Tag Archives: Blogging

Blogging, Social Media

A Bunch Of Random Blogging & Social Media Rants

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It’s been years since I’ve written one of these. I’m doing it this time because there’s a lot of stuff irking me lately regarding blogs I’ve been visiting and social media things that people are doing.

Automotive Social Media Marketing
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I love social media. I love interacting with people. But some folks aren’t even trying to be sociable. Frankly, I figure it’s time someone called a bunch of stuff out, even if a few people who might read this are doing these things. Y’all are being irritating, no matter your reason for doing or not doing what you’re doing; did you keep up with that bit of Southern speech? 🙂

These aren’t in any particular order; I figure a bit of “disrupt” won’t hurt, and might even keep some folks reading and learning; I’m all about the learning piece. Here we go!

1. I get it with the captcha, although I hate it with a passion. You’re trying to stop spam; fair enough. Still, two issues with it. The first… why do you have captcha that comes in capital letters but won’t accept capital letters if we put them in? We do that because some blogs have captcha that says it’s case sensitive.

The secondary gripe about this? You hit “reply”, it takes you to the next page that says you got it wrong, then you go back to the page and… what you wrote is gone! Ugh! I’ve taken to copying my posts from this point on because that was irking me more than the captcha, but y’all need to fix this.

One last thing. You put the captcha on there to verify that we’re real people. Why the heck are you also intentionally moderating comments? That’s what the stupid captcha was for wasn’t it? Do you run into a lot of trolls who want to spend time putting in captcha codes so they can call you names and such?

2. I’ve griped often about people who auto DM, or just DM you, when you connect with them on Twitter. At least 99.99995 of the people I connect with on Twitter reached out to me first. Since you reached out to me, in the open no less, why are you so afraid to now talk to me in the open?

That’s not the rant this time however. The rant this time are those people who, instead of sending the DMs, instead send either individual messages to every single person or groups a bunch of people into one post, thanking them for the connection or mentioning them as their top interactors. Almost none of them are doing it on their own; they’ve hooked up with some stupid Twitter app that does it for them.

That’s irritating, to the point that if I’m checking out profiles of people who want me to connect with them and I see their stream has lots of those things, I refuse to connect with them. Sorry folks; your other content might not be so bad but the last thing I need is more blather in my Twitter stream.

Social Media v2
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3. This is the year of social media sites changing things that are supposed to make things better… but they didn’t. Let’s see…

Google Plus just changed their format to make it more visually pleasing and, supposedly, easier for us to use. Except they’ve messed up two things that have become quite irksome.

The first is not always accepting links we share on their site. Every once in a while it won’t accept a link from a site it’s always accepted links from before. It makes me think it’s not accepting that link because they’re blocking the site… until I tried sharing the same link on my laptop, which I didn’t upgrade to the G+ new system… and it took it as if nothing had changed.

The second is that previously you could share links or stories with different circles at once, or circles and individuals. With the new system, you can either share it with your circles, the public or individuals; you can’t share with more than one at a time, which means if you want to do that you have to post it multiple times and look like an idiot. You don’t have to do that in the original version… yes, I’ve proven that as well.

Twitter has done a couple of irritating things as well. One is recently taking away the counts we had to see how often our articles might be shared with others. They’ve done that to go to a paid model for those who really want those numbers; it’s not going to be me.

They’ve also opened our direct messages so that people we don’t know can send us garbage. Goodness, there are enough people I connect with who are already auto-DM’ing me, even though my profile asks them not to do that, without now having to see people I don’t know selling to me. At the same time they also set it up so we have unlimited characters in direct messages… okay, I’m not mad at that. lol

LinkedIn also did a few irritating things this year. The first was suckering us into posting articles on their site, sharing it with lots of people, then throttling us back down. I’m presently on a course to see if it changes after having at least 100 articles there. If I don’t see improvement by article 101 I might stop posting and just allow my two blogs that post original articles there to be the only source of new content shared there.

The second was changing how groups work. First, they made all groups private, regardless of whether the owners wanted that or not. Second, they took away the ability to be seen as an influencer in a group, which took away the incentive to participate all that much. The second irritates me more because there aren’t a lot of people participating to begin with, so I loved being an influencer in a few groups. Now it’s not worth my time.

