I like numbers, and I also like telling people when they’ve done a good job. So, I’m going to continue what should be a monthly series about this blog itself. This is a big community, and we do amazing work, so it makes sense that we’d want to check in on how we do an even better job of sharing those stories with the world. ItsGettingHotInHere.org is a powerful tool to do that.
In these posts, I’ll do a snapshot of how the blog’s doing overall, and then have a few helpful tips, and finish with the top posts of the month, and other regular stats.
Stats: In the month of November (well, almost, I’ll try and update this when its actually over) the blog was viewed 52,000 times. That puts us up there with our best months, although no stand-out crises or scandals drove an obscene amount of traffic. I expect December to be the biggest month ever, with all the amazing reporting coming out of Copenhagen.
Read on for more stats, and also how to link IGHIH to your Facebook account and how to read this blog by topic (such as how to read all news about Copenhagen!)
How To: Link IGHIH to Facebook.
Its no secret that our generation gets it news from friends. Its probably one of our big strengths in building a movement strong enough to reverse catastrophic climate change and build the just, sustainable future we want. Networked blogs is a Facebook ap that makes it easy to put your posts directly on your profile.
Of course its always worthwhile to put a post on your profile and encourage your friends to do the same, and it drives a lot of traffic (see below). Networked blogs lets you list yourself as an author of IGHIH, and if youwant, automatically put every post on facebook. I’ve been doing this for a couple months, and find it incredibly helpful, as well as engaging a wider range of people in the discussion. (Often there are more comments on facebook than on this blog.)
How To: Use Categories
Every time you post, be sure to click the relevant categories. That way, people can read the amazingly rich content of this blog about a certain topic, oh, say Copenhagen 2009.
To read only the relevant category, all you need to do is use the url: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/category/copenhagen-2009/ if you wanted to see all IGHIH posts on Copenhagen. The same works for …category/victories/ or …category/direct-action/
Keeping the huge amount of content organized (we have 3,015 posts after all) is reall helpful for other activists or the BBC reporter that wants to learn about how youth action has changed the world. Be sure to use the category “Copenhagen 2009″ for posts relating to the negotiations. Generally, use as many relevant categories (and tags) as you can, to help people find your stuff.)
Stats: Top 5 posts, referrers, click-throughs and search terms
You can find out a lot about our niche of the internet by looking through the stats. Here are a few that I find helpful in telling us where the blog is situated. The most-read posts are the ones posted in the past month that got linked to, forwarded on, or generally were engaging enough to garner a lot of readers. Referrers are the sites that direct people to us – here we look at both social network tools and other sites (like green inc. on the NyTimes). Click-throughs show where people go from out site, and search terms are how they find us.
Most viewed posts which were posted in the past 30 days:
Breaking: EPA Sit-In to Spark Urgent Act 406
VIDEO: WashU flashmob confronts Coal Exe 372
Hope from China for a Climate Treaty as 367
It’s time to listen to the youth climate358
Mass Civil Disobedience in Australia and 354
Top referrers in the past 30 days (where people clicked a link to the blog):
media.causes.com/ribbon/6076051,155(Related to a Facebook ap, and directed to Why I Got Climate Justice Tattooed on my Neck from Oct 2nd)
stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=http%3A… 333 (Directed to Bank of America to stop financing MTR from Dec 4th, 2008)
facebook.com/home.php? 770
greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29… 184
twitter.com 153
Top search terms (what people typed into a search engine to find us):
hummer 7,836
japan 1,904
australia 1,065
hummer h1 696
jack black 481
And, where people clicked to from our blog:
focusthenation.org 502
lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_a… 243
sweetmarias.com/map.australia.jpg 166
gmhummer.com/hummerspecs/2006_h1alpha… 88
actforclimatejustice.org 66
And check the stats to find out more about all these numbers. What do ya’ll think? Is this helpful? What are your favorite ways to let the world know about your amazing posts? Does anything I wrote not make sense?
Posted in Copenhagen 2009, News and Media, online organizing, Reporting Team, Resources, Youth Leaders
