Thursday, February 28, 2019

Four Years

Well, another year of blogging has come and gone. Well, not "gone", because all the posts are right there, but you know what I mean. I'm always proud of making it another year and this year is no different.

Long-time readers know this all started as a place to post my stories for what I believed was about 20 guys who read them on Bard's story group. There are a few more readers than that now with thousands of views every day (I can officially move from saying hundreds to thousands that now that I’ve consistently surpassed an average of 2,000 daily views for the past few months).

Why is this tweet leading my anniversary post?
Read and find out!

There’s a lot more here than stories, but they are still the backbone of everything. I think they’re what makes this blog unique from others and they are the purest expression of my passion for wrestling and heroes (who also wrestle). When Bard posted my first story seven years ago (Encounters: Flag vs. Flag) and it got no response, I'd never have guessed being here now.

As I've said before, it's lucky that I'd already completed The Cave 1: Meet the Bat, otherwise I would have just moved on. That was meant to be a trilogy, but comments led me to continue it and everything since then is all because of a few guys who took the time to say that they liked something. There's a lesson in there for everyone. I'm not saying that you should pretend to like things you don't, but especially for new writers and bloggers, you might want to be more forgiving of mistakes and more encouraging towards them.

The Cave might not have happened ...

... because my first story ...

... didn't get any response.

In terms of commenters, I appreciate all of you. Sean Pford is king of story commenters. He holds the record this year for commenting on every single story. Now that's dedication. I'm not sure every story was comment-worthy, but I'll take it! Next up were FricksSexyPics and Tom Ironranger, followed by JS, Axel, Phil, Mike, Muscle Lover, and Sharlin with multiple story comments. I also received 13 anonymous comments, plus Butch Angel, Gel2000no, mrider, Unknown, and Wrestestud all chimed in on a story, too. Amazing, guys. Thanks so much.

Year four has ended amazingly well. The comments on both January stories were amazing and a little overwhelming. To have anyone think my 165th story is my best ever is definitely motivation. In fact, the Beau vs. Keith sequel drove views of the original Beau vs. Toby story, propelling it past Cody vs. Buck to firmly claim the number one spot for last year. Cody will have to settle for second for 2018.

The reaction to Steve after the final chapter of BIGBeast: The New Guy is a great example of the life that these characters have taken on. It is remarkable to me, but very satisfying. I've created over 160 characters. For everyone who sees them as real people and reacts to them as such, you can only imagine how I feel. I like these guys. Even the jerks. Actually, as unreliable narrators, the jerks might be my favorites. Of course, many characters are based on real people that I know, but my affection for them is a lot more than that now. It’s definitely harder to make them suffer or do bad things or make bad choices, even though they kind of have to or there's no story.

A re-match inspired views of the first
battle, propelling it to #1 for 2018.

The power of character ...Steve's final
match increased his popularity.

As the characters have evolved, so has my focus. This isn’t Family Guy where the characters constantly change to serve a particular scenario. The plot and wrestling now exist to serve the characters. Of course, I do realize the primary reason most readers read the stories, but I think the success of both of Beau’s most recent stories show that strong characters make things hotter.

The years we've spent with guys like Xaq and Cody
makes every story with them better.

What’s New for Year Five?

This blog will mostly be the same. But I did think of one thing to try. So far, the only posts on this blog not by me are the incredible Fan Fiction posts. That 'might' change. It's still going to be my blog, of course. The vast majority of the content will still be created by me. But maybe there's room for the odd outside perspective.

Brody and Ram got some much deserved
love in their five-part Fan Fiction meet up.

In addition to providing a welcoming and supportive platform for my stories, Bard gave me my start with blogging. He let me share my thoughts as a guest blogger on Sidelineland. I really appreciated that, even though I found it very difficult and didn’t think I had much to say about anything. I wondered about doing that myself, so I took a small step in that direction.

Via email, I’ve invited eight different producers to share their thoughts, if they’re interested. The topic and content would be theirs to decide. The tricky part here is that I’m ceding control on my own platform. As much as I can put a disclaimer up (the views expressed here are not necessarily my own), I’ll take heat for wacky stuff that’s said. And so, I did set out a few guidelines, but I’d prefer their unfiltered perspectives as much as possible.

