I have been following online trends for years. As for the slow time on email lists & web, July/August and November/December are slow months. This is due to holidays/vacations months. The busiest months are Sept., Oct., Jan.-March. Sept-Oct is due to Halloween and schools/colleges going back into session. The dead of winter months are the second busiest time...especially in locations that receive a lot of snow. This trend has occurred every year since the mid-1990s.
Current events really do take its toll on how much time we spend online. After 9-11 you could hear a pin drop on email lists for months. All of the costuming email lists were so quiet. Since 2008, when the economy started getting bad, email lists have been receiving less traffic. A lot of people are still out of work. People were sending a lot of posts from work. People may have backed off of doing so, probably scared they might lose their jobs if caught. Many businesses are also monitoring employees emails too. Two of my adult kids do not have internet in their homes and do all internet over their smart phones. Presently, I am on six email lists that are active, USITT costumers, h-costume, 19thCWomen, h-needlework, professional DC webmasters, and a genealogy list. I know that treadle-on is still very active...a little too active for me. Loved it, but there were just too many posts to keep up with. I keep up with Facebook several times a day because it is on my phone and laptop. I don't receive email on my phone because of 300+ spam messages that I receive a day. I have personal and business FB pages. Some of my costuming friends float on both pages. We had a fun fashion/costuming chat back and forth on my personal page Friday night. I don't know why, but a lot of costuming people find me first on my personal page. Then I send them a private message inviting them to "like" my business page. I can't post on others FB pages as my business which is a pain. My business FB page relates to fashion and any kind of costume. There, I pass along a lot of events, job announcements, and interesting webpages. I don't want business FB page to be just about my business. Once in a while, I have a contest and give away something. As for the FB length problem, I post the limit of words and inform people to look in the comments area for more info. I don't get into blogs. I think they are great for some people, but I just never got into it. BTW, from the DC professional IT email list...blogs have been on their way out for over a year. As for sewing...it is the #1 hobby for women this past year. More women are sewing their own clothes or reconstructing clothes than in the past few decades. Second-hand clothing stores are doing well too. Some of these increases are due to the antique type and fashion designer shows on TV. American Pickers is coming out with a show for interior design that starts this month. Another trend to look at is an increase of stay-at-home parents in the 20-30 y.o. demographic. I can go through my personal FB friends and surprised by this increase...and a good many are sewing! This group are not float overs for costumers...these are friends of my kids and nieces. As for traveling...According to AAA more people are traveling on vacations this year than in the past two years. This was a good indicator of people have adjusted to higher gas prices and such. I do expect after last week's events with the economy that people are leery again. Maybe you can contact the costuming events for some stats. I know Comic-Con was a huge success last month. Dragon*Con is expecting between 35,000 to 50,000 people over Labor Day weekend. If I get to go to Dragon*Con, I will let you know. I didn't notice any change in the amount of people at Costume-Con for the past three years...but the people in the know are on h-costume. Maybe they can chime with their stats. As for those of us who have costuming businesses, especially online, it is always a race to keep up with what is IN & OUT. We always have to reinvent the wheel to stay afloat. At this moment, the social media seems to be the way to go. Penny Ladnier, owner The Costume Gallery Websites www.costumegallery.com 15 websites of fashion, costume, and textile history FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Costume-Gallery-Websites/107498415961579 _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
