2013 review via facebook

With 2013 coming to a close I wanted to conduct a couple of reviews, the first is of the posts shared on my facebook page. So I have looked back to the beginning of the year and taken the one picture from each month that had the most shares. Some months had a stand out winner, others were fairly close. But I hope this gives some sort of indication of what people like.

2013 in pictures, chosen by facebook users - facebook original | twitter

January
January saw the start of my daily facts posts. So I'm pleased that these were some of the most shared pictures, even if this wasn't originally planned as a daily fact! With 126 shares I'll ensure that on the 25th January 2014 I'll have a few more versions posted for 'Dydd Santes Dwynwen Hapus'. This one was found via a google search.

Facebook original

February
The eagle eyed will realise that St David's Day is in March, but I posted this on the night before. So this version of the "success kid" meme takes February with 88 shares. Also posted a version in Cymraeg. Again these can be recycled every year. This was made via a blank success kid template and this online tool.

Facebook original | Cymraeg

March
March had a clear stand out winner, not just for the month but for the whole year with a huge 774 shares. It's a post match photo of the pundits in the Millenium Stadium, in a week that saw the English media brand it a formality there was only one team in it for the whole match. For those unsure of who these people are, on the left is John Inverdale an English presenter. Next to him is Clive Woodward, England's World Cup winning manager. Next to him is Jeremy Guscott, a key player in England's dominant team of the nineties and now a good pundit. And last but by no means least (unless you're an English Broadcasting Corporation boss) is Wales outside-half turned pundit, Jonathan 'Jiffy' Davies. The sole Welshman amongst the baying English mob. A priceless moment in broadcasting after a glorious demolition of our colonial masters, if only we took real life this seriously. The original picture was found on twitter. I had watched the 'game' in a pub in Cardiff and shared this whilst on the way home.

Facebook original

April
I made this picture on my phone whilst on dinner break at work which explains the quality. By the time I got home it had been shared over 300 times. I posted this within minutes of hearing the good news, perhaps it might be wise to have one prepped for Betty?

Facebook original

May
A fascist march in Swansea resulted in the next picture being shared on twitter, I added the text to convey the irony that is beyond comprehension to these guys and re-shared. It was shared another 45 times.

Facebook original

June
Another daily fact became June's most popular pic with 33 shares. This is of Gwenllian, that last Princess of Wales. The pictures are from the Princess Gwenllian Society website.

Facebook original

July
Here's a picture that has done the rounds quite a few times. It's a quote from Gwynfor which perfectly sums up the fakeness of the term "British". 130 people agreed by sharing.

Facebook original

August
This next picture I found on facebook on a Scottish page, I can't remember which but I added the Wales face to make it relevant to us and the Cornwall face because they are always left out. 349 people shared this.

Facebook original

September
Another month another daily fact, September the 16th 'Dydd Gŵyl Glyndŵr", the start of the Welsh revolt which was celebrated with 190 shares.

Facebook original

October
Aberfan was the most popular picture for October, I intentionally made it hard hitting. That's the point. 166 shares validates it. I used a picture of the mass grave with text from one of the parents. This is all we have from the colonial theft of our resources, memorials to those our masters murdered.

Facebook original

November
Another outing for this picture in time for the Autumn internationals saw it become November's most shared picture with 102 shares.

Facebook original

December
Thatcher takes the crown for the second time this year with 130 shares with my take on the news that her estate's tax exempt status is like she is mocking us from the grave.

Facebook original

Here are just twelve of the pictures I posted that were shared, not the twelve most shared but the most from each month. The general feeling I get is that we like Welsh history, hate the royals, hated Thatcher, like rugby posts, like memes and appreciate highlighting the two-faced hypocrisy of the Brit Nats. Which is reassuring since that is generally what I post about. Note that all these are picture based posts, not just links or videos. Thanks to trial and error I found that pictures are more widely seen and shared than any other type of post. Picture posts can also be edited, non picture posts cannot.

Here's a snapshot of the number of likes on my facebook page per day over the last couple of months. Red are unlikes, blue are likes, I would never pay facebook to promote my posts so there are no "paid likes". On average the page attracts a couple of likes per day. This means they 'should' see every post made. Although there is a lot of debate as to how much is intentionally throttled by facebook in order to encourage people to pay to be visible to people that have already liked their page.

The spikes are as a result of a post being shared to a wider audience. The largest spike coincides with a picture of Gary Barlow's tax dodging Children in Need hypocrisy followed by a picture of Betty Windsor highlighting the fact she will be given more of our cash than was raised by Children in Need.

All in all 2013 was a very good year for the page. At the beginning of the year it had around 500 likes and then by the end of the year it's almost 2,700. There are some unlikes (as you can see above) but generally it's only going one way. Of course I'm still very much aware that a few thousand is relatively small. But the pictures I have shared above show how difficult it is to get people to care about real life. Beating England in rugby can get you over 700 shares, but people in Wales dieing as a result of us continuing to buy into the London system is not what turns people on. This is why I often post more light hearted pictures, as Mary Poppins didn't say "you have to add some sugar to the piss".

On a good day the page content is seen by between 5,000-10,000 people per day. That in itself is huge, anything less that 2,000 I would consider a bad day. For a million views across the year the weekly average needs to exceed 19,000. That Jiffy pic with the 700 plus shares was seen by well over 100,000 people.

Thank you to everyone who keeps the graph going one way, upwards and thank you to everyone who reads this blog. as good as facebook is for 'chunking' info it simply isn't possible to make a post like this on there.

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