It was a fantastic week for the network - metros from the right, left, and center of the country stacked up their highest traffic weeks of all time. Three in-depth examples below:

• Do210: San Antonio is having a search traffic fiesta after their WoW organic traffic jumped up 64%. The biggest beneficiary of that was their Market Square venue page, getting more than double the search traffic as their homepage last week. Impressions and clicks for queries like "market square events" and "market square san antonio schedule" spiked last week, as people searched for information around the Fiesta de los Reyes festival. And Do210 was waiting there in the number one spot when people were searching for the market square schedule, helping them earn their highest week of traffic of all time.
   
• DoLA: Los Angeles continues their lap in the Winner of the Week circle, thanks to their announce of a Beetlejuice-themed bar that's opening in Hollywood. The piece got a ridiculous 423 shares on social, which meant it got more than a quarter of DoLA's entire traffic for the week. Other winners included their post about Coachella's secret tiki bar that did well in their email and on social when some dude shared it to a Tiki FB group that had 11K members. That combined with their Earth Day-appropriate hiking guide propelled them to their very first week EVER with 50K+ sessions! High fives all around.
   
• doNYC: And finally, NYC completed the triumvirate of cities with their highest ever weeks of traffic. And the reason? None other than science. doNYC partnered with their local chapter of March for Science, which meant the doNYC registration page was linked to from the top of the official event Facebook page and regularly promoted to the several thousands that followed the page. And props to Stuart for making a slick registration splash page matched up to the partner's site, guaranteeing another direct link and several thousands of entrants. When it was all over and done, doNYC had over 14K people visit that page, and over 4.8K new registered users. If you slept on the March for Science in your city, you can't blame doNYC, since they've been shouting out their plans on the network audience calls for the past two months. 

And there you have it - 3 vastly different ways to grow audience (organic, social content, and partnerships) that all led to success in their own right. Take a look at your stats from last week and make some plans to capitalize similarly:

This week's winners are brought to you by Whole Foods, since they've been cashing in on traffic that's certified organic. Once you find it in your heart to forgive me for that joke, you can check out the rundown of metros that are blowin' up:

• Do604: Vancouver had their second highest week of traffic of all time thanks to some organic success of their event pages. Specifically, more than a quarter of their search traffic last week landed either on Busta Rhymes or Spring Lights events. For the former, it was from Do604 showing up in position 1 for people searching any combination of "busta rhymes" and "whistler," leading to an impressive 50%+ CTR in search results. For Spring Lights, it was more of a volume game with, several thousand impressions for queries like "spring lights vancouver" and "queen elizabeth park lights," where Do604 ranked between the third and fifth spots in results.
  
  So what does it all mean? First, that we can't stress enough the importance of having your comprehensive event listings game on point, especially when it comes to large events (festivals and outdoor activities) that might not be listed elsewhere or might have thousands of people searching for more info. If you have comprehensiveness + as many links pointing toward your domain, you start to put yourself in position for that longtail organic search traffic goldmine. Second, it's always good to monitor for blips like these in organic traffic, because it indicates general interest among your audience. So consider it good fodder for creating and pushing content like "upcoming big shows at Whistler" or "guide to seeing the Spring Lights" etc. in your email and on social.
   
• DoLA: Sticking with the theme, Los Angeles rode a wave of organic visits to their highest week of traffic in over 8 months after search traffic to their event pages ticked up 90% WoW. The main contributor were the various Coachella parties happening around the fest, with 20% of their organic event page traffic to events going to Neon Carnival, after they came in position 2 for the 8K+ searching "neon carnival 2017" in the week leading up to Coachella. Other parties benefiting from the surge included Revolve Fest, Amex Platinum House, Label Motel, and the sure to be buzzin' Winter Bumbleland featuring Kendall & Kylie Jenner. The tricky part about seasonal organic traffic is that it really only spikes for about a week, hence the importance of monitoring when the big spikes are for your metro each year, having the pages built out plenty in advance with as much rich content as possible, and then using that popular content to start pushing it out on your other channels to get traction. 

