Solve My Blog/Twitter Mystery

I’m stumped, and I need your help.

For the past few weeks, I’ve neglected this blog while PRstore needed my attention elsewhere. But…and here’s the weird part…the less I wrote, the more people subscribed to the blog. Then, when I wrote a post last week, the subscriber count dropped. This week, I’ve been on hiatus again, and the subscriber count is rising.

Meaningless quirk or something bigger? Is there a marketing lesson in there somewhere?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…pageviews are increasing. Yes, increasing. I can trace most of the increased traffic to Twitter.

So is Twitter to blame (thank?) for falling subscriber count? I’m not so sure. If pageviews were simply increasing while the subscriber count was simply falling, that might explain it. But how, then, to explain the subscriber surge when I’m not writing?

What do you think? And what are the implications? Which metric matters more, subscribers (who read posts in RSS readers and don’t count toward pageviews) or pageviews? How does the answer affect marketing strategy?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • http://twitter.com/93octane Lyell Petersen

    It’s a strange phenomenon, admittedly, to see your blog subscribers rise when you are not posting.

    My theory is that as you extend your reach across Twitter, more people are finding your blog through yout Twitter page, and subscribing. Then, when you post to the blog and announce the post on Twitter (as you just did) your followers don’t *need* to subscribe to your blog–following you on Twitter is notification enough.

    What I’d really like to see is the crossover between blog subscribers and Twitter followers. If there is a lot of overlap (statistically significant) then my theory would hold water. If there is not a significant overlap, then the internets peoples are just plain nuts. :)

    Lyell Petersen
    @93octane

  • http://blog.prstorefranchise.com Scott Hepburn

    Time to observe trend: 15 minutes
    Time to mention trend to Ballantyne TweetUp Lunch crowd: 30 seconds
    Time between lunch and posting: 9 hours
    Time to write post: 20 minutes
    Time it took Lyell to comment: 5.2 seconds

    It’s a new social media speed record!!

    Unfortunately, don’t know crossover data, but will see what I can find out. Stay tuned…

  • http://www.capitalfellow.com Scott Lundgren

    I think the answer is curiosity. Your traffic goes up due to twitter. The second step is that rather than read the archives or nuance around in the category navigation (reading old posts = time & a decision to subscribe) new twitter followers/subscribers are instead subscribing to the blog because it is an 1-2 click operation.

    So while you’re not writing your subscriber count goes up with all that built up curiosity. As soon as a post comes out twitter followers/subscribers either don’t like the topic/voice or forgot they had subscribed at all and unsubscribe to the feed. Your traffic is simply delaying the decision of whether to subscribe (purchase product) to your content from the point of purchase (put in cart on amazon) to the point of delivery (CD shows on doorstep).

    Whether pageviews or subscribers maters more can only be answered by the point of the blog. Is it to raise the awareness of the PRstore among your peers and increase customers through referrals (subscribers) or increase the awareness of your firm to your target SMB customers (pageviews)

  • http://blog.prstorefranchise.com Scott Hepburn

    Nice points, Scott. I had the same thought about curiosity during a downtime being the cause of a buildup. Nice to know my writing scares them away after I post ;)

    Rather than subscriber counts or total pageviews, the metric that I’m most interested in is content pageviews. I’m always amazed at which topics generate tons of traffic or comments.

    One fascinating observation is that my high-volume posts tend to be about topics PRstore isn’t selling to our in-store clients — namely, social media. Some see that as a problem. I see it as an opportunity.

    Thoughts?

  • http://www.strategystew.com Ivana Taylor

    FYI – I got here from twitter.

    Now onto your post. Great discussion. I read somewhere that a blogger measures her success based on the number of comments she gets on any given post. To her, involvement and interaction with her posts is more important than the actual number or readers. She’s interested in readers who participate and interact with the info.

  • http://prstore.typepad.com Scott Hepburn

    @Ivana — Interaction is always a plus…sometimes we forget blogs are part of SOCIAL media, not just SEO tools and soapboxes to stand on.

    Lyell (@93octane on Twitter) asked a great question yesterday: Do my blog posts get more comments on the blog or on Twitter?

    I don’t know for sure…probably 50/50, but I’m seeing more and more of the discussion on Twitter. I think Twitter is an easier platform for conversation and exposes more people to the conversation.

    Where can I find YOU on Twitter?

  • http://www.capitalfellow.com Scott Lundgren

    I did not mean to imply your writing turns off your subscribers. My intention was that your new subscribers may be in interested in you personally but not the content created for professional reasons. That is to say they would just as likely unsubscribe from any other newsletter about public relations as well.

    Assuming the majority of your new subscriber traffic is coming from twitter (a self-selected audience interested in social networking) I would say your posts on social networking being the most popular being a case of ‘preaching to the choir’