Social Media – Blind Injustice

A few months into my blogging journey, I had a post published on a Tuesday at noon (as I usually do). And then…hardly any traffic came to my blog. By the end of that Tuesday, my blog had just four viewers for the whole day, two of whom were me—me visiting my blog on my phone, to make sure the post came out okay on phones, and me visiting my blog on my laptop, to make sure the blog came out okay on computers.

So, to those of you who are frustrated because their blogs are not getting as much traffic as you had hoped, I was once one of you. Therefore, I hope that my past experiences with disappointment from low traffic will be of wisdom and even encouragement to some of you.

I will start by saying this—if you’re discouraged with your readership when you’ve been blogging for 12 months or less, please be patient with yourself. Building a loyal readership takes time, and if your blog is just a few weeks or a couple months old, you have likely not blogged for long enough to have cultivated that loyal readership. For many bloggers, that sort of work takes years. So please, don’t give up when your fifth post only has four readers, with three of the readers being you and your parents.

If you have been blogging for over a year and you still see little or no traffic, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you publish your blog posts on a regular basis, at least once every other week?
Do you have relevant images on your blog posts?
Do your posts use tags? (And, if you’re not sure what tags are, the answer is likely no, and feel free to ask me about tags in the comments section below.)
Do you share your posts on social media?
Do you interact with other bloggers by commenting on and subscribing to their blogs so that you see the bloggers’ posts?
Do you make friends and family aware of your blog?

If your answer to any of these questions is no, then you are not doing enough to grow your blog audience. In coming blog tips posts on this blog, I will talk about why doing each of these things will help you grow your blog audience.

However, even if the answers to all these questions are yes, you should see whether you are having any issues with the content of the posts themselves that may be turning readers off. Issues with posts that turn readers off or keep readers away from your blog (speaking as a reader myself) include poor grammar, bad spelling, incorrect facts, a lack of focus on your topic for your post, and a lack of direction on your blog (example: if you go from talking about basketball to talking about politics in your hometown).

Hopefully, the above paragraphs provide bloggers with some ideas on how to grow blog traffic, if someone is struggling with it. That being said, if other bloggers have additional tips on growing blog traffic, feel free to comment below!

Please note that in observance of the 4th of July, I won’t publish a post next week.

Many of my readers have probably heard the term “slacktivism” by now—a term used to characterize “the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment.”[1] We will probably hear that term even more leading up to elections in November as some of us shame others of us for being “slacktivists.”

That being said, I am going to do something here that may ignite some controversy. I am coming to the defense of so-called slacktivists—some of them.

But why?

The short answer is that there are many people who don’t have the time or ability to do anything more than sign an online petition or do other online activism, and that should be respected instead of degraded.

A longer answer must explore life circumstances that result in someone not being able to do more than what many activists call slacktivism:

Professional responsibilities. I have heard about my fair share of midday rallies and protests (and have even been at a few of them). The only problem is that such rallies can’t be attended even by someone who works a normal 9-5 job, unless that person lives in the area of the rally and is able to take a lunch break during the rally. Evenings and weekends give better access to rallies for regular 9-5 workers, but there are still many people who work weekends and/or evenings instead of, or in addition to, 9-5 work. For people who are at work while rallies and protests happen, the most they can do is what’s labeled as slacktivism, and that should be respected.
Family responsibilities. Parents have to take care of their children and other family. Grownups have to make sure that all the utility bills are paid for their houses, or that rent is paid for their apartments. These responsibilities exist in addition to, not instead of, professional responsibilities. Some rallies have tried to take away the burden of parents taking care of children by including childcare at rallies (though I’m sure some parents would feel uneasy about the thought of leaving their child or children in the hands of complete strangers, and I might feel the same way when/if I become a parent). Once one combines professional responsibilities with family responsibilities, then there may be little time to do more than so-called slacktivism, and that fact shouldn’t be demonized.
Physical limitations. Some people are flat-out physically unable to get to, or participate in, a rally or protest. Back when I had my bad ankle earlier this year, I was one of those people. I know many others who, like me during my bad ankle, would’ve been completely unable to participate in rallies and protests even if we wanted to. Sometimes, slacktivism is the most that some of our bodies can handle.
Emotional limitations. There are some rallies that may be emotionally just too much for people. For example, a rally protesting gun violence may be too much for some family or friends of people who’ve been victimized by gun violence. The emotional limitations that bring people towards slacktivism, and away from what many activists view as activism, should be respected.

I acknowledge that there are, no doubt, many people who are capable of more than the signing of online petitions and involvement of online movements that is often associated with slacktivism. Such people who are capable of higher levels of involvement should be more involved. However, I hope that my list brings to mind the fact that there are probably millions of people in the United States who are unable to do anything more than what is labeled as slacktivism. Those people should not be demonized for what they’re unable to do, but thanked for what they are able to do.

[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/slacktivism