Thank you all who read and follow Mets Police.
I heard something really smart a few months back which said that people no longer go to websites, websites come to you. I know in my experience that’s true. I don’t type in, say io9.com and read some articles, but I follow them on social media and via my RSS aggregator (I used Feedly) and regularly read their material.
Then there’s Facebook, which is king.
Over time, I’ve seen the daily stats on Mets Police slide, as I imagine many websites have, while my social media following has grown.
Separate from that, there is the editorial part of all this. What works best for Mets Police is when it becomes the outlet for people to complain. Whether that was obstructed views, Madoff, sucking, ticket prices and packages, Reyes leaving or whatever – fans like when Mets Police becomes a bitch fest. Oh believe me I get called cranky on social media, but the bitch fest posts are the ones that get the traffic.
That being said, the design of the blog isn’t just to find things to complain about, and lately things have been kind of nice in Queens. Nice uniforms, a club that wins, some good young players – all good things.
So all that added up to a dip in traffic year to year, and non-emotionally I understand it all.
I decided to re-double my efforts and to change some of the strategy. In retrospect, I went in too hard on twitter and not enough on Facebook, and I’m working to change that dynamic.
The Facebook algorithm also is dependent not only on comments and shares, but boosted posts. Thus, I’m throwing money at posts to get additional views. $3 boosts here and there, which is funded by some of the advertising you see on the site. Boosted posts work really well, so I’m doing more and more of them to reach more people.
I’ve added the site to Apple News. I’ve read some things that suggest sites are doing well getting traffic from there, so I figured no harm.
You may see me (more than ever) repeating tweets. I’m trying to get more out of recent and older content. Matt Cerrone years ago suggested I use an app called Buffer, and four years later I am finally taking his advice. So if you see a post about say Rumble Ponies caps hit your twitter feed a few times it is because I am seeing the tweet did well so I put it back in the post recycler.
Content wise, since I don’t want to complain for complaints sake, I’m trying to do more “populist” posts, such as the 100 Random Cool Things series. (As an example, the Hubie Brooks post from this morning is doing well, so you’ll likely see it a few times on twitter.) As always, I don’t want to be one of those Me Too blogs that writes series previews and writes Captain Obvious stuff like “the Mets need to sign Cespedes.” That bores me, and there’s plenty of that elsewhere.
Then there’s the podcast I do with Jason Fry from Faith and Fear called I’d Just As Soon Kiss A Mookiee. One day on twitter I riffed that I could easily drive across the country with Jason because when we got sick of talking about the Mets we could talk about Star Wars. Someone suggested we start a podcast, so we did. We talk about the Mets and Star Wars, as two topics, which likely limits the audience and would be better served as two podcasts, but I like the quirkiness of it, and I’d rather do that than be the 3500th Star Wars podcast. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud and on the Podcast Facebook page. If you haven’t listened, you’ll likely be surprised that I’m not a cranky old man despite my blog persona.
If you’ve made it this far, you must like Mets Police, so here’s how you can help.
Follow us on Facebook, and sharing and commenting on articles goes a long long way. Ditto twitter.
Add us on Apple News if you use that app. I can’t figure out an easy way to give you a hotlink, but just search for Mets Police and add it to your favorites on the Apple News app.
And subscribe to the podcast on
iTunes (via the AltSportsTalk mixed feed – you might get some other shows, delete them if you don’t like them, the arrangement saves on hosting costs.), Soundcloud and on the Podcast Facebook page.
Thanks to everyone for supporting the site, and the various writers and contributors over the years. Now I need your help, the Facebook part will go a long way.
