My Pitch For The Shorty Award
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 18, 2012
This is a sticky post, which means it will be up at the top of this page for a couple of weeks. Newer content after this one; check it out.
Well now, this is something new, at least for me. It seems there are these social media awards called the Shorty Awards that actually have people nominate them for awards in different social media categories and allow people to ask for others to nominate them. At a certain date, all the voting ends and there’s a winner, and they win… what? I’ll come back to that.
 |
I decided to ask for some support in getting nominated for a Shorty; yeah, I’m linking it often in this post so no one can legitimately say they didn’t know how to get there. I want to be nominated, and I want to be nominated in the “blogger” category.
First, it seems you have to know my Twitter handle to nominate me; it’s mitch_m; remember that. And you have to have a Twitter account to vote, or at least that’s what it looks like.
Second, here’s my pitch for why I feel I deserve to be nominated and voted for. I just hit post #1,200 on this blog. I’ve written more than 900 posts on my main business blog, have more than 500 on my finance blog (okay, I didn’t write all of those, but most of them), and more than 50 posts on two other blogs, one of those which I just started in August. I blog for other people as well; one client I’ve been writing for about 2 1/2 years.
Three, writing diversity. Goodness, I’ve written on 35 different general topics on this blog alone; I don’t want to go back to see how many different categories total I’ve written about on my other blogs, but I know I’ve written on at least 20 different categories of blogs for other people.
I think that’s enough. Truthfully, I don’t expect to win a Shorty because I’m starting too late. The contest started on January 3 and runs through February 17th, so I’m already two weeks behind. The leader in the category already has more than 9,000 votes, and the closest competitor is more than 4 times behind him. However, right now the person in the 10th position only has 166 votes, and I think that one can be overcome by starting now. I’d love to finish in the top 10; why not, right? By the way, if you want to vote for me in the social media category as well, I won’t be depressed by that either, but I’m shooting for blogger.
Also, to vote, since it’s through Twitter, you’ll have to authorize it access to your Twitter account for awhile, at least until the voting is over. That makes sense as it wouldn’t know who you were if it didn’t do that. Maybe it cuts down on cheating, though I haven’t found anything yet saying you can’t vote for a person more than once, and you certainly can vote many times if you have a lot of folks you want to vouch for; it tells you that after you authorize it. I’m thinking it’s smarmy to vote for yourself, but I haven’t seen in the rules where you’re not allowed to do that either. Your vote won’t immediately show up, but it will eventually; I know that because it took awhile before the person I voted for in testing it didn’t immediately show up. Actually, I was surprised no one else had nominated her yet (nope, I’m not telling lol).
And there you have it. Yes, a little self serving, but if you don’t ask… Vote me in for a Shorty; thanks! 
Update!!! Seems that indeed you can vote without having to go to the website. Here are the rest of the rules:
- To vote, send a tweet like this: I nominate @TwitterUser for a Shorty Award in #category because [add reason here]. You can do this using the form on our site, from Twitter itself, or from any Twitter client. (PS; all links above surrounding “Shorty” will take you directly to Twitter except for the first one)
- You can also send shorter votes like this: #shortyawards @username #category [add reason here]. This short format is helpful when you want to vote from a party, on the road, in a meeting, or on a boat.
- A tweet that ends in “because…” will not be counted.
- Vote for as many different people as you want in as many categories as you want, as often as you want.
- Only one person and one category per tweet.
- Voting for the same person in the same category more than once just replaces the text of your original vote.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
Post #1,200; Wild And Wooly Times
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 17, 2012
Goodness, we just keep plowing along in this little space, don’t we? The title says it all; this is post #1,200 on this blog, and like Post #1,100, it’s taken me 5 months. It would have been exactly 5 months if I’d gone ahead and written the two posts I thought about writing but I wanted yesterday to be about the King Holiday, which I wrote about on my business blog.
So, how well did I stick with the mission of this blog, if I can call it that? I stated that I’d probably mainly talk about blogging and social media. I ended up with 24 posts on blogging and 15 on social media; that’s pretty true to form. I wrote a 6-part series on affiliate programs I’m active with, which was something different. And what was pretty amazing, at least to me, is that I actually touched on 25 different categories, the most ever in one month.
