LMP Blog: some stats and stuff from July 2021 to June 2023

We haven’t reported on our stats for a couple of years, so how are we doing?  Our last update was back in July 2021, so we have a lot of catching up. 

TL;DR

The LMP Blog has more users than ever more subscribers than ever, but people look at fewer articles. 

In the last 12 months (Apr22-Mar23)

• The number of people who subscribe to weekly LMP mailings has increased by 8% -from 612 to 668
• Unique users of the LMP Blog have grown by about 10% to 22,000 people a year 
• The number of sessions has also increased by 8% to 29,800 and is nearly back to the number of sessions we saw in 20/21
• Over the last year, people have looked at 7% more pages than they did in 2021/22, but this is still the second lowest ever

What happened in 2021/22? – The number of page views drops off a cliff. 

We’re not sure. This period marks the tail end of the Pandemic. Unsurprisingly, we got many more new folks and repeat visitors during the pandemic because there was much more news. But we don’t know how to explain the drop-off in interest in 2021/22. Perhaps what we posted was less interesting. Many news outlets went out of their way to post weird content in 2021.    

Who looks after the Blog??

For the last few years, the LMP Comms team has maintained the Blog: Richard and Jasmine at Refugee Council, with help from Ally at PAFRAS, Jenny, Carla and Sam at the Council and Jon at LASSN. Jasmine’s had a lot on recently, and Richard has moved to Solace – so we have a vacancy on the team.  

Who pays for this?

If 257 blogs are published each year (each one takes 15 minutes to write, upload, edit and post), then this amounts to an annual contribution of 65 hours of unpaid labour. Paid at the real living wage (£10.90/hr), this amounts to an in-kind donation of at least £700.

Since the start, LASSN has maintained the LMP Blog as part of its contribution to the sector – and it costs between £350 and £400 a year for hosting & security and £340 for Mailchimp – so about £700 a year.

In March 2023, after a public appeal, Leeds City Council’s Communities Team generously awarded £700, covering these costs entirely. 

Why all that security?

We’ve blogged about this before when malicious attacks were at their peak. Things still aren’t great, but they are still much better than they were before.   

Cyber-attacks on LMP in July 2021

Cyber-attacks on LMP in July 2023

Thank you to everyone who uploads, shares and reads this stuff. And for the people who help pay the bills. It’s you that makes the LMP Blog what it is