Forbes Blog Monthly Stats #5

April 10, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

Every month, I review the traffic stats at my Forbes blog. This is my latest.

Last month was terrific. This month was not so much. Last month, I did around 193K unique visitors and 230K page views. This month I did around 115K unique visitors and 140K page views.

Here's what worked and what could use improvement.

The month's post popular post had to do with soft-core lesbian porn. The reasons for its popularity elude me. Another frequently read post was about an MMA fighter on trial for beating up his former porn star ex-girlfriend. The surprise post of the month was about Wonder Woman's armpit hair. Frankly, I wrote that one without thinking much about it, and it caused quite a fuss, getting cited by the National Review and discussed for a full hour on "The Dennis Prager Show." Apparently, armpit hair on female superheroes is a must-click topic. I'll keep that in mind for April. I also wrote a post about some porny YSL ads that upset some Parisians. That post got a nod from the Kansas City Star. The post I thought was the most unique was an interview I did with a lifestyle blogger -- who's armed and dangerous. 

As for what I can work on: post more, be more creative, write better headlines, do more interviews, be more daring, focus more on things that are fun, keep up the regular posting.

I'm noticing that I'm writing more about women-related issues, and I'd like to do more of it. In addition, I'm doing more hot takes, which is good, because that makes you a part of the conversation. And it was nice to get some media attention.

Yo, it's all good in the bloghood.

Final monthly stats: 

Pageviews: 140,725

Total Monthly Visitors: 115,545

One-time Visitors: 112,156

Repeat Visitors: 3,389

Comments: 46

Posts: 12

Current Recency Score: 74.511%

tags / BLOGGING, MONEY, WORK

Virgins for Sale

April 06, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

I did an interesting interview with a businessman who sells virgins for a living.

Image via Dynamite

Image via Dynamite

"What makes thinks exklusive? That not everyone can have it. For example a very old Wine or a luxury car which is just produced 100 Times. A woman can give just one time her Virginity and she hold it for at minimum 18 Years. Further demand determines the offer."

The interview was done via email, and I preserved the way in which he wrote it. He's German, so English is a second language. 

Someone once called me a modern-age Studs Terkel. I particularly like when something is written in such a way to as exactly as possible capture not just what someone said, but how they said it, which is equally important. 

In this way, you render what they said and what they meant.

tags / SEX, PROSTITUTION, ART, MONEY

The Rules Do Not Apply to Writing Memoirs

March 31, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

Didn't bother to buy it. Read it in the bookstore. It's that thin -- literally and metaphorically. 📕

20 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "Didn't bother to buy it. Read it in the bookstore. It's that thin -- literally and metaphorically. 📕"

I never really decided to read Ariel Levy's The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir. It just sort of happened. In fact, I never bought the book. I visited a bookstore twice and both times picked up a copy of it (a different one each time, I'm pretty sure) and sat in a chair and read it. For some reason, I read the second half first. Then I left. Then however many days after that, I returned, not really intending to read the rest of it, but thinking maybe I would, and then I read the first half. The book is built around a famous and terrifying essay that Levy wrote for The New Yorker in which she has a miscarriage in a foreign country: "Thanksgiving in Mongolia." I was floored when I read that in 2013. How could she get so raw? I marveled. It was like entering an emotional abattoir. But the problem is that the book feels like she got a book deal based on that essay, and then she sort of padded the book around it. The book is thin. I mean it's 224 pages, but it feels thin. It feels sort of hurried and rushed and manufactured. Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't. I wasn't really a fan of Levy's first book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, which was pretty much just a collection of essays, and was also sort of politically opposed to everything I was thinking at the time of its publication. She sort of paints women as dumb marks, but I suppose that is her opinion. In any case, her Rules book is about her unconventional upbringing, and her marriage, and her miscarriage, and how life can be happy, and life can be sad. Frankly, it sort of feels like "book contract fulfilled." I don't know why. She sort of speeds through life at a high rate, and maybe she doesn't want to think about the deep, dark things, and maybe that's OK if you want to write a magazine article, but maybe a book demands more. Or maybe her rules are the ones that apply.

tags / BOOKS, REVIEWS, INSTAGRAM

Just Eat It

March 30, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

Carl's Jr. is giving up boobs and butts for burgers and buns! What is the world coming to?