I got personal these last 5 months as well, as I had to deal with my grandmother passing away and some other personal stuff as well. I talked about the 10th anniversary of the Twin Towers tragedy from September 11th, 2001. I talked about my first (and maybe last) colonoscopy. And I talked about my feelings as an older black man lost in a mission that sometimes feels like I’m the only one out there, as old radical if you will.
It’s that last one that I’m going to expand a bit more on over the next bunch of months, which I’m actually hoping to extend for the rest of the year. But I want to tell you why I’m going to do it.
Last year I ended up highlighting 58 black people in social media. That came about because I kept seeing lists of bloggers and social media “celebrities” and not seeing any black people on the list. The campaign did what it was supposed to do in a way, but in a way it failed as well.
Why do I say it failed? Last week there was a post by our buddy Marcus Sheridan where he talked about making someone’s top blogger list and how there wasn’t any real significance to it. Of course I’ve written here why there really is some significance to it, so I commented on his post.
The creator of the list wrote me there and it turns out she’d also written the list the previous year which got me going. We had a brief conversation in the comments where she owned up to the fact that she doesn’t know any black bloggers; heck, what was I? lol Anyway, she said that maybe it was something she should look at since her list only ended up having one person of color as well.
Then someone else piped in, saying I was looking for a quota (folks, if there’s not even one, talking quota makes you look stupid) and how it had nothing to do with race because there were a lot of people of color blogging. She then proceeded to name 2, and followed that up with “I’m sure there’s others”. Wow, if you can only name 2 you haven’t done your homework; did I happen to mention that I came up with 58 here last year?
So, my plan is to have what I’m going to call “Black Web Friday”, so that I don’t pigeon hole myself. The idea is that I’m going to highlight anywhere from one to 3 websites either written by, about, or for black audiences. This allows me to be as broad as I want to be because with the series last year, the major criteria was that each person I highlighted had to have a blog. My concentration will be bloggers, individuals, but it’s not all I’m going to share. You know that thing about niche and not limiting oneself? That’s the plan.
And it’s going to be a test as well because truthfully I’m not expecting those posts to get many visitors; heck, I don’t expect this one to get all that many either. But that’s not always the point is it? I was talking to our buddy Mitch Allen about it and he said if I felt strongly enough about it that I should do something, no matter what anyone thought, including the people I may write about.
So, that’s what I’m going to do. Now, I might mention some of the people I mentioned before, though that’s not the major plan, because last year I just listed people; this time around I plan on writing more than just a one line introduction. I want to bring these sites and folks to you in the hope that maybe some of the topics or conversations might interest you enough to go take a look. That’s the goal; let’s see how it goes.
One final thing. The post before #1,100 talked about not responding to all comments anymore because some comments just weren’t all that good. Then two weeks ago I was having a conversation with our buddy Adrienne Smith on her blog about the subject and she said that she responds to all comments because those comments from new people that she thinks are bad, suspect, or don’t bring anything to the conversation she just deletes. I had already been deleting any comments that didn’t follow the comment policy but she makes an interesting point. If a comment isn’t worth responding to, is it worth keeping, especially from someone you don’t know who may never come back? I’m going to be thinking about that one over the next couple of weeks but as a test to see how many people actually read this entire thing what’s your thought on this last point?
Enough; I love these milestone posts because they make me look back through my blog, and then share some other posts that I hope are somewhat intriguing to you, the readers. Let’s see what the next 4 or 5 months brings.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
Sidebar Toolbars; The Next Scourge Of Blogs And Websites
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 13, 2012
For those of you who are relatively new to this blog, let me tell you something I hate: toolbars. That is, I hate them on websites and on blogs; I don’t mind if you want to have a toolbar on your browser because that’s not getting in my way, although I keep fighting the Google sidebar (a toolbar in its own fashion).
 |
Of course I just led into my newest gripe; sidebar toolbars. In a rant I wrote last June on things that irritated me about blogs, I commented on these toolbars getting in the way of trying to read a post for a couple of reasons.
