5 Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic: Chris Brogan vs. The Watchmen

As I've mentioned before, I notice whenever Lijit reports a spike in my blog traffic. Normally, that spike is caused by someone with a wide online reach (like Chris Brogan) mentioning something I've written, which then drives that person's audience to me (for that day, at least).

But this week I learned a huge lesson: Chris Brogan is no Rorschach.

When Chris (and the rest of the standard social media Twitterverse) mentions something I've written, I may see a peak of 700 views on that particular post.

When I wrote my review of the Watchmen film last week ("10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen"), I had no idea what would happen next:



Somehow, that Watchmen review really touched an online nerve.

Admittedly, Chris Brogan's original retweet of my post (which referred to it as the "best Watchmen review. Ever.") had something to do with it first finding an audience. But that 17,000+ traffic spike is 25 times the normal "Brogan Effect" on one of my posts. This means my Watchmen post reached some kind of escape velocity and broke out of our social media fishbowl (where most of my and Chris's audience tends to live), and crossed over to an equally-passionate (and, presumably, much larger) niche: traditional comic book fans. (It also had legs: look at the numbers 5 days later, vs. the 8 readers from the previous Sunday.)

My attempts to figure out exactly where all this additional traffic came from have been patchy at best, but I suspect Reddit had something to do with it. It also appears to have been retweeted at least 50 times (with another 15 thanks to Copyblogger), and then it may have continued on being retweeted under other names / descriptions.

All of which leads me to...

5 Thoughts on Increasing Your Blog Traffic

1. Write Something That Appeals to the Hubs. I could write amazing blog posts all day, but if none of them were interesting to the folks that OTHER people listen to (like Chris Brogan or Copyblogger), no one would ever see them. I could spend months building an audience that's comparable in size to Brogan's, but that's also time I could spend making interesting media, which is what provides the hubs with interesting things to talk about. (It's a cycle, people; find your spoke.)

2. The Title Is the Hook. If someone likes what you wrote, they'll want to tell other people. In this age of Twitter, they need to be able to explain WHY your article is interesting in about 100 characters (not counting the characters they'll use for the link, plus any "retweet" attributions, etc.). What better shorthand than an interesting (or provocative) post title that does their work for them?

3. The Summary May Also Be the Hook. Sometimes a title doesn't sum it all up. In that case, provide a one-sentence summary of your article or a series of mini-theses within the post itself that readers can cut-and-paste as their "aha" quote to explain the post's relevance. (Things move quickly on the web; making the promotion of your work as easy as possible is imperative to getting it seen.)

4. Don't Confuse Your Traffic with Your Niche. I make a living doing social media, so that's where the bulk of my audience comes from. As a result, the majority of my blog posts are aimed squarely at the audience I expect to be serving. But that's also a closed loop; if all I ever wrote about was blogging, social networking and Twitter, I'd never attract an audience with other interests, and my total possible audience would have a limited cap.

On the other hand, I doubt most of the 17,000+ readers who saw my Watchmen post are interested in social media, which means 95% of them probably have no reason to return to my blog; they were simply passing visitors who were here for one specific post. (In fact, my subscribers have actually gone down since the Watchmen piece ran.) So as great as it is to see a massive bump in numbers, don't kid yourself into believing that the people who find you are necessarily interested in everything you have to say. (And don't get depressed when your subsequent posts fail to reach those eye-popping numbers.)

5. Pay Attention to What's Working (and What Isn't). Personally, I think every blog post I write is great. But not every post resonates with my audience. Some of my best articles (in my opinion) languish with nary a comment, while others (that I wouldn't necessarily expect to catch on) somehow find a life of their own.

Studying the habits of my readers helps me understand what topics most often generate comments AND which posts (or titles, or summaries) most often get redistributed. It also helps me understand when I might be wasting my time. For example, I have a tendency to share my convoluted theories on why and how certain aspects of social media work, but my audience doesn't seem to care. So no matter how interested *I* may be in my ideas, it's evident that my audience isn't (yet), which means I'm much better served by writing articles they ARE interested in (based upon past indicators), with the presumption that my aggregate audience will eventually grow to include new readers who WILL care about what the old readers didn't.

