In every piece of digital marketing advice you’ll ever read they’ll say the same thing – you should be tracking your visitor numbers so you know what’s resonating with your audience and what’s not. I used to do this, now I don’t.
The problem with ‘analytics’ is that once you know what’s resonating with your audience and what’s not, you change what you make. Suddenly, your work becomes guided by ‘the analytics worm’ and you find yourself making stuff for someone else instead of yourself.
Then, the algorithm changes.
Once you see the analytics worm take a dive, panic sets in, “what if I lose my audience?” We try to make more work to rescue the worm but it’s gone underground, descending into the depths of low visitor/like numbers, never to return.
One response is to scratch around the internet for advice on what the ‘new algorithm’ wants and then start ‘making content’ to serve that in the hope you’ll revive your dead worm. The other response is to turn off analytics and make the work you want to make. It may not revive the worm, but it’ll feed your soul. I know which one I prefer.