Inside LabourStart

Ten days ago we had 120 Facebook users “liking” our page; today it’s over 500.  Growth has been very good and I expect this to continue.

The next time we launch a major online campaign, people will not only see the Facebook page box on the new landing page (currently also displayed on our home page in English), but in the email they will receive from us, it will encourage them to visit the Facebook page.

Why does this matter?

Because, apparently, Pages are great tools for getting the word out about LabourStart in a way that our Group on Facebook isn’t.  There’s a discussion of the differences between Pages and Groups here.

So, if you haven’t yet done so, please check out our Facebook Page and make to sure to click on the ‘Like’ button.

Our Facebook page went from 0 to 117 likes in the first 24 hours online.

Yesterday’s mass mailing focussed on the IUF’s victory in Indonesia against Nestle – driving a substantial amount of traffic to the IUF website as a result.

The number of submissions to the Labour Video of the Year has stalled.  Only 2 new submissions came in as a result of the mass mailing.

17 hours after our mass mailing went out and only 10% of the list has opened the message.  MailChimp claims that it’s normal for 20-30% to do so.  Our best result in the last month in a mailing to the English list was to get 18% to open.  Any ideas on how we can improve the open rate?  (It’s higher for mailings to our correspondents – as many as 24% will open a mailing.  Still, that means 3 out of 4 correspondents don’t open their emails from us.)

We’ve had a Facebook Group for several years now, but there are certain advantages to having a Facebook Page as well — another way of raising our profile.  I’ve just created such a Page and have embedded code onto our front page in English to show it, to allow people to ‘like’ it and to show our latest announcements.  Think of this as ‘Inside LabourStart’ but for the masses, not just for correspondents.

Here are the totals with the changes since the end of last month in brackets:

Mailing lists – subscribers: 76,177 [+3,774]
LabourStart’s English language mailing list: 63,403 60,240 [+3,163]

Unique visits to the site this month: 466,615 540,582 (-73,967)
Page views this month: 1,318,172 (-209,368)

Popular language home pages (last month in brackets):

* English 41,236 (44,183)
* French 5,707 (5,084)
* Norwegian 5,306 (5,033)
* Finnish 2,281 (2,121)
* Polish 1,670 (2,016)
* Russian 1,340 (1,851)
* Dutch 1,232 (1,523)

UnionBook 2.0 – members: 3,379 [+285]
Facebook – members of LabourStart group: 4,313 [+163]
Twitter – followers: 3,114 [+202]
Correspondents: 855 [+11]
Union group on Flickr: 617 [+22]
LinkedIn – members of LabourStart group: 300 [+24]

Some highlights from the mailing lists — the other large groups are:

Norwegian 2,753 [+10]
French 2,452 [+67]
Spanish 1,591 [+303]
German 854 [+8]
Turkish 694 [+179]
Italian 538 [+6]
Russian 498 [+3]
Polish 303 [no change]
Portuguese 253 [+11]
Chinese 245 [+1]
Dutch 236 [no change]
Swedish 228 [+3]

Here are the totals with the changes since the end of last month in brackets:

Mailing lists – subscribers: 72,403 [+1,620]
LabourStart’s English language mailing list: 60,240  [+1,322]

Unique visits to the site this month: 540,582 (-11,153)
Page views this month: 1,527,540 (-409,670)

Popular language home pages (last month in brackets):

* English 44,183 (41,748)
* French 5,084 (4,676)
* Norwegian 5,033 (6,768)
* Finnish 2,121 (2,069)
* Russian 1,851 (1,605)
* Polish 2,016 (1.833)
* Dutch 1,523 (1,280)

UnionBook 2.0 – members: 3,094  [+289]
Facebook – members of LabourStart group: 4,150  [+220]
Twitter – followers: 2,912 2,790 [+122]
Correspondents: 844 [+16]
Union group on Flickr: 595 [+2]
LinkedIn – members of LabourStart group: 276 [+39]

Some highlights from the mailing lists — the other large groups are:

Norwegian 2,743  [+19]
French 2,385 [+37]
Spanish 1,288  [+21]
German 846 [+6]
Italian 532  [+3]
Turkish 515  [+25]
Russian 495 [+9]
Polish 303 [+1]
Chinese 244 [+1]
Portuguese 242 [+4]
Dutch 236 [+3]
Swedish 225 [-2]
Danish 160 [+1]

