Our Friendship Year in Review
The most read, heard, shared, on Dear Nina. And where you live!
I love looking at the data behind this newsletter and the podcast. It’s fascinating to see what “hits,” to use a word my teenagers say often, and it’s important (for me) to examine trends such as traffic sources to this newsletter. For example, it was notable that for as much time as I spend putzing around social media, neither Instagram nor TikTok were a top-5 traffic source that led people here.
I started the newsletter on Mailchimp in 2013, the year before the friendship column began. Back then my “beat” was writing about writing, parenting, book reviews, and a few other topics. Many of you have stayed with me from well over a decade ago! I’m grateful.
In early 2016, I moved to TinyLetter, which was owned by Mailchimp, but was much simpler to use. Mailchimp was HARD to format though the data was superior even to Substack. TinyLetter looked like a normal email, which was sometimes confusing for readers.
TinyLetter was so simple, in fact, that it had zero bells and whistles and eventually Mailchimp phased it out. So in mid-2022, I moved to Substack, which has been the best of the best for formatting, but is not as clear for data. There’s a reason so many writers moved here, but I’m not going to bore you with stuff like the joy of font sizes and color swatches.
There are several steams of analytics I examine to see which friendship topics are resonating with listeners and readers. I get basic numbers from my podcast hosting service, and slightly more nuanced ones from Apple and Spotify. Then I get data from Substack.
I’m sharing that 2024 information today!
The Top 5 Free Posts
This is How to Make Plans With Friends (By far the #1 post in my stats.)
The Two Questions I Hate Answering (Really surprised me to see this in the top 5.)
Branching Out of a Friend Group (My personal favorite of 2024.)
Be a More Generous Friend (with the great
)The Friend Who Never Asks About You (this topic went bananas on TikTok)
The Top 5 Paywalled Anonymous Letters
(If you’re not a paying subscriber, please consider an upgrade for 2025.)
Top 5 Podcast Episodes
The 14-Day Friendship Mindset Cleanse — #126 with
Quiet Quitting a Friendship — #109 with Dr. Miriam Kirmayer
Friends Who Never Ask About You — #111 (solo episode)
Best Friends, Friendship Trios, Being More Direct — #101 (solo episode)
Overtalking, Undertalking, and Lessons in the Art of Storytelling — #95 with
My Husband’s Top 3 Episodes of 2024
(Worth a mention as he’s my #1 fan and the only person I know who listens to every episode)
1. Lose Track of Who Makes Plans and 7 Other Tips From Dr. Ruth — #116 with Allison Gilbert
2. The 10% Rule in Friendships and The Negativity Bias — #125 with Ann Imig
3. Five Friendship Issues to Address With a Therapist — #94 with Roxanne Francis
Two Special Mention Episodes with People Close to Me
My friend, Jill Smokler, came on in episode #104 to candidly discuss her brain cancer diagnosis.
I rekindled a friendship with my second cousin. Emily Locker, when we planned and recorded episode #88 about differences of opinions between friends.
Top 5 Cities Where Listeners Live
New York City
Seattle (surprised to see this!)
Chicago (makes sense— my childhood city)
Minneapolis (current city for the past 24 years — surprised it’s not #1)
Los Angeles
Top 5 Countries Where Listeners Live
USA
Canada
United Kingdom
Australia
Germany
Top 5 Traffic Sources to This Newsletter
(Note that for as much time as I spent on Instagram and TikTok, neither makes it to the top five.)
Email subscriptions
In-app Substack suggestions (worth moving to Substack for this)
Organic Google search (this was interesting to see!)
Facebook
Books, Shows, etc. I’m Into These Days
Reading: My 2024 book reviews all in one place.
TV: My 2024 TV reviews all in one place.
Cooking: I’ve been trying to resist buying more cookbooks, but I had to own What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking by
as a birthday present to myself. (My birthday is in late December.) I’ve been using a copy from the library, but it’s beyond time for me to support the author. It’s an excellent cookbook.
Want to connect outside of this newsletter? You can find me most often in the Facebook group, Dear Nina: The Group, where we discuss books, shows, recipes, and of course, friendship. All the social media links are below.
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | LinkedIn | Threads | Twitter | Bluesky |My Website
Have an anonymous question for the newsletter or an episode? You can do that here, and I will never know it was from you.
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Have a great week everyone! Links to bookshop.org and Amazon are affiliate links
I always enjoy a good year end roundup and I find the backend stats really interesting too, although there are some stats I do wish Substack had. I also really like that What to Cook Cookbook :)