Oh, and a bonus tip:

Don't Feel Compelled to Write Something Every Day. Some people believe that daily content is the only way to maintain an audience. Wrong. People aren't reading you because you're around, they're reading you because you're good. Sure, it's great to be both, but when forced to decide, most thinking mammals prefer to read quality over quantity. And the better you are, the more your audience will forgive your infrequency between bolts of spine-tingling relevance.

10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen

As a devoted fan of the graphic novel, I'll admit that I approached Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation with some serious doubts. I didn't think anyone could pack the full breadth of the story Time magazine has called one of the 100 Best Novels into a linear theatrical experience.

I was (mostly) wrong. Snyder's film is slavishly reverential to the book -- sometimes debillitatingly so -- but no one can say that Snyder didn't get it right. Of course, in this case, "it" means "translating the comic to the big screen, panel-for-panel," which is part of the reason why it's seeing so many negative reviews from people who've never read the book.

And thus, in the interest of being an apologist for the entire Watchmen experience, I bring you 10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen:

1. This isn't a film, it's an homage. Snyder knew this movie would be violently dissected by legions of rabid fanboys who consider Watchmen to be an untouchable, unadaptable work that legitimizes the entire genre of sequential art. So instead of applying his own vision to the project, Snyder realized that his only recourse was to literally translate the comic book directly to the big screen, panel by panel.

As such, there's very little negative commentary that any fan of the book can level at this film, because what does AND doesn't work on the screen has been lifted almost completely from the comic itself. To criticize the film is, fundamentally, to criticize the book -- or, more awkwardly, to criticize the fanboys themselves, who may now be realizing that the book needed to be given a life of its own if it was expected to stand alone as a film.

Which, of course, it wasn't. The Snyder version will be remembered as a near-literal translation from page to screen. Whatever version comes next, 20 or 30 years from now, will finally be able to depart drastically from the strictures of the book because now everyone knows what the thing would look like on the big screen, and the bigger question will be, "What could it look like?"

2. The film was destined to be a commercial failure. There's no way to adapt Watchmen to the big screen without spending obscene amounts of money. And there's no way to recoup that cost without promoting the film to look like an action-packed blockbuster, so unassuming audiences will flood the multiplex. But the book is really a drama / mystery, so populist audiences are bound to be disappointed, because...

3. Watchmen is not a superhero movie. Nearly every criticism I've heard of the movie is that it was boring. Considering that Watchmen is a story of life, love, death, politics, time, reality, sanity, physics, fantasy, sex, violence and the meaning of life, it's safe to say that the people who bought into the stereotypical rhythm of the trailer a) didn't bother reading the book, and b) were grossly disappointed to not see a 3-hour action sequence.

4. The wooden dialogue was never meant to be spoken aloud. Snyder decided to stick with the actual dialogue from the book at nearly every turn, and that's a mistake. What's written in a word balloon is written for the eyes, not the ears. If the dialogue sounded stilted -- or, worse, if the emotional impact of the statements was blunted by their hitchy delivery -- that's because it only worked on the page.

5. Watchmen is rated R. "R" means Restricted -- in this case, due to violence, nudity, sex, language and adult themes. People who complain that Watchmen isn't a "safe" popcorn movie that they could take their kids to clearly weren't paying attention to the whole ad. (And people who lament that this kind of sex and violence undermines the story miss the point that this is the point.)

6. Watchmen is political. So much so, in fact, that whole political diatribes are being written about it. But it isn't specifically conservative or liberal, because every character operates according to his or her own morality and personally-defined ethics. EVERY aspect of modern society (and politics) is coldly evaluated throughout the course of the film, and the final interpretation is up to each member of the audience.