From my latest at Forbes:

In an interview with USA Today, Andrew Puzder, the former CEO of CKE Restaurants Holdings, which owns Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, who withdrew his name from consideration for U.S. Labor Secretary in the Trump administration, took a je ne regrette rien stance on the old, oversexed way of hawking Carl's Jr. burgers, stating: "We don't have anything to be ashamed of."
tags / FOOD, FORBES

In Praise of Florida

March 27, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

🌊

33 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "🌊"

It's a shame more novels haven't been written about Florida. I mean, there have been, some. But maybe not so much. Instead, the gun-shaped state gets relegated to FLORIDA MAN jokes, alligator attack tales, and horror stories about its systemic abuses and exploitations. It misses praise for its geographical diversity, its colorfulness on a blank slate, and the way the water looks when it's just straight up still and there are dolphins diving through it in the distance.  

tags / AMERICA, INSTAGRAM

How to Write a LinkedIn Profile That Makes You Sound Like a Human Being

March 22, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

I did some work on my LinkedIn profile lately, as I'm seeking new career opportunities, and it was an interesting experience. It's part rethinking oneself, part rethinking how others see you, and part rethinking how you put yourself out there. I did some research while doing it, as well.

Here's what I learned.

Make it you

In the past, my LinkedIn profile hasn't felt much like me. It was robotic, or overly business-like, or cursory. I learned a lot about writing a LinkedIn profile that sounds as if it belongs to a human by reading Jenny Foss at The Muse. She has all kinds of really smart ideas about career strategy, and how to think of yourself as you move forward in the interviewing process, and how to brand yourself in a way that's both interesting and authentic. That laid the groundwork.

Keep it simple, stupid

This is the important acronym: Keep It Simple, Stupid -- or KISS. I had a conversation the other day with a scripted reality TV producer I've worked with, and he reminded me that the bottom line thing we're all doing here is telling stories. I've done a lot of different things: journalism, blogging, editing, digital outreach, copywriting, and producing scripted reality TV. What do all those things have in common? I'm a storyteller. So I led with that.

Grab their attention

Of course, you've got to stand out from the pack. So I started my summary with an interesting anecdote from my personal history: I was a human lab rat. From the time I was a toddler until I was in my thirties, I was a participant in a famous longitudinal study of human development. Not that many people can say that, so I began with that, and I tied it into my career. 

In any case, you can read my LinkedIn summary below, and you can connect with me on LinkedIn here. I'm actively looking for full-time or part-time work (particularly the former) in the word business, and if you have a lead, or if you know someone that I should talk to, I'd love to hear from you. 

Photo by Clayton Cubitt

Photo by Clayton Cubitt

Susannah Breslin

Award-winning journalist, blogger, and editor. | A "rare commodity online." | I tell stories.

 University of California, Berkeley

 

I'm a human lab rat. When I was a toddler, I became a participant in a legendary 30-year longitudinal study of human development that set out to answer one simple question: How do we become who we are? 

That experience played a part in why I've spent the last decade figuring out the answer to another question: Why do people do what they do online? I'm fascinated by what inspires people to click and engage digitally. 

I help companies tell stories. I've done it as a journalist, a blogger, an editor, a copywriter, and a scripted reality television producer. It all comes down to storytelling -- and understanding what truly moves people.

I work with the world's biggest brands to grow their digital properties. I wrote an article on Forbes.com that has nearly 2M views. I was the voice of Pepto-Bismol on Facebook, increasing that brand's social engagement by 500% as market share rose 11%. I helped Time Warner build a digital vertical for millennial women, using my network of digital influencers to turn a startup into a destination site with 4M unique visitors and 22M page views a month. 

What's your story? If your brand needs a hand, you can contact me at susannahbreslin@gmail.com.

tags / WORK, ADVICE

The Return of Christy Mack

March 20, 2017  /  Susannah Breslin

War Machine was convicted today in the trial of his assault of Christy Mack. 

Maybe you're old enough to remember the "Twinkie defense"? 

This guy offered up the "Raging Bull" defense:

"The defense attorney characterized Koppenhaver as a 'raging bull' with brain injuries from his fighting career and emotions inflamed by the use of steroids and non-prescription stimulant and antidepressant drugs that combined could have caused mood swings and violence that Leiderman termed 'roid rage.'"

tags / VIOLENCE, NEWS, FORBES, JOURNALISM