Statistically, You’ll Never Read This

Some 95 percent of blogs will ultimately die from neglect, or so reported the New York Times this week:

Photo credit: Andre Charland

“According to a 2008 survey by Technorati… only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned.”

The article inspired me to do some quick Googling to find what else fails 95 percent of the time. (I often get “inspired” this way when I should be working…). I discovered that if Google is any measure – and it isn’t – 95 percent also describes the rate at which most home-based businesses allegedly fail. It’s also the percentage of people who lose weight and (supposedly) gain it back again.

Snap!

I thought, “Hey, I’ve lost weight, and then gained it back. And, I have a home-based freelance business that’s been on the verge of failure two, three – shoot, who even counts anymore?”

This is my problem with statistics. They can create a false sense of credibility, or worse. Even so, statistics make an attractive tool for writers because readers love them. Numbers are specific, which makes them inviting hooks on which to hang an article or an argument. But, as concrete as they sound, numbers can still be easily dismissible abstractions.

Consider this one:

The Social Security Administration calculates three in 10 workers entering the work force today will become disabled before they retire.

I was asked to use that stat when I was writing a brochure for disability insurance. If you write business copy for insurance clients, expect to see a lot of this sort of statistic because it inspires fear, and fear sells.

Fortunately, my client agreed with me that a common response to fear is to simply ignore the source (i.e. the brochure). Another is to displace it (e.g. disability is something that happens to “other people”). Either way, the result would be the same: business copy that failed to connect or inspire action.

Statistics are like co-dependent girlfriends: They need to be in a relationship to feel effective. (In characteristic Manhattanite fashion, the Times reporter compared the failure rate of blogs to that of restaurants.). It isn’t enough, for instance, to suggest your odds of being disabled are essentially one in three. Frankly, those are odds I can accept because my brain automatically dismisses them by applying some comforting contextual tweaks:

• 1 to 3 odds that I’ll be disabled someday = 3 to 1 odds that I won’t, and
• There’s a 100% certainty that paying for disability insurance will eat into my disposable income for golf lessons

To be an effective writer, you need to provide a context for statistics, or else your reader will find one. The target market for disability income providers is generally affluent, successful professionals. Educated, hard-working, go-getters. People who often measure success in terms of personal income. Considering this, I balanced the ubiquitous fear-based statistics with the following paragraph:

Consider what’s at stake…
Gambling with the likelihood of a disability isn’t just about the odds, it’s what you have on the table.
Remember, your income is the foundation of your financial security – all of your assets, the lifestyle you enjoy, the future goals you strive for…

So, will this blog eventually fail? Depends how you define failure, or success. The Times article quotes Technorati’s CEO, Richard Jalichandra, as saying:

“…probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs [are] generating most of the page views… There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

Good enough for me. I write to better understand my craft and to practice my chops. There’s a lot more about writing for and about business that I have yet to learn. The author and his one reader welcome you along for the ride.