Blowing one’s own trumpet

NK SINGH

My blogging site, nksmp.blogspot.com has received more than 33,000 hits in less than a year’s time.

My last article on Digvijay Singh’s Narmada yatra, carried in my weekly column in DB Post on 14^th April, received more than 7,500 hits, and the graph keeps rising! Within hours of its publication, it became the most popular post on my site.

I was both bowled over and mystified by such tremendous response. With a single minded pursuit I tried to solve the mystery behind the sudden spurt in the popularity of my site. And here I share the results with you.

Normally, my blog is visited by, on an average, 200 readers daily. The most popular post on my site was about radical left leader, Shankar Guha Niyogi, with 1,243 hits. But it was in Hindi, which normally gets more traction.

The second most popular blog was about ISI agents in BJP and VHP, undoubtedly a sexy subject. That article attracted attention in a large number of foreign countries, probably with worldwide intelligence community trying to gather more information about ISI operation. That has got less than 1,000 hits, till now.

So what made a boring political subject like Digvijay Singh’s Narmada pilgrimage rise in popularity chart to such dizzying height?

My 30 minute research on Google Analytics, World Wide Web and social networking sites proved less than flattering to my ego.

I had tweeted the article, marking it, among others, to Digvijay Singh. It seems, he liked it and published a link on his Facebook page that is followed by 1.10 lakh people. His followers seem to have lapped it. He posted the article in the afternoon of April 16 and within a day it was read by more than 7,000 visitors.

Well, the guy is popular, I must concede.

If he is trolled by a huge number of people, he has, apparently, also his share of admirers and followers.

nksexpress@gmail.com

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