Carolina Arts Unleashed

Well, it seems we are still riding the top of a pretty good wave this month. The total downloads of the Dec. 2011 issue of Carolina Arts for the first ten days in December is 78,221 – that’s about 7,000 more than last month at this time. I continue to be amazed.

Although it has been a year since the last time I had to hit the road to deliver papers around the Carolinas, I think I could still do it, but I think I’d be in the hospital or still on the road if I had to deliver 78,000 papers. That’s like delivering seven months worth of papers in ten days compared to the old days. Of course this new paper would also be at least three time bigger. Oh my achin’ back!

I can only assume we will be setting new records this month, although it is possible it could be all down hill from now on as most of the monthly downloads come in those first ten days – with a few exceptions. I would expect that by the Friday before Christmas all activity on our website will come to a standstill. And, between Christmas and the New Year – not much will go on either.

As far as the other numbers go, the (other) is in second place with a total of 20,087 – also a little more than in Nov. at this time. In third place is our August 2011 issue with 1,829 and in fourth is – you got it – our March 2011 issue with 1,781. But when I looked at the numbers for Dec. 11th – they had traded places. That March issue is a wonder.

The standings really drop after that. In fifth place was our July 2011 issue with 211 downloads. Following behind was January 2011 with 143; June 2011 with 98; and February 2011 with 27. All other months were below the 200 item number on our stats counter.

Just remember, family and friends come first during the holidays, and we hope you have good ones, but once the excitement is all over – it’s OK to get back to your internet searches.

And, Santa if you’re reading this – all I want for Christmas is more advertisers, more downloads, more “likes” on Facebook, and more customers for the arts. That’s all I want. But, if you like, you can throw in Peace on Earth, good health and happiness for all, and a Democratic landslide in the next election. And, one final thing, let the Carolina Panthers beat the New Orleans Saints on New Years Day – big time. That’s absolutely all I’m asking for this year. Wait, if you could see it to bring gas prices back down to 99 cents a gallon that would be good too. That’s it. I can wait till next year for you to take care of all my debt if you’re in a hurry to get to someone else.

P.S. Santa, Linda and I are trying to cut back on all the goodies this year so there won’t be any cookies this year and without cookies I’m not sure if the milk will be worth leaving out. Besides last year you forgot to clean up the crumbs and there were ants in the morning. We’re not complaining, it’s just if you leave crumbs out – how can you blame the ants. They’ve got to eat too I guess. And, FYI, you do remember Bonneau Beach has a pooper scooper law in place, that was a heck of a surprise you left on the roof last year. I’m just saying.

Share this article

Our October 2011 issue of Carolina Arts was a super issue – a record setter as far as number of pages and number of downloads, but the November 2011 issue set some records too, although it was a smaller paper.

The total for downloads of the November issue was 79,742, just a day short of 80,000. If November had 31 days instead of just 30 we may have made it. Of course some days we got 1,500 downloads and some days less than 100. You can never tell what’s going to happen. The bulk of the downloads come in the first week of the month. November was also the first month that the total downloads beat out the total of the “other” category which only amounted to 57,275.

This was pretty good considering November has a major holiday and the distraction of Black Friday and Cyber Monday also took place. But, it was lucky for us that they took place near the end of the month – not the beginning.

The Carolina Arts website also set a record high of 95,096 individual sessions or visits to the website. We’re now up to an average of over 3,100 visits a day. The total hits was about our average number of hits each month at 562,070. We had a high of 723,940 hits in March 2011. And, once again the March 2011 issue attracted 12,246 downloads during the month of November – which is truly a mystery and is nearing the 100,000 download total mark since it was first launched on Mar. 1, 2011. That’s an issue that keeps on ticking. Something about that issue really attracts viewers or the same people keep forgetting what they saw the first time and go back for a second and third look. I can’t figure it out.

The rest of the download numbers for November are as follows:

The June 2011 issue came in 4th place with 1,790 downloads, while the May 2011 issue attracted 1,345, and the January 2011 issue got 863. All respectable numbers considering the info contained in those papers was long past. And they are a considerable drop from the totals that the March issue is seeing.

Next came July 2011 with 432 downloads; August 2011 with 363; and February 2011 with 170. Amazingly, the October issue received 119 downloads. The pattern so far is that the issue from the month before the current one drops out of sight. For some reason people are more interested in very old news compared to things that were going on just a month ago. That pattern is a real brain twister too.

The April 2011 and September 2011 issues were no where in sight on the list of the first 300 categories. That means less than 50 downloads would have taken place – if any. The list has 10,001 items on it and it takes a very slow day to force me to look at much of it, and my days haven’t been that slow lately.

