As our 3rd year at WCS Online comes to a close I wanted to share the best of 2018 with you as well as to reflect on what an amazing year we’ve had. It’s mind boggling that we have had such a reach across the USA and across the world!
I’ll get into my our most viewed videos, popular blog articles and the most shared Facebook posts but first…
I wanted to share some stats with you.
Fun Stats from 2018:
VIDEOS
- Our videos were viewed 1,130,910 times in 2018 (over 3 million times in total)
- We shot 117 new videos – Most were WCS videos but some were announcements ect.
- 3 people sent ‘us’ videos of them performing the duck Ms Megan often does at the end of our videos
MOVE OF THE WEEK EMAILS
- 12,990 people got our move of the week emails by the end of 2018
- We send 336,542 emails to people around the world sharing cool WCS stuff. (over 750,000 in total over the 3 years)
- We answered 3413 of your questions via email this year
RANDOM STATS
- We were recognized dozens of times from our videos OUTSIDE of dance events. In airports, on a cruise and once at Churchill downs by someone from out of town!
- 12 WCS Online peeps stopped by our studio in Louisville to say hi this year!
- Our furthest teaching trip was Graz Austria
IN THE CITY OF GRAZ IN AUSTRIA (SEE THE WCS ONLINE PIN ON MY JACKET?)
GIVEAWAYS
- We gave away a FREE trip to MadJam the largest WCS convention (2nights hotel + Pass)
- We did it for our event too! Derby City Swing
- We gave away $500 toward private lessons to 2 different people
- We donated $957 (with your help) to a local child abuse charity in our city!
BUSINESS STATS
- Our paid members have almost doubled during 2018. (Big thanks to those who support us – It’s because of your support that we can do what we do)
- Our most popular course in 2018 was The Ultimate Guide to Musicality (wcs is about the music so that makes sense)
- We hired my mom to handle a lot of our customer service. Thanks mom
- We launched a new Country & Swing event in Louisville in May
- We launched, Dance Fun Cruises to host dance cruises starting in late 2019!
I’m SUPER EXCITED about sharing the best that dance has to offer in as many was as I can!
AHHH I can hardly contain my excitement!
We will get the the most popular stuff of 2108 but first, I wanted to share my personal favorites…
My personal favorite video of 2018
“The past, present and future of west coast swing”
My personal favorite videos wasn’t a pattern or a tip. (maybe because I do so many of them lol) It was an interview I did with Forrest Outman. Forrest is a dance historian. We talked about the past, present and future of west coast swing. It answered a lot of questions that I and other had. It was really insightful. Even after 20+ years I learn something new all the time. I think you will too!
My personal favorite blog post of 2018
“The top 10 struggles of west coast swing dancers”
This one was a lot of work! We send thousands of email asking people what their biggest struggles were with west coast swing. We tracked all of the responses and compiled a top 10 list. We even included some real responses (with no name of course) in the post. It actually didn’t go over quite as well as I thought. Lots of people picked on the spelling issues (no, I didn’t finish college, yes, I suck at proof reading) but I run a successful business, my mom is proud of me and I’m proud of this article. As it turned out most of the errors came from the fact that I copy/pasted the responses we received via email. In the end the post helped lots of wcs dancers realize that they are not alone. Hence why it’s my favorite of 2018!
Read- The top 10 struggles of WCS dancers
The most popular video on WCS online in 2018
“Stylistic Tucks from handshake hold”
At first I was perplexed at why this video was the most watched on the site. I mean it’s a cool pattern but why this particular video? Then I realized… It’s because it’s one of the free videos! Duh… Makes sense right? It’s in the intermediate section which tells me that most people fall in the middle somewhere between beginner and advanced (although we have a fair share of beginners that use the site) So without further adieu…Here is the most watched video on WCS Online.
Watch the Stylistic Tucks video here
Our top 3 blog posts of 2018
This was another interesting one! Why was this post that we wrote back in 2017, the most popular post of 2018? The internet is a strange place. For some reason google chose to rank this page on page 1 for WCS searches. So more people saw this post in 2018 that all others. It does have some good basic info about WCS and a cool video so its worth checking out!
This one I was proud of! We spent a lot of time last March creating this post, linking to other helpful resources and making it a solid resource for anchor step variations and technique. So, I was happy to see it was so popular!
3. 5 Drills to improve your WCS in 30 seconds
Again another post from 2017 was a top post in 2018. Again I’m proud of this one. We shared 5 drills that you can do quickly and easily to improve your dancing. We linked up to other useful resources to help you dig deeper into these in the article. We also share this a lot with new subscribers because it’s one of the most valuable posts on the site.
Our top 3 Facebook Posts of 2018
As I went over our Facebook stats I found 2 things that did really well this year – Quotes & Videos (we didn’t share enough video on FB in 2018 – that will change in 2019)
- This one was a quote from Kay Newhouse
She is a great steward of the community and helps run the largest WCS convention in the world MadJam in D.C. I saw her post this so I turned it into a quote! It was shared 47 times!
See the post and share it here
2. This one was question – “How old were you when you started WCS?”
We posted this twice and with 200+ responses we heard everything from 13 to 69. Some of the fun responses were “40 years ago last month” – “Under the influence” – “58 and my goal is to still be learning WCS 24hrs before the box goes into the ground and they start throwing dirt at me.”
Fun stuff gang.. thanks for sharing.
Read & share the posts here Post #1 & Post #2
3. A Facebook Video I did on a hike!
I was surprised to see this video pop up as a top 3 in 2018. This video was shot in early 2018 while hiking in Catalina Island in CA . Rewatching this it was interesting to see how much I planned for the year and how much I accomplished. You can be the judge as to how well I did 
Watch the video – the scenery is amazing!
My personal Favorite Youtube Video
Ok this one is special. Really special!
It’s called “dance your way through life” with WCS legend Skippy Blair who was 94 years young when I shot it.
It was a magical conversation which I share a mere 3min of in the video but WOW…
If there is one thing on this post I want you to watch… It’s this video!
So there you have it…
Our year in review for 2018. It was an amazing year and I can’t wait to share more with you in 2019. I truly appreciate all of your support.
The emails, the nice comments … YOU are the oxygen that keeps me going.
A big thanks to my team here in Louisville. My mom JoAnn, Ms Megan (the Vannah White of WCS) Ms Emily, our developer Orlando.
Keep sharing the love of dance my friends.
See you on the dance floor!
Brian, I started WCS here in Adelaide, South Australia with my wife in early 2018. Then I was 67 and my wife, Jill, was 64. We have discovered a small but very supportive WCS community that has encouraged and nurtured us through the early stages of the process of learning to dance. We have had our frustrations, like many others, but we enjoy dancing and look forward to 2019 to see what it brings. We love your videos and I have learnt a lot from them. Group classes are difficult for us as they tend to throw too much at an ageing brain to deal with. That’s why your videos are great. One or two new patterns at a time, are far more easily digested for us.
PS. I suck at proof reading too!