All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.
Blogging

We’re All Right And We’re All Wrong About Blogging

12 Comments

Yay, another post with a video! I know, it’s been 6 days since my last post here and that’s rare for me. I did that on purpose though because I had a couple of posts in a row that I thought were important enough to allow visitors to have their say about before I pushed on. If you’ve missed them please go back and check them out after this one.

Fields of Gold
Werner Kunz via Compfight

As I said in the video, today the sun is shining in central New York and that’s an anomaly for is at this time of year. Actually it popped out for maybe 20 minutes in the evening a couple of days ago but that’s too late to call it a sunny day. So I’m feeling good and thus decided that it was time to have a post on this topic, which is about blogging of course.

Over the past 5 years I’ve given a lot of advice on blogging. So have a lot of other people, some whom I’ve quoted here, some who I visit whenever I can. I’m part of the newsletters sent out by my Hot Blog Tips Hangout crew, and of course we do 3 videos every Sunday. The advice is pretty good I must say but if you’ve ever watched some of our videos, you’ll notice that every once in awhile we argue about something. It’s a short argument, nothing where we’re going to slap each other around (logistically it can’t happen anyway), but it proves a point.

That point is that all of us think we’re right and we are. At the same time none of us ever believes we’re wrong and we are. Kind of a dichotomy, eh? I’ll explain quickly, but not to take anything away from the video.

We all love blogging, but we all have something different we’re hoping to get out of it. When you think about it that’s true of all of you as well. It’s great getting some lessons from others, something that you feel you want to try out for yourself. But you also hear some advice that your mind says “I’m not doing that”. I know you do because I do.

So, if all of us look at the same information yet don’t do everything that everyone says, doesn’t that say that there’s someone out there who thinks we’re right and someone who thinks we’re wrong? By the way, I’m working on the concept that says it’s okay to be wrong sometimes because one, no one’s perfect, and two, even being wrong can produce great results. Think record players and penicillin.

With that said, here’s the video. Please, like the video, comment on the video, comment here on this blog post. Yeah, I know, most of you won’t watch the video or like it, even if you tell me you did, but I have to ask. 🙁


 

Social Media

Is Social Media Giving You Everything You Need

42 Comments

My wife and I always seem to have the same discussion about me and one of my particular eating habits. She says that I don’t always have a filter for portion control. When I’m hungry or thirsty, my mind doesn’t quite see that maybe “this much” is all I need to get rid of either of those things. At least not all the time.

IMAG0173
um, chocolate milk!

Thus, sometimes my mind will say “I can eat that entire pizza” when logically I know I can’t. It’ll say “you need to heat up 20 chicken nuggets” when I know I can only eat 13. And yet, every once in awhile I hear her words jumping into my mind saying “that’s going to be too much, restrain yourself, which explains this picture of chocolate milk that I made in a 32oz cup, bypassing the 48oz cup I initially grabbed; yeah, that would have come close to taking the entire carton of milk. lol

I know what you’re wondering; what’s that got to do with the topic above. The thing about social media is that most of us can define it based on what we think it is and what we think it should do for us. Most of us believe it’s supposed to be everything we want it to be, no matter what the limitations or realities might be.

I’ll own up to it; I’m one of those people. I have my own idea of what social media is supposed to be, and I want it to be that thing, and yet it’s not that thing. Let me explain.

I enjoy much of social media, but I find it lacking. I love Twitter, which you’ve heard me mention before. I’ve enjoyed Facebook, and I keep trying to make Google+ work for me the way I want it to work. LinkedIn, well, I can’t say I’ve ever gotten any business from my participation there, even though that’s what it’s supposed to help us with, connecting with those people who may be able to use our services.

What is it I want from social media? Truthfully, when all is said and done I want more engagement, and I want it more immediately. As an experiment, last night I decided to try an experiment. I announced around 8:30 that I was going to hold a Google Hangout at 9PM and that anyone who wanted to come was welcome, as I could take the first 8 people who asked to participate. I posted it on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

I wasn’t expecting much, and for the first 10 minutes that’s exactly what I got. No one came; not even a hint. So I decided to invite some people, and invited 8 of them. Two people popped in surprisingly, and two others acknowledged it on G+ but neither could come. The two who showed up were Michael Belk and Beverly Mahone. Shocking to me was that both of them showed up via their smartphones, both then tried to get on through their laptops and failed, and Michael came back to the phone, while I never could get Bev back on. I thank both of them, and Michael and I had a good conversation for awhile after he got back on.

