Here’s to the Lurkers

Each day a couple thousand people come to my blog and read one of the nearly 5,000 posts in the archives.

A thousand or so more read a new post via a blog reader.

And anywhere from a hundred to a few thousand will read a post (or about a post) on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or another social media site.

Over the past 10 years it’s been weird to watch it grow and morph. I remember the first few times someone at church or a school board meeting mentioned to me that they read something on my blog– I was horrified. But now? It happens almost every day. 

4 Types of Readers

Here are four categories of readers of my blog.

1. The Googler – About half of my blog traffic is people who will come to the blog once, read a post or download an image. They come from a search engine and stay for a minute or so. I spent a couple years trying to convert these types of folks to daily readers via RSS or an email subscription. I’ve pretty much given up on that right now. A person who lands here by searching for something isn’t likely to become a regular. So I’ve focused on making my blog easier to search and more search engine friendly… give Googlers what they want, and adios mi amigo.
2. The Regular – These are folks who I regularly interact with on the blog via comments, email,  or on one of the social media networks. Many of them I’ve met face-to-face. But, like I alluded to before, I hear from some of them nearly every day. One interesting factoid is that there are regulars in a variety of interests that really only interact with me about the thing they know me for. The two biggest interests? Social media and youth ministry. Duh. (But there are regulars in smaller segments, like Aztec sports readers.)
3. The Feedster – A subset of regular readers use an RSS reader, follow the blog on my Facebook page, or get a daily email. something along those lines. It’s weird because this segment of readers are nearly invisible to me because I rarely hear from them. (Outside of the occasional email… and especially when something isn’t working right.)
4. The Lurker – It’s generally understood that 99% of the activity on a blog or social media site comes from 1% of the readers. (Especially true in forum communities.) It’s called the 1% Rule. I find that to be true of my blog, though it might be closer to 90% of my readers are lurkers.

Change Comes from Lurkers

Most of the comments come from the regulars. But most of the consistent readership comes from the lurkers. See, most people don’t participate in online conversation. But most change does come from them.

In other words, if I write about something that’s impactful… a change agent in someone’s life… chances are high that I’ll not hear about it via a comment or on social media. But when I meet someone who was impacted and/or made a life change? They are almost always a lurker. 

So here’s to the lurker, where change comes from.