Dear Bloggers - Don’t be a jackass

You know…its funny, at least to me it is. I have often sat and wondered, “WTF am I going to write” – And over the last 3 years of this public venting, mauling and musing had no answer and thus wrote butkis. Many times one gets busy or the passions aren’t flaring – the reasons are endless. But one thing you should never do…. Start friggen rambling for the sake of yer own voice (for the record I have a lovely humming voice). I mean seriously… don’t turn into a self-righteous pontificating piece of…well… U get the idea…

You see what can be even more fun, for me at least, is reading the search blogosphere, (give the writing a break). It is often educational, but far more often great entertainment than anything else. I never really read a lot of blogs early on; could be my advancing age (coming late to the game) or fact that my geeky interests were such that only a few captivated. Now? After actually writing for a few years I can see far more texture in any given publication than I ever could before…. And it’s a bloody joy… cause there really are some jack assess out there.

Hanging out with drunkards

One reads so much of the self-anointed drivel that it reminds me of the first time I was sober around drunken friends; “Holy crap, is THAT what I look like?”.  Considering the tenor and persona being presented isn’t something to disregard and I believe that most bloggers should really watch for it. It is hard to believe that many of the folks out there just pull crap outta the hat, throw it at the wall to see what sticks.  

Because of a lot of research that’s ongoing, side projects and other commitments, I’ve been reading more than writing…publicly at least. We sure have some.. ahem… exuberant folks out there in the internet marketing space. It is easy to see how we can become painted with like-brushes in a layer of not so complimentary colours.

Playing with Google FriendConnect

I was talking to ‘the Great Balwani’, (seriously, he's great) today and he mentioned playing around with Google FriendConnect. Not to be one shy of playing with the latest toys I promptly set up the community widget (below the My Blog Log widget – lower right) and another widget to comment and rate posts…

The first one seems pretty much like the MBL one, we’ll see how it plays out (doesn’t show recent visitors to..). The other, well that seems like it will further dilute the conversation as this is a blog and we already have comments going…

So what? We can now ‘rate’ the posts? Yeah, that’s about it… I hope to see other widgets soon as the selection now is kinda lacking.

The story of a Serial Blogger - by Paul Steven

Tis' time for a story. Set in a far, far away land. So, snuggle up get cosy and I'll tell you how being a serial blogger has been the most financially rewarding move I have ever made.

Y'see, a long time ago I started life as a simple SEO guy, forever cultivating my digital patch, watching in earnest as my well cared for search positions took root and sprouted into high ranking websites. Life was good but hard work as mine wasn't the only prized garden in the competition.

When a stranger came calling

Then one day I received a phone call from a stranger not-from-these-parts asking if I had ever contemplated running his companies weblog on a
paid-per-post service. I had partaken in the art of blogging on my own site but never taken it seriously as a written work. Because my niche is of the optimised variety, I felt more comfortable in discussing the benefits of harvesting your own organic garden than talking about the tools and methods used. There were far better commentators than myself that were by far more green-fingered than I.

Overcoming the social media short-term fix - by James Duthie

Social media works as hard as you do. When you’re happy, healthy, creative and insightful you can expect it to be your best friend. But beware… social media is a fickle creature. It won’t support you through troubled times. In fact, when times get tough, it’ll leave you for Angelina Jolie in a second.

Hand’s up - if you're addicted to social media? I know I am... Dave is too... he confessed his obsession for Sphinn recently (hardly a secret by the way Dave… and please put your hand down… ). And to be honest, what’s not to love? Oodles of traffic, a smattering of inbound links & a couple more RSS subscribers each time you publish new work. Everyone’s happy

… until you do something silly, you know, like breaking your hand (or worse)!

Quite simply social media is not scalable, nor reliable as a single person blogger. It is purely a short-term traffic generation tactic. Social media requires a constant and ongoing effort. As soon as your personal blogging production line breaks (pun intended), so too does your social media output. Failure to produce new content is the quickest road possible to a social media traffic flatline.

Somebody call me a doctor!

So what does all this mean? Should you abandon all social media activities pronto? Hell no!

Social media is a critical part of blog promotion. Many of us get 50%+ of our traffic from social media. And while conversions are low, each social media traffic spike is sure to generate at a least a couple of new RSS subscribers.

What it does mean is that you need to balance short term traffic hits with sustainable longer-term traffic generation tactics. Don’t place all your eggs into the fickle social media basket, or they may end up getting scrambled.