Bloggers Delight: Advent 2012

Posted by: Alison Chisnell on: January 17, 2013

• In: Advent
• 2 Comments

Before the moment slips away, I wanted to share a summary of the 2012 Advent blog series and my learning from curating the second series. I always find it interesting to see which posts get the most hits and really strike a chord with people and think it’s important to share this information. More than anything else, I find the posts themselves fascinating and it has been a privilege to share such insights into acquaintances, colleagues and friends…and a couple of family members for good measure!

I wondered whether I would learn anything over and above what I had learned from the 2011 series. I definitely did! Preparation and planning helps hugely when curating for a significant length of time and I was more organised in scheduling posts up to a week in advance, which made a tangible difference to my experience as host. More than anything else though, I became conscious of the need to remain open throughout the series. Open-minded, open-hearted, open to all of the posts that came my way. I pushed back on only one and accepted it when re-edited. There is undoubtedly a risk in being so open…yet somehow, when you place trust in other people and are trustworthy yourself, the end results can confound and exceed even your highest expectations. We…and the posts themselves…seem to become more than the sum of our parts. I may be biased (!) but this series has been a delight for me and from the feedback, for many of you too.

So, the stats. In terms of traffic, my blog had 4,797 hits in December, an average of 155 per day, both of which are a record and exceed the 2011 series. January has been unusual for many reasons (more on that to follow!) and the traffic at the end of the series of 45 posts was 3,243 and an average of 245 hits per day. All of which is rather astounding for my blog! It is also interesting to note that these blogs seem to defy the usual rules in terms of when to post: 3 of the 5 most read posts were posted at the weekend and the readershop over the Christmas week, including Christmas day itself, remained high.

As of today, the most popular posts are as follows –

Day 43: Courage		1,094
Day 3: The Spirit of Friendship		262
Day 19: Annus Horribilis?		244
Day 36: The Voice From The Other Sofa		217
Day 23: I Get Knocked Down But I Get Up Again		210
Day 6: Connections		184
Day 21: Nobody Said It Was Easy		183
Day 33: Risk and Reward		160
Day 40: It’s OK Not To Feel OK		156
Day 13: Me and The Elephant		150

There is already a huge momentum created behind the most read post and please see here and here for the follow-up to this. How wonderful that a blog post can lead to action, which in turn has the opportunity to lead to real and lasting change.

I am simply very grateful to all of you who have taken the time to write such high quality posts, to read and comment on them, to retweet and to share across your networks. For that and for the support that you have given the #adventblogs and #newyearblogs, I thank you.

Same time next again next year….?!