3rd Annual State of the Blog Post

Year 3: the rear-view mirror

Social media strategy 2.0

Revamping the blog's social media marketing was one of those plans that just never happened.  That was partially a function of time constraints, but I think the even greater contributor was the lingering feeling that I just didn't have a first vision for where I wanted the blog to go.  I'm just not sure that one can effectively advertise a product or service in this type situation. (More on that below...)

Post planning cycles

Last year, I endeavored to monitor individual post page-views, with the thought that I would put out more content that was similar to the most popular posts.  This seems like common-sense marketing, right? Well...it turned out that wasn't as great a plan as it sounded.  The undeniable trend of views/interactions went down after this change.  Perhaps the two events are unrelated.  The correlation may not represent causation...but it clearly didn't represent salvation either. 

Growth in blogging network

One positive that emerged over the previous year was the expansion of my blogging network.  Over the last twelve months the good folks at:  The Four Color Media Monitor, and Chris is on Infinite Earths have joined last year's blogging buddy The Peerless Power of Comics.  I sincerely thank all three of you, and in the upcoming year I aim to--in some small way--give something back.

Year 4: the crystal ball

Clean up the link lists

As I've done the last few years, I'll be giving the blog a face-lift with the new year.  I intend for this to roll out in the following sequence:

1. move all link lists to one side of the blog. (probably the left sidebar)
2. drop the popular posts gadget in the side bar and leave it in the footer.
3. drop the followers widget.  Despite having people who regularly read the blog, in three years I've had not one person sign up as a follower through this widget.  I'm befuddled at why this is the case since so many other blogs seem to have followers signed up and displayed through this widget.  I don't know if I'm just not marketing the site in the right way or what...but in any case, I'm dropping this widget unless and until I have a better idea of how to effectively deploy it.
4. drop the reactions widget. Much like the followers widget, this one just hasn't seen much use.  It's just cluttering the blog, so it's gone.
5. organize webcomic links.  I intend to keep the "Virtual Spinner Rack" for ongoing webcomics (defined as titles which have made a new post within the past year).  In addition, however, I'm going to add a "Virtual Long Box" that will feature discontinued webcomics (defined as having last posted over a year ago).  There's some good comics that, unfortunately, have lain dormant for years.  That doesn't mean they aren't worth reading.  (I hope also that if you're aware of any other webcomics you think deserve to be listed here that you'll drop me an email or a comment or something and let me know about them!)
6. repeal and replace the "Character & Team Blogs". A lot of the blogs currently listed are not being updated and I fear that the good stuff is getting easily lost amidst all stale content.  Instead, I intend to replace these categories with a single "My Favorite Comic Blogs" list that will be composed of  stuff that maintains at least a once-a-year posting.  (That seems like a more than reasonable standard.)

Tighten-down the focus even more

The successes and failures of the past year have left with me with the renewed conviction that my focus has been too diffuse.  Though a lifelong comic fan, I simply don't have the breadth and depth of knowledge to provide the type of entertaining and informative commentary I'd like over the generic category of "obscure super characters."  Consequently, moving forward I will return to a more tightened focus. The short term plan will be to concentrate on finishing out the series I've been writing on the Golden Age appearances of Midnight.  Based on the progress I've made thus far, my assumption is that this may take up the full year.

That being said, I do want to preserve the option to stretch out into some other characters.  Consequently, once a month I will do a one-off post on some other character.  When the Midnight series ends, I'll look back on the stats for those various one-offs to determine who the next focus character will be. 

Face-lift the blog to reflect the tightened focus

In light of the tightened topical focus this year, I'm refreshing the look of the blog by populating the side bars and margins with some of my favorite Midnight images.

Get around to monetizing the blog

When I started this blog, I had hopes of eventually making some money (however little) from it.  In that time, I've brainstormed and discarded a number of ideas.  This year I want to finally get around to setting up the necessary accounts to start putting some ads into the blog.   However, I definitely don't want to bog the site down with ads. Thus, here's my open call to you, dear reader.  If you find anything about the structure of the ads annoying or distracting from your reading experience, please let me know.  I want to keep this a hassle-free (and hopefully fun) place to learn about oft-forgotten characters.

Average 600 views per month

A final goal I've set for the blog in the next year is to average 600 views / month.  Based on recent performance, this should be very doable.  Part of the reason for setting a specific number out is to give me objective measures on whether the blog is moving in the right direction or not.  I'm pledging now, to track this and honestly report (at least, as best as I can based on the analytics I'm getting) on the blog's performance. 

