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.
Way to go, Mitch. Keep ’em coming. I’m happy to help spur some of the action :).
So, let me add my increasingly cantankerous view on replying to comments. Think of it this way: many bloggers only appreciate comments that add to the conversation. Well, in that vein, am I really adding anything by replying to comment that basically repeats something I already mentioned in the post?
I know that people sometimes give us a virtual acknowledgement, validating the truth that they read by highlighting it in a comment. That’s cool and, depending on the rest of the comment, I may reply to acknowledge the acknowledgement. But at some point, it ends…
The flip side is that I tend to read a lot more than I comment. That is a personal decision, based on time constraints. Every comment in 2011 spawned a little time-sucking hydra, each of which had a hundred little heads. The was the subscribe to comments head; the inbox filter for new sites; the dead thread revived by spammers; the time-sensitive head; the WordPress.com mega-head (grrrr!!!); the 3rd-party head…
Each head was nipped off cleanly but duh, they’re hydras! I spent more time slogging through my “Conversations” folder in Gmail than reading new posts!
Okay, putting away my curmudgeon cape. I think that reading blogs like ImJustSharing will always be worthwhile, even if I don’t speak up on every post 🙂
Carry on, radical old soldier! LOL
Cheers,
Mitch
First, thanks Mitch.
Second, I think that “adds” to the conversation is a term many of us use, but it means different things to different people. When I say it I’m certainly not looking for most people to write War and Peace. But I am looking for some kind of reference to what I wrote; after all, I don’t write a lot of short posts, as you know. A response from someone I don’t know with something like “nice post” looks like link bait. A post repeating what I said looks the same. I would find it incredible that most people that, even if they agree with everything I said, won’t have one thing that touched them more than something else. I mean, I do it all the time, and I’m no better at commenting in general than anyone else. To me, I help to add to the conversation when I comment. Now, once we get to know each other better, every once in awhile saying something short works because we’ve gotten to understand each other a bit better; but that kind of familiarity comes with time.
Time-sucking hydra; you know you just sent a lot of people looking for their dictionaries. lol
Well, I do love words. 🙂
Your point about knowing your readers is a good one. I may have to rethink some of that CommentLuv stuff I’ve been doing. I seem to be making life harder for y’all.
Cheers,
Mitch
Great job on reaching the 1,200 mark!
Thanks Doug; getting it done one post at a time.
It was like yesterday when I read about post #1000, wow. Time is flying so fast. Honestly, Mitch this makes me quite happy and I am sure that other bloggers can learn a lot from you about discipline and consistency in blogging.
Thanks Carl. I just hope I don’t scare anyone into thinking that they have to keep up the kind of pace I shoot for.
Mitch, honestly I don’t see any other way or shortcut to achieve success online, the only way is hard work and good discipline.
True Carl, hard work and discipline, but 300 posts a year takes love as well as commitment.
1,200 posts, I can’t believe it. Amazing. And all of them of a high value. Great job, I have to say.
Congratulations Mitch. I am rooting for you.
Thanks Rummuser; appreciate the support. You have to be piling up the numbers yourself.
Hey Mitch,
Congratulations on #1,200.. Wow that’s a lot and I hope to be there someday. Okay, it probably won’t be this year but I’ll get there.
I have three bloggers you can add to that black bloggers list.
Mavis Nong of Attraction Marketing Online
Deeone Higgs of Releasing Me Today
Allyson of Dollar Templates and Fonts
See, I know three off the top of my head but it’s also almost midnight when I’m answering this post and it’s been a very long day. I guess I should have wait but I didn’t.
Thanks for the mention. I actually had an argument with a guy today on Twitter because I didn’t approve his comment and he was ticked. He said, “well you asked us to leave our information so I did.” I responded that he obviously didn’t read my commenting rules because not only did he not have your avatar set up properly but he was promoting his product which I specifically state will not be accepted. Hey it’s my blog so they are my rules. End of story.
Looking forward to the next 1,200 post Mitch and I have no doubt they will all rock!
Thanks again and have a great rest of your week!
~Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne. I don’t think Mavis qualified when I first did my series, but over the course of this year… well, we’ll see. The other two names I don’t know, so I’ll definitely have to check them out.
And I’m still contemplating what you’ve said about comments, although I’m thinking that when I get done I probably still won’t be as “tough” as you are. lol
Congratulations! That is a lot of posts!
You can add John Garrett from hypertransitory.com to your list too. I didn’t see him on there. Looks like you going to have a 100 list soon. 🙂
It is hard to respond to a comment when there just isn’t anything to respond, too. I used to feel bad and just put something because I didn’t want them to be the only one I didn’t respond to, but I got over it.
Actually Melinda, based on the criteria I was using when I created those sites John and a lot of other people didn’t make the list. This time around, since the criteria are much different, it’s possible that John will end up in there somewhere. Then again, I wrote a great review of his book, which I hope you saw here, so he’s already been taken care of. lol