The Twitter Experiment, Part 7: Now I'm Getting Bored...

The sad part is, it didn't take long: I'm growing increasingly bored of Twitter.

It feels like work now, and it's at the point where I can't even come to my blog and make fun of it. It's all so overdone. Yes, it's one large advertisement. Yes, the things that trend are often so stupid that I feel like I'm hanging around the Guidos of Jersey Shore. Yes, there's that one author who's constantly promoting his one book.

Maybe I'm just not following the right people. Maybe I just need to remove all authors from my list - it might get better that way, I don't know. Honestly though, as of now, the best "person" I follow is Real Time WWII Tweets - a few of which I've retweeted.

Then again, I'm surprised I was using it as much as I did. Honestly, I think it was the novelty - another new website to visit, one I was checking every day. I still have been checking Twitter every day, actually, but definitely not as often as I was. And now it's become more of a ritual of browsing the first 5-10 tweets before returning to Reddit or elsewhere.

Of course, many sites that I checked religiously a year ago have been nearly forgotten by now. This time last year, I checked F My Life every single day. After finding Reddit, though, it seems mostly unfunny. I actually had a plethora of similar sites similar to that one that I checked daily, though I honestly don't remember most of them anymore: most of the same content was just as easily found on Reddit.

Will Twitter end up with a fate similar to that of F My Life? Honestly, that's probably exactly what's going to happen, and frankly, I'm not too broken up about it.

The Twitter Experiment, Part 6: Data and Numbers

I've decided that, rather than all of my posts about Twitter saying nothing more than "Tw1t3r suks stfu", I ought to write about something constructive.

I joined Twitter because everybody said that it was a great resource for authors, for advertising, connecting with authors, etc. The question is: has it worked?

First off, for the Twitter data itself: I joined Twitter on 1/20/2012. It is currently 2/7/2012. That means I've been "Tweeting" for 18 days.

In 18 days, I have gained 291 followers and have sent 360 tweets.

I know, I'm ashamed too. I've sent more tweets than gained followers.

Less "hard" data: because of Twitter, I'm scheduled for two upcoming guest blog posts on two different websites, so keep a lookout for those (although one isn't scheduled to occur until April 17th).

That said: let's look at something else. How has being on Twitter affected traffic to Predicted Hindsight?

Number of Page Views Prior to January 20th, 2012.

• January 15th: 8
• January 16th: 12
• January 17th: 13
• January 18th: 35
• January 19th: 28
• January 20th: 32

Now, keep this in mind: January 18th was SOPA blackout day. For whatever reason, my SOPA post attracted a lot of attention that I wasn't used to having. I was actually getting people getting to Predicted Hindsight via Google searches, mostly with terms containing "SOPA" in some form. The dates preceding January 18th are more representative of what I was used to.

Now, what about after January 20th?

(NOTE: I'm not including January 21st, 22nd, and 25th, because I think I might have posted a Reddit link that day, and those tend to skew the data pretty high. Since I'm not looking at "The Effect of Reddit on Data", there's no need to include them here.)

• January 23rd: 5
• January 24th: 7
• January 26th: 28
• January 27th: 28
• January 28th: 25
• January 29th: 49
• January 30th: 8
• January 31st: 13
• February 1st: 17
• February 2nd: 25
• February 3rd: 33
• February 4th: 48
• February 5th: 35
• February 6th: 31

But...What Does This Mean?

To be honest, this is not ALL Twitter. There are a few other things to consider. Like, first off, I established my Facebook Author Page just a few days before (I'm thinking it was about a day or two before SOPA blackout day). Also, I post most every blog post, at least the ones with substance, on the Kindle Boards blog thread. Despite having only 20 likes on Facebook and being relatively unknown on Kindle Boards, these seem to generate quite a bit of traffic themselves.

Also, with any statistic like this, we have to remember to keep this very important fact in mind: Correlation does NOT Equal Causation. 

So, what else, besides the factors mentioned above, might be contributing to the fact that this little blog does seem to be gaining some traction?

Well, first off, it is important to note that I've been working on this little project for more than 2 months now. The passing of time alone might be contributing as more and more people have the ability to run across this website.

Also, the blog also now has nine followers. Quickly: may I give a big THANK YOU to those who have followed? :D

That said, though - despite everything, I do think Twitter has a lot to do with the slow uptick in numbers, ESPECIALLY since my "Twitter" posts seemed to have gained "some" attention on their own. Quickly...

• Part 1: 7 Page Views
• Part 2: 6 Page Views
• Part 3: 22 Page Views
• Part 4: 6 Page Views
• Part 5: 9 Page Views

Also, keep in mind that these are just standalone page views - these don't even count the people who read these posts just be "scrolling down".

What Conclusions can be Drawn?

Really, it's pretty inconclusive. To REALLY gauge where I'm going, I should be ceasing all advertisement of posts on Twitter, but nowhere else. But am I going to do that? Maybe. Though what's the point of that? At this rate, I seem to be doing something right, something that seems to be working.

Also, something else of interest: I did a "secret" free download of Family History: Part 1 today. By secret, I mean I advertised NOWHERE - no Facebook, no Twitter, no Reddit or Kindle Boards. As of 9:27 pm MST, there are 15 U.S. downloads and 5 UK downloads. With some advertising on Twitter, Part 2 made it to 24 U.S. downloads and 1 UK download (also: 5 Germany Downloads).

So yeah, Twitter does seem to be doing something. 

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The Twitter Experiment, Part 5: Foreseeing an Eventual Mass "Unfollowing".

At this point, I'm just making a mockery of myself. Seriously.