This was my busiest blogging year ever.
I’m quite sure my 247 posts this year (well, 248 now) are my most ever in a single year. I had my highest traffic ever for a single day (April 6) and in April and October I set records for a single month. In fact, seven months in 2012 exceeded the single-month record I set in December 2011.
My best-read 2012 post (by more than 2,000 views) was my letter to newsroom curmudgeons, published April 6, the day I set that single-day record with 4,882 views. I’m not sure what that says about newsrooms or curmudgeons or my blog. But I hope it helped some curmudgeons find some comfort and be more productive in their newsrooms. With more than 9,000 views, it’s my fourth most-read blog post of all time. And the other three have had far longer to accumulate views. I think it got more views faster than anything I’ve ever blogged.
I touched on similar themes — advising journalists on thriving in journalism’s turbulent, changing times — in a couple other 2012 blog posts: one on trying to recapture the joy of journalism and one telling angry journalists that bitterness is like wreaking revenge on yourself. I addressed some of the same themes in keynote addresses to press associations in Pennsylvania and Arizona that also worked well as blog posts. Though none of those posts resonated the way the curmudgeon post did, each received more than 1,000 views.
Social media remains a popular topic with people who read my blog. My second most-read post tried to help newsrooms figure out how to engage better from branded Facebook pages after Facebook adjusted its algorithm, making it harder for our posts to appear in our followers’ news feeds. That got nearly 7,000 views. A couple of other posts about Facebook topped 800 views — one noting that Bill Keller wrote about it without understanding it and one clarifying whether newsrooms are allowed to post Associated Press photos on Facebook or other social media (we’re not). (more…)
The Buttry Diary 