Saturday 1 June 2013

That Porn Star Tweet Post Gets to the Number One Spot

So. Nine months ago, I set out to do a really weird social media experiment- to get my blog retweeted by as many porn stars as possible in order to gain as much exposure and page views as possible. Why? In an attempt to be plucked from obscurity. To do something that other people might be interested in, or might find helpful.

A month later I uploaded this bizarre post– a review of the project, which was met with a small cocophany of abuse, disgust, unease and some praise. Check the comments at the bottom.

An obscure- and very unusual- individual I remain, however the project was as much of a success as I've ever had. I stopped actively promoting this post a month after I uploaded it (I had been showing it to contributors and social media gurus, again over Twitter) yet today it still pulls in five times as many hits per day as any other blog post on the site. You can't tell me that doesn't mean anything. These will largely be Google hits, and many will be “bounces”- people clicking onto the site and thinking, No, this isn't what I want, and then clicking off. But for some it has stirred debate- the 13 comments underneath it nod to this. I've never had that many bloggers throwing in their two pennies before.

So, for the last eight months, hits have been rolling in from this post. This week the post became my top-hit blog entry, with 5,300 hits, and I'm also receiving more overall page views to the site than ever before.

It isn't all peaches and cream, though, if you'll pardon the pun. The Porn Star Tweet post is also a magnet for spam. I've deleted hundreds of bot-placed advert comments since I uploaded it- more than with any other post.

I was kind of hoping that I would start a trend. I've seen numerous celebs like Lord Sugar  and Katie Price RTing people people raising awareness for charities, but never for exposure to a website. I've also not seen any porn stars Tweeting other people's links. It seems the only person quirky enough to try that is me.

The upside is that, with no competition, I can probably keep asking for RTs...

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