Day 7, we are continuing the challenge of doubling the popularity of spinoff Cactus Haiku in one month. First the chart at the top and then whatever strategies I am trying out.

New Highs!  New High Cactus Haiku Pageview, visitors and wp likes this Friday since I spunoff Cactus Haiku on September 13th! The previous high on October 9th of 54 is replaced by 77, up 42.5%. Google Analytics showed 7 referrals from pinterest, wordpress shows 0 for pinterest. For GA, 7 is a new high for pinterest referrals.

Comparison:

So let’s see how I did yesterday (Friday) compared to previous Fridays:

*pinterest, facebook, wordpress are showing google analytics stats / wp stats (since I only signed up for google analytics this week, there are not stats for prior weeks for GA)
**I have set up google analytics to minus my own isp so that it doesn’t get added into the numbers

Followers:

2  more new followers on the 12th.

     Love it Now

Love it Now finds the coolest pics to head her posts.  I love the question mark clouds. sonofabeach96 does did the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge like I did — one of his photos is of a mariner on a ship, scaled to size — very cool.

Strategy 3: Pinterest Group Boards

Strategy 4: Facebook Group Pages

Started to post the poem Cloaked to Facebook but realized that the bottom of the picture was cut off — the area with the credit for the planet photo.  Problem was the European Southern Observatory says you can use their picture as long as you credit them.  I hate that all the different social networks have different sizing things and I don’t want to spend the time resizing everything to fit — feels like a timesink to me and I’d rather write.

I just posted my sunflower pic from my Senryu with Photo: Scale on my own timeline.  Didn’t mess with any groups or the Cactus Haiku group page.  When i do that, that’s when people come over, probably because it’s my sister and her kids, lol.

Strategy 5: Medium Publication Pages

On the 10th, I applied to put two more poems into the Haiku Hub Publication.   I applied to be accepted to another poetry publication on the 12th. Still waiting to hear back on both. No new followers, no new claps.

Not putting any effort here these days.  I’m using a widget that cross posts my Cactus Haiku blog post to Medium.  I just go and check after to make sure nothing came across funky.  Sometimes I have to redo my featured image and that’s it.  The Amazon stuff gets messed up if I do any affiliate Amazon links.

Strategy 6: Instagram

Didn’t do anything here since I signed up.

Strategy 7: Challenges

This is what I did different on the 13th and it was fairly effective and the reason I think I got such a big jump.  I did the weekly photo challenge with Daily Post: Scale. I had a huge number of likes from other people also participating int he Daily Post: Scale challenge.

Apparently photographers are very active about checking other people’s photo posts. Also photographs don’t depend on your to read the language to know if you like it or not so they can be shared easily with an international audience

Also submitted to Cee’s October challenge.  A couple people came over from that challenge.

This strategy (Daily Post Weekly Photo Challege) had a quick ripple effect.  This was the reason why today was the highest pageview and visitor day.

Likes:

I received 26 wordpress likes today, a new high.  Here is my happy applause for the people who liked me on the 13th.

Ana Linden	Rebel Guy
k versus	I’m not ET just BPD
magicandbeauty	Galen911
Right Steps & Poui Trees	Mama Cormier
Rebel Girl	The Abundant Heart
Heaven’s Sunshine	Giggles & Tales
sonofabeach96	whippetwisdom
Cee’s Photography	25more
Love it Now	persuasion2015
Mindflight

So what improved?

• Highest pageviews, visitors and wordpress likes.  For Google Analytics, highest referrers from Pinterest
• Picked up two new followers

It’s the 7th day of the challenge.  I have hit 77 page views.  My goal is 104 by the 31st. Prior to the my self-challenge to double my pageviews, my high was 45. In one week, I am already half way to my goal.

So far my two most successful strategies in bumping up my hits have been WordPress related: change my default blog on WordPress Reader to Cactus Haiku and joining the Daily Post Photo Challenge.

The Social Networks haven’t worked that well for me — probably because I am new to them so I didn’t already have a network in place at them to pull from. They also feel like a distraction in a way.  I start reading other stuff or looking at other pictures and go from link to link to link.  Much better to write, work on my pictures and spend time reading stuff by other writers. And it’s more fun.

I am taking a break this weekend from the challenge. Image shows my new high (ignore October 14th, it’s early am 14thright now so nothing much happening. That huge bar next to it is the 13th)

(Note: Also a thank you to territori del ‘900, 25more, C.Lee and Winter for continuing to read these long posts of this challenge and hanging in there with me.)

And as the bunny says, “That’s all folks!”