Today I did a mail blitz to all the above lists –

• Correspondents were given 10 tips and tricks to encourage them to be more active and involved
• UnionBook members were urged to help us recruit the next 28 members to bring the social network up to 3,000 members
• Supporters of our three most recent campaigns on Facebook were encouraged to check out our regular news pages regarding those countries – Vietnam, India and Colombia

Comrades in Turkey have offered to host the LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference there this year — we are currently in discussions about exactly, when, where and what it will cost.

At Derek’s suggestion, I mailed to a number of our smaller lists to encourage people to take part in our survey of trade  union use of the net, to join our Facebook group, to join UnionBook, and to sign up as correspondents.  Here are the results after three days: Another 149 people filled in the survey; 102 more joined our group on Facebook; 39 signed up to use UnionBook; and 10 volunteered to be LabourStart correspondents.

I attended NetRoots UK last weekend – wasn’t invited to speak, and found only a handful of trade unionists among the hundreds of participants.

At a training session yesterday for activists in the ILO staff union, I showed them traffic statistics for their new website – and we found that every single visitor to the site that day came through a link on LabourStart.  Andrew Casey had posted a link to a news story on their site which was, apparently, being clicked on.

Here are the totals with the changes since the end of last month in brackets:

Mailing lists – subscribers: 70,783 [+111]
LabourStart’s English language mailing list: 58,918 [-86]

N.B. As I was away from 12.12 through 31.12, the mailing lists have not been updated with participants from our most recent campaigns, nor those who voted in the Labour Photo of the Year competition. These additional numbers will be reflected at the end of January in next month’s report.

Unique visits to the site this month: 551,735 (-1,415)
Page views this month: 1,937,210 (+481,370)

Popular language home pages (last month in brackets):

* English 41,748 (47,870)
* Norwegian 6,768 (6,959)
* French 4,676 (4,583)
* Finnish 2,069 (2,456)
* Russian 1,605 (2,125)
* Polish 1.833 (1,838)
* Dutch 1,280 (1,414)
* Italian 843 (1,122)

UnionBook 2.0 – members: 2,805 [+322]
Facebook – members of LabourStart group: 3,930 [+43]
Twitter – followers: 2,790 [+103]
Correspondents: 828 [+3]
Union group on Flickr: 593 [+1]
LinkedIn – members of LabourStart group: 237 [no change]

Some highlights from the mailing lists — the other large groups are:

Norwegian 2,724 [-7]
French 2,348 [-1]
Spanish 1,267 [-1]
German 840 [+36]
Italian 529 [-2]
Russian 486 [no change]
Turkish 490 [+5]
Polish 302 [no change]
Portuguese 238 [no change]
Chinese 243 [no change]
Dutch 233 [+1]
Swedish 227 [-1]
Danish 159 [no change]

Here are the totals with the changes since the end of last month in brackets:

Mailing lists – subscribers: 70,672 [+628]
LabourStart’s English language mailing list: 59,004  [+353]

Unique visits to the site this month: 553,150 (-5,254)
Page views this month: 1,455,840 (+37,612)

Popular language home pages (new this month):

• English 47,870
• Norwegian 6,959
• French 4,583
• Finnish 2,456
• Russian 2,125
• Polish 1,838
• Dutch 1,414
• Italian 1,122

UnionBook 2.0 – members: 2,483 [+401]
Facebook – members of LabourStart group: 3,887  [+73]
Twitter – followers: 2,687 [+81]
Correspondents: 825 [+10]
Union group on Flickr: 592 [+9]
LinkedIn – members of LabourStart group: 237 [+35]

Some highlights from the mailing lists — the other large groups are:

Norwegian 2,731 [+6]
French 2,349 [+83]
Spanish 1,268 [+9]
German 804 [+1]
Italian 531 [+9]
Russian 486 [+8]
Turkish 485 [+10]
Polish 302 [-2]
Portuguese 238 [+1]
Chinese 243 [+7]
Dutch 232 [no change]
Swedish 228 [-1]
Danish 159 [-2]