4. In a year when I’ve been trying to figure out more ways to make money online, some days ago I got an email from an affiliate program I was a part of saying they didn’t see their code on my finance site anymore. Actually, I’d totally forgotten about this affiliate, Bidvertise, and couldn’t remember why I removed the code, so I added it back.

Suddenly, the site went wonky after testing it and, after a couple of minutes, I decided to remove it. Maybe that’s why I removed it in the first place. However, all it took was that 2 minutes before Google put the site on a “do not trust” list; sigh… This led me to run all kinds of test software on the site to see if anything had been embedded before I could request a review from Google to get off the list.

I’m happy to say that I was off the list about 4 hours after I sent my review request; whew! But it’s made me become more wary of adding javascript code to my sites without reviewing better the kind of ads it puts on them. I mean, things were popping up all over the place; that was freaky.

5. Also in the last week, I started looking at my statistics a bit better; at least trying to.

The first thing was looking at Google Analytics. Have you ever checked your referring site? I had a few I not only didn’t recognize, but they said they were sending me lots of people. However, the minutes were at zero and a bounce rate of 100%. It turns out there are sites that use yours to promote their own sites without your knowledge, and it sends you false visits; ugh.

It’s known as referral spam, and I learned how to take care of it from a site called Megalytic. Actually, it shows you how to set up filters so you can see the actual stuff; I’m not sure if there’s a way to get rid of the referral spam for good.

The second thing was loading an add-on program called SEO Doctor that was recommended on some other site… the name of which I forget now. Actually, it worked great… until I started visiting a few blog sites and started getting requests to sign into their routers and having difficulty getting out of them. I had to shut that bad boy down, since it started around the same time I added it; sigh… This is a reminder to everyone that testing something new is imperative!

I think I’ll stop there. I have more gripes but I don’t want all of Monday to be a gripe fest. What’s irking you about social media lately?
 

Blogging

I Wouldn’t Have Commented If…

28 Comments

I love reading and commenting on other blogs. I know some people think it’s too time consuming to do, but I enjoy reading a lot of different types of things. I also love encouraging bloggers, as well as having an opinion on stuff; hey, look at how many articles I’ve written on all my blogs. 🙂

(64/365) Really really really ow...
Sarah via Compfight

However, I have some rules for blogs I won’t comment on. One, if it takes my having to create some kind of account or having to put in a password or register, I’m not commenting; sometimes I won’t even read those blogs. This means if your blog uses Disqus, Livefyre, or something like that, or if it’s on some website that requires people to join, I’m not going to bother. Yeah, it’s kind of a picky thing, but there’s so many other blogs out there that are enjoyable and easy enough to comment on without having to deal with it. After all, I don’t have unlimited time.

Ah yes, let’s look at this “unlimited time” thing. You know, visiting blogs and leaving comments does take time. When I’m in the mode though, I don’t mind that. However, there’s something I do mind, and a lot of y’all are now doing it.

I hate going to a blog, commenting, and then immediately receiving your stupid email asking me to confirm that I want to subscribe to blog comments. Come on; are you kidding me?

When’s the last time someone left a “real” comment on your blog and didn’t want you, the writer, to respond to it? I’m not talking about those lousy one line comments or those that tell you how great a writer you are but never address the content. I mean real comments, those you know aren’t bad, even if they’re not great.

I know when… never!

When’s the last time someone left a comment on your blog that was pretty good, only for you to discover that they put someone else’s email in it so that, when you responded, you got an angry email from someone saying “Hey, I didn’t comment on your blog”?

I know when… never!

So then… what’s the purpose of this double opt-in process other than to clog up my inbox? Actually, I know it’s a trick by some folks because when I read the email it actually talks about subscribing to receiving a newsletter whenever you post something new; I hate that kind of bait and switch.

For the rest of you though… come on, what’s the point of this? I’m serious; I just don’t get it.

I know what some folks are going to say; don’t click in the box. There’s another little bugaboo I’m going to gripe about.

For most blogs, if you don’t click that little box, you’re not going to be notified if the writer or anyone else responds to your comment. My blog is like that, as I had to add the plugin because my theme is older, and at the time no one was getting notified that I was responding to them.

There are a few blogs where, by clicking in that box, you end up getting that email with the subscription message, but if you don’t click on it you still get notified when someone replies to your comment. That’s not the norm though.

