Top views in 2015

Posts with human appeal attract the most interest

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- I’ve noticed a pattern of interest in different stories over the years. There is a good old journalistic saying, “If it bleeds it leads.” That goes for traditional media.

That is true for news stories on major TV networks and in newspapers. People are hungry for crime, tragedy and its impact. They’re glad that it didn’t happen to them. It’s psychology at its best.

Second comes in weather, and glamour takes the third place. Sometimes these two are interchangeable.

The digital world is different, where technology posts take the first followed by everything that is connected to IT. Then comes everything else.

In my own little world of EW Emma’s Writings, this is how my posts fared from bottom to top on a scale of 5 to 1.

5- Alphorns at the Grand Rapids Octoberfest in September 2015. It was a well-rounded German event with Erdinger on tap and schnitzel with potato salad on the menu.

https://emmapalova.com/2015/09/28/watch-alphorns-at-grand-rapids-octoberfest-2015-on-youtube-2/

4- The page About local entrepreneurs & artists takes the fourth place. It profiles regional inspiring people from entrepreneurs to staple artists in the West Michigan area.

https://emmapalova.com/about-3/

3-The Kropf Apple Farming legend. A touching story about an apple farming family spanning four generations while overcoming the big Chinese apple juice dumping crisis in the late 90s and early 2000s.

https://emmapalova.com/about-3/kropf-apple-farming-legend/

2- The home page/archives takes a second place. People like checking this one out periodically. That’s why periodic posting is important. It’s a very popular station.

http://emmapalova.com

And finally drum roll..

1-Top post with 113 views on Sept. 28 about local entrepreneur Nancy DeBoer. The post about the owner of Station Salon, a popular beauty shop in Lowell, won out of 160 posts in 2015.

https://emmapalova.com/2015/09/28/iw-station-salon/

The above ranking of top posts shows me that human interest stories have the most views.

It warms my heart because I came to the same conclusion in print media after years of experience. On a long term basis, not at a particular second, people prefer the human over the dead, success over failure, tenacity over weakness, continuity over the beat of the day.