Tag Archives: Twitter

Blogging

Blogging Step Six – How To Start Getting Visitors

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Recently I was asked by a friend of mine to talk to someone who’s just started a new blog and hopes to help it spread. I wrote 5 things that I believe are the way to go when you’re just starting out to get visitors to come to your blog. Actually, I believe all of these are good even with existing blogs if you’re not doing them, so I’ve decided to post what I wrote here, with a few modifications of course, and it will be added to my Blogging Tips at the top.



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1. Post each blog article to Twitter. Of course this means you have to join Twitter and have followers who will see those posts, and some will retweet them, which gives them the opportunity to be viewed by a much larger audience. Blogging packages like WordPress has many plugins that can help you automate the process; I don’t know if Blogger allows blogs to do it, in which case you’ll have to copy and paste your link every time, something I don’t have to do. As a sidebar, I hate Blogger! lol

2. Set up both Facebook and LinkedIn to grab each blog post. On FB there are multiple apps that will do it. On LinkedIn, you can set it up within your profile.

3. Comment on like-minded blogs. This one is the most time consuming, but the truth is that, unless you’re already famous, the best way to get visitors is by commenting on other blogs, mainly blogs that are similar in content in some fashion to what you’re writing about. People get used to seeing your name and will follow you back to your blog to check you out. Of course, commenting on other blogs works pretty well also, especially if it’s something else you’re interested in.

4. Add the link to your blog in every correspondence you send out, and of course to your website if you have one. In email, if you send email to someone who opens their mail online, it helps provide a link that, if they click on it, helps build up web prominence a little bit. Of course, being on Blogger, it won’t help as much. However, just to say this, by being on Blogger you’re going to get some random traffic because of that link thing at the top where it says “next blog”, but it’s not targeted traffic so you might not get many comments, or people who will stay long enough to read what you’ve written.

5. Send out one big email to all your friends and business associates, if you’re comfortable with that. Those are pretty much considered “friendlies”, and they’ll visit at least once, and some of them will subscribe and tell others. It’s a great place to start.

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Social Media

Twit Cleaner

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What, another Twitter related thing? Yes indeed, but man, this is another great one.

The Twit Cleaner is an online program that will analyze every person you’re following and tell you things about them that you may not have been paying attention to. For instance, when it ran through mine, it told me who sends out only links and never engages with anyone, who sends mainly spam messages, who hasn’t been around for awhile, who’s not following you, and a couple other things.

Once you’re done, you have the chance to go through the list, determine who you want to keep following, and then, if you’re following fewer than 2,000 people, you can click the button and it will start unfollowing people. It’s careful not to unfollow everyone at once, as I guess it worries about triggering a Twitter reaction of some kind, but eventually it will eliminate all the folks you tell it to.

In my case, it highlighted 378 people I was following as actionable, and I decided to save fewer than 10 of those folks. So, at some point my follow number will be reduced by 368 folks, people who won’t even know I’ve dropped them since Twit Cleaner basically said they don’t interact with me anyway.

This is crucial, and it’s great. A major lament has been that social media hasn’t proven to be all that social, and you’ve seen me gripe about it often enough. The way Twitter had it set up, it would have taken me hours to go through my list and weed out many of these people. This is great, and I’m happy to share it with y’all.

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Social Media

Four Square

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Man, I feel so old!

There’s a new site that seemed perfectly suited to today’s “tell all” social media crowd. This one is called Four Square, and it’s basic purpose is to let people know where you are. You can link it into Twitter so folks can follow you around to see where you’re going or where you’ve been during the day. People can then visit to see exactly where you are, and they can comment on it if they so choose.

The principles seem to be twofold. One, it allows people to share with their friends where they are in case they want to stop by. Two, it gives a little bit of advertisement to the places where folks are. Here’s an example of how it works. Someone posted on Twitter that they were in Clinton Square, here in the Syracuse area. Here’s the link to what comes up. As you can see, it looks like a miniature Google Map, and there’s one person who’s commented on it, though a week ago so she obviously didn’t see who the person was who posted the link. However, I saw the link on Twitter, so I know who posted it and at what time they posted it as well.

Here’s the part about feeling old. I can’t imagine posting where I am at any point during the day, unless it was a major get together. For instance, if I were at a tweetup with a lot of other Twitter people and we wanted more people to come, I might post that. But if I were going to a meeting, I wouldn’t tell anyone because it’s not their business. Today I saw people who sent their Four Square message when they went downtown, to the special outdoor hockey game, to Winterfest (something I’ve never gone to in all the years I’ve lived here), to get their nails done, to a couple of different restaurants… that’s as far as I’ve reached thus far, though I figure as I get through a few more messages I’ll see more. Maybe this is tied again into this thing I have about being tracked, but I just can’t imagine it.

Still, it’s something to share for those of you who might feel inclined to want people to know where you are all the time. Frankly, I’m thinking you could just save time and implant a tracking device under your arm. lol

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Blogging

Clearing Away Irritations In 2010

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Back in September on my business blog, titled Mitch’s Blog, I wrote a second post on the topic of tolerations. The original post on that topic was only about a paragraph long, so I wanted to boost it up some more. On that post there’s a link to a pdf file called 1001 Tolerations, which pretty much means things we put up with instead of getting them out of our lives and making us feel better about things.

Well, this is a new year, and I think it’s time for me to clear some things out of my life that have been irritating me in some fashion. Actually, most of us should think about doing that from time to time because we all tend to allow certain things to drag us down, even if it’s only occasionally. For instance, you have someone who you call a friend, yet you avoid them because they bring you down whenever you talk to them. All they talk about is themselves and their problems; they never ask you how you feel or even listen when you try to talk; it’s all about them.

I don’t have anything like that in my life, but I do have some things that I will be eliminating. One is going through my email address books and eliminating anyone who hasn’t responded to anything I’ve sent in at least a year. I think that’s not a bad place to start, but I might even go back further than that; I’m not sure yet. I go through my email all the time, and I see these email addresses of people I send stuff to that never write back. I tolerate that, but no more; they’re gone. Well, kind of gone; I’ll save the email addresses in a file, but at least I won’t be seeing them anymore.

Two, remember my post against Disqus? Well, I’m now resolving that any blogs I’m following that has Disqus on them, or any other blogs I go to that send me a message saying I have to subscribe to find out if someone has commented back to something I’ve commented on, I’m deleting from my blog reader and moving on. Any new blogs I come to that has Disqus I’m not even reading. Now, I know some of you have it on your blogs, and if I like you, I may not delete the blog, like our friend Peter; we go back a long way after all. But Peter, sorry, I’m not commenting anymore because I hate getting that email every time asking me to subscribe.

Three, I’m going through all the blogs in my reader and I’m going to make sure I’m following people who are talking about stuff I really care about. Also, I’m going to drop anyone who hasn’t written a post in 3 months. And, while I’m doing that, I’m going to find the time to get to Twitter and release people who I started following a long time ago, who either aren’t talking anymore or aren’t talking about anything I care about. I follow nearly 1,400 people, and I’m not going to say that’s too many, but I am going to say that I do listen to a lot of folks, rather follow a lot of folks, who aren’t really talking to anyone, but instead are always selling. Twitter isn’t supposed to be a one way conversation, just like blogging isn’t supposed to be a one way conversation either.

You know what? At a certain point, we all deserve to have more positivity in our lives. And sometimes, heck, all the time, it’s up to us to make our own happiness and get rid of those things that help to make us unhappy. It’s time for me to do that; what about you?

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Internet

Is Instant Messaging Dying Out?

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I remember when I first got into instant messaging. It was 1997, and I had just learned about ICQ, which is still around. There was AIM, and I don’t remember if Yahoo Messenger was around at that time. But ICQ offered just what I and my family members needed.

Through ICQ, I was able to connect my dad to all of his brothers and sisters, a couple of my cousins, and some friends I’d met through newsgroups. Later on, I had some friends I would talk to. We’d talk often, pretty much every night, and it was fun. Of course, ICQ tanked in a big way, but still, there are other instant messaging systems; even Facebook has one.

These days, I can’t find almost anyone who’s using instant messaging. It’s pretty much been replaced by Twitter and Facebook, and even a little bit by email. Sure, email was around back in ’97, but many friends wouldn’t use it for whatever reason.

Is instant messaging dying out, or am I just too old to have many friends who want to use it anymore? I ask that because it seems the people who say they still love instant messaging are all younger than 30. Obviously most of my friends are older. I only have one family member who still has an instant messaging account, and he’s rarely on. The friends I have accounts for almost never show up. There’s a couple of people I talk to sometimes during the day while they’re at work, and when I’m out of town my wife and I will try to have conversations through Yahoo (though I use Trillian), but that’s about it. I don’t even know anyone who uses Facebook’s instant messaging, though I’m sure there are people who do.

I also wonder if it’s why having Meebo on my business sites doesn’t seem to bring me much communications during the day when I hold office hours, which I announce on Twitter every once in awhile. I mean, one would think someone would take me up on the chance to speak to me live, but nope, doesn’t happen.

What are y’all thinking about this? Anyone else lamenting the demise of instant messaging, did you care, or have I just passed by the age where it makes sense for my friends and my business?