What do you think about doing Hubs about politics?

1. 78

   CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years ago

   HP has always said do evergreen hubs. Politics  is certainly not evergreen. it has a short "shelf-life" if it is about a current event. And since I would mostly write about U.S. politics, they might have very little appeal in other countries.
   
   I use my blogs to write about politics, but I have been thinking about using HP because it is a much better platform in terms of ease of use and being able to format a nice presentation.
   
   Would using HP for these flash-in-the-pan type of hubs lower my hubscore? Would it dilute my brand?
   
   What if I created a new account using a pen-name for these kind of hubs? If I did this, what are the issues involved with having a second account.
   
   If you have been doing political hubs, what has your experience been?
   
   Thanks for your feedback.

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   1. 81

      kenneth averyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      The only thing I see about political hubs is that the research to get the facts from the factual sources would be a monster piece of work. Otherwise, every other word would be "alleged."
      Merry CHRISTmas, Catherine.

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   2. 94

      PegCole17posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Personally, I'm at the saturation point with politics after the past eighteen months of controversy, hatred and misrepresentation of the issues by the media and folks on either side. When I see a political post, I have begun to avoid the article unless I am inexplicably compelled to read it and then it usually leaves me unsettled and wishing I hadn't read it. Perhaps that is an isolated opinion.

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2. 75

   Barbara Kayposted 7 years ago

   I tried one on here just once. Since it got little traffic, I never tried again. Politics is a much hotter topic now, so you might have a different experience.

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3. 70

   clivewilliamsposted 7 years ago

   Politics only matters when there is controversy. But in general....nobody pretty much cares for those hubs. If you find a bunch of lies to write about that turns people's head and get there attention like in the Last American Election Campaign well you will get a bit of traffic. But it is who brings the lies first and who have been lying longer will reap the best benefits.

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   1. 78

      CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I'm specifically interested in whether it hurts my hubbber score. I can generate views by using social media. My flog posts get a few thousand views because I promote them on social media. But once they are no longer current, I stop promoting, and I stop posting. I write a new one.
      
      Obviously, many of the people HP are going to disagree with my point of view.  Will my followers unfollow me? That is one reason to start a new account under a new name. Will political hubs because they are not evergreen hurt my hubber score. I wouldn't like to take them down when they are no longer current because you never know when an old issue will be current again.  If they got unfeatured for lack of traffic, they could generate traffic and get featured again if the issue got "hot" again. But I could end up with a lot of unfeatured hubs.
      
      If anyone has done political hubs, what hub scores did they get? Did it seem to affect your hubber score? Did you lose or gain followers? Did it seem to affect your hubs on other topics?
      
      I don't get too many views from other hubbers these days. My views come from social media and google and other search engines.

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      1. 70

         clivewilliamsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         You will loose and gain. As the political fence is always left or right

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4. 60

   My Two Penniesposted 7 years ago

   You could give commentary like I do, focusing on trending topics. Popular or controversial topics still draw consistent traffic, even after a topic is less in the moment.

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   1. 78

      CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Two Pennies I looke at your profile. I see most of your have have zero or very few comments.Is that because there are very few views. Part of what I want to know is if politics is the right platform for HubPages. Of course, there are so many articles on politics it may just be hard to break through no matter what the platform.

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      1. 60

         My Two Penniesposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I didn't realize that having 92 and 52 on two alone, with very limited exterior promotion was "zero or few." Haven't even been on here a complete month and was well over 1000 views in less than two weeks of articles and only just now added my 10th hub. Guess it depends on your perspective. Seems most of yours, with the exception of a handful, garner between 10- 30 something.

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5. 98

   daydreamsposted 7 years ago

   I'd be interested in knowing how well they do too. I have always avoided writing about politics on here, but lately I have been thinking about writing about some more political stuff, but I was wondering about writing some hubs to try and set current events in historical context based on actual facts. (Partly because I keep seeing "discussions" on this site where some people post stuff that has no basis in reality).
   
   I wouldn't unfollow someone just because they expressed political views I disagreed with, although I might do if I thought their views were offensive and based on prejudice and intolerance if that helps.

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   1. 78

      CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks daydreams. You have provided good and useful info. I never write in an offensive way. If opinions are expressed, I try to be fair and also polite.

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6. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   I think you would lose followers if you started writing political pieces, because it's such a controversial subject.  If you write frequently, some people won't like their email notifications clogged up with Hubs they disagree with.  So yes, I would start a new account if you want to write about political topics.
   
   Political Hubs will do just as well, or as badly, as political posts on a blog. The difference is that they'll go unFeatured if they don't get enough traffic - but by that time the news is probably over anyway. If you notice that topic coming back into the news again, you can edit it to update it and it will become Featured again, and you can benefit from the new traffic.   Use the Stellar Hub guidelines to give you the best chance of getting those Hubs moved to the niche site for politics
   
   If HubberScore and followers matter so much to you, then I'm not sure what to advise.  They are completely irrelevant if you're hoping to earn income on HubPages but I do recognise that some people like them and set store by achieving high numbers.
   
