By Gini Dietrich
Eight years ago today, we launched a little blog called Spin Sucks.
Our goal? To figure out what this blogging thing was and see if it had any merit for clients.
We had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t have an editorial mission or vision. We didn’t understand writing for the web. We had no clue about SEO. And we were afraid to take a stance on anything.
Little did we know this whole blogging thing would take off and we’d be in for the ride of our lives.
The History of Spin Sucks
At the time, I think there were 17 or 18 of us and it was the job of everyone to write content.
There wasn’t a consistent voice. There wasn’t a consistent message. Heck, there wasn’t even a consistent publishing schedule.
But we all wrote.
We wrote about the government’s ban of video news releases.
We wrote about PR flacks.
We wrote about PR in 2006 (which, actually, would make a fun blog post to see how much—or if—it’s changed).
And we wrote content from conferences.
Just looking at those posts in our admin makes me crazy.
There aren’t any categories or tags or images or author or optimization or more than 200 words or, well, anything besides some words on a page.
The Very First Blog Post
The very first blog post was an introduction to the blog.
Back then we called it FADS—The Fight Against Destructive Spin.
We didn’t link to that quote by Rosario and I have zero idea who the Ray is mentioned in parenthesis.
It was published at 11:35 p.m. and no one read it.
In fact, there are no documented visitors until July 23, 2008…nearly two years after launch (we had eight visitors that day!).
Today there are 18 linkbacks on that first post, which people have used throughout the years as an example of what not to do when launching a blog.
Today’s Stats
We’ve certainly come a long way.
Today we have:
- 2,777 published blog posts
- 133,841 comments
- Nearly 30,000 fans
- A page authority of 72
- A domain authority of 66
- 52,583 links coming to the site
We have been named the number three PR blog in the world by Cision and the number two PR blog in the world by Inky Bee.
We won the Reader’s Choice award three years running…until it was retired.
It afforded me the ability to write a book of the same name.
And we have one of the most engaged communities in the blogosphere today.
It certainly has come a long way from not having any clue what we were doing…and embarrassingly so.
Thank You!
I lovingly refer to the community here as the Crazies.
You not only read and share (and share and share and share), you take the time to write blog posts within the comments, lovingly point out my typos, professionally debate the merits on the topic of the day, push each other’s buttons, and make fun of one another (or combine forces to make fun of me).
Some of you have flown across countries to meet one another. Others of you have sprung dating relationships after meeting in the comments here. And yet others of you have built lifelong friendships…all from hanging out on this little blog that published its first post at 11:35 p.m. on September 11, 2006.
Thank you.
Thank you to each and every one of you.
Thank you to those of you who spend a little part of your day in the comments here.
Thank you to those of you who read and email me privately.
Thank you to those of you who share with your own networks.
Thank you to those of you who have contributed content throughout the years.
Thank you to those of you who subscribe and read every, single day.
Thank you to those of you who send me blog post ideas, videos for Gin and Topics, or get me riled up and on my soapbox.
Thank you to my team who has supported my every whim… “I just finished a bike ride and I was thinking…” (they love that phrase).
Thank you for the last eight years.
Happy Birthday, Spin Sucks!
P.S. I always feel a little strange celebrating a birthday on the day the United States of America changed forever. If I were to do it again, I’d wait just one day to take the site live.