2013: Strong growth across digital channels

There's a lot to celebrate at The Atlas Society this year, including the fact that our digital channels performance met, and in some cases greatly exceeded expectations. We want to thank you, our supporters, f

or making this possible.  

Total viewership (of all digital channels combined) grew by 33% this year. Significant changes include a 145% increase in views of our YouTube channel and exponential growth in time spent viewing YouTube videos (from over 168,000 minutes per year in 2012 to over 1.2 million minutes in 2013). Visits from mobile device users more than doubled over 2012, reinforcing our plans to move to a responsive (mobile-friendly) site.

The surge in video results and in visits from mobile devices aren’t surprising: they parallel global Internet, content consumption, and technology trends years in the making. Keeping abreast of specific trends within those technology arcs, and responding in a timely fashion to them, has enabled The Atlas Society to become more competitive and has raised the profile of the organization and its content.

Load time and page speed metrics (which are directly related to viewership results) indicate we edged out direct and indirect competitors—even other Drupal sites known industry-wide for their speed, like The Economist and big-budget sites like CNN.com . As we were collecting and analyzing these site performance metrics, we were busy implementing three new technologies to boost site speed further. When it comes to online delivery of content, as with all businesses, there is no "arriving"—instead, there's a need for continual improvement and adaptation.

When we switched to Drupal in 2010 as our content management system, we knew it had a great track record in facilitating the best possible results in search engine optimization. Prior to the site launch in 2010, an SEO strategy was devised and implemented. That strategy ranged from the choice of Drupal, down to specific modules, and coding on thousands of pages of content. Some of that coding is static, some is added every time a piece of content in developed. And we're constantly scanning the industry for the best tools, strategies, and tactics, to further boost the visibility and performance of our online initiatives. So, while we can't share our "secret sauce," the recipe continues to yield strong results, and the ingredients are always changing. This is all in service of the "main dish" of course: the content.

So what exciting things are ahead in 2014? If you haven't received our Annual Report or the latest member letter from our intrepid CEO  Aaron Day, contact us at tas@atlassociety.org. If you'd like to contact Aaron directly to discuss organization intitiatives planned for the new year, you can reach him at aday@atlassociety.org.

As always, we're grateful and inspired by the partnership that we hold with you, our supporters. You actions in supporting TAS financially, as well as sharing TAS content, emailing articles to friends, posting reviews of our books on Amazon.com, rating our content pages, or commenting on the pages of this site, all contribute to and are key to our success.

[Data sources: Google Analytics, YouTube analytics, Wistia analytics. Site performance data from Site Auditor and Google, via Raven SEO Tools]

EXPLORA:

Countdown for matching campaign by Aaron Day
"Our donors have been so impressed with our progress that they have committed to match up to $200K in donations if we raise $200K new or increased donations from a broad public campaign to increase general donor support and engagement. I’m writing to ask for your support to help us achieve an even wider impact.  A gift of $500 would be worth $1000 if received December 31. "

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