One, I like reading things a little larger than the norm. When I increase the size of the font, these toolbars increase as well, and suddenly they’re blocking all the content, making me bring everything down to size again. That’s irritating.
Two, you have your sidebar following me down the side as I try to get into some of your content. Now it’s not only big, but I can’t outrun it; that’s irritating as well.
You know, I get it. You read somewhere that you need to make sure people know how to share your stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, etc. You’ve tried other things and you’re not sure if people are actually seeing these things because you have no idea if your traffic is going up or not. So you’ve figured “hey, if this thing is always in their line of sight, there’s no way they can miss it.
You got that right; what you don’t have right is that now people can’t read your content, and if they’re like me they’ll just leave and, well, so much for anyone sharing anything. And if I don’t like you I’m never coming back; so much for traffic as well. See the image above? That’s what I’m seeing with my text enlarged. Not only did it cover text, but as you can see the bottom part is cut off anyway, so if I’d wanted to share it via the final 3 options it gives me I’d have to reduce my text just to see it.
The funny thing is that what finally prompted this post is that someone I like recently wrote a post talking about how her traffic has dropped, and I can’t read it unless I make everything smaller because there’s this large sidebar toolbar blocking everything on the left side, and no matter where I go it’s there. I’m thinking that can’t help. And no, I’m not naming names; I’ll say something if she sees this post.
Of course, though I’ve been busting on sidebar toolbars, I can’t resist busting on those other little toolbars that follow you as you’re scrolling down a post as well. They’re sometimes on the bottom and sometimes on the top, and the purpose is the same as those moving sidebar toolbars; irritating as sin because it distracts you from reading. At least it distracts me.
I’m seeing these things starting to pop up on news sites as well, and it’s driving me nuts. I know I talked about our reluctance to market ourselves but this isn’t the way to overcome that if you ask me.
Folks, how many times does one have to state the fact that if you have things on your blog that irritates people and it’s not the content that you’re going to drive people away? Toolbars, popups, music playing when you get there, too much flash, people walking out from the side and talking to you (that always freaks me out)… stop it! lol
I know I can’t be alone on this one; speak y’all!
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
Sleeping, Eating & Blogging
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 12, 2012
Most people don’t know about the connection between sleeping and eating. They think they do, and there are many tales of how eating one thing produced this or that kind of dream, or not sleeping on full or empty stomachs and the like. As it turns out, there are a few lessons one can learn about these two things, and how they’re related to blogging. Don’t think I can do it? Let’s find out.
 |
1. Did you know that you could survive more than 60 days without food if you at least have something legitimate to drink? That doesn’t mean it’s great living, but it’s survival, which means you have a chance to overcome whatever problems you might have if that’s the reason why you can’t eat.
It’s like blogging; your blog can survive if you decide to write only once a month or even once every 2 to 3 months, but is it really blogging? Will your blog or website get much benefit out of it without more output?
2. Did you know that you wouldn’t survive more than a week without sleeping (although there have been some anomalies, but it’s uber rare)? For most people, even if you tried not to sleep for more than 72 hours your body and mind will overcome you and you’ll dose here and there. My record is 81 1/2 hours, and I can honestly say it was miserable, but I got through it.
This is like blogging once you get into it. For awhile at least you’ll find yourself having more things to say and feeling a need to write, even if you’re not in the mood to do so. Of course this presupposes that you’ve fully embraced blogging and all that comes with it.
3. Did you know that when you get older you’d rather sleep than eat, but how dangerous that is? From around the age of 45 or so people actually do start eating less, even if their weight doesn’t always show it. Inactivity has more to do with weight gain at that point than how much one eats. However, when there’s the choice between sleeping and eating, most people will choose to sleep, and the older you get, the less energy doing that gives you as far as waking up or wanting to do anything else. The act of sleeping stems the act of being hungry, which is fine when we’re younger, but not so much as we get older. Most times, when a person in a nursing home starts sleeping and won’t eat, it’s pretty much known that they won’t be alive much longer.
If you don’t love blogging, and you have the choice between blogging and doing something else, you’re going to do something else, and after awhile you’re not going to want to blog anymore. In this case you probably won’t expire, but if you thought blogging was necessary for your business you’re going to find reasons not to do it and your blog will die out. This is the reason why some people recommend having publishing schedules if you’re blogging more out of necessity than enjoyment. Of course, the real idea of blogging is to find something you enjoy talking about so that you don’t tire of it.
