Yesterday I had 700 plus followers. This morning when I woke up I had 800 plus followers. I was pleased. But only a few hours later now I have over 1400 followers on Twitter. What just happened? This is rather drastic.
I am not complaining, quite the contrary. But I don't know what brought this about.
I hope my blog traffic sees a similar jump in traffic.
I can't put my finger on as to what brought this about. But, for the record, I am not going to stress about it. I don't need to know. As long as this keeps happening, I want you to know, I am o-k-a-y.
If you got a great blog, most of your traffic is going to come through search engines. Tags are important. External links are important. Hyperlinks are important. For all three these days you got Zemanta. Use it.
Great, regular content hence is also good marketing. Content is queen.
Got to build a mailing list for your blog. The one that I started using for this blog is over 9,000 strong. I decided on it yesterday. And look what I got.
♫
"My name is ______ and I graduated Columbia J School in 2008 where I concentrated in broadcast. I work at ABC News in DC now (the network) and I am working on this idea of Job Hunting and the Internet--pretty much exactly what you posted in your blog below. I am wondering if maybe we could talk on the phone about this idea."
One email a day, with five links to five blog posts: do you think that will work?
(3) Comments Sections Of Other Blogs
Like minded blogs. Celebrity blogs. If you are passionate about what you are passionate about, it is not possible you don't regularly read at least a dozen blogs that share your passion. Engage your favorite bloggers in their comments sections. Link to your blog from their comments sections. That helps jack up your Google rank. And that is a good thing.
JP, Confused Of Calcutta, is a big shot. I have never met him, but I think of him as a friend. He is CIO of British Telecom. I once came across a list in some magazine where Google CEO Eric Schmidt was number six, and JP was number 12. I really like his blog, that is why I visit his blog and participate in his comments sections. But that participation also jacks up my own blog's Google rank. I am not complaining.
I grew up watching Amitabh Bachchan. This here is me in 1993. Amitabh just so happens to be the most recognized face on the planet. His blog lets me interact with him and read his mind the way a handshake will not. In his comments sections, I have hope I will meet him one day. And, by the way, Amitabh was in Calcutta before he moved to Mumbai.
I am a New Yorker. I take pride in the New York Times. It is a good idea for me to leave comments in some of their blog's comments sections and hyperlink my name to my own blog.
I really like it that when I link to an article on the Google Blog, my blog shows up at the bottom of that post at the Google Blog. I am flattered, what can I say?
Mark Cuban is a loud mouth. I think that is a good thing for my blogging.
Huffington Post does Facebook and Mashable does Disqus. They don't make me create a separate account with them or fill up basic info before I can leave a comment. And they both have huge traffic. So it is a very good idea to participate in their comments sections. Read a post, then say what you have to say, and leave a link to one of your blog posts that might go with the theme. Or just leave a link to your blog.
But primarily, you are looking to make friends in comments sections. Passionate bloggers with small traffic might have time for you. Get to know them.
Another way to figure out which comments sections to visit is by using Blogsearch. Make a blog post, then search the key term for your blog post. Relevant blog posts will show up. Read and comment and link back to your blog post. The weirdest part of the exercise though is that most blogs out there don't do Disqus, at least not yet. But the nice ones just ask for your name, email address, not to be published but required, they say, and website address. The not nice ones expect you to register with them. I almost always walk away when I see that red flag.
The reason you want to follow everyone who follows you is because the Direct Message option is a great one. It is like a politician saying hello to you on the campaign trail. That is not shallow. He/she is not pretending to be family.
Twitterfeed is as grand as TweetDeck. Thanks to Twitterfeed, as of yesterday, my Netizen blog, this blog, BusinessWeek, CNet, and Digg will all feed my Twitter feed without me doing anything about it. Manual feeding is history.
(5) Facebook Notes
My blog is integrated with my Facebook account. So a new blog post shows up as a note in my Facebook stream. And I like to tag friends to those notes, so I show up in their Facebook stream as well. That is a fancy way of saying hello.
(6) Feeds
Don't allow feeds access to your full content. Give out the first paragraph. Let people show up at your blog if they want to see the whole thing.
It is good to see Google compete with itself. Search is so fundamental to the web that constant innovation is the only way to go. Windows can reach saturation, Office can, but not search. We are barely scratching the surface.
By now the way Google does search is so capital intensive. But real time search is not capital intensive, and there Twitter is the one with the buzz.
I don't think either Twitter or Wolfram Alpha will beat Google, but good thing both will keep Google on its toes. Because when it comes to search, much is lacking, much too much is lacking.
Cut expenses mercilessly. This is for personal and family budgets.
Work
Even if it is a much lower paying job. Can't eat into savings too much, and not forever.
Reinvent
We live in a day and age when people will have several careers, not jobs but careers, over a lifetime. Reinvent yourself.
Focus On Personal Growth: Prepare For Takeoff
There is the bungee jump phase. That, by definition, can not last forever even if it lasts longer than anticipated. Then there in the plateau phase. Then there is the takeoff phase. The plateau phase is the time to prepare for the takeoff phase.
The Best Things In Life Are Free
Really. Life slowing down is not all bad news. In many ways it is good news. A slower life is time to discover people, relationships, hobbies. It is time to catch up on books you always wanted to read. It is time to hone on skills that you think you will need once it is time to takeoff.
This perhaps is good time to smell the roses.
That 90-10 Rule
If 10% of the people are unemployed, 90% are still working. But then there are pockets of 22% unemployment rates. And that is not even taking into account the chronic unemployment in the inner cities, and other underserved areas. That is not taking into account the permanent poverty in much of the world.
That Plateau Feeling?
What if America and the world hit a new plateau of lower paying jobs across the board? That would not be a happy plateau. Personally I don't think that is where we are headed. But then I am counting on the political leadership to deliver. (30 Points Down In The Polls) The financial markets will be regulated, and made sane. This economy will be restructured.
Time To Make Big Fortunes
The most trailblazing of companies have been founded in the most depressing of times. This time that is going to be extra true.
'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much care where --' said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. '--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
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