Call me crazy but I don’t think the pharaohs worried or wondered about how many impressions, pageviews or unique users would be attached to the hieroglyphics in their tombs.
And it wasn’t because they operated in an offline world that preceded the digital one we live in by thousands of years either. Nah those ancient dudes didn’t wonder or worry because as gods on earth all that mattered was being certain their stories were told with the proper amount of grandeur and respect.
I suppose you could debate the importance of quality of content versus marketing because the blogosphere isn’t like Field of Dreams. There is no guarantee they’ll come if you write it.
Ask me for my professional opinion and I might tell you about the dumbest way to get arrested because some of you haven’t figured out the importance of focusing on quality content because it doesn’t matter how good your marketing skills are if you can’t hold the reader’s attention. And if you don’t recognize the significance of that you might very well be the person who gets arrested in the manner listed above.
Want to know what happened to Egyptians who did a poor job of painting hieroglyphics?
Sadly those guys didn’t have unions or labor boards to protect them. On the other hand they did have hammers and rumor has it they inspired Pete Seeger to write If I Had a Hammer. Bet my dear Shmata Queen didn’t know that little historical nugget.
How Does This Relate To Pinterest Analytics?
I am glad you asked and I shall answer. A while back I was doing the blogger content versus marketing dance which is a fancier way of saying I decided it was time to try to increase readership here and I began researching ways to do it.
Pinterest kept showing up on my radar screen as being an effective way to generate more traffic so I decided to include it in my social media strategy.
So I started looking for images that I thought would add something to the stories I told in my blog posts and would also make people want to pin them.
Time passed and I started to see an increase in traffic but I didn’t have as strong a handle on what was happening on Pinterest as I wanted to. I wanted to see what sort of activity was generated on Pinterest and whether that encouraged people to move from Pinterest over here to the grand old sailing ship of the dad blogosphere, TheJackB.
There was only one problem with that. I didn’t have access to Pinterest analytics so all I was able to see was how many people came here but I couldn’t tell what the hell they were doing on Pinterest.
Fortunately that was a short hiccup and was solved when Pinterest gave me access to a business account and analytics.
Take a look at the screenshot below and you’ll see some of the fine information I received from my analytics.
What I see in the shot above is that I have managed to carve out a small presence on Pinterest but relatively few of the people who visit my boards are coming back to the blog.
It doesn’t provide me with enough information to determine how much crossover traffic there is. I am relatively certain that some of the readers of the blog also hang out on Pinterest with me, but I can’t provide you with hard data.
Are Pinterest Analytics Killing Your Blog?
Sometimes social media participation feels like we are all a bunch of hamsters running as fast as we can on a giant cyber wheel. There is a constant buzz and push to try to secure as many followers/readers as we can and that can be dangerous for blogs and bloggers.
Dangerous because it is easy to become overextended, easy to find yourself chasing and responding to the latest shiny object.
If you have set things up so your blog is supposed to be your online hub than those shiny objects can hurt them as well as help. That is because we all have limited time and resources so you have to be strategic about where you spend your time.
Sometimes looking at analytics can be helpful because it provides data you can use to modify your strategy and be more effective. The key is to be smart about how you use them and to not let those numbers push you into not spending your time wisely.
Be careful kids, don’t fall down the rabbit hole and get lost in the shiny objects. They don’t always yield the results you want. Bloggers don’t always need another ebook . It is a marathon and not a sprint.
And now if you will excuse me I think I need to send the Egyptian government an invoice for services rendered. My ancestors built the pyramids and never got paid. It is time to collect.
I don’t use Pinterest as part of my strategy. I’ve thought about it, but I’ve been thinking that it takes too much time and it would be hard to find the right images that’d draw attention to my blog. From your experience, it seems that it might be true, even though I’ve heard people, like Carolyn who are getting a lot of traffic and good interaction from Pinterest.
Is the business account on Pinterest free, or did you have to pay to get access to the analytics?
Jens-Petter Berget The conversion is free and I have seen that some people seem to generate a ton of traffic that way.
http://www.wonderoftech.com/twitter-pinterest-analytics/
The big question I ask myself is how hard would it be for me to make that happen and is it worth the effort.
Interesting. I’ve been thinking about testing Canva for my blog, and it might help on Pinterest as well.
I love pinterest. It has brought a lot of readers to my blog but I don’t really worry about pinterest analytics. I can see how chasing the shiny object of it can be annoying. I like having different pins and interacting with people. I have a few small group boards I run that I love when the people post stuff on so I can comment and have a back and forth with them.
Thanks for the reminder to not get pinterest analytics because it will probably make me go crazy.
@sebastiandaniels:disqus What do you like best about Pinterest?
Personal Standpoint – That I can organize a bunch of things I like really easily. I can have a board on inspiring movie scenes, another board on thought provoking movie scenes, another board on clever humor, another one on epic fails, another one on funny things that make you think, etcc….
Blog standpoint – That pins go can be shared easily and that they have a long shelf life. Two pins I put up yesterday to my blog already have more than 200 hundred repins each across pinterest and that number will only keep on growing. Pretty nifty stuff.
What about you?
Nope. Pinterest Analytics aren’t killing my blog. Instead, the Analytics show me how much people on Pinterest are enjoying and sharing my posts. Yea!
My Google Analytics show me that in the past month nearly 100% of visits to my blog from Pinterest are new visitors with the average number of pages viewed 2.13. I got 9 new RSS subscribers from Pinterest this month, showing me that while Pinterest may help people discover my blog, they don’t necessarily use Pinterest as a bookmark to come back and visit.
I agree with you about Pinterest. You can’t try to please all of the people all of the time. If Pinterest isn’t bringing in the readers, then you can either use better images or not worry about it. Either way is good.
You are one of the smarter people who understands how to leverage analytics to build things for your blog and brand. That makes perfect sense to me.
It occurs to me that you could write a post about how you use your analytics, Pinterest, GA etc and I bet it would be pretty successful.
Thanks, Jack. I do like reviewing analytics, but Ashvini Kumar Saxena is the master at Google Analytics. Maybe a guest post from him would be effective.
I think growing the blog is also about knowing the right people and having them promote you. Of course content matters but I think promotion is more important.
@disqus_qm01ljwE5F:disqus This is precisely what bothers me. The need to focus on promotion over content.
You can be bothered by it all you want. However, if you want to grow promotion is the key.
@disqus_qm01ljwE5F:disqus Ten years into this game I am not about to just give up because I don’t like some things. But I will complain about how writing and storytelling has been degraded for the hope of winning a box of tissues.
It’s a bummer. However, I think once you secure the audience, you have more leeway. Ultimately, to each his own.
I used to average around 20 or more comments per post. People are fickle. If you don’t keep grinding it out you lose them.