Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, let us first express some gratitude.
Amplitude readers in 2021 were more engaged, more responsive, and more numerous than ever. For the first time, our digital audience surpassed our print readership—130K+ of you visited our website, nearly doubling our 2020 traffic. You also engaged more heavily with our weekly newsletter, registering all-time highs in open rates and click-through rates. And you spent more time and shared more of your opinions on our social media channels—we didn’t go viral or anything, but the numbers are climbing and your voices are louder and more diverse. (For those haven’t followed us yet, we’re on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.)
The growth in Amplitude’s audience is a sure sign of strength and vigor in the broader limb-loss community. That’s exciting, and it’s immensely gratifying. From our entire team: Thank you for including us in the conversation. We look forward to deepening the relationship in 2022.
So, what did we learn about you in 2021? And what did we learn from you? Let’s begin with a look at the articles that drew the most eyeballs at our website this year (through 12/19):
MOST VIEWED ARTICLES IN 2021
1. Sex and Intimacy After Amputation
2. Locke & Key’s Eric Graise Steps Up and Speaks Out
3. The Coolest Couple on You Tube: Hunter and Tara
4. Five New Movies About Amputees
5. Gift Ideas for That Special Person With Limb Loss
6. Amputee Actor Zyra Gorecki: 10 Things to Know
7. Jeans for Amputees, by an Amputee
8. Ready to Wear: Amputee Fashion Tips
9. Amputees in Super Bowl Ads: G.O.A.T.
10. Putting Love to the Test: Amputation’s Effect on Relationships
11. Best Gifts for Amputees in 2020
12. Amputee Bicycling Hacks
Attentive readers will observe that many of the articles on this list were actually published in 2020 or earlier. The fact that they continued to draw traffic in 2021 attests to their searchability—people were finding these old articles largely on Google, which tells us lots of people are looking for information on these subjects. Broadly speaking, those subjects are: 1) sex and relationships; 2) movies and TV; 3) clothing and merchandise; and 4) sports.
If we limit ourselves to articles that were published during this calendar year, the plot thickens:
MOST VIEWED ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN 2021
1. Amputee Actor Zyra Gorecki: 10 Things to Know
2. Jeans for Amputees, by an Amputee
3. Amputees in Super Bowl Ads: G.O.A.T.
4. Smart Sockets for Amputees: The Next Big Thing?
5. Dan Aid Is Finding New Amputee Stories to Tell
6. Hemp Socket Gives Amputees a Material Advantage
7. Amputee Models to Watch at New York Fashion Week
8. Amputee Pole Dancers Fly High
9. Prosthetic Technology: The Future Is Now
10. SENSY Bionic Leg Gets Limited FDA Approval
11. Five Lessons About AMI Surgery
12. Ezra Frech Feels the Love
There’s still healthy interest in movies, TV, and clothes, but one big change jumps out: Nearly half of the 2021 articles that drew heavy traffic are about some form of technology related to limb loss. When we posted fresh content about sockets, prosthetics, and surgical techniques, a whole lot of you clicked. Duly noted.
Let’s peel back one more layer to see if anything else meets the eye. The two lists above reflect traffic from all sources, including Google, social media, the newsletter, our home page, and so forth. These various traffic streams reflect different pockets of readers who have disparate relationships with the amputee community. For example, someone who finds us by typing “Zyra Gorecki” into Google’s search bar may have no personal connection to limb loss—they might just be a La Brea fan—whereas someone who clicks on an article in our newsletter platform is probably a subscriber, and therefore is probably an amputee, prosthetist, or caregiver. If we limit ourselves to newsletter clicks—reflecting the preferences of our most highly committed readers—what trends leap to the fore?
Here are the articles that drew the most clicks via our newsletter platform:
MOST NEWSLETTER CLICKS IN 2021
1. Smart Sockets for Amputees: The Next Big Thing?
2. SENSY Bionic Leg Gets Limited FDA Approval
3. The Amputee Who Wrote the Constitution
4. Best Amputee Halloween Costumes of 2021
5. Jeans for Amputees, by an Amputee
6. Amputee Models to Watch at New York Fashion Week
7. Five Lessons About AMI Surgery
8. Hemp Socket Gives Amputees a Material Advantage
9. Why Phantom Limb Pain Treatments Don’t Work
10. Photo of the Year: Father-Son Embrace
11. Top Amputee Products for Limb Loss Awareness Month
12. Amputee Pole Dancers Fly High
Since this list only counts clicks that came directly from the newsletter, while excluding clicks from all other sources, the order of the articles on this list differs from the order on earlier lists. Here’s the big takeaway: Our most devoted readers gravitate most strongly toward articles about technology (ie, sockets, prosthetic limbs, and surgery). The rest of the articles on this list are hard to categorize—there’s a smattering of fashion and merch, and an assortment of one-offs. What’s interesting is what doesn’t appear: movies, TV, and sports are shut out. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that you flat-out dislike this type of content; articles about Zyra Gorecki, reality TV, and the Super Bowl drew lots of clicks and just missed appearing on this list. But overall, these subjects seem to appeal more to casual readers than to our core audience.
Only one article appears on all three of the “top articles” lists: Jeans for Amputees, by an Amputee. No matter what filter we put on our traffic, that particular item rises to the top.
That closes the book on 2021. We’re looking at nothing but blank pages for 2022—how should we fill them? Take our reader survey and let us know what content you’d like to see. Until then, may you have a joyous holiday and a great beginning to a healthy, prosperous new year.