How To Use Vanity Metrics to Your Advantage as a Writer
By: Zita Fontaine
Tags: Marketing, Writing, Social Media, Data, Metrics

Writer’s Vanity Metrics Are Not Always About Vanity

When it comes to writing, vanity metrics become actionable metrics, if you can use them well.

So, let’s have a look at all the metrics that you can measure and track and let’s see how you can use them for non-vanity uses, but to provide you real feedback on your progress and writing.

To make it easy to read, I am simplifying the terms so that you can understand the basics. If you want to deep-dive into analytics, there is a whole world out there.

Let’s say you are a writer, who is writing on a platform, promoting their work on social media, to [choose one from selling a book, an e-book, an online course, getting writing jobs etc.]. The ultimate goal is to somehow make money from your writing — so it is related to profit.

Everything — I repeat, everything that is measurable is related to conversion. If there is one single word that you will remember from this article, please remember conversion. Imagine conversion as a funnel. The more you pour into it on the top, the more you can get out at the bottom.

image by author

Visits, unique visits

If you start with the most basic analytics, page visits and unique visitors will be the first to come across. It has nothing to do with direct conversion, but it does give you a hint about how your site is working.

You can and definitely should monitor if there is a drop in views suddenly or if there is an unexpected increase. The visits don’t translate into further conversion, but they can indicate a problem or something unusual.

Bragging about it and reporting it is probably an overkill, but calling it vanity for a writer’s website or an author’s website is definitely an understatement.

Views

It can be the views on your articles, or on your specific pages. The views on your articles indicate the topic and the niche where you work best. If you have a peak because of one specific article (tech articles and personal essays tend to do it) then it can be an indication for hitting an actual trend.

Views don’t directly mean reads and followers or fans, but if you imagine it as a funnel, if someone doesn’t view your article, they can never read it, follow it, like it.

The number of views is an important indicator — imagine it being a lighthouse. It doesn’t mean you are out of the water, but at least you have some clues where to go.

It might not mean anything today, but this is how we start it, the more you pour into the funnel, the more can come out at the bottom. Share your work in relevant places, advertise it, promote it, SEO it.

Reads

Let’s take one more step down that funnel, shall we? To be appreciated, you need to have readers. It’s not enough if someone clicks on your title and pretty image, your story needs to keep their attention long enough.

If the views/reads ratio is low, it is an indicator that you are really good at raising attention, but your text is not living up to the expectations. On the contrary, if you have an extremely high read ratio, it means that you are doing a great job with the quality, all you need is just more views to get to more fans.

Readers will become fans, so you need them. It’s not vanity to want to increase your read ratio.

Improve your quality, start to use less clickbaity titles or work on the relevance of your topics and the target audience.

Engagement

If you have any indicators on your website that tell you if your work was appreciated, such as a social icon, built-in platform “likes”, room for comments or any other appreciation (these are the claps, highlights, and comments on Medium), you will know how much your work is really appreciated.

The engagement might not translate into direct earnings, but this is definitely not for vanity only.

Knowing which pieces work well, which are ignored, what style of yours is appreciated, which topic fares well with your audience — this is crucial information to improve your overall output. Not just for future articles, but also for fine-tuning your own writing voice, your style and finding your niche.

The engagement is the greatest indicator for you, it guides you and if you pay attention it keeps you on track. It is also very addictive which can be taken as an external accountability partner — when you feel you owe your audience your presence and you need to show up every day, even when you don’t feel like it.

Talk to them, interact with them, listen to them — and learn from it all. Improve where you can, based on the feedback they offer you.

Followers

Your readers who are willing to get into interaction with you are your fans — they can be one-off or they can be your loyal followers, who care about you.

There will be more of the one-off fans but the loyal followers are your true treasure. They are the ones who are rooting for you, they will buy your book and ebook and recommend your online course even if they don’t need it themselves.

They will tweet your articles, they will get you further clients, or employ you if they are in that position. They are not just empty numbers, they are your biggest fans and they will advocate for your cause whatever it is.

You need to keep in touch with them, give them feedback and love, offer them exclusive content and keep them happy. They are your biggest assets, they are the last stage before the conversion that pays.

Email list subscribers

There is one significant difference between a talented, persistent writer who makes it and the one who doesn’t. It’s that the one makes it seen, and the other is invisible.

It is great to expect that they will somehow find you, and they contact you, and I am sure it happens, but it’s not something that you can really count on and base your future success on.

You need to let them know about your work. We talked about social media, which is great, and you can interact on Twitter. You can comment and heart everything on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, but you can also send a heartfelt, informative, inspirational message to your friends — on your email list.

So those who actually subscribe to get messages from you are also an asset and your success, your views, and reads can highly depend on the number of subscribers.

Does it mean anything on its own? Definitely not. But this is how you get into their inbox to tell them about your life, your knowledge, and your ideas.