people were not necessarily linking from Twitter, new Blog Posts were read almost immediately…  Like I had an audience waiting for Me to come back!

It was My Post about being published in the Ottawa Citizen that created the most impressions the month I returned to Twitter.  Once again, the Universe was telling Me that My Twitter audience is interested in what I am Writing about and what I am doing in the real world, even if the new Blog traffic wasn’t coming from Twitter directly.  Essentially, My Blog is responsible for My Twitter followers but My Twitter followers are not necessarily responsible for the recent ‘success’ of My Blog on a personal level.  A lot of high profile, influential personalities follow Me on Twitter and it took some time for Me to put all of the data together and figure out what it all means.

The primary link between Twitter and My Blog is that a great Idea is destined to succeed.  My Blog and My Twitter account both represent the same Idea.  On Twitter, I am @vondehnvisuals, My handle is “Prince of Peace”, My Cestui Que Vie (the document sent to the Attorney General) is the backdrop of My Profile and the ‘Kingdom of Heaven Foundation’ is My Pinned Tweet.  My listed hashtags are ‘#BeTheChange, #Love, and #WorldPeace.  The majority of My Tweets are interesting psychological facts that I retweet from one of My followers and retweets of other inspirational and motivational quotes that support the philosophy that anything is possible and We are each hero’s in Our own story – something I have been Writing about here for years.  My Blog is about being the Hero of My own Story by being the change I dream to know in the real world.

Twitter may not be responsible for the increase in My Blog reads directly but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a valuable tool for increasing My audience, promoting My Ideas and gaining political influence in the real world.  If .1 percent of My current Twitter audience were to link to a Blog Entry, that would be 4 views a day from Twitter alone.  Four would be a slow day for My Blog now, though that happens to be exactly how many views I had both today and yesterday, the lowest number of views I’ve had in a single day for weeks now and only one of those views had linked to My Blog from Twitter, just to give You an Idea.  The most interesting thing about that is that yesterday was also the first day trying out one of My new marketing strategies.

When I first started learning more about social media and how to be more effective in My marketing strategies, I discovered I had been doing a few things right, I just wasn’t doing enough of it consistently.  On February second, I set up thirty tweets in Hootsuite for Saturday, scheduled evenly throughout the day.  Yesterday was something of a hectic day for Me in My microcosm but I used what little time I did have to see what kind of impact My new strategy was having on My Twitter account and started reloading the queue for the following day.  By 7:00 in the morning My stats were already showing three times the number of Twitter impressions over the previous day.  It took almost three hours for Me to set up the tweets, though I’m sure I Will get faster at composing them.

The day before I started using Hootsuite I made 997 impressions on Twitter and was averaging 2,500 impressions per day over the last 28 days.  Yesterday I finished the day with 13,885 impressions!  I also gained 60 new followers which is well above average and I’ve gained another 24 so far today and it isn’t noon yet.  However, not one visitor has linked to My Blog from Twitter…

I’m actually going to do a third Post about social media which Will talk a little more about how I use hashtags and what kind of content/tweets I have been posting compared with those I am going to Post.  I should also point out that I am well aware of how modest these stats are and that’s kind of the point, too.  Having one visitor a day was the first real milestone for Me and I’m at roughly ten times that amount now, between three and four hundred visitors a month.  I also believe a person shouldn’t need money to be successful doing anything, so I am using strategies available to anyone.  The goal is to get more of My Twitter followers linking to My Blog and My Blog stats have given Me some Ideas I’ll share in My next Post.

A Picture increases the chances of someone viewing a Blog Post or Tweet.

Love and Blessings,