   To explain:  if you want to earn income on HubPages then followers are barely relevant, because they are your fellow writers on HubPages and their traffic is not how you make money - for one thing, they don't click on ads.   HubberScore also makes no difference because it's based on your community participation as much as anything else, it doesn't help you get more readers in any way.

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   1. 78

      CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you Marrissa. These scores are so confounding. Why have scores if they do't mean anything?
      
      I think I am leaning to doing a new account. If I don't like how it is working out, I can just take the account down.
      
      Can the two accounts be melded in some way so that the combined earnings count towards payout or will they be separate.
      
      I only write political stuff when I feel moved to do it.Now that the election is over, I might not be doing any.
      
      As I said, just wondering how it has worked out for people who are doing it.

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      1. 86

         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Yes the scores are confounding!   Like I said, your HubberScore is based on your community activity, plus the average of your HubScores, so it can't be used as a measure of quality. 
         
         I think they're still there because the owner of the site likes them!   But they do encourage Hubbers to be active on the community so I guess that's important to HP.

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7. 84

   mattforteposted 7 years ago

   You are attempting to emulate the trials of King Sisyphus.
   
   It doesn't matter how many hits you will supposedly get from sharing your posts on social media, if they are going to die down and be worthless. You would be reinventing the wheel over and over again, to no avail.
   
   The reason they focus on "evergreen" hubs is because you can write it and forget about it. I haven't written on this site for years, but I still get regular payouts. If you want to be successful, you need to follow the basic formula. Write a hub that will always get views, make it 'informational' not 'news'. For each hub you write that can continue to get views for years without the need for updating/modifying, your gross income increases.
   By doing this, you create a foundation that will allow you to hopefully in the future generate a regular, passive income. If you on the other hand do as you are proposing, having to write something new each time the previous one dies down...then you are guaranteed to never get anywhere and eventually suffer from burnout.
   
   The only exception to this rule is if you can somehow garner hundreds of thousands of hits to each article before it dies down. But if you could do this, then you certainly wouldn't belong on HubPages.

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   1. 78

      CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      malforte: You are absolutely right. I try to write evergreen informational hubs. The political hubs would not be for payout, but because if I don't set my views down, I might explode.
      
      I have not yet struck on "the formula."  i guess not a lot of people are interested in the things I am interested in or maybe too many people are interested in them so my hubs can't rise to the top of the search engine lists.
      
      However, a few of my hubs are getting steady hits day in and day out. They are on the niche sites. Yet others also on the niche sites get only a few hits.

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8. 92

   mactaversposted 7 years ago

   There's a big difference between opinions and information.  Opinions are personal, but information backed up by photos, statistics and examples are of more value to the Hub community.

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   1. 76

      dreamaserveposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you great point!

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9. 55

   rjbattyposted 7 years ago

   Catherine: 
   
   I'd be wary of posting politically-related Hubs because of the reason you stated -- if could alienate some part of the following you've already established.  It's sort of like publishing Hubs about religion.  I haven't tried to publish anything political because the media is indeed saturated with the subject.  However, I think if an individual has a unique, unbiased perspective on some aspect of the political process -- something that stretches outside/beyond the usual news, such a Hub could be very well received.  If the Hub merely falls into the category of being an opinion, it's actually not worth the effort (in my opinion).  In other words, if I had a philosophical insight into our political process that hasn't been captured elsewhere, I'd be tempted to "share" it. 
   
   I sort of see HubPages as a place where people can express singularly unique intellectual ideas and avoid the day-to-day ups and downs of political chat. 
   
   I like your idea of creating a second identity -- if I felt a dire need to express my political opinions/observations.  You could do that (I guess) and see how it goes.  The results of that experiment in itself might lead to an interesting Hub.

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   1. 78

      CatherineGiordanoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      rjbatty; I think I might go ahead and do it under a second identity. I can't say they will be unbiased, but I'll try to make them on subjects that are more than one day's news. I like your idea of reporting back on how it works out.
      
      As for religion, I write on that a lot. I think it has gained me some followers, but probably lost me more than I gained.However, my religious hubs are some of my successful in terms of views.

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10. 86

    DzyMsLizzyposted 7 years ago

    Personally, I detest politics.  The recent events have reinforced my opinion on the matter.
    
    What few articles I've written on the matter were more or less "evergreen," in that they dealt with the process, the existing laws, changes that could be made, etc., rather than a current events standpoint.
    
    They still garnered little or no traffic, so I did not persist.

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11. 61

    TessSchlesingerposted 7 years ago

    I think it depends on what you write about. If  you're writing about issues, they blow over in a few days or a few weeks. If you write about concepts, they're evergreen.

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