I’m SO thrilled.

I also gained 278 new subscribers in the last six days.

What this means is that I’m better defining my newsletter to appeal to the people who will follow me through the next big story arc, through the next big change. It means that people are self-defining, and that they are along for the ride for what we’re experimenting with, and what findings I’ll share with them.

If you’re counting to see who has the most, and if you’re counting only growth, you’re missing an important point. Growth isn’t important. Valuable growth is important. Getting your email newsletter tuned up to serve your desired community is what matters.

Make sense?

What do you like (or NOT like) about the newsletter? What are you doing with your own communities? How are you tuning everything up?

Conversations ebb and flow. Our interest levels in something come and go. Our attraction to something can come and go. It’s part of life. It’s how things go. Nature shows us cycles all the time. Sometimes, they’re easy to predict: day will be followed by night, etc.

For that flow and ebb, just accept it, and plan around the average, for the most part. It’s okay. It’s how things go.

It’s not the numbers, for me. It’s watching the trends. It’s knowing what makes that blue line go up and down.

Are you watching? What do you see?

Marketing is about reaching a number. Send 41,000 brochures and we’ll get 41 sales. Reach millions of views, and you’re successful like Fred.

Which of my numbers matter? My twitter follower count? My RSS subscribers? The number of monthly pageviews?

I’m grateful for all of those, but they aren’t what drive me.

From a business perspective, # of clients is a number. Revenue. Prospects to a lesser extent.
From a personal perspective, # of times I remember to reach out to the people I love.
From a family perspective, # of hours spent giving my family undivided attention.
From the community perspective, # of others I can help grow.

But let’s get back to the question of volume. Does it matter? Yes, in some cases. I sure want the book I’m writing with Julien Smith to sell 50,000 copies. It’d be great if it does.

Does it matter at a conference? Not to me. I’d much rather the right 300 than a massive 2,000. And my sponsors and exhibitors and attendees want that, too.

What are the right numbers for you? Which ones are you measuring? Which ones do you think really matter? And are those three the same?

Photo credit, Darren_CK

I mentioned crossing into the Technorati Top 100 last week (or the week before; I’m losing track of days). That’s another one of those milestones that I was pleased by, but also mostly silently counting. A year ago, at the first Blog World Expo, I went to the Technorati booth, where they were handing out stickers for your blog rank. I was 3,274. So, it took me a full year of blogging my head off and getting mentions from other bloggers (that’s how Technorati decides rank) to move up.

I’ve been complaining for days that Compete.com hasn’t updated their stats for month-ending September. Of course I watch, and so do lots of people who want to know if their message is gaining wings.

Do the Numbers Matter?

Not in and of themselves, or not directly. I’m not making any more money today then when I had 3,000 readers or was ranked 4,598 in Technorati. Nothing directly changes when the numbers go up.

I guess if I had paid advertising all over my site, it would be good. Lots more impressions or whatever, but that’s not how I chose to roll.

What happens instead is this: I think the numbers are social proof. I think that they act the same way seeing people in a cafe makes you feel that the cafe is a decent place to eat. If no one was in there, no one would “go first” and start it off. I think that by reaching these accomplishments (is that what they are? I’m still not sure how to talk about them), it just means that you’re in good company (you, not me).

But, I’m happy about them. I’m proud. I’m glad that you’re all part of the game. Your comments, contributions, riffs, and expansion on my themes makes it all worth doing.

It STINKS when you don’t get comments or when you feel like you’re putting your heart out there and no one’s really picking it up. If you follow my twitter stream, I love pointing out people doing great work, because I want them to get attention, and I want their amazing ideas to be found, too.

So, in the end, thank you everyone. Thanks for coming here all the time.

Something more useful to you coming up later. I have work to do on the New Marketing Summit, and then I’ll get back to filling your heads.

Last chance to tell me if you want to come. Drop me a line: cbrogan at crosstechmedia dot com.

Photo credit, Robbie1