Visit number 50,000 occured at Dec 4 2005 9:04:37 pm
So, this blog has had 50,000 visits. Break out the party hats. Kill the fatted calf. Phone home collect.
If you just want to see who won the contest you'll need to scroll past all the shameless self-promotion to the bottom of the post. But do come back and read it. I'd hate to have all the effort I put in to the writeup go to waste.
In the grand scheme of the blogosphere 50K may not seem like very many. Some of the well-known blogs do that in a day. On the other hand, if you think about the fact that there is a limited audience for this blog it is a bit more impressive. After all, there are not too many KA's (or KD's either) who visit regularly. It's pretty much just Sig Ep, although we certainly welcome all who come by. So when we say that there have been 4 times as many visitors as we have undergraduates it sounds somewhat better. We must be doing something right or the numbers would not have increased as they have. It was early Feb. when we were gushing over 10,000 visits and late April when we saw 20,000.
A member of one of the national boards told us he checks the blog about 2 or 3 times a week, but he hardly ever even looks at the HQ site. That is not particularly surprising, nor does it even suggest the HQ site is "bad". What it does say is they serve different purposes. Our site is dynamic, current, and not afraid to be a bit over the top but it is mostly transient and newsy information. The HQ site, on the other hand, has a great store of reference material, forms and templates and more lasting, if static stuff. The bylaws don't change if you miss looking at them for a week; S&P does.
To put it all into perspective, lets point out a few facts:
- We have been posting since mid-August of 2004, about 15 months.
- The only place we promote ourselves regularly is SigEp-Talk, a Yahoo! group with about 1000 members total.
- We have increased our visits in all but 3 months since we have been posting.
- For November we had a little over 4800 visits. That works out to right at 160 a day.
- According to Google Analytics about 67 percent of our visitors are first-time visitors.
So, we not only are doing well, but we have a fair amount of "headroom" to grow. By the way, as far as we can tell S&P is still the only blog that focuses on a fraternity from a national perspective. If anyone does know of one please let us know, we'd like to compare notes.
Of course we need to thank a lot of people.
- First, all those who are on the blog team - you know who you are. They provide information, support, advice, and perspective in addition to their own posts.
- Second, the many who have sent us items to publish. We acknowledge submissions and "guest posts" when the contributor allows it, but we do not rat on sources who request anonymity. (Eat your heart out Judith Miller!)
- Third, and this is not as much of a stretch as one might think, there are people at HQ and in leadership positions at all levels who "get it" that we are fully committed to Sig Ep and that any criticism is in the interest of "let's take a good thing and make it better".
- Finally, the most important people - those of you who read the blog. Your demonstrated interest has kept me interested in this labor of love.
Thanks to all who read us, and who reccomend us to your chapter members, AVB members, fellow alums, and even members of other fraternities, or even GDIs who ask what fraternities are "really" like. You get that here the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Keep coming back, we may have a few surprises waiting in the wings.
...Oh, yes. The contest.
Congratulations to David Berneman (CA Alpha - UC Berkeley) who had the closest estimate.
We will be making a $50 contribution to the CA Alpha chapter scholarship fund at HQ in his honor. He will also receive a like-new "official" 1999 Chicago Conclave polo shirt from the Wordjunky's private stash.
Thanks to all who participated in the contest.
Thanks to all who participated in the contest.
