Fluco Blog nets 1,900 likes and 800 follows

PALMYRA — Fluco Blog has taken tremendous strides to expand its following to great heights with 1,900 Facebook likes and 800 twitter followers.

“It is incredible the support the Fluvanna community has given Fluco Blog since launching in 2009. This has been a wild experience and I am eternally grateful for the following,” said executive editor Bryan Rothamel.

Fluco Blog launched on October 27, 2009 with a goal of occasional writings on happenings in the county, both sports and news. Quickly it rose to a full service news media organization with regular articles from School Board and Board of Supervisors meetings, sporting events and community events.

“My original goal for Fluco Blog was 25 Facebook followers. The first four in that ‘Quest for 25′ were related to me and we worked together. Once it got to 25 in the first week, I didn’t know what to do. I started sweating once the site hit 400 and the growth has been continual,” said Rothamel.

Since the beginning Fluco Blog has steadily grown in readership and followers. Rothamel suspended operations of Fluco Blog in 2011 to pursue other business opportunities. He resumed operations in November 2012.

The expansion of support has been steady since returning. Fluco Blog has added 200 new likes on the Facebook page. The biggest growth has been in the last two months with 150 new followers being added to the ranks.

Using Facebook’s metrics, Fluco Blog has reached 10,000 people each of the last two weeks. Also, there have been 325 to 400 people talking about Fluco Blog in each of the first 12 days of March (Facebook’s metric is delayed). Fluco Blog’s nearest competitor hit 100 once in the same span.

“I started researching and preparing how to run a 21st century news organization in college as my keystone undergraduate project in 2009. I started planning that in 2007 when I discussed why twitter was a good thing with my journalism professor. My classmates and my professor thought I was crazy until it blew up in 2008.

“The first thing I did after I set up FlucoBlog.com was the twitter and Facebook pages. Our intentional work on social media has allowed Fluco Blog to to be as multidimensional as we can,” said Rothamel.

Fluco Blog can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FlucoBlog and on twitter at www.twitter.com/FlucoBlog.