One Year on the Rooftop

October 1 marked the one-year anniversary of The Rooftop Blog, our initial foray into the blogging world. We began the blog as an extension of our public relations business, Rooftop MediaWorks, with the intent to build a readership that would be interested in our clients and our services. Measurement is difficult, but it is not likely that the blog has contributed greatly to those goals.

We established the following mission statement for The Rooftop Blog:

“Exploring the news and interplay of the Four Estates--family, church, government, and the media--and the moral imagination of a culture informed by the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

We’ve been able to devote much of the space to materials within these parameters, although at times we’ve written purely on the passion of the day, and in times of political drama, on the politics of the moment.

I enjoy any opportunity to write, and would welcome more time to devote to the blog. As our public relations business has picked up, I have had to chisel the amount of time I spend on the blog. When I began supplementing the PR business by teaching three college courses this semester, my blogging time has decreased more.

But we press ahead and we’ll have times of good productivity and weeks of scarcity.
Like many blogs, we began in the heat of the last presidential election, and some of our best work and numbers came during that season. But there has been much to write since that time, and “interplay of the Four Estates” has been rough and rabid. There is less time than material.

We appreciate those of you who check in regularly. We will continue to write as often as possiible, at least four times a week, we hope.

During our first year, we’ve had 12,334 visitors—a little over 1,000 a month. There are hundreds of blogs that get that many visitors in a day. But then again there are thousands of blogs that don’t, so we appreciate the attention.

In February, I joined four others to begin a group blog, Stones Cry Out. I cross-post the majority of my posts, but because Stones Cry Out has good contributions from (now eight) others, I would think many who enjoy what I write read it at SCO—-so they can read the work of the other contributors, as well. So I have probably drawn traffic from Rooftop, while gaining readership for my own writing. That seems fine for the moment, although I would love to have hundreds of readers at Rooftop, as well. I haven’t found the formula that can create that level of readership.

At least not one that will allow me to keep my day job.

Thanks for one year.

--James Jewell