Overnight passed 100,000 hits on my blog ...

This may seem as if I am bragging (maybe one is), I am keen to share this for the benefit of other academics who are keen to blog yet seem to be stuck in a mortal coil. The data speaks for itself.


Do I have a large interweb presence, I don't think so. Yet at different events, meetings, social gatherings I encounter interesting anecdotes from souls who read some of my articles. Amusingly they refer to articles that I have to take a moment to recall; not that I am particularly prolific.

If you take a look at the following pretty picture, you can see that the experience is sporadic, some months are good, others not and it takes time to develop a following.


The spike is some work promoted by Cisco Systems to their community, (11,000 hits), the dip was late last year early this year. The recent steady rise and higher level of hits has been as a result of my work with The Conversation. I typically average 2.5K to 3.5K hits per month, some up, some down, this is normal.

As you can see I have had a blog since 2006 but really did not know what to with it. Yet come Feb 2010 I decide to remove finger from rear socket and put some heart into it. Deleting all my old posts, one reinvents self and gives it a go.

Often I am asked 'what do you write about' ... well read my blog, you can see that it is a collection of all my own biased opinions and experiences. The blog represents different aspects of my personal, professional and therefore academic experiences.

It takes practice, practice and practice along with a little experience. I still think that I am trying to find my writing style. Like a muscle, it needs some exercise and commitment. I write when I have something to say, this could be infrequent or could be a surge of activity. To cope with moments of creative glut I do use the scheduling tool to spread out the messages.

As an essential addition, I do link my blog to my twitter, facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn feeds. You do need to get your message out there and ensure that it has a readership. Automation is the name of the game, there have been many tools since Web2.0 enabling one input to become multiple outputs.


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