Today happens to be 18 months since I launched Visualising Data and I’m happy to see that all the important statistics are telling me it is going in the right direction and seems to be well received. I wanted to express my genuine thanks to everybody who has read, visited, subscribed, followed, re-tweeted, shared, commented, emailed, discussed and liked the content I’ve posted. I’m sure there are other relevant, active verbs that I’ve failed to list there: whatever you have done, I thank you for it!
The real purpose of this post is to share with you a bit of the strategy and thinking behind the places through which I publish, share and contribute content, so you can get a better feel for which methods and platforms suit your needs best. I have a nicely growing following across all these platforms but I want you to be clear what you can expect from each one.
RSS Feeds | It feels a bit dated in many ways, but its still very popular and I am a slave to my feeds. If you subscribe to my RSS feed you will receive updates of every new blog post as soon as they are pulled into your chosen feed reader. Sometimes these readers can render posts in rather unintended ways but generally speaking they are a really convenient way to consume updates from your favourite sites in one place, without having to visit each one individually. Of course, should you wish, you can click back through to the original post on the site and interact or respond through the comments section. If you are not already a subscriber, you can become one here.
Twitter | At its most basic level, this is a way of receiving instant alerts for when a new blog post is published. As soon as I press ‘Publish’ on my WordPress admin site, a new tweet is instantly posted on Twitter, with a shortened link pointing you back to the post on the site. I’m always very grateful when followers re-tweet a post because it genuinely puts my content in front of new audiences. Apart from sharing posts, my twitter activity falls in to three categories: 1) re-tweeting interesting Twitter content I come across, 2) publishing shortened links to interesting web content I come across, and 3) interacting with other Twitter users. If you wish to become a follower of my Twitter account, you can do so here.
Google+ | Google+ is the new kid in town, having only been launched in June but the first impressions are positive. Despite Google’s volatile tendency to pull the plug on short-lived services, it looks like this could be here to stay. Its unclear whether it will become a Twitter- or Facebook-killer, but I’m embracing it as simply an extended platform for interacting and sharing, rather than a replacement for anything. Like Twitter, on my Google+ account you will find all blog posts published as soon as they are on the site, shared links to interesting web content and interactions with other users. The difference will be that, rather than re-tweeting, interesting Google+ specific content will only be shared within this platform. If you wish to add me to your Google+ circle, you can find me here.
Facebook | My Facebook activity can be explained very simply – its just another place where I automatically publish my latest blog posts. I know other bloggers use their Facebook pages for greater interaction and sharing of other content but I’m keeping it simple here. If updates to your Facebook wall are what you are after, you can ‘like me’ here.
Visualisingdata.com | Last but not least, the site itself. Apart from the RSS feeds, all the published blog posts links that I’ve mentioned above will ultimately point you back to my site. The benefit of being on the site is simply that you can easily navigate round all the blog’s content in one place, with easily accessible collections of posts organised by category, publication months, popularity and recency. I don’t allow many adverts to be published on my site, but of course it does help support the site when you visit the site, click on banners or even buy whatever is on the other side!