I’ve said before that I’ve no idea what a blog is going to be about until it’s written. Never more true than this blog. I’ve often thought, there’s no way there’s a 1000 word blog in this topic. Again, never more true than of this blog.
The small germ of an idea that I have is, my place in the social media world as an ‘influencer’. True I really don’t have much of an idea about what the word means but I won’t let that stop me. I doubt if I looked it up in a dictionary it would even exist and yet I’m proposing to write about me as an influencer in the world of retired people. You’ve got some damn cheek.
Even more so if you look at the evidence. Scan any of the blog sites (as I did this morning, I’m not saying which one – I’m not mentioning them if they can’t mention me) that purport to list the most influential blogs on retirement and find your blog not there, is only to confirm my lack of status as an influencer. And with sentences as convoluted as that last one, it questions the quality of my writing as well.
Let’s face it it’s not as if I even want to be influential. As I wrote in a previous blog about my musical performings, I like to keep a low profile generally and this blog is no exception. I can’t pretend that I don’t want this blog to be popular or that I don’t enjoy positive feedback on my style of writing if not on its content. I probably had intended this blog, as a whole, to be more helpful to other retired people than has turned out to be the case, but the intention was there.
If I have a role in the world of retirement, at best it’s to offer a little comfort to others. To be reminded that there’s somebody else (me) out there that shares their pain, embarrassment, pratfalls and pitfalls and that it is just about possible to raise a small smile (no more) about our shortcomings in responding to the challenges of retirement life. And yes, the positive side of retirement also. Which I think, we can all agree, is not going to win any Nobel prizes for services to humankind.
So all that said, why in the name of all that is holy am I trying to write a 1,000 word retirement blog about my role as an influencer? Just doesn’t make any sense does it? Why not just fess up and admit, I don’t have a role as a person of influence. End of story.
And yet I’m just going to say this, as a small qualification – it’s all relative. My daily ‘hits’ are rising and this week I got, for me, a very large hits total indeed. True I have absolutely no idea why this happened (I’m not good analysing the data either from Jetpack data or Google Analytics, digging down I think it’s called). The worst case scenario is that the data is false, some kind of scam perhaps.
But there’s also the increase in my subscribers. They’ve increased fourfold over the last couple of months. Again I’ve no idea why. True you don’t say much if you’re one of them but it’s comforting to see the graph rising, so welcome to you all.
You will note I’m not quoting any actual figures. If I did you’d quickly realise how very modest my influence is. But this is my positive blog. I won’t mention the requests I get to place adverts on my blog or to accept guest blogs from commercial companies. I have though (mentioned it) haven’t I? Got another one this very morning.
And while I’m being positive let me tell you about my ranking on Google. Having languished for several years close to double figures (this is not in a good way) for some reason I really don’t understand, my blog is now hovering around the bottom of page two. I know you’re supposed to be on page one or nobody bothers checking you out but for me (I repeat) this is pretty good.
True I have no idea why this is happening and it will probably just as mysteriously drop back. And it does seem quite hard to get on the front page, as far as I can see (not far) those blogs on the first page are either paid for or sponsored by some company or other. If I’ve got this wrong I suppose you’d better tell me. But otherwise let me wallow in my happy ignorance.
At least I’m being true to my values as a professional person in saying yes, it’s relative, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. As a psychologist I constantly tried to persuade teachers, parents to judge the child’s progress relative to themselves not a general population. You might even make the same point about us retired people judging the quality of our retirement against other retirees. I.e. don’t do it.
I have to admit I’m less good at this. It’s all well and good giving advice to others but of course that doesn’t mean I should follow it. I judge my musical abilities against others, our vineyard production in the context of other (Yorkshire) locations and then there’s this blog to be compared against other retirement blogs.
You can see I’ve strayed a little from the original topic of this blog. That’s what happens to me generally as I get a bit older. My concentration on a topic, commitment to a subject, memory of the matter in hand – all dropping off. The sentence from Mrs Summerhouse, can you bring X down when you come downstairs, never brings results. I arrive downstairs, did you remember to bring my book? Err, no, forgot. My mind wanders frighteningly easily.
So what would be really neat is if I could now return to the initial topic – my role as an ‘influencer’ in a social media setting. That’s me as a more modest version of say Stephen Fry. I couldn’t think of another example. Yes, it would be really neat, however, I find I have nothing more to say on the subject so any possible neatness is absent from this retirement blog.