We’ll see where that goes. A few expressed interest right away, which is very cool. Hopefully that’s something you’ll enjoy if it happens. I don’t think I’m very good at interviewing people, based on the three Q+A’s I’ve done, but this would remove me out of the equation and maybe give us some interesting thought pieces from industry leaders.

The Numbers

It’s tradition that I share some data in the anniversary post. And so, here’s how things stand as of January 31 2019. Growth netted out at 10% year over year. Not exponential, but growth is growth. I should pass two million views in April, so that's kind of exciting. The second million will happen almost twice as fast as the first million.

Growth has slowed dramatically,
but settled in at a nice pace.

Demographically, not much has changed. The biggest shift is on the gender front where Google thinks 15% of my visitors are now female, up from 5% in year one. Now, this could be a function of the algorithms, which could be mis-identifying people due to their binary gender definition and stereotypes about behavior, but maybe there are women who like hot men wrestling, too.


There have been some changes on the visitor country list, but nothing major. The US is the source for over half of blog visits. The UK (6.4%) has passed Canada (5.7%) for number two. Australia's share of visits has more than doubled (5.1%) to be a strong number four. And Asia now places two countries in the top ten - #6 Philippines (1.7%) and #9 Singapore (1.3%).

On the technology front, more of you are accessing via smartphones. That percentage has doubled since 2015, mostly at the expense of desktop visits, although tablets have dropped as well. And of those smartphone viewers, more of you are coming here via iPhones, which make up 50% more of my mobile views than in 2015. In terms of mobile devices, iPads have the largest decline while Android share of views have dropped about 10%. I'll need to think about how that changes the experience.

I create horizontally, but more and more
people are experiencing The Cave vertically

I share updates in two places outside the blog. I still post links to new stories every 1st and 15th at Bard's old Google Group where all this started and I post about new reviews and such on Twitter profile (@AlexWrestler68). I'm up to 1,200 followers. That's pretty small in the big picture, but Twitter is now my largest single traffic source outside of Google.

Not surprisingly, the most viewed tweets are those that are shared. Muscleboy Wrestling has the strongest Twitter presence followed by Wrestler4Hire, so their tweets do best. BGEast and Thunders Arena have no Twitter presence, so my tweets about them rely only on my own following and the wrestlers involved (guys like Derek Bolt or Ty Alexander, for example, both re-tweeted me in 2018 and have more followers than MBW and W4H combined).

So, instead of posting my top viewed tweets which are all MBW (congrats), I decided to highlight the top tweets for engagement. Engagement rate includes things like re-tweets, likes, comments, link clicks, and media views expressed as a percentage of total views. As an example, my tweet on Derek Bolt vs. Quin Quire is my best with 1,500 engagements, 147 likes and 22 re-tweets, so that's huge for me, but it also has over 40,000 views due to Derek and MBW re-tweeting it. In comparison, my Cason v Cap (Custom) tweet has over 800 engagements, including 75 likes and 24 re-tweets on only 6,400 views.

The best Year Four tweet in absolute terms.

The best Year Four tweet for engagement.

Cason kissing a bicep was just very engaging, obviously. I know that I liked it. Interestingly, the next top five Year Four tweets on this engagement metric are all specialty content, not reviews.









Thanks for all your support, guys.

Alex






13 comments:

  1. Your stories are amazingly fun and well written, and I always look forward to your thoughts on the latest wrestling videos. So, thank you for all of your great content and sharing your passion with us!

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  2. Wow getting to two million twice as fast! Awsm. I did kind of had a hunch that the Beau vs Keith story was going to make an impact. Gnarly writing there. That’s were those links to past stories work. Imagine someone coming in, at this point in the blog. It makes it even more exciting to engage to past stories. Very interesting about opening the blog to others. I wonder how is that going to play out! Let’s see what they bring to the table!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks.

      As for opening the blog, although folks expressed interest, no one has actually sent through anything, so we'll see if that happens.