Conclusion

After three years of blogging, in many ways I've come full-circle.  I sincerely want to thank all my readers.  You guys are great! 

2nd Annual "State of the Blog" Post

Year 2: the rear-view mirror

Well, here we are--two full years into the Spring Road Super Review.  Some milestones of the past twelve months, include:

a name change  

The blog's name official changed from Spring Road Superhero Review to simply Spring Road Super Review.  I found the original title unnecessarily restrictive in scope.  It was becoming more challenging to identify heroes that I was interested in writing about who were of "sufficient" obscurity; and I wanted to leave the door open to profiling supervillains.  Some of them are equally compelling and--given that they so rarely have their own ongoing titles--it's a lot easier to come up with obscure villains. Finally, the name change simplified the title text...always a boon given my tendency toward verbosity.

blog face-lift

Associated with the name change, the blog also experienced a public face-lift. Beyond the colors and fonts, there were three substantive structural changes. I added gadgets highlighting comic blogs differentiated between those that are: (1) about specific characters/teams, (2) about comics-in-general, and (3) actual ongoing web comics. (This final group is denoted under the heading: My Virtual Spinner Rack.)

post popularity

The Heroes of Lallor: brief thoughts on some square peg superheroes became my first post to receive over 1,000 page views. (Thanks, readers!)

blog networking

The Review made its first appearance on a public blog list. Thanks, Peerless Power of Comics!

failure of the fight series

There were, of course, some failures in the year as well. The biggest, in my opinion, was my attempted fight series. It never got quite the reader participation levels I was hoping.  Additionally, I found the series more difficult to write than originally anticipated. In the end, it was simply too much work for too little pay-off.

failure of social media strategy 1.0

A second disappointment was the Spring Road Superhero Review Facebook Page.   
Part of the failure may have been poor judgment of a page type. I set it up as a business page...and I just wasn't ready for that.  Though I've gotten a lot of great readers through Facebook, very few of them have come via the blog's Facebook page.  While I still believe there is some potential for better utilizing Facebook, I'm thinking of shutting down the current page and launching a different type of page.

Year 2: the crystal ball

social media strategy 2.0

I will continue exploring new and alternative social media strategies. At this point I've not decided precisely where to begin, but Tumblr seems promising. (If you've got recommendations, dear reader, please feel free to share. I'm not too proud to crowdsource wisdom.)

post planning cycles

Last year, I planned out the entire year's posts.  In an attempt to respond more quickly to feedback and blog stats, I'll be adjusting posting plans on a much shorter timeline.  This should result in posts that are more responsive to reader interest.

farewell to the structured review

Another departure from the blog will be my attempts at regular, structured webcomic reviews.  These wound up taking way more time to produce than their resulting traffic justified. After a certain point, they stopped being fun and just became a sort of drudgery.  What I had intended to be "structure" felt more and more like a strait-jacket.

Instead, moving forward I will simply profile these characters and stories the same way I do print comics and characters.  I may write broad overviews of characters, or include synopses of selected stories.

Basically, my assumption is that those who felt they benefitted from the old webcomic reviews will equally benefit from these posts...they'll just be a whole lot easier to write!

defined policy for commenting

Through the first two years, one of my major goals was simply to generate readers and commenters. Consequently, the only formal restrictions I put in place was that all comments had to be approved before becoming publicly visible.  My near-exclusive intention in this was to weed out junk-comment marketers that go to pages and say things like: "This is all very good. Much interesting information here.  Follow this link for great prices on Japanese lamps."

Well, over the course of the past year I learned that there's another reason for me to moderate comments.  I had somebody who posted, but used some profanity. Now, I'm not really into restricting free speech or policing other people's words...but this really bothered me because my goal has been to make this blog what I consider a "kid-friendly"space.  I just couldn't approve that person's comment...but I still felt conflicted about that decision since I had never formally announced any standards for comments. That ends today. From this point forward, I'm announcing that (in order to be published) Spring Road standards are:

Keep the comments clean.  I moderate all comments on this blog, and if I deem one not in keeping with the spirit I want to promote here it won't be published. I'm not publicizing anything that:  contains profanity, contains sexual commentary such that I think it would be inappropriate for children, and nothing that I consider legitimately hate-filled. 