If people actually click on the box, they want to get comments; trust me on this one. If they don’t… well, we never know who clicks on it and who doesn’t (at least I don’t), but if the comment is good enough and you care about your blog and “all” of your readers, you’re going to respond to the comment anyway right? RIGHT?!?!? 🙂

Please, for the love of chocolate, turn off that feature, whether you’re doing it for comments or trying to sneak through a subscription to a newsletter (if you are, you’re being kind of scummy). It’s unneeded… unless someone can give me a really good reason for doing it. Remember though, I’ve been blogging for more than 10 years, so it better be good!
 

Blogging

How To Write Review Posts

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If you ever run out of ideas of what to blog about, something you might consider doing is reviewing a top website that’s in your industry or on the fringe of an industry you’re a part of. I’ve just written and published a review on one of the top medical information websites in the United States on my Medical Billing Answers blog and I thought I’d share the process I used for writing the review without necessarily talking about the review. Of course, if you decide you want to read it & learn what I had to say… it’s all good. 🙂

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First, you have to decide what your intention is in wanting to write a review, other than the fact that maybe you couldn’t think of anything else to write about. In my case, my website takes on not only medical billing issues but health topics as well. I was already pretty familiar with the site I decided to review and it seemed to be a perfect fit since I’ve visited it many times over the years. This way, I could see whether it fit my standards or not by looking at it deeper than I had previously.

Second, you have to set up your general criteria for what and how you’re going to review a site. In my case, what I decided to do was come up with 5 questions that I thought a lot of people might search for, but not necessarily the top questions that everyone would search for. For instance, there’s probably a lot of people who go looking for more information on how much water they should be drinking. Instead of going with the norm, I decided to look for information on how much water is too much water to drink daily.

I also decided for some of them to write them up as a question, the way many people do today when searching for information on the internet. I don’t know anyone who would put in “drinking water” expecting to find out how much water is too little or too much so it made sense to do it that way. However, a person who’s been given a new prescription might put in the name of the pharmaceutical and nothing else when wanting to get more information on it; I did that as well.

Third, if you really want to be fair you should look around a bit if you don’t find what you’re looking for immediately. I did that and, unfortunately for the site, a couple of times I couldn’t find the information I was looking for; quite disappointing. That’s the kind of gripe I used to have when I was trying to fix things on my blogs in the past and, when I’d find a site, be disappointed because the articles would leave out a lot of things in the middle, assuming we would already know all the other stuff.

In this case, when I didn’t find the answer on the site I went to the search engine and looked up the information to see if it was elsewhere… and it was. To me, that’s a major fail. However, the extra research helps make the review that much stronger.

Fourth, try not to go in with unfair expectations or personal feelings. Whereas I always thought this site was top quality (it was also one of the earliest sites on the internet covering this kind of information), it’s never been an exclusive site for me to go to. Therefore, though I knew of it, I had no real expectations one way or the other. I wasn’t harder or softer in reviewing it than I might have been if I knew any of the people who put the site up; it’s always good to be neutral before reviewing something.

Fifth, set up a way to grade the sites and then explain it. I decided on the American school grade system of A-F because I figured most people would be familiar with it, though I could have gone with the stars. I felt the letters gave me more flexibility because of the added “+” or “-“… one of which I used in my review.

Those are the steps I took, and I got a post of nearly 1,400 words out of it. I have to admit that I toyed with the idea of adding that sites logo to the post as my image but in the end decided to go with something totally different; that’s all I’m saying about it unless you decide to visit the post. lol

There you are; now, what will you review?
 

Blogging, Writing

9 Reasons You Need To Keep On Writing

26 Comments

This is the 1,649th post on this blog since the middle of December 2007. There are 14 articles here written by other people, which means I’ve written a ton. On my business blog I’ve written around 1,230 articles to this point in 10 1/2 years. I’ve written tons of articles on my other blogs, and for other people’s blogs.

Canon AE-1 (Silver) - Lisa

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Why am I telling you this? I run into people all the time who tell me they don’t know what to say or what to blog about? I run into tons more blogs where people either write articles infrequently or have decided to bail, leaving their blogs in the vapid miasma of blogging perfidy; go ahead, look that up. lol
Continue reading 9 Reasons You Need To Keep On Writing →

Blogging

10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Write About In Your Niche

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Something that’s rare for me is writer’s block. Whenever I’m ready to write something, most of the time I think of a theme, give it a little bit of thought, and start writing. I’ve got to tell you that feels pretty good.