7. Alan Moore is not God. His fans may say he is, and Moore himself may believe he is, but the truth is, Moore is just a very good writer in a genre without many talented peers, so he towers above the rest. This overinflates his ego to the point of absurdity, and makes him do silly things like condemning any adaptation of his work as an atrocity. Watchmen may the be Sistine Chapel of comic books, but the greater implication here is that there are so few Notre Dames to challenge it, which allows Moore the architect to get away with petulant murder.

8. Watchmen was published in 1986. Since then, a quarter-century has passed, in which time most of what was genre-shattering about Watchmen at the time has now been assimilated into pop culture. The concepts of superheroes as "real people," traitors operating under noble pretenses, hyper-violence as an art form and anti-heroes as protagonists have become the norm in pop culture, rather than the breaths of fresh air they were when Moore first introduced them to the comics world. Even the idea of pop music lyrics riding shotgun within a comic page was revolutionary then; now, using those same songs in a soundtrack gets it labeled obnoxious. In order to fully appreciate Watchmen, it has to be viewed within the context of its own influence.

9. It's not all about the big blue penis. Let the record show that when you hand an American audience a story about philosophy, psychology, politics and personal responsibility, all they'll be able to talk about is the big blue penis. (So maybe the world still isn't ready for a Watchmen movie...)

10. No, there will not be a sequel.

Baghead: Big Screen Social Media?

Ann and I saw Baghead last night, a pseudo-horror comedy love story docudrama thing. It was part of Pittsburgh Filmmakers' ongoing promotion with the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, in which attendees of a film are invited to stay afterward at the Harris Theater and discuss the film over free food and drink.

Most of the folks in attendance last night enjoyed the film in the same way you might enjoy seeing your kid sister in a high school play -- at best, she did better than you expected, and at worst, it's a phase she'll grow out of. Ann and I, on the other hand, really enjoyed it, but that's because we recognize it for what it is: a big-screen version of what we're already doing.

Baghead is the story of four struggling (read: ne'er employed) actors in LA who, after sitting through a mediocre film at a film festival, decide they can do better than that. So they drive up to a cabin in Big Bear and set out to write their dream movie, the kind that will make them all stars. Of course, egos and sexual tension get in the way. And then there's the guy who keeps showing up at their window with a bag over his head...

It's a simple story that plays with genre conventions, but it's also a triumph of the DIY aesthetic, mining some of the same territory as The Blair Witch Project. But where that earlier film was groundbreaking in so many ways, Baghead is almost its direct descendent, proof that its conceits -- handheld cameras, shot on DV, improvised dialogue, self-referential awareness -- work even better in this age of videoblogging and microcinema.

Classical cinephiles might not place Baghead in the same category as Lawrence of Arabia, and they'd be right not to; it's a little movie about a (relatively) little thing. But we social media types should be rooting for the success of a film like Baghead, because it's a big-screen version of what we're all aspiring to create: it helps break down the barrier of expectation between film fans who only appreciate grandiose spectacle and those of us who believe you can still tell an engaging story on even the most meager means.

Who Are You Trying to Impress?

Last night, I saw Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely at the Harris Theater. Afterward, Pittsburgh Filmmakers and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership offered free food and drink, intended to spark a post-film discussion among the strangers in attendance. (This is supposed to be a good thing.)

Unfortunately, strangers, bound solely by the shared experience of having just seen the same movie, have nothing else in common yet (that they know of). Result? Out comes the posturing, the pomposity and the need to impress one another with armchair film school dissections of "symbols" and "meaning." (I nearly choked on my stuffed grape leaf -- catered by the inimitable Affogato -- when someone posed the [rhetorical?] question: "Was the pastoral violated?")

In the end, I doubt any friendships were forged from this discussion, but I suspect more than a few people went home worrying, "Did everybody else think I was smart enough?"

Anatomy of a Conversation

When we're thrown together in a pseudo-social situation, the quaint tradition of "breaking the ice" often gives way to the more aggressive method of preening like alpha males / females, meant to establish a social hierarchy we can all understand (and find -- or reject -- our place in).

