Blind Melon Quarter Three Blogging Assessment

Since the beginning of quarter two, my readership has greatly increased. My readers are no longer simply my teacher and fellow classmates in the Honors World Literature class. I have expanded my readers to include other friends and family members, as well as unknown individuals who somehow stumbled across my blog. Things changed when I began implementing media, such pictures and videos, and live links to add better features to my posts. I began discussing topics that pertained to people as a whole instead of simply writing up a blog about something that occurred in my life that particular week. My blogs now examine various topics that many find interesting, such as music, mythical creatures, and natural disasters. Even though my blogs continue to focus on matters I find interesting that week, these various topics are not solely focused on my life experiences, which may have helped to attract more viewers. My views increased significantly, from the highest number of views in a month in quarter two at forty-seven, to the highest views in a month in quarter three at ninety-one.

My post titled “Music” was very popular. This post received the most page views of all my posts. It described a controversial opinion about the music heard today, and provided links to two examples of music videos that supported the argument. I believe this was the most popular because it referred to something everyone, including both parents and teenagers, can understand and form opinions on the topic quite easily. Music is something everyone listens to and knows about, which may account for the increased number of readers for this post. The post with the second highest number of page views was titled “Musicals; making a difference, one song at a time,” which discusses a new different musicals and their importance in society today. This post may have received so many views for similar reasons. Musicals have been around for quite some time because they enhance the wonder of music in our world. The musicals I referred to are popular and many have seen them, which may be a major factor in the number of viewers. My third highest viewed post was titled “An unfortunate accident.” This post was about an issue that arose when a man died in a hospital parking lot. This terrible accident sparked controversy among the public, which made this an interesting topic to discuss. Posts with the most views seemed to cause my audience to form their own opinions about matters, creating intriguing topics for readers to enjoy and post comments. Notifying people through Facebook may have also contributed to the increased number of readers for these posts.

Under my stats, the referring sites included Facebook and Google. Many of my readers were my friends on Facebook. Using social networks greatly assisted me with obtaining an adequate number of viewers, although I hope the numbers will rise in the fourth quarter. I have not received any statistics for keyword searches yet because I have just started attempting this feature. Many of my visitors were teenagers, but also included many family members who enjoy lending a helping hand to fellow family members. I am very thankful for everyone who contributed to my increased success with blogging for the first time.

Questions that remain for me would include how I might continually increase my viewers as time progresses. Using Facebook seemed to work for me, as well as texting friends my page URL. Topics pertaining to media topics or characters seemed to peak interest in my blog; therefore, this approach seemed to work best. Simple posts about events or my thoughts on my own life, which were topics in quarter two, did not work so well for me when I had just started my blogging experience for my World Literature class. Putting more effort in to searching for topics that would be interesting for not only me, but others around the world as well seemed to work in my favor. This focus caused me to begin researching a little on the topics of choice for my posts, which allowed me to support my opinion better, while also leaving the opportunity open for readers to write their own thoughts and feelings on the matters. I would award myself a ninety-four because I was successfully able to increase my number of viewers, while also continuing to write in my own style on topics that still interested me, but I had the public in mind while blogging. I put forth much effort in to writing these blogs in order to attract more readers. I spent much time carefully choosing appropriate words that sufficiently expressed my thoughts and the facts on the matters. I kept my readers in mind, while remaining true to myself.

Throughout this blogging experience, I have learned much about audience. Readers seem to enjoy topics geared more toward things shown in the media, such as the natural disasters that plagued Japan, the accident outside the hospital, musical films and shows, and the major topic of music. Audiences enjoy reading about aspects that they are familiar with, or topics that create certain feelings within them. I can use this new information about audience in the future by cleverly voicing my opinion in new ways that are enhanced by factual information, and pose questions that allow the audience to state opinions on the various matters. I see my writing persona a little differently now because I am no longer writing for a group of ten people; I am striving for an audience of hundreds of viewers. My writing is now geared more toward facts, opinions, and interacting questions to make the audience think about the topic of the blog. I work my hardest to keep up with my blog and discover new ideas for interesting posts to create. My audience is always in mind, which makes writing difficult at times, but if I keep my own thoughts and opinions in mind, the rest will fall in to place accordingly.