I know some people would say that I should have put that message out way in advance but I had to try an experiment first. Here’s my take on it all. If there are a billion people on Facebook, 500 million on Google Plus, and 300 million or so on Twitter, and all of these sites have people on them 24/7, and 9PM Eastern time is only 6PM out west, I should be able to post something 30 minutes before its time and have some people show up. Of course, I don’t have that many people following me so let’s look at it this way. If I have almost 700 people following me on both Google Plus and Facebook and another 3,000+ on Twitter, that’s almost 4,500 people, and if that’s the case I should still be able to get at least 3 or 4 to show up, wouldn’t you think?

Yum… lol

That’s what I thought. As Michael and I were talking, he said that the problem with social media is that it’s not really social. On Google Plus most people seem to be interested more in promoting themselves than in talking to anyone. For the most part the same is true of Twitter. On Facebook, people love playing games and sharing images, and you might be able to get a conversation going that takes place over a number of hours, but for anything immediate you have to use that chat function, and most of us don’t like that.

Isn’t that thought provoking? Social media not really being social? Goodness, for most people it’s not even a great way to market, no matter what we try, and when I think about it, most of the people on Twitter are marketing more than communicating, and I have to share in that one, although I only post my links twice a day at most. I try engaging people when I share some of their links & quotes and occasionally talk to people, but not all that often, and that’s my favorite platform.

Is social media giving me everything I need? Not even close. But what about you? Are you getting everything you could possibly want out of it? I’m not talking marketing wise now, so don’t answer that question. And I’m not talking blogging either, since I consider that part of social media, though more indirectly. How do you view what you get out of social media now? Is it enough, or is there something else you wish you were getting?

Oh yeah; that other picture is of… well, you know what it’s a picture of. I ate all of that as well, in one day but not in one sitting. My wife is right; sometimes I just want too much. 🙂
 

Motivation/Inspiration

How Do You Accept Criticism?

59 Comments

Something different than the norm; that’s what I’m all about. What I’ve done today is what I’m calling a two-fer. You’ll see there’s a video below. I not only recorded a second video, which I actually did first, but I also wrote another post on my business blog on the same topic; kind of. The topic over there was Does Your Criticism Help? On that post I gave some ways that people can offer criticism, or advice, to others that’s helpful and positive. On this post I’m going to offer ways to ask people for advice and how to accept criticism, even when it’s bad criticism.

Angel

 

What’s bad criticism? When there’s nothing positive offered or nothing helpful, it’s bad criticism. Sometimes people don’t know that the criticism they’re giving isn’t helpful, either because they just don’t know how to be helpful or you haven’t helped by telling them what you need. That’s what I’m here to help you with by offering 5 tips you didn’t ask for; hey, you came to the blog didn’t you? 😉
Continue reading How Do You Accept Criticism? →

Social Media

Verifying Google Authorship

20 Comments

Back in October I talked about Google authorship for the first time. If you follow that link, you’ll see an example of what it can do for you, but for those who are new to this concept, it allows for the possibility of people actually seeing your image next to a search term if it comes up during a Google search. If someone knows you it’s even better, but if not they might visit your link just because there’s a picture next to it. It can enhance your online presence greatly… isn’t that pretty cool?

What I’m finding out is that many people aren’t sure how to do it, or haven’t done it. Goodness, I knew about it, yet I figured out yesterday that I hadn’t completed it for all of my blogs; what a moron! I’d have slapped myself if I could have gotten my hands in the right position. lol

In any case, this is a quick tutorial, and the video below, with my Hot Blog Tips Hangout buddies, will talk more about it and its importance, and you can hear me giving this same advice there if you hate reading everything.

First, you have to have a Google Plus profile; without that, none of this will work. Once you have that, or if you already have that, you come back to your blog and, if you have WordPress software as your platform, you go into your User profile. I’m betting that most of you haven’t been there since you created your blogs. You’ll see what’s below, although in a totally different color:

user panel

Notice that last category saying Google+? You copy your Google profile About page link into this space. This is what G+ will be looking for when it goes to verify that it’s you. If you have multiple writers on your blog, if you enter this for each of them and they put their profile information in it’ll show them in search results as well.