In every social situation, there seems to be at least one of the following:

* The conversation driver
* The friends of the conversation driver
* The people who WANT to be friends with the conversation driver
* The people who DISAGREE with the conversation driver
* The dropouts who eat the free food and make snide comments in the background

(Hint: this last group is almost always the most interesting group, due possibly to the fact that they're coincidentally the most impossible to actually meet.)

This conversation rarely has the opportunity to become inclusive because it automatically becomes a pitched battle between two (or more) speakers vying to establish that their opinion is the "right" one (at least for the duration of this situation).

If that's the case, why bother speaking at all, if the only reason to get involved is to try and out-shout the opposition? Wouldn't a lot more be accomplished -- and more bonds between conversationalists be created -- if we all agreed that the perfunctory building of these walls was a waste of time?

Your Comfortability Makes Me Uncomfortable

Not everyone is so eager to let their wall down. Some people enjoy that distance because it keeps them from getting too attached, or seeming like they're too interested, or too available. They need to impress others before they can take their wall down, and convince themselves that they have "the upper hand" in the conversation.

If you see this type of behavior encroaching on your social interactions, whether online or in person, why not try one of the following:

* Agree to Disagree. Table the contentious issue for the moment, and then actively find a point on which each side can agree. Knowing that each side's disagreement stems from a common starting point can reduce the sense of "The Other" that often fuels the need to establish conversational dominance, and instead replaces it with a simple curiosity about how each side arrived where it is now.

* Agree... For Now. Maybe you still disagree with the other person(s), but you're astute enough to realize that endlessly arguing about details isn't going to move the conversation forward to a deeper, more engaging state. So agree with the other side, for now. Admit that you may not have all the facts, or that the other person might (gasp) actually be "right." A concession isn't a defeat; it's simply a way to pause the invective, which can disarm a conversational "opponent" and provide an opportunity to move the conversation ahead to new topics.

(PS: If you temporarily agree with someone else, you owe it to yourself to follow up afterward and see if their argument actually does hold water. You may be surprised to find it does.)

* Volunteer to Be the Underdog. Often, contentious conversations are all about establishing a social pecking order. The other side doesn't even care if they're right or wrong, so much as they desire to be seen as the dominant voice in the conversation. In that case, let them be it. NOT needing to appear "perfect" can immediately nullify the race to build artifice, and win you some subconscious respect in the process. Suddenly, the race to build higher walls is replaced by the race to dig deeper moats, inviting more and more people to get closer, and closing the gap of The Other that makes getting to meet new people -- and caring about them -- so damn hard in the first place.

This doesn't mean you need to divulge a laundry list of All The Horrible Shit That's Ever Happened to You. No one loves a self-flagellator, but everyone appreciates a person who can honorably assess his/her own shortcomings, even as they're content in their strengths. That's called "being a real person," and it's a much better way to create a meaningful conversation than endless ideological pissing contests.

(And, for the record: no, the pastoral was not disturbed, because there was no pastoral in the first place. But Samantha Morton does one hell of a good American accent, and those stuffed grape leaves were fabulous. I would have mentioned that during the post-film discussion, but I was too busy eating the free food and making snide comments in the background.)

I'm Going Hollywood (Briefly)

Fans of pulp films and social media, check this out: I'll be moderating the talkback portion of tonight's discussion at Pittsburgh Filmmakers featuring Brett Leonard, director of genre favorites The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity. Leonard is in town to chat about the future of social media and discuss plans for his own upcoming web series, which marks another merge point between Hollywood and the wild west of the web. Should be an interesting time.

If you're in Pittsburgh, stop down to Filmmakers (477 Melwood Avenue in Oakland, 15213) at 7:30 PM tonight. Free food + drink, plus a chance to chat with a talented and eloquent director in the cozy Melwood Screening Room.

(If you have questions for Mr. Leonard but can't be here personally, drop them in the comments section and I'll do my best to pass them along.)

FilmCrave: A Question About Social Media Userbases

FilmCrave is a new film-based social networking site. By "new," I mean it looks like it's only been up for a week or so, judging by the number of users and film ratings involved.

