It just Goes to Show Ya, You Never Know

It just Goes to Show Ya, You Never Know

Marketing efforts for any product or service can take off on a tangent at any time. Just when you think your efforts are not bearing fruit, there it is. So it is with my Lens4anEye profile.

National Road Toll House

I would post a ClickaSnap image link in my Facebook page and on some of the Groups in which I am a member. It would get a view or two here and there. Even by posting an image in one or other of the "related" ClickaSnap Facebook groups would get nary a view or comment.

But then one day I pasted the link to my Braddock album in a Braddock, PA Facebook group and the members of that group rallied to the album and generated over 1000 collective views of 21 photos. It happened all in a 48 hour period before the listing aged down their page and out of view. I tried to do the same approach for my Pittsburgh album in Pittsburgh related groups with only minimal results. Other towns and album subject were likewise disappointing. I was back to plodding along trying to get my work seen.

Hudson Bumper Detail

After CAS deprecated the View Notifications and the Like Button (and notifications) in favor of a 5* rating method, suddenly the only Notifications being logged were people who started Following my profile. By that conversion date I had been well followed by around 700 subscribers. The vast majority of them were not regular visitors. Most has visited only the one time at which they Followed. But a 25% portion of them returned multiple times to see what was new at my profile. They became my core audience.

The new conditions seem to be one where there is a large influx of new Followers in a short period of time. Around 200 new followers have found my profile in less than a week. It first they were not viewing many of my pictures. But then they started. Without the former Notifications service available, I have no idea who or which subscribers are active viewing my photos. The Braddock group members were typically not CAS subscribers so their view activity are already anonymous. They could not Like or Comment so seeing what pictures were being view in the Uploads page statistics was my only gage for where the activity originated.

The overall behavior of subscribers has changed slightly. The View vs Paid-view ratio was for a long time pegged at 39%. Now it has risen to about 45%. Along with an overall higher view activity this translates to more revenues.

The lack of specific activity Notifications leaves only supposition for what the audience wants to see. Guessing at marketing strategies is more troublesome than evaluating statistics. As the audience and their preferences change, the site will evolve.