Tales From the Trenches: Month #4
Lights out.
Going to keep the update brief this month. I want to write another piece about something else that happened (clue: it’s a very “dark” topic), and these updates are mainly a personal tool to hold myself accountable.
Week One
Remembering that I included April 1st in last month’s numbers, the first week started on April 2nd and, though I had started pretty strong, it fizzled out quickly. Honestly, I’d put this down to prioritisation and lack of effort on Twitter.
This first week was dominated by April 2nd (riding the wave from March), which kept the follower numbers elevated despite little engagement for the other six days. After Week 1, I was at about 31% of the monthly goal. Not bad.
Week Two
This week was quite disrupted, and the results reflected that. Between some other responsibilities, a new 3D graphics project, and some unforeseen family events, I never really gained any momentum with my posts and replies.
As you can see, it was slightly better than the last half of week one, but because there were no strong days to offset the mediocrity, it was a bad week. I netted 19 new followers and crawled along to reach ~45% of my monthly goal.
Week Three
This is where the wheels really came off. I deprioritised the social media activity to work on things I thought were probably higher ROI (marketing, 3D graphics projects, family, Portuguese). I don’t regret it, but it does reiterate the fact that consistency is a huge factor in building an audience. You continuously lose a small number of followers, so if you don’t gain more than that, you’ll be net-negative.
In truth, this week barely changed the overall numbers; there was no chance of hitting the monthly target by the end of week three. Ah well. Can’t have it all.
Week Four ⚡️🪫
This week continued much like week three: minimal input from me, and a loss of inspiration for what to post and engage with. Results were quite dire until Monday, when, along with ~55 million of my Portuguese, French, and Spanish pals, I received a last-minute invitation to take part in the second-largest power cut in European history!
Despite losing access to electricity, mobile coverage, and (perhaps most horrifyingly) internet access, for the brief period I was able to stay online, I had a great time!
For around thirty minutes, there was very little mainstream media coverage of what had happened, and so, with Twitter being perhaps the most up-to-date platform for news, people were jumping online and working together to find out what was happening.
The situation was very rapid fire - lots of diagnosing issues and trying to triangulate who did (and did not) have power. Reminded me of work in some old jobs in some ways.
I’m going to do a proper write up of this shortly (I’m a bit of a power-grid geek) but, despite only having access to the internet for about one hour, I was able to consolidate information quicker than many others, broadcast it out quite quickly and pick up a decent number of follows from people who were not getting answers from elsewhere.
Though I do post about energy and infrastructure, I suspect many of these new “emergency” followers may be short-lived. Let’s see.
So in total, after that crazy episode, I had scooped up an additional 23 permanent followers. Bringing me to exactly 66% of my target (40% total growth)
Summary
Honestly, I think I could have hit the 60% growth this month if I’d been more dedicated - but obviously … I wasn’t 😆. Next month I have a lot of travel, and I think it’s unrealistic to expect better than this month.
At the risk of permanently lowering my standards, I am going to aim for ~30% growth in May - I need a win, and there are just a lot of other things I need to prioritise.
The main goals for this month are:
Finish the MVP of my 3D Graphics Project - this is an idea I’m hoping will grow my audience significantly, and even if it doesn’t, it’s super interesting for me.
Dust off my electrical-engineering books and do a write-up on the European power cut. There’s a lot to learn here, and it’s been a while since the second-year module on Electrical Power and Engineering.
Continue my automation-services journey. Ideally, I’d like to acquire a real customer/client for this side of my business in the next 2-3 months. It will be hard going, but it’s a fascinating field.
Okay, that’s it.
Stay safe (and keep those battery packs charged)
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