But I'm addicted to it. Here's why:

1. I Love Film

And when you love film, you also love to talk about film with other film-lovers, and find new films you might enjoy. (You also feel obliged to defend your favorite films from the slings and arrows of others.)

All of which means I, as a film lover, am going to spend copious amounts of free time on a site that allows me to customize my film-loving experience.

The IMDb is a great encyclopedic resource, but it leaves a LOT to be desired in the social networking / semantic web side of the equation.

YMDb is essentially the tip of the film-based social media iceberg.

Flixster is a big, slick, well-designed social site built around film, but despite using it extensively for all of one day, I've never felt the need to go back to it. It failed to generate an emotional response in me, much less any kind of brand loyalty.

For now, FilmCrave has my attention.

2. Points Systems

Every time you rate a film on FilmCrave, you earn a point. If you write a short film review (240 characters or less), you earn 3 points. Long film review (over 240 characters)? 5 points.

The more points you have, the higher your status on the site and the more bells and whistles you can unlock. Right now, the only difference between user levels is how many films you can have listed in your Top Movie List -- 25 movies at entry level (or "Aspiring Actor," as it's called), all the way up to 50 movies at "Director" level (of 500 points). But, presumably, more features will be added as the site grows.

In the meantime, who doesn't love earning points?

3. Ground Floor Adoption

Admittedly, the newness of the site may have a lot to do with its appeal. It's great to find something that can only get better over time, while still offering enough value to keep my attention in the short term.

In addition, there's a peculiar sub-reason why finding the site so early in its lifecycle is compelling: at this stage, every vote REALLY counts.

This actually bridges into a second topic related to FilmCrave in general, and social networking in particular:

A Social Network Is Only as Useful as Its Median Average User

There's a reason Facebook is perceived as the high ground of social networking sites, whereas MySpace is ridiculed as the intellectual ghetto: Facebook was built for Ivy League college students first. The rules and culture that evolved there were directed by high-end users.

Meanwhile, MySpace is a wild west mentality that rewards brash individuality, not intelligent discourse.

I mention this because FilmCrave is an example of a topic-based social network (in this case, movies) that can very well become a victim of its own popularity among specific subsections of its own population.

Right now, the bulk of the users appear to be young, populist filmgoers. Because of the small member base -- likely only a few degrees of separation from 24-year-old creator Alex Olson -- a predilection for specific types of movies (specifically '80s films and action films) is understandable.

But let's compare FilmCrave with the IMDb for a moment and see where the differences in userbase lie.

The top-rated films on FilmCrave (as I write this) are:

1. Fight Club (1999)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Matrix (1999)
4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
5. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
6. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
7. Se7en (1995)
8. Memento (2001)
9. Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981)
10. The Godfather (1972)

Meanwhile, the top-rated films at the IMDb are:

1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. Schindler's List (1993)
7. Casablanca (1942)
8. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
10. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

# of films in BOTH Top 10s? Four (Shawshank, Pulp Fiction, Empire and Godfather)

# of films in the FilmCrave Top 10 older than 1980? One (The Godfather, 1972)
# of films in the FilmCrave Top 100 older than 1980? 35
# of films in the FilmCrave Top 100 that are foreign? 2

# of films in the IMDb Top 10 older than 1980? Five
# of films in the IMDb Top 100 older than 1980? 51
# of films in the IMDb Top 100 that are foreign? 13

As you can see, the FilmCrave userbase trends both younger and less cosmopolitan than the IMDb userbase -- no great surprises there, given its starting point.

What will determine the end value of FilmCrave is how well (and, honestly, whether) the site is interested in attracting film lovers of all stripes.

Thus, in the interest of helping FilmCrave (and ALL social media sites) open its doors as wide as possible -- should it choose to do so -- I offer:

5 Tips for Creating Inclusive Social Sites

1. Let the Users Build the Site

I'm a fan of foreign films and classic films. Some of my favorite films -- especially the foreign titles -- aren't even listed in the FilmCrave database. What I need is a way to add films to the database so they can be fairly represented as choices for other users.

