Furries revisited.

I read my stats every day, and by far my most popular article was “My son is furry–got a problem with that?” I have a few theories as to why this is so.

1. It tells a story that promises to be a bit unusual and maybe controversial (a mom who actually approves of her son’s furriness).
2. Furry is controversial in and of itself — lots of people hate them or misunderstand what they’re about.
3. Furry is trendy and cool, especially among young people.
4. The title, I must admit, is great–it’s one of my best titles ever. It’s grabby and sassy and promises to be a little controversial and a little personal and maybe even a little juicy; and there’s also an implied challenge there too for those who dislike furries (got a problem with that?)
5. It includes a video and a cool original photo.
6. Furries are adorkable. (I love ’em).
7. The article is neither too short nor too long.

Now, all that being said, there’s another reason why that article got so many hits. I have a Twitter account which I use primarily to talk to my son, who spends a lot of time there. My son has close to 2000 followers, and most of them are furries, so when I posted the link to Twitter (I link all my articles to Twitter) a ton of his fur-riends wanted to see what I had to say about their friend and also what his mom thinks of him being a fur. It’s a built in audience. If you look at the Twitter button under the article you can see it was linked to Twitter again about 28 times by an army of furries clicking on the Twitter link so it has a huge presence there. It was also linked to various Facebook accounts a number of times too. My son is a little embarrassed by this endlessly circulating article but also seems tickled pink that he’s getting so much attention and has achieved a level of Twitter “fame,” at least among other furries. It gives him a presence in the fandom, and his dance comp video has received many more views now too.

Outside of that, my most popular articles are the ones about narcissists and psychopaths. That’s understandable, given that’s the focus of my blog, and most of my followers are people coming out of abusive relationships with narcs and psychopaths, or just people interested in the ugly and soulless side of human behavior.

But the only other article that received anywhere near the amount of attention my furry article did was my “I’m Frustrated” noobie manifesto which OM was kind enough to reblog and as a result I was so busy with likes, new followers, and comments that day I could barely find time to go to the bathroom! Things have died down a bit, but due to his kindness I never again have logged on in the morning after posting a new article only to find nothing but crickets and tumbleweeds.

Third in popularity was my rant, “Don’t judge me because I’m poor.” Now, I’ll be honest–I didn’t expect that to be a popular article. It’s a depressing topic and I used a sad picture. But I guess a lot of bloggers can relate and poverty, like narcissism and furries, is a hot topic these days I guess. And it has a sassy title that contains a challenge.

The biggest lesson from all this I’ve learned is that titles do matter. A title that is short, a little sassy, a little controversial, and promises a personal confession of some sort seem to get the most hits and likes.
It helps if the article lives up to its grabby title too.

I also have to admit I’m hoping the reference here to furries gives me another little Twitter boost.