4. Eating can help you sleep, but what you eat will definitely affect how you sleep. All of us have different types of food that affect us positively or negatively, and how close we eat these things to when we go to sleep or fall asleep can mess us up.
For instance, eating a high amount of carbs will put me to sleep during the day within 30 to 60 minutes, no matter what it is. If I eat it late in the evening, close to when I’m going to bed, there’s no effect at all. But if I eat something with acidic sauce, like tomato sauce, and go to bed within 3 hours I’m going to be sick all night, probably wake up sick, and sleep horribly. If I eat a salad I tend to sleep well, but I hate salads that late at night so it’s not something I do all that often; yeah, stupidly stubborn that way.
How you decide to write your blog will have a major effect on how much you enjoy writing on it. If you tend to write long, boring posts that are more like textbooks than prose, you’re going to hate it. If you niche yourself so much that it’s a chore trying to figure out what to write, you’re not going to be encouraged to write. This is why so many people recommend finding something you enjoy talking about and why I recommend that if you’re going to write on a certain niche not to make it so tight that it limits what you can write about. Most people should be able to figure out what they like to write or talk about without needing someone else to tell them how to do it or what to write about.
I think that’s enough for now; time for a sandwich, then a nap.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
Easy Admin Color Schemes – The Update
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 9, 2012
Back on December 21st I warned folks about updating to the latest version of Easy Admin Color Schemes because it had been changed to work with a higher version of PHP than most of us had access to. In essence, if you updated you probably lost your blog until you went through your PHP program and deleted the program entirely.
I thought it was time for an update and a tale; yeah, there’s always a story isn’t there?
After the post went live, I was contacted by the guy who created it, James Dimick, and we talked about the issue for a bit. He eventually went back and updated the version again, changing it back so that all of us could get back to using it.
That seems like it would be a great thing, but at the time it didn’t quite work out as well as hoped. Instead of coming back to work as one might hope, it took away all color and never showed up underneath the Settings tab, since he changed it to be more of a standalone plugin than having to go under settings. I was dismayed, as I did the update on a different blog than the one I’d originally had problems with. He said he’d see what he could find, and that’s where we left off.
But y’all know me; I just can’t let things go. The first thing I did was delete the entire plugin and loaded it again, as I’d just updated it on the second blog. Lo and behold, it worked doing it that way, with the listing showing up independently under the settings area. Unfortunately, it didn’t bring back my color scheme.
That actually leads me to point number two. What I don’t think James realized, as I re-read our comments, is that I had gone in and customized all my colors to be what I wanted them to be, instead of using what came with the program. It comes with 4 color choices but I’m one of those “under the hood” guys when I can be, and I wanted different colors for each blog. Anyway, when I updated things, because he had changed things so drastically. He’d even said that if you updated and had made changes to the original program that it wouldn’t recognize any previous changes and thus would remove them.
What to do? Well, with the one where I reloaded the plugin, I went into the CSS of one of the other blogs where I’d made changes and copied that specific data into a notepad document. Then I took a shot at adding my own custom color scheme, which it allows you to do, and I pasted that code into the box, changing the coded colors to something really drastic so I could easily identify what was being changed. Once I saw that then I went and found the color codes that I really wanted to use and things look pretty good. It’s not exactly what I had before, but it’s pretty close, and the image below is what the admin area of that particular blog looks like now (click on the image, then click again when it opens elsewhere to see a larger version of the image):
So, here are the recommendations:
1. If you’ve made any color modifications at all, copy the entire code and paste it into another space; Notepad works well.
2. Totally remove the plugin you have now, then go and reload the entire thing.
3. Either paste your entire code into the “add new” area or only add in the code you actually changed before; all else will work if you don’t post everything in.
That’s about it. Thanks for changing things back James, and I hope people will continue using this plugin because overall it’s pretty neat.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on internet marketing, writing, blogging and many other things. You never know what I'll be posting on. So keep coming back, read, enjoy, and buy something! ;)
