Yes, by the power of Godwin, I meant “pain”, not “pane”, although the pun is intended.  This is an article about not only knowing who is watching, but watching them in secret. Well, as it turns out, it’s not the least secret, but you do have to know how to get the key into the Secret Door.

When I talk to people about social media, a very common comment, particularly about blogging, is around either having a whole bunch of strangers, or no strangers at all, reading one’s words. The bigger question is why one shares thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions online, without having any real sense of audience.  It’s what lulls some bloggers into a false sense of security, thinking that no one who matters (ie, employer) will ever read these words, so I can say what I want.  Of course the cautions and warnings are easy to come up with in that instance, but what of an audience that holds no sway over you or your life? Do you, or ought you, care about what they think?  Or is it enough just to know you are being read?

One way to know of your readership on a blog is to allow comments.  The dark side of that is if you open it too much (ie, allow anonymous comments) you open a conduit to SPAM from the 7 circles of hell (that is, A LOT of it, and mostly about penii). Lock it down, and people won’t care enough to create a login.

The past month– activity by day, by country, by visitor, most viewed pages.

Or, a whole year’s worth of stats.

So you must decide if you care about who is reading, or is it enough just to know someone is?  Enter…. Statistics.  First, let’s look at the stats, as provided by the Blog host (in my case, EduBlogs). From the Dashboard, I can select”Statistics”, and my host gives me a pretty little picture showing me rather a lot of information.

The graph shows visits by page, by new, or by returning visitor.  A mouse-hover over each entry shows a little more. Referrals tell me how visitors arrived at my site. Not surprisingly, the vast majority come via FaceBook, followed by people who follow a direct link (which means they could be linked to my site, or at least have bookmarked it); and finally a tie between Twitter, PBS and Pinterest (the latter two fascinate me, as I don’t use Pinterest to any great extent, and I can’t imagine how PBS is connected to me, but I don’t mind.  Perhaps it’s my addiction to Downton Abbey).

These stats are interesting in themselves, but the good people at Google know that there are many more metrics people would like to know about their audience, particularly if they use this platform for business.

For Free (and as always, gentle reader, I caution you to remember that if a product is Free, chances are YOU are the product. In this case, I don’t mind if Google has my stats) one can install a “Google Analytics” shortcode into their site, and be able to access a plethora of information about their audience.  And, of course, there are for-pay extra features as well.  Here are some screen shots of my recent stats returns:

There is more I can reveal– browser versions, operating systems, frequency of visit, and there are other options in the for-pay version that will allow you to track all number of demographics. It’s fascinating to ponder why or how someone from Africa or Eastern Europe came to visit, and why suddenly someone would navigate to my site on their mobile phone from Honolulu 8 times, and never again, or where Samara is, and why there are 2 unique visitors from there, and perhaps most interesting of all, as we think of blogging as being somewhat impersonal, far and away the lion’s share of my readers are within a couple of hours of my physical location.  I don’t often write about topics that would only appreciated by those living on the West Coast, yet my real-life peeps count among my virtual ones in the greatest numbers.  How strangely gratifying.

So, even if I don’t know who is reading, I kind of know who is reading. And I thank you for looking through this pain/pane of glass with me.