I Didn’t Die in 2013 and Other Great Things

It’s the time of year where I like to take stock. How’d we do? At Larry Gifford Media this burgeoning empire based on a blog, we – and by “we” I mean I – had a great year and I appreciate all the support. Just last week the blog hit a milestone of 25,000 page views. 10,000 of those coming in 2013.

THE WORLD IS WATCHING

When you dig into the numbers, visitors to the blog originate from 88 different countries. The most hits come from the USA, followed by UK, Canada, South Africa and Greece. (Side note: I’ve been to US, Canada and UK this year – looking for invites from friends in South Africa and Greece – hint, hint.)

SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING…

How are people finding the blog? Knowing this can be disturbing and fun.

Somebody searched “larry gifford obit june 2013” – Apparently, someone thought I died – or wished I had. That person was either heartened or bummed upon discovering I was alive and well. Another searched, “you’re mean go away cat.”  And for some reason the blog popped up for this search “if you spill something on yourself chance you’ll miss ‘mary tyler moore.’” I have to believe the people searching those terms were very frustrated in what they found. Hopefully that wasn’t the case for everyone.

I find people’s names attract the most people to the blog. Here are the top 13  search terms used to find LarryGifford.com

• Complaint
• ways in which radio  has embraced social media
• tom leykis
• steak shapiro
• larry gifford
• the nba
• keep looking up because that’s where it’s at (Kidd Kraddick)
• jim cutler voice over
• lex and terry fired
• life is good radio
• paula deen parodies
• jimi hendrix vocal range
• bruce gilbert fox sports radio

THE TOP POSTS OF 2013

In the coming days I’ll be unveiling the top 25 blog posts of the year.

Here are #25 through #16

25. Covering Colin Cowherd

24. Eight Things I Takeaway From HIVIO

23. TV Writers Taking Cheap Shots at Radio

22. Beware of “The Line”

21. How Do You Get Better? Improv(e).

20. Unsolicited Advice: Don’t Do This

19. How to Handle Host’s Controversial Comments

18. Lessons from NextRadio, London

17. Four Things Hosts Can Do To Improve Ratings

16. Seven Take Aways from Mike McVay

DON’T JUST READ, LISTEN TO ME

This year I also launched THE RADIO STUFF PODCAST with co-host Deb Slater this year. It’s been tons of fun and really interesting. A couple of the blog posts listed above were inspired by podcast segments. It’s been great flexing my “hosting” muscles again and extremely rewarding talking to so many interesting and remarkable people around the world who make radio so special.

Thanks to you and everyone who has read, listened, talked about, shared, liked, commented, or agreed to be interviewed. Wishing you and yours a great holiday and a safe, happy, ratings-filled 2014!!