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  3. Alex,

    First let me say that although I’ve never read the book or even seen the movie “I Am Number Four”, I am HONORED to be your Number Four most frequent commenter! I would like to post comments much more often, but there seems to be a glitch with Safari that prevents me from doing so, and the programmers don’t seem to be in any rush to fix it since it’s been that way for over a year. I do pretty much everything on my iPhone now – including checking your blog (daily) and even composing most of my fan fiction so I can work on it whenever inspiration strikes me and wherever I’m at. In fact, whenever I want to post a comment, I have to drag out my antiquated laptop and wait several minutes for it to boot up and load before I’m finally able to post. It’s quite the ordeal, but it’s well worth the effort because YOUR effort means so much to me!

    Having written a story myself, I now realize how special comments are to the author, and if there’s anything I can share with the fans of this blog, it’s this: PLEASE COMMENT! Alex provides us with endless entertainment and valuable reviews free of charge, but our comments and feedback hold more value for him than any currency ever could.

    Speaking of stories and comments, thank you very much for giving another shout-out to my Brody vs. Ram fan fiction! The year it took me to write that story was one of the most challenging years of my life creatively. I love both characters so much, and I know they’re two of your favorites as well (and also of many fans of this blog), so I really wanted to do them justice while remaining loyal to the incredible personalities you created for them. I’m extremely proud of how that story turned out, and I hope that anyone who hasn’t read it yet will give all 5 parts a look – and a comment! :)

    I think what you’re doing by opening up the blog and allowing others to write is an awesome idea, and it’s a genuine privilege to be part of the ongoing chain of authors inspiring authors, with you inspiring me as Bard inspired you. Who knows what amazing stories await us all that are currently locked away in the minds of people who are afraid to try their hand at writing?!

    To demonstrate the power of comments, I’ve been working on a Brody vs. Ram sequel, but your promotion and compliments of my first story today – coupled with your decision to allow more fan involvement on the blog – has inspired me to “man up” and take on the challenge of writing an entire series! A while back, I pitched to you an idea that involved dozens of your characters from several of your series in a giant story arc mash-up. You were intrigued by the idea and said that although it wouldn’t be a project you’d take on yourself, you gave me the green light to proceed if I wished. I’ve been mulling it over ever since then, formulating various ideas and scenarios in my head, but I wasn’t sure I had it in me to take on such a monumental task. However, your praise of my first story in today’s post has motivated me to do so, and Brody vs. Ram 2 will serve as the first chapter of that larger narrative. I unfortunately can’t commit to your rigorous and disciplined posting schedule, and truthfully the series may end up being a multi-year endeavor due to work constraints, but I’m committed to finishing it with whoever’s willing to take the journey with me, and I’m hoping the chapters will come more frequently as my writing improves. I will also, of course, remain as true to the characters and canon as possible. It’s my sincere hope that my work encourages others to write as your work has encouraged me!

    Congratulations to another successful year, Alex. May your next year be your best year yet, and many happy years to come! :)

    - JS

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    Replies
    1. Appreciate it. I’m proud to have inspired you to explore your creativity with Brody and Ram. And thanks for the personal affirmation of the power of comments. It’s true.

      I have the same problem with Safari and actually have to use Chrome to comment on any platform. I make the special effort for my own comments, but it has reduced my comments on other blogs, unfortunately. So I get it.

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  4. Yours is one of the first blogs I routinely check over my morning coffee.

    And I still think you should compile your stories in an ebook. ;-)

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    Replies
    1. That means a lot. :)

      And I’ve definitely thought of the ebook, but somehow compiling ended up involving a lot of creating. You might see what I mean soon. Dun, dun, dun.

      Delete
  5. Congratulations on four solid years! Its so great you have continued the work on this blog and it has not ended up in the heap of long forgotten blogs that litter the net…

    I have enjoyed this blog since you started it and visit the blog (via my iPad or computer) several times a week. I feel like a phone is too small of a device for doing a lot of things and reading your blog is one of them.

    Your reviews are peerless. I appreciate your thoughts immensely and always tend to search your opinions whenever Cameron runs a sale.

    Here’s to another four years at least! (Raises full beer mug)

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    Replies
    1. As a good Canadian, I’ll definitely take that beer toast, Ray. *clink*

      Thanks for all the kind words and I appreciate your support!

      Delete