Hummingbird. The Year-End Report.
Hummingbird Update: Year-End Report, the State of the Blogosphere
Happy New Year! It is great to begin 2018 with you.
We are frequently asked how we are doing—and we answer humbly and with great appreciation: We think we are doing pretty well, given our young, fledgling status!
As a summary, we launched thehummingbirdpost on October 16, 2017. At year-end, we were 2.5 months old and already had approximately 2,100 blog visits with nearly 6,400 page views!
The majority of Hummingbird visitors continue to access the site through our URL-web address, 58%, and approximately 40% access the blog though our posts on Facebook. We are consistently searched for (primarily google), and a small number are referred though emails. Outreach has been “word of mouth” so to speak, mainly posting and sharing our blog posts on Facebook with our followers sharing our posts and links. Hummingbird has done no advertising or “boosting” of Facebook posts. We also posted two introductory posts on LinkedIn.
To gauge our success, we are using measures that allow us to evaluate our performance within the context of the Hummingbird goals. So far, we know that each month, approximately 600+ people visit our site regularly—so we are assuming that at this time, this is our “loyal” bonafide “base.” In addition, we have what we would call “transactional” readers, those that access the blog specifically to read one page or link only—they come in for a specific reason. Of course as these readers enter our site, we are able to convert many to our core base through the quality of our content. It’s a process! Organic growth has been incremental, steady and stable over our very short history. We will continue to assess this process.
Highest Performing Posts
Discussion of post performance must be prefaced with this: most of our posts and “series” or collections of posts have been received very, very respectably. We are constantly evaluating relative performance so that we can respond to what our readers are “valuing” most. We are looking to our page views to assess performance in this regard. We have had 127 posts to date, just under 120 at year-end.
Top 10 Individual Posts as Measured by Number of Page Views
(highest number with continuous access over time)
About Us —the Hummingbird Story and The Team, Sandra Novick
Now & Again —Introduction of Alexa, a young and talented artist, Sandra Novick
Hi Y’All —Introduction to Insider’s Charleston, Raina Rubin
Lost or Found? – Emerging Writer Short Story, Angela Rieck
The Flirt —Emerging Writer Short Story, Ann Pogue
The River —Emerging Writer Short Story, Angela Rieck
The Stickler, Am I the Only One Listening? —Musing & Threads, Lynda Bernard
Moving Right Along —Musing & Threads, Lynda Bernard (January 9, 2018)
Historical Fiction Part 1 and Part 2—Emerging Writers, Mary Ann DiLorenzo
2018. Happy New Year! Sandra Novick--thehummingbirdpost
Of course our Home Page has had thousands of page views.
Hummingbird Series
Happily, all of the Hummingbird Series are performing well, ranking high in number of page views as a series or collections of posts.
Just Folks, Sketches and Commentary, Tina Folks
Key West, Travel Series, Angela Rieck
Strike! Bowling and Life Parallels, Mary Ann DiLorenzo
Women of a Certain Age, Janet Greenfield
Ask Zen, North Fork Real Estate, Barry Novick
Book Reviews, Sarah Ehrenson, Barry Novick, Tony Meisel, Janet Verneuille, Sandra Novick
Recipes, Tony Meisel, Jay Miller, Sandra Novick
Looking Forward
- Our dedication to substantive, meaningful content required running a tight ship! We started out with 11 contributors and have added 2 more to include 13 at year-end. It is likely we will add a few more writers and and then hold steady at about 15 for the next several months.
- We will continue with the subjects and series that have captured your interest, and will be introducing new topics as well, including newsworthy items and business related subjects that are unique and fit our niche. Please feel free to let us know if there is a topic you would like us to consider!
- We will continue to explore the concept of introducing unique series of posts from varied contributors with different perspectives on a common theme.
- While we considered cutting down the number of posts—as to not be "content overwhelming," we have settled in to one per day (for the most part). We were surprised that we had push back from our readers when we asked about cutting back to 3-4 posts per week! We took that as a good thing!
- Although we have deliberately kept Hummingbird “small,” we think we are ready for exposure on Twitter. This has potential to expand our audience significantly. We will manage this aspect, as we think our steady incremental growth has been positive. We'll keep you informed.
A Selective, Subjective Summary from the Hummingbird Perspective
We are totally pumped! You have validated our belief that our straight forward business plan works:
- Prepare, plan, strategize, project, then hold our nose and jump in.
- Be flexible, be dynamic, be true to the mission of strong content.
- Work with good people that love what they do.
- Identify real talent with depth and don't compromise.
- Create a community of great people, bloggers and audience alike!
- Build something specific, unique, special, and niche.
