Twitter Articles

This morning I read a post about how to get more traffic. It’s a good post, and like any blog post it’s a good beginning. Because blogs are short… they’re so short that blog isn’t even the word, they were Web Logs but bloggers can’t even be bothered to have seven letters and a space involved.

I digress. Everyone wants to know how to get more traffic to their site.

I don’t know with great authority, no one does. I know that if you try to do what someone else is doing it won’t work.

I can’t be like Ciaran because only one person can be Momfluential. I can’t be like Debbie because if I said Throat Punch it would be weird. I don’t disagree with Helen Jane, but she’s a vague about how to create that train wreck.

I might have hyperlinked back to those women because they have significant audiences and my hope is that my link baiting them they’ll share this post with their audiences.

I can help you avoid pitfalls that I’ve personally experienced.

Giveaways are incredibly time consuming and will not bring you a community or readers. You’ll get passers by who are unlikely to read you again.

Images are a great way for people to find you and should be well named. I do not use images because I’m slow to learn.

Do not automate twitter to share every post. The only person who can break this rule is Guy Kawasaki. I don’t know why Guy can overshare and no one else can, I just know that’s how it works.

Don’t join a StumbleUpon group. Those kids at StumbleUpon are smarter than any blogger, their algorithm will start ignoring you and StumbleUpon traffic is so delightful you wouldn’t want to lose that.

Don’t reprint a press release. It doesn’t count as quality content and I’m not visiting your site to get the same content that 2,000 other bloggers are publishing.

The things that you can do to get readers:

Tell people you’re a blogger. Add a signature to your emails.

Generously share other people’s content on your social channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. Share different stuff on each channel.

Say something outrageous, memorable or poignant. Make your audience love your community.

Write every day, or as close as you can.

Respect your audience and don’t bullshit them about loving a product that no one in their right mind could love.

Above all else every blogger should know that they’re incredibly privileged that anyone wants to read anything they’ve written. Assume your audience is smarter than you are and never pander to them or to advertisers. People want, and deserve, honest writing that you can’t get from a glossy sell out space.

Don’t be an asshole. People will read.

When Mr. G. leaves town the kids and I waste no time in doing all the things we cannot do when he is here. We do wacky stuff like eat Mexican food and sleep without the air conditioner set to 64 degrees. In fact last night I turned the AC all the way up to 68 degrees  (it’s a little warmer upstairs where the bedrooms are). In preparation for my two nights alone in bed I went all crazