Greetings my friends and I hope that this broadcast doesn’t find you having what they call a “Manic Monday” (queue the hit by The Bangles if you must). The weather outside is rather nice with the skies being clear and a moderate temperature that might find you only needing a hoodie and a baseball cap but hey I am not here to be the weatherman I am here instead to share some pretty awesome news. Today marks the 13th Anniversary of “The Chronicles of Piercing Ken” Lifestyle Blog. We’ve even got a new birthday logo to use going forward thanks to our stalwart Art Director Joe Kaufman. Now many still refer to this as “Piercing Ken” based on its wealth of social media profiles and that is fine by me at this point in our history. I’m happy to report that the publishing regimen is pretty regular and as the world moves further away from the pandemic times and gets more back to what we used to experience during the Before Times I’ve tried to expand on the level of coverage and news items. So, thirteen years whew! Let’s briefly discuss.

With the lifestyle site reaching its 13th birthday I can proudly say that its been a professional voice for more than half of its online existence. Some of the readership might recall my saying that this was never the plan and initially this was aimed at being a place to showcase photos and thoughts that I didn’t want to relegate only to Facebook. I’ve never been one of those people who adds everyone that they meet to their profile and while its suitable for branding, the network is not a favorite of mine in the personal sense. Shifting to professional vibe from personal was easy as I was so adept at this already from running the PiercingMetal website. The list of our reps has grown exponentially which leaves me with sources for so much content and while some feel that less is more, as a website publisher I maintain the view that more is more. The heaviest areas of focus that have been our last year of publishing are the Pop Culture films items where I’ve adopted the same premise that I do on PiercingMetal.com – That means I will also showcase a promotional posters piece along with trailer and day of release items. I’ve also expaned the kinds of awards show narratives since those make for wonderful tags that only upgrade the Google searchability for the site. The last time I checked Google with the phrase “Piercing Ken” the page was full of listings but the top “6” choices to explore was this branding. That’s kind of awesome if you ask me. Creatively speaking we are just shy of the 1500th post and have achieved more than 230K Pages Viewed for this calendar year alone. Based on a very hectic schedule for the other website I am unable to post on this one as often as I’d like but its no less important as a site under my command. Truth be told, its been more closely tied to PiercingMetal than ever before and its referenced often on that sites social media side of the fence. I called this a different kind of busy and speaking of social media…

Our social media efforts have largely remained the same as I still maintain a presence on all of the major ones for brand and use them on a very regular basis but never enough to drive you away from the content. Sadly, the Facebook Page and the Twitter profile don’t have as much traction as I’d like to see them having and since the followers aren’t growing substantially I am less motivated to post anything to them. So if you are an avid Facebooker and Twitter user and enjoy what this site is all about please be sure to follow those accounts. When we see you out there raising the numbers and engaged with the posts I know that I need to dedicate more time on the network. The promising areas remain with the Instagram and the YouTube Channel. Last year I mentioned that I was using them a lot and well, I’ve pretty much doubled the efforts on the both of them since that announcement. One thing that has been really ramped up is the use of a TikTok profile which has been created using my Ken Pierce Media angle. From this TikTok I announce what I am doing the video for (be it Piercing Ken or PiercingMetal) and then said clip is shared to the most relevent social media that applies. A TikTok that mentions my doing Piercing Ken stuff goes to that Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and YouTube and the same for PiercingMetal. In today’s social media conscious framework I cannot emphasize the importance of your participation any more than saying that the quiet observer stuff is brand killing. You as a user have to do a little work since sites like this are unsupported by major advertising so you need to check and see if there are posts. Clicking like or the hearts or a thumbs up generally tells the algorithm that this is up your alley. To have a website with 500 Facebook Followers and yet more than 200K Pages viewed in five months time is just mind-blowing to me. Less engagement means less chance to host giveaways or share cool information before the others and so on. I’ll have all of the main links presented for you on a Linktree which is something that I’ve enjoyed using for the last few months. Your participation on these things and sharing along with your friends helps keep the content vibrant. We are still self-funded and our Kofi link let’s you leave us a tip if you are so inclined. Believe me that everything helps.

Thank you so very much for the continued support and attention over these last thirteen years. I’d share my plans as I begin the quest to fourteen but I honestly don’t have them as the time of this writing. Let’s just leave it as the larger plan is to be as steady as she goes with the delivery and the continuing to surprise with the published content. There is less of a rigid format here and I am fine with that since its flexible and free from worrying about doing a certain thing or another. As I closed with the last time around I can say that the idea databank is building bigger as this wraps up. “Thank You”, “Kiitos”, “Gracias”, “Merci”, “Arigato”, “Shukran”, “Danke”, “Toda”, “Efharisto”, “Grazie”, Spasibo” and “Takk”.

Piercing Ken Linktree: https://www.linktr.ee/piercingken

Shameless Plug: PiercingMetal’s 18th Anniversary Post Can Be Found HERE