Knowledge Wall - Transmission Global Summit 2011 - Victoria, BC
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However, I’m not a machine. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to write on a topic that’s popped into my mind. If I can’t flesh it out I don’t want to put out total garbage. And sometimes I just don’t have anything new; it happens to the best of us.

Every once in a while I just skip a post. Nothing wrong with that except I hate skipping posts on Monday; if I skip the second post of the week I’m okay with it but I hate missing the first one.

Therefore, when I need to find something to write about, I do a few different things. As I said it’s rare, but I have these things to fall back on that I’m going to share with you.

1. Visit some of your favorite blogs and write on something one of them touched upon.

I don’t want you to copy what someone else has said. Instead, either write a post agreeing or disagreeing with what someone else has written. Basically it’s a long form comment that you’re writing for your blog instead of leaving it on someone else’s blog. Just make sure you link back to the other blog; whether you’re yay or nay on what they wrote, they’ll appreciate the link.

2. Visit blogs you don’t normally visit and do the same thing.

In this case, you’re going to throw some love at someone who you might not know. What you can do is go to Google, search for your topic and add “blog” to your search term. There are tens of millions, if not hundreds of million blogs, so there’s probably not a topic you won’t find. As a courtesy here and on the first one, it wouldn’t hurt if you found a way to let them know via Twitter that you’ve talked about them & linked to them.

3. Scan the news for your topic.

If I want to write about blogging, I can bet there’s a news story every single day somewhere about the topic. Often there’s some kind of top 50 or 100 blogs in some category that’s fodder for commentary, especially if I’m not on it… did I just say that? lol Anyway, you can go to Google again, put in your search term, and once you’ve hit search you can choose the news link that’s normally on the same line that images is.

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4. Write about a book related to your subject.

Book reviews are always pretty cool, especially if they touch upon one of your subjects. Sometimes they won’t, but I write book reviews here when people send me their books. If you’re also creative you can find a way to take a book and turn it into your niche topic.

5. Think about something in your day and relate it to your topic.

I once wrote an article comparing blogging to traveling through airports while I was sitting in an airport in Washington DC on a 3-hour layover. It just seemed to fit, though I’m betting a few people thought it might be a stretch.

6. Write about a favorite fictional or historical person and relate it to your topic.

A post of mine that four years later seems to be very popular is one I wrote on my leadership blog talking about the leadership qualities of Harry Potter; yeah, I’m a big fan of the series. lol Matter of fact, months after I wrote that post I was contacted by en entity in the Philippines and asked if they could use it as an educational article for one of their middle schools; that was pretty neat. I’ve written about a lot of fictional characters and leadership including Charlie Brown and Kermit the Frog; people like that because they can relate.

7. Think about an event that occurred in your life and write about that, relating it to your subject.

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All of us have something that happens in our lives every day. Often it’s pretty mundane but sometimes there’s a bit of significance in it, along with a lesson. I wrote one of those types of posts in July when I talked about ethics in social media based on a conversation I had with this kid in Germany and his personal attack against Serena Williams that caused a bit of a scandal for a short time after she’d won Wimbledon.

8. Write a compilation post of some kind based on a seminal date or event.

This one should be easy because you might already have all the material you need on your blog. In case you need an example you can check out my post talking about 15 lessons from 1,500 blog posts or 55 tips about blogging which I wrote highlighting my 55th birthday last year.

9. Do an interview post.

By the way, have I mentioned that I’m looking for people to interview me, either on their blogs, podcasts or videos? Regardless of if I have or not, interviewing people who talk about your subject or pretty much anything else always ends up being a double benefit. When people like being interviewed they’ll help you promote your post and if you do it well, which means your questions aren’t boring, it can be pretty cool The thing about them is that the other person is doing all the work, so this one should be easy.

10. Whenever you have an idea, save it in your posts area.

I get ideas at the weirdest times. I get so many that I used to forget a lot of them. So, first I started carrying a 3×5 index card spiral bound notebook so I can write things down when I think of them. Then when I get home I’ll create a new post, pop the ideas in and then save it as a draft. That’s actually where I got the idea for last week’s post about marketing products you didn’t create, as it was on my mind earlier in the week while I was on the road. Ideas coalesce well with reminder words and phrases.

That’s 10 ideas; do you have any others? I hope this helps some of you on your way to continuous blogging.