After you’ve done that, go back to your Google profile and look at your About page. It looks like this:

profile01

The email address you have here has to match the email address you have on your blog associated with that blog. If you notice, since I have 5 blogs, I have 5 email addresses. What you don’t see here is the word “verify” next to each email address, since I’ve already done that. You’d click on that word and it will send an email to that address with a link in it. You’d click on that link, then come back to your profile where you’ll see this:

verified1

That’s when you know you’re good to go. It can take anywhere from a week to 3 weeks before your image finally shows up next to your content, but the first time you see it will make you happy. And, if you didn’t go back to that other post, know that during a search your image will only come upon the first post you’re found for, even if you’re showing for all the listings. I guess even Google only wants to see us just so much. 😉

There you go; easy peasy. If you want more, watch the video below; we’re always entertaining:



http://youtu.be/lzP2zFmjL68

 

Social Media

Stupid Begats Stupid; Instagram And YouTube

24 Comments

I sometimes don’t understand people. At the beginning of this month I wrote a post and added a video asking the question what’s wrong with being nice. I went at that question in a different way than what I’m going to talk about today, and yet it’s as pertinent to this topic as any other.

Keep Left!
Grant the punk-ass
via Compfight

Back in December I wrote a post saying how much I loved Instagram, now that it can be accessed through Android. I still love Instagram. What I find is that I don’t necessarily like all the people there.

I love the people following me; thank you to anyone following me there. For anyone who’s not connected with me there I’m mitch9359. I love seeing your pictures and I hope you don’t get tired of looking at all the food pictures I put up.

Occasionally I like to take a quick look at an attractive lady or two; hey, I’m a guy. There’s the page that gives you 15 random photos, and occasionally I take a look. It’s amazing how many likes those pictures get… okay, I guess it’s not so amazing after all. What’s amazing are some of the comments.

I don’t know when it became a legitimate thing to decide that just because someone put a picture of themselves somewhere looking nice that you, some pig, has the right to say what you want to do to that person; you know what’s being said. Or talking about someone’s anatomy as if you know this person and thus have privileges that no one else does. How tasteless and childish can people be?

You know what stupid people? Your name gets highlighted, thus anyone can follow you back to see who you are or what images you’ve put up. I’ve gone this a few times and I have to admit that I’m amazed. It’s not all young punks writing this junk. One was obviously a devout Muslim because all the pictures on his site were Islamic religious icons, and any male was wearing the traditional headdress. So, you’re telling the world that you could care less about your religion because you can demean women anytime you want to, or are you saying that a pretty woman doesn’t matter to you because, since she’s sharing her body, she’s not chaste in your world and thus it doesn’t count?

I saw many other people who were saying the same sorts of things, and yet when you went to their page they made it seem like they were relatively nice people, putting up images that no one would ever think to object to. I really thought for a couple of moments about saying something on some of these pages, but decided I didn’t want to go there.

The same thing happens on YouTube. Stupid idiots will make comments and say all this trash and filth, yet when you visit their pages, for the most part they’re pretty straight. A few of them are as trashy and nasty on their own page, in which case you know there’s nothing much you can do about them. Well, that’s not quite true.

On YouTube, if you care, you can delete comments you don’t like. Not that I get many comments but if some came in with language I didn’t support I’d just up and delete it. On Instagram, you can’t delete comments; at least I haven’t been able to figure out how you can do it if you wanted to. It’s possible you can go online and do it, but I’m just not sure. However, if an image has more than a thousand comments, who wants to go back and read any of that garbage?

I’ve been writing a lot this month about behavior, mostly bad behavior, and maybe it’s a good thing this month is ending. I keep asking is that what we’ve become, and is this really the future of this country and the world, people deciding that no one else’s feelings or sensitivities matter? Let me know. In the meantime I’ve embedded a video from our Hot Blog Tips Hangout on the topic of negative feedback, which I led, that talks a bit more about this same thing:


 
youtu.be/0MgBHg65Kt4