The other day it occurred to me that I had not written a blog article in a long time. It wasn’t until I looked in the “Blog” folder on my computer and cross checked it against my blog page that I realized just how long it’s been…since August 2019! As I thought more about it, I came to the conclusion that the reason for this is because when I was actively blogging, there really weren’t a lot of people reading what I wrote. Effectively I was writing for an audience of one; me. If I was into journaling (which I know a lot of people are; personally I’m not interested) then I guess my blog articles would be some sort of creative outlet, or something. I started the blog for one reason. When I was opening my practice here in Virginia, the person who created my website and did the initial set up for search engine optimization told me that the more places I was, the more places people would be able to find me, and that would help my search rankings. I started writing/posting articles about taxes, and each time I also tweeted or posted on LinkedIn that I had written an article, and people should check it out, and here’s a link to the article. Like anything else online, I’m able to log in to my WordPress account (where the blog resides) and check out the stats. Sadly I found that hardly anybody was reading my articles. After a number of years, I guess I got fed up with taking the time to write these articles that nobody was reading, so I stopped…for what now looks like 3+ years.It got me also thinking about Twitter. In the beginning I tweeted only about tax things, since I felt that this is why I set up the account (also at the recommendation of the guy who set up my website). Over the years I’ve found that, like my blog articles, very few people were viewing my tweets. Interestingly, I recently had the highest viewership I’ve ever had for one of my tweets. It was a tweet on Jan 31 and to date it’s had 5,991 views, unbelievable! The sad reality, though, is it’s because it’s a tweet about Flatland Cavalry (my current favorite Country music band), and because I tagged them in the tweet. I’m guessing it wound up in the feeds of all their fans, hence all the views. What did the tweet have to do with taxes? Absolutely nothing!I’m wondering two things now. One, will anybody actually read this post? Two, if so, how many people will that be? I’m seriously questioning whether writing blog articles is really a good use of time, both for me and also for all the other average mortals like me. Are people actually interested in this stuff, or in lame videos on Tik Tok?! Let me know what you think.
Jay E. Reiner, CPA 