There's a reason recent American films will receive disproportionately high ratings compared to foreign films or classics -- they simply aren't there. Allowing the users to include new films in the database -- perhaps in tandem with IMDb, Netflix, etc. -- would remove the onus of hand-selecting the films (and potentially alienating some users, due to neglect) from Alex and his fellow coders and empower the users to build the site in all directions.

(Speaking of which, allowing users to create their own Top X Lists, using any criteria -- Top 10 Canadian Films, Top 10 Michael Caine Films, Top 10 Films Starring a Washed-Up TV Celebrity -- would be a nice touch.)

2. Be Aware of Language Barriers

You can tell a site has been coded by someone under the age of 30 when a half-star rating is explained in the alt-text as "This movie sucked donkey balls"... Establishes the devil-may-care attitude of the creators? Sure. Invites intelligent discourse on WHY some films are better than others? Not so much...

3. Be Open to Conflicting Opinions

Watching one episode of On the Lot should be enough to make anyone fear for the future of our American film industry. But it's obviously not an isolated problem, as Alex's own reviews of the following films depict:

Lost in Translation: "Hmmm. Why is this good or even interesting? I guess maybe people look at some movies and try and relate the characters while I look at movies to look up to characters. I couldn't do either in this one. It is bad, but not recommended."

Singin' in the Rain: "Beautiful and entertaining at times, but some times I was let down so much that I decided I didn't like it. Maybe further views can help out this film, but I am afraid it is dated?"

Amelie: "I do not understand this film. To me it was boring and a little bit romantic. There were a few scenes that were ok."

I'm not trying to paint Alex as a film snob's pariah -- he's as entitled to his opinions as anyone else. What I'm interested in is in seeing how scalable a venture FilmCrave will be when it's being created by someone whose opinions and evaluations of films seem to be borne from such a narrow-minded point of view -- not just in regard to film, but in regard to other people in general.

Granted, it's up to fans of these films (and others) to vote for them and explain their merits in OTHER reviews -- which is precisely the reason the site works. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out Alex is purposely "gaming" his own system by writing purposely incendiary slams on popular films. But still... it makes one wonder about the bigger picture.

4. Realize Not All Users Are American

Like many sites, FilmCrave allows users to list their hometowns and current cities -- but they're all presumed to be living in America. There's no field for anyone living outside the USA. (No wonder there are so few foreign films in the database...)

5. Make Information Exchange as Easy as Possible

To rate a film on FilmCrave, I can either search for it in the search bar, locate it on someone else's ratings list, or... yep, that's it. I can't search by director, actor, genre, plot, location, keywords, year, etc.

The easier it is to find what I want to talk about, the more talking I'll do. If you want your users to talk, give them 80 ways to reach their goal, not one.

******

I realize I'm being presumptuous by offering FilmCrave (or anyone else) this list. What I'm presuming is that they'd like as wide a userbase as possible, as opposed to one that drills deeply (i.e., primarily American '80s & action film lovers).

It's my suspicion that no one creates something that's open to the public without wanting to include ALL of the public... it's just that, sometimes, we forget there's a larger component to the public than just our own point of view.

When Referral Engines Stop Caring

The IMDb has, to my knowledge, one of the longest-running examples of the "if you like THAT, then you might like THIS" referral algorithms currently online.

It's also laughably bad.

I just logged in to rate a film I'd seen yesterday: Born Into Brothels, a 2004 documentary about children growing up in the Red Light District of Calcutta. (Great film, btw.)

Afterwards, I scrolled to the bottom of the page to see the reviews. Below them are the Recommendations.

Mine included Pitch Black.

How does being interested in a documentary about the children of Indian sex workers in any way imply that I would be interested in a CGI-filled science fiction romp starring Vin Diesel as a blind serial killer in space?

IMDb: Your recommendation system has been online for almost ten years. It should work by now.

(Ironically, I did enjoy Pitch Black when I saw it in theaters, but that's beside the point... isn't it?)