I recognize that last criteria can be especially subjective--especially given the highly polarized and charged political environment here in the U.S. I'm not claiming my standards constitute some universal metaphysic. This isn't meant to squelch disagreement or criticism; but I'm not going to give a platform to anything that I feel like makes me complicit in the dehumanization of other people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to say "thank you" to everyone who's read anything on this blog.  Special thanks goes to those of you who've reached out and interacted with me either through commenting on this blog, or on Facebook.  Your engagement is what keeps my spirits up and helps me find the motivation to grind out posts week after week. Here's to an even bigger and better third year!🍷

1st Annual "State of the Blog" Post

Year 1: the rearview mirror

How this blog came to be

Today's post represents attainment of a personal goal that, while perhaps small, nonetheless represents a lot to me.  Due to a variety of factors, exactly one year ago I decided I needed a project of some kind over which I would exercise total creative control.  Since I'd always enjoyed superheroes, that something wound up being the blog you're reading.

I knew when I started that gaining attention would be difficult.  There were (and still are) a lot of comic blogs and websites out there.  In seeking to find a relatively under-served niche, I started thinking about what most of those blogs seemed to be doing, and asked myself, "What would I want to do differently?"

It struck me then--and still does--that most of the others heavily emphasize either: (1) supposed "behind-the-scenes" histories of particular artists, writers, etc. in the industry; or (2) up-to-the-minute industry news.  I wasn't that interested in the former category--at least not enough to devote the majority of my scarce research/reading time to looking up biographical facts.  Similarly, I don't care for most of what I've seen turned out from the "major" publishers since about 1989, so trying to go the "up-to-the-minute" route seemed a waste of time that would only leave me frustrated in the end.

So what did I care about?

In-depth character knowledge

Thanks to sites like The Digital Comic Museum there are a wealth of public domain Golden Age stories available online.  Being a child of the 80s, most of these stories are totally new to me. The bulk of my writing pretty quickly became synopses of existing stories.  Thus far, I've focused on the Golden Age adventures of Midnight, a hero I always thought looked cool...but didn't really know much about.

Original fiction

In July I introduced a regular Friday post I called "Fiction Foundry."  The idea was to give myself an outlet to try writing my own superhero fiction.  While it's been fun, it's also been very slow-going...and frankly, it just hasn't generated much interest from readers.  While I will continue to do my own writing, the specific form this will take will be changing in the blog's second year.

Web comic reviews

One of my goals was to provide some additional free publicity for good web comics I run across. I think this is needed because, frankly, there is a whole lot of junk out there.  (I suppose it's the necessary curse that goes with the blessing of lowered publishing barriers).

To help enhance the objectivity of an inherently subjective activity, I instituted a rubric reflecting 8 vectors of value that are particularly important to me.  It represents the kind of information I really like to know before devoting time to a story, so I thought others might appreciate it as well.  

While I've not necessarily gotten a whole lot of views for those posts, they are the ones that have generated the most comment from readers.  Bottom line, I still think they're worth it.  I'm going to attempt to get more reviews posted in the next year. 

Bi-weekly posting

I guess everyone who starts blogging regularly learns a few things about themselves along the way.  One of the most important is to get a realistic perspective of how much writing you can produce how consistently.  After a year of floating between one and three posts per week, I finally settled into a twice-a-week pattern that seemed to fit pretty well with my other obligations in life.

Year 2: the crystal ball

Bye bye "Fiction Foundry"; Hello "Friday Fights"

Fridays will no longer be devoted to the "fiction foundry" series.  Instead, I'll be trying out a speculative series that will (hopefully) be fun an interactive (hint, hint!).   I'm tentatively calling it, "Friday Night Fights."  The basic idea is that each week, we'll conduct a "Who would win?" poll for two specific characters, as they are depicted in specific stories and within a given setting.  At the end of the week, we'll tally the votes (or if there are none, I'll just pick a winner and attempt to justify my decision), and declare a winner!  They'll then advance to the next round.

Friday Fights will be a true multiverse.  We'll be dealing with open source characters, Golden Age public domains, Marvel and DC properties, independent characters, etc...so now's the time to unlock your inner fanboy/fangirl.  Your favorite characters (and their creators/owners) are counting on you.  Don't let 'em down!

Social media expansion

Since discovering a whole bevy of cool Facebook pages and groups dedicated to superheroes and comics of all types, I decided Year Two would be the time to launch one for the Spring Road Superhero Review.  I'm hoping this will provide another outlet for attracting new readers and building our little online community. 

Conclusion

So that's it in a nutshell, friends.  If you've got other recommendations or things you'd like to see on the blog, please feel free to contact me anytime.  And if you're out there reading this thinking about starting your own creative project, let me encourage you to go ahead and take the plunge.  Life is short.  You should give yourself permission to do some stuff just because you enjoy it and it feeds your soul.