The job of a blogger is not just to write blogs, it is to put them in places where people run into them. This appears random to me. This is my 17th year as a blogger and apart from my 5 weeks in neurological recovery from a brain haemorrhage, I’ve blogged every week and lately every day.
Some blogs get a handful of readers, some get several thousand. One blog I wrote about Andy Burnham during his by-election campaign got 19,000 in a day. I’ve no idea where that Burnham blog got posted and I’ve had very few comments!
I’ve got a few thousand subscribers (thank you). You seem to like being bombarded with emails every day telling you there are blogs awaiting you and a few of you click through. You may read from the email but I’ll never know!
The picture above inspired me to write a few words on readership because I am also amazed by how the clip I attach to the blog by way or introduction seems the most important reason people are impressed and so “impress”. Here is an example of how an upgraded clip grabs attention. Here I gave an “impression” that I’d given up not just on annuity but on CDC. Of course this is not the case but this is what Linked in presented as if in full.
Press the “more” and you’d get this!
“Brian Henderson’s wonderful decumulation VFM chart! This man is asking the right questions and though my answer to DC starts with a “C”, I know that value for most people’s existing money will come from the decumulation of the DC pot….”
I know that (by accident) , that I’ve created a bit of a stir here. People when I bump into them in conferences poke me with something that I wrote that I can’t remember (blame brain haemorrhage). I ask and they admit that they didn’t read the blog, just the snip that announces it. Which is frightening when you are know for something that can be edited by the Linked in algorithm!
OK, it’s not artificial intelligence at work, I am not 10% likely to die in 10 years because of giving the wrong “impression”. I expect that at best it brings me random readers who don’t know me and whom I’ll never know. Which was not what I meant nearly 16 years ago. But when people say, as one old actuary said to me “oh you’re Henry Tapper”, you tremble! Will one day that old fellow hit me over the head with his walking stick. Will someone lace my non-alcoholic beer with something that shuts me up? Is my random readership “impressive” or “depressive”?