So there is lots of good activity going on – downloads, web searches and people checking out the blogs. New readers are coming on board every month, comments are super positive, but… it all doesn’t mean a hill of beans if our supporters – the advertisers are not seeing some activity too. So, I always want to remind folks to let them know you appreciate their support for Carolina Arts. And, people should remember that we are not a non-profit. We don’t receive any funding to produce this paper for the good of the community. A lot of people make that mistake thinking that we must be to do all this work. The advertisers make this paper possible. That’s a fact that should never be forgotten.

Oh yeah, we also got lots of new Facebook “likes” over at (http://www.facebook.com/carolinaartsnewspaper) last month. We can always use more.

Finally, I want to give some well deserved credit to the good folks who take the time each month to spread that notice of the new issue out each month to their e-mail list and the folks who receive that second-hand notice who pass it along. That’s how we are getting all those downloads. Some of you know what I’m talking about – you’re getting 3 and 4 and more copies of the same notice from various sources.

Our list is not that big, although it is getting bigger every month as folks from those second- and third-hand list are asking to be added to our list – just to make sure they will always get the notice.

So at the first of the month when we throw that stone (our e-mail list) into the water and the waves go out – others are throwing their stones in the water creating new waves. And, some of those folks have big stones to toss. But we don’t care if the stones are big, medium sized or small, as long as people keep throwing them. I guess it shows they like what they see each month. At least I hope that’s what it means. We appreciate it.

And, if for some reason you’re reading this and haven’t been hit by one of those waves – the link to download the November 2011 issue of Carolina Arts is (http://www.carolinaarts.com/1211/1211carolinaarts.pdf). It will take a few minutes, but well worth the wait. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

Share this article

Last month I was shocked when I checked our download stats on Oct. 11 to find that we had 55,160 downloads of our Oct. 2011 issue of Carolina Arts. I don’t know what to say my reaction is this month. So this morning on 11/11/11 – a strange day on the calendar – I checked the stats for the first ten days in Nov. and after I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes to make sure they were cleared and looked again, the total was 71,752. What the heck!

I knew we had passed last month’s total for the first ten days, but I hadn’t checked in two days and was I very surprised. This total was 3,392 over the total (68,360) for all of October. So, we already have a new all time winner for most downloads and the month is only a third of the way over. But, don’t get overly excited as I’m trying not to. The first ten days of the month is when the bulk of our downloads take place. After that time period the numbers drop off to a trickle. At least that seems to be the pattern.

The roots of this avalanche lie in the activity which took place last month. We received many more request from people who were receiving our link from third parties to be added to our list to make sure they always got notice of new issues. And, many more people involved in visual art organizations expressed a willingness to help us spread the word about the paper by sending our link out on their e-mail list. As one person said – we want as many people as possible to see our coverage in your paper showing that we’re not just a local news story – we’re being seen regionally. I had to say – amen to that.

We don’t have a mailing list of 70,000 people and I doubt we ever will. Our list has grown tenfold since we started this online venture, but without the help of others we’d have never seen the numbers we have today. So we hope those who have been sowing our seed throughout the Carolinas keep doing so and also that others will join them.

The rest of the numbers are: 19,502 “others” or the unknown. This is about the same as last month (19,865), but we all know by now that by the end of the month this number may overtake our total downloads – it always does – except for last month.

Our cult issue, March 2011, has regained its foothold on second place with 5,510 downloads and our May 2011 issue has moved into third with 1,342. Remember there was a time when the May issue had gone AWOL.

The June 2011 issue came in 4th with 735, after holding second place for a few months. Next was January 2011 with 160; July 2011 with 127; and February 2011 with 56 downloads.

Our October 2011 issue which set a record for size (76 pages) and downloads until this month, just had 37 downloads. It’s amazing how “old hat” these issues get as soon as the next issue comes out. It takes a few months to go by before people are interested in looking back.

That was the totals for the top 200 entries on our stats list of 10,001 items. In taking a peek at the next 100, I found our September 2011 issue with 21 downloads. No sign of April 2011 or August 2011. Who wants to revisit August in the Carolinas? Maybe once the cool winds of Winter set in, everyone will be wishing it could be a little more like August. How soon we forget.

If you’re not one of the 70,000+ who have downloaded our November 2011 issue of Carolina Arts – the link is (http://www.carolinaarts.com/1111/1111carolinaarts.pdf). It will take a few minutes to download, but well worth the wait in my opinion and, I hope that of many others. And feel free to join our “resend” club and pass this link around to others.

Two final things. One – these numbers are great but unless our advertisers – those folks who make this paper possible see some kind of reaction on their end – it won’t mean anything. So, it’s important for our readers to let them know you appreciate their support for Carolina Arts. And, two – we could use a few more – well a lot more advertisers. Our rates are pretty cheap to expose yourself to this many viewers. You can find info about advertising at this link (http://www.carolinaarts.com/advertising.html). There are many areas of the Carolinas where we don’t have any advertisers. By being the first – you’ll stand out like a wise man or woman in Congress.

Here’s hoping I’m blown away when I check the stats at the end of the month.

Share this article