If you'd like help monitoring your organic traffic, or you want some insight in the highest performing organic pages across the network, or maybe you're interested in running some SEOtests of your own, you know how to reach us. In the meantime, stats below: 

This week, we've got more winners than you can shake a stick at...provided you're a person that likes shaking sticks at business entities with high performing metrics. Check the below to see what Do network goodness is moving the needle:

• Do503: Portland had their highest week of traffic in 23 weeks, in large part due to the announce of their TedX giveaway. That Facebook post alone drove 485 engagements, making it their most successful FB post for the year. When combined with the popularity of their Project Pabst announce and presale in their email, and the 40 shares on their What Was Sound Fest , Do503 hit 140% YoY traffic growth.
   
• Do604: Not to be outdone in the PNW by their homies to the south, Vancouver hit 139% YoY growth by hosting their own customer appreciation party at the Portside Pub, complete with Jameson, oysters, and an official 604 RSVP. That was good enough to make it their most popular page last week, driving half of all of their new users last week and propelling them to their highest traffic in 4 months.
   
• Do615: If you're writing Nashville's newsletter, at this point you can just leave a placeholder at the top of your email that notes [insert festival content], swap it out regularly, and then sit back and wait for the traffic to roll in. This week's flavor was the Pilgrimage Fest lineup announce and giveaway, which netted them 2.9K sessions from email alone. Put in some historical context, that means Do615 hit an eye-popping 231% YoY growth last week.
   
• Do816: Kansas City is using their connections with the local music community to start pumping out teasers for their Middle of the Map fest day party by profiling some of the artists playing their show. The respective FB post received an outpouring of shares from the bands featured in the content, making it their most organically popular social content since launch. Add to the mix their highly engaged with Tears for Fears announce on email, and you've got the makings of Do816's most successful traffic week outside of their launch party week. 

• DTB: And finally, the Baes keep the party train rolling with their highest week of traffic in 35 weeks and 2X+ the traffic from last year. Ain't nothing fancy, just the super timely announce of the Outside Lands lineup and giveaway along with other successful email content like their Bay's Best Boba guide that got the job done. And while the majority of that OSL traffic (2.8K sessions) came from their dedicated announce, it's worth noting that another 2K sessions came from their newsletter that same day. So don't be afraid to mention fest announces twice, as people see that info in different places. And once you take away the 65% of traffic to OSL from email, and the 25% of traffic that came from giveaway referrals, you still get another 800+ sessions from DTB cleverly co-opting some official content for their social post. That video joined other video content DTB has been producing that's generated significant organic engagement. 

If you've made it this far, hopefully you understand that, at the minimum, you should be doing everything you can to stay on top of fest announces happening near your market and blast that shiz in your email as soon as it's available. After all, building audience is all about priorities. Start making your plans after you check your stats for last week: 

Greetings from LA! Not only did the fine people of DoLA secure Winner of the Week status by putting up with my mouth-breathing office lurking for the entirety of this week, but they also had their second highest week of traffic in over 5 months thanks to them announcing the Los Pollos Hermanos pop up in LA via their email last week. It ended up being their most clicked email out of the last 40 newsletters they've sent and received twice as much traffic last week as any other page on their site. When combined with other popular email content like a guide to concentrated cannabis and the unveiling of an Ice Cream Museum, DoLA notched a solid 59% YoY growth, and cemented their status as the best city for people that like Breaking Bad, weed, and ice cream. Which is to say they're the best city for...people.

For those keeping track at home, doNYC also got in on the buzzy pop up action, despite their event being a little more dubious.

In other exciting news, I'll be spending 4 hours this week conducting focus groups on how people find things to do, and how our platform can better serve them in that quest to discover cool stuff. Johnny is doing the same in Boston this week, and we're wrapping it up with more sessions in Austin this month. If you're curious about the kinds of things we're digging in on, peep the agenda.

While you're anxiously waiting for revelations that we discover this week, feel free to check your freshly updated stats from last week below: