Originally, when I created this blog it was only known and available to a handful of individuals. Quite literally, you could fit them in a single room. The purpose was for them to quietly check in on anything I wanted to share that was on my mind in the abstract. And read they did. Well, mostly.

The blog did not reflect my real creations and work in the world, and it only partially divulged my private and public personal life. I’m very self-aware of what I share online and delete. I am also very aware that it is never truly “gone,” as everything is seen in the end.

Most people have a very poor concept of visualizing groups of people, though they will remember visiting stadiums or stage shows. So, let’s use that as an example.

On social media, it’s very easy to not get many views at all. Say 1-50 people check out your post and two leave a comment, while another user gets 100,000 viewers with 5,000 commenting. You likely have a good mental visual of 50 or so people. That’s typically two school classrooms worth of students. You’ve seen it and you can imagine it. I’m going to take an image from the Lime Link Blog, which hasn’t been updated in a few years but had a wonderful post on visualizing crowds.

Above is a representation of 50 people.

So now that we all have an idea of what 50 people checking out say your or my Instagram post looks like of people who aren’t just scrolling by, but truly taking in the content. Writing a blog is not like writing a news article, and it’s not like creating content on Instagram. People do come back. They stick around to check your previous work, and if you’re lucky, they’ll check back periodically to see if/when you posted again.

The beauty is you can generally see if it’s the same person returning from the same location on the same device, thanks to available traffic data. I had 50 people read and return to my blog consistently for many years. It was nice. Quiet. They likely had no idea what or who I was outside of the blog, since nothing led back anywhere else. There were no links to socials since they didn’t exist yet. Unless you knew me personally, there wasn’t much to go off other than knowing I was living in England at the time but not necessarily at all times.

Now, what does 100,000 people look like?

Above is a representation of 100,000 people.

Ah, so this is typical for many big socials. In these cases, it’s enough people to fill your typical American football stadium. This image is from Michigan Stadium, which holds a capacity of just over 100,000. Wow. Many other American football stadiums hold similar capacities.

Having 100,000 visitors returning to a blog does happen, but the feel is very different than watching a College Football or NFL match. No, this modest blog is not in that arena. It’s just not going to attract those kind of numbers based on my consistency and the topics discussed. My readership is very much a fringe group.

Ignoring bots and looking at actual, consistent human visitors for the past 3-4 months while I’ve been more active, the audience sits between 10,000 and 20,000. The average visitor tends to look over previous posts before venturing off to social links.

Using another image from Lime Link showing a modest stadium for a tennis match, this is very similar to the courts at Wimbledon, where the No. 1 court holds just over 12,000 seats. The 20,000 figure can be represented by The O2 Arena, which has a seating capacity of 20,000.

Above is a representation of 20,000 people.

Now, this is a blog. I know many people today experience high audiences for their online content, yet they feel they’re not touching anyone. I understand this as some need those numbers to convert into income or opportunities basically in short, an incentive.

People are likely to leave my posts with a fresh perspective and a new look on life. It may or may not convert to monetary value for me, and as it stands, that’s never been the case to date. But I have had heartfelt messages and met wonderful people who expressed that these posts helped them. I’ve easily been thanked by at least 100 people maybe you have for something you’ve produced or helped people with and 100 seems quite easy to visually process doesn’t it.

Above is a representation of 100 people.

Watching a funny clip online entertains. But unless the creator is monetized, has sponsorships, sells merchandise, or accepts donations, they likely don’t make anything from that content monetarily. They do gain notoriety, which can eventually lead to those money-making streams. Many do this all the time, as we know.

Going back to the visuals, however, we should be reminded that every person in that crowd is living their own life. For whatever reason, they have decided to take time out of their day to read, watch, or cheer on what you do.

To me, that is amazing in itself.

It may not always pay the bills or put food on the table, but it is amazing. Like it or not, it is making a change in the world.

You are making a change in the world.

Regards,

Alexander / Zenchi