Taint week 2014: The power of the taint is strong
I’ve written many times over the years about how I make the most of “Taint Week,” the editorial dead zone between Christmas and New Years. Since it’s one of the slowest news weeks of the entire year, I noticed back in 2012 that we seemed to have our stories picked up more frequently by the mainstream media when there’s nothing else going on.
“Hmm,” I thought to myself.
Offbeat Bride cited as one of “The 30 Most Brilliant Social Media Campaigns of 2014”
Offbeat Bride got a shout out on a list called “The 30 Most Brilliant Social Media Campaigns of 2014,” which is very flattering. As I read the list, I was like “Ooh, which of my amazing social media shenanigans got noticed?” Gloat gloat! How proud I am. Then I got down to our mention in the post, and it’s this:
Is social media sharing the new commenting?
As a publisher, I’ve always prioritized toward comments because it’s content that I “own.” Yeah, someone else wrote it, but I own the pageviews (and the related ad sales)… and in exchange, I bear the responsibility of keeping those conversations in-line with my brand. Hence, our stringent commenting policies because I believe VERY strongly that if your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault.
That said, it’s started to sink in that readers aren’t coming back to blog comments… and really, social media shares are more valuable for me anyway. Here’s why…
See it, click it: the follow up
This post I wrote six months ago may be the most important thing I’ve written all year. After we stopped publishing new posts on Offbeat Families in September. Then traffic and revenue then went UP… and it’s all because of shares on Facebook. Content recency is OUT. Content relevancy is IN.