My first “viral” article? A writer’s case report
My first “viral” article? A writer’s case report
Last week I published a new article that shot to the top of my charts. Maybe “viral” should only apply to large scale mainstream distribution, like a lolcat or a talking animal video, but it was certainly (much) more traffic and linking than I’ve ever experienced. I’ve seen spikes from Digg or Reddit links occasionally, but nothing like this. By day 3, it was getting visited more than the top content on my website — which is saying something, considering that my website is successful enough to be paying all my bills (for a couple years now).
I get zero direct revenue from a traffic spike like this — because I eschew pay-per click advertising in favour of editorial and design integrity, yo — but there is a lot of indirect value. It’s great for my reputation as a journalist in my niche. I have no sense of how much something like this stimulates my Google PaegRank, but it’s got to be good.
There’s also some good chunky professional satisfaction. This kind of thing makes me feel much more like a “real” writer. It’s a cool new phenomenon for me to know that there are dozens or even hundreds of conversations and debates going on about my writing — far more than I can possibly participate in or even read.
What’s the article about? Apparently I have once again produced virtually the only available critical perspective on a topic — a popular “screening” method for athletes, the Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS). It’s a potentially useful tool, but unfortunately it gets over-hyped (particularly by chiropractors), and is associated with some pretty grandiose, too-good-to-be-true claims. The article is really pretty dry stuff — I’m fairly shocked by the large response.
Link to it! Fb-like it! +1 it! Keep the viral infection going!