The Blog Peoria Project can save you THOUSANDS of dollars
It has come to my attention that people attend conferences about blogging. The whole thing reminds me of journalism conventions and conferences, which are mostly about getting away from the wife for the purpose of doing things you don’t want you wife to know about.
In addition to the fees necessary to attend the damn things, there are consultants who set up booths selling their services as consultants. For a fee — sometimes THOUSANDS of dollars — these con artists promise to attract readers to their blogs. Or to help them gets “followers” in Twitter or “friends” on Facebook.
I’ve been known to do consulting, basically to help folks set up their blogs. My fee is no where near thousands of dollars and I don’t promise to lure hundreds of thousands of readers to your site. But i do have some advice on how to attract readers who keep coming back. It applies blogs and social networking sites:
1. Your content must be of interest. I cannot do this for you.
2. Learn to write well. How to learn to write well? Write a lot.
3. Post regularly. There are sites like FARK and TMZ that I visit many times a day because they UPDATE ALL THE TIME.
4. Don’t talk to your readers like you are trying to get them to sign up for a vacation time share.
5. Post links to your posts on Facebook and Twitter. Remember, FB and Twitter might be tomorrow’s Technorati. Or worse, USENET.
6. Moderate your comments with a gentle hand. But then it comes time to delete, ban and block, do it ruthlessly.
7. Blog mostly about your site’s chosen subject matter. Occasionally post a funny story about your cat, or how bad traffic is. OCCASIONALLY.
8. Send condolences. Send congratulations. If you are not a sociopath, you should already be doing this.
9. You can make money from blogging. But unless you post pics of pantie-less starlets, you won’t make a lot, But you will keep you dignity.
10. If a commenter disagrees with you, you really ought to entertain the possibility, however slight, that it might be YOU who is wrong. In other words, try to be humble, no matter how smart you think you are.
11. Do NOT plagiarize.
12. Before USENET (aka “newsgroups”) was taken over by spammers, it was a place to give & receive help. Make your site like USENET used to be.
13. But down the Doritos and Mountain Dew Red and go outside and go for a walk once in a while.
14. Talk to a pretty girl once in a while with no ulterior motive other than it will put a smile on your face.
15. Numbers 13 and 14 have NOTHING to do with blogging or social networks, by the way.
Testing.
Mr. N is back!
That’s right. Larry Miller III (Mr. N of ICC Harbinger fame) is once again participating in the The 7th Annual Cartoon Days of Christmas (TCDC) December 1st, 2009 – January 5th, 2010
at http://www.the-cartoonist.com and he has some good company this year…
Some cartoonists from in and about North America will participate in the 7th Annual On-line The Cartoon Days of Christmas (TCDC). This year’s TCDC will begin on December 1st and run through January 5th at http://www.the-cartoonist.com.
Each cartoonist will have a page featuring cartoons on the theme of humor in the Christmas season. It will be G-rated fun for the whole family and help to keep the hustle and bustle of the holidays in perspective. This year’s cartoonists, in alphabetical order, are Sean Boley, Nelson Dewey, Rich Diesslin, Dale Hunt, Larry Miller, and Ron Morgan and possibly some others! They hale from all around the US and Canada.
The Cartoon Days of Christmas (TCDC) will be hosted at Rich Diesslin’s web site at
http://www.the-cartoonist.com. Rich is known for his freelance cartoons and cartoon books on a variety of topics including his Out-to-Lunch general cartoons, KNOTS or Not Scouting Cartoons and The Cartoon Gospel Series. This foray into Christmas humor is one of the ways Rich and his cartoonist friends draw attention to their cartoons!
So while you are surfing the web catch a lot of laughs at TCDC – brought to you by a bunch of crazy cartoonists!