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You could make the counter-argument: Why would I want to read something written by someone who doesn't care about their audience at all? Both of those are extr
by stevage 1y ago
You could make the counter-argument: Why would I want to read something written by someone who doesn't care about their audience at all?
Both of those are extreme positions.
- plastic-enjoyer 1y ago> Why would I want to read something written by someone who doesn't care about their audience at all? Uh, because you find the content interesting?
- breuleux 1y agoYou can care about your audience without needing any analytics. Usually, I would think that you personally know a few people who are in your intended audience. Just ask them. And if you can't get feedback from actual people on your writing, analytics is a really, really poor substitute for that.
- Retr0id 1y agoNot caring about the size of your audience is very different to not caring about your audience at all.
- MSFT_Edging 1y agoMy favorite musicians and podcasts hate their fans. Seriously, fans are awful. If they found you for doing what you want to do, keep doing what you want to do. Don't let the fans guide you too much.
- chongli 1y agoWe need look no further than The Beatles, who famously and repeatedly tried to pivot their music away from what their fans wanted. In the process, they innovated popular music in a multitude of ways and spawned new genres in the process. If they paid any attention to their fans they would've been playing "Love Me Do" for decades as their millions of screaming preteen girl fans slowly turned into senior citizens.
- miyoji 1y agoI would make the counter-counter-argument: someone who is just trying to make what the audience wants to see to get views doesn't care about the audience either, they just care about the audience's eyeballs and the money/fame/influence they can get from leveraging those eyeballs.
- chongli 1y agoPretty much everyone on Hacker News is writing comments for one another without the benefit of analytics. We're having discussion about topics we care about without delving into each other's personal details. If you care about a topic you're going to care about a community you build and participate in around that topic. You don't need marketing-focused analytics to do that. You just need to keep writing and engaging with people in the comments.
- righthand 1y agoCareful, upvotes and karma are analytics.
- chongli 1y agoThey aren't. They're feedback. Analytics is demographic information used for marketing purposes.
- scoofy 1y agoAnalytics are often used for demographic purposes, but they aren’t for that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytics Ranking comments by quality is absolutely tangential to analytics. It’s processing feedback, and rearranging the pangs in orders to make it more pleasant to readers… it’s real close to a-b testing.
- righthand 1y agoIf I can see the number of votes and replies and their affect on my account (karma count), those are analytics of my comments and stories. Demography is the genre of analytic.
- palata 1y ago> Why would I want to read something written by someone who doesn't care about their audience at all? That's not what you described. You described a blog writtten by someone who wants to increase their reach.
- chaps 1y agoToday I learned that "caring about my audience" means using analytics against them to understand as much as I can about them without their full consent. Friend, there are many other ways to care about your audience without being a whimsical stalker from high up.