October Metrics
Nov. 7th, 2026 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingThis past month, I participated in two fandom art challenges and published an unusually high (for me) number of "spooky" adjacent stories and essays. You may be wondering how this affected my social media metrics. The short answer is that it didn't. Here's my experience...
What I did was to make regularly scheduled (in terms of day, time, and "content" type) posts during each of the five weeks in October + the first week of November. I posted my best work, along with the best captions and graphics I'm capable of making. I was also extremely active across social media platforms in terms of liking, sharing, and commenting on other people's work. So:
Did people like and share my posts? Not really. (Much love to the mutuals who did, though.)
Did any of my posts get any engagement in terms of comments? No. Less than usual, actually!
Did any of these posts help with discoverability? As in, did anyone I didn't already know find my work, realize that we both like the same things, and follow me? Nope. Not at all. Zero people.
However:
Did I discover new people to follow? Yes!
Did engaging with other people's work help me feel more connected? Yes!
Did I have fun? I think so, yes!
Did I boost my skills? Who can say, but I want to think that putting in the hours helped a little.
Three things are worth noting:
First, because everyone is active at the same time in October, there's a lot of competition.
Second, social media engagement (and engagement on archive/portfolio sites) is way down this year for a lot of people, at least based on the anecdotes I've been hearing, as well as what I've been seeing with my own eyes.
Third, I did literally nothing in October on my book review account on Instagram, which somehow managed to pick up daily notes and gain more than a hundred followers regardless. I can't explain this; it's just a data point.
TL;DR: If you think it would be fun to participate in fandom art/writing challenges or to be more active online during the social media peak month of October, there's no reason not to. At the same time, you shouldn't feel left out if you don't, and it's probably best not to expect anything to happen if you do.
What I did was to make regularly scheduled (in terms of day, time, and "content" type) posts during each of the five weeks in October + the first week of November. I posted my best work, along with the best captions and graphics I'm capable of making. I was also extremely active across social media platforms in terms of liking, sharing, and commenting on other people's work. So:
Did people like and share my posts? Not really. (Much love to the mutuals who did, though.)
Did any of my posts get any engagement in terms of comments? No. Less than usual, actually!
Did any of these posts help with discoverability? As in, did anyone I didn't already know find my work, realize that we both like the same things, and follow me? Nope. Not at all. Zero people.
However:
Did I discover new people to follow? Yes!
Did engaging with other people's work help me feel more connected? Yes!
Did I have fun? I think so, yes!
Did I boost my skills? Who can say, but I want to think that putting in the hours helped a little.
Three things are worth noting:
First, because everyone is active at the same time in October, there's a lot of competition.
Second, social media engagement (and engagement on archive/portfolio sites) is way down this year for a lot of people, at least based on the anecdotes I've been hearing, as well as what I've been seeing with my own eyes.
Third, I did literally nothing in October on my book review account on Instagram, which somehow managed to pick up daily notes and gain more than a hundred followers regardless. I can't explain this; it's just a data point.
TL;DR: If you think it would be fun to participate in fandom art/writing challenges or to be more active online during the social media peak month of October, there's no reason not to. At the same time, you shouldn't feel left out if you don't, and it's probably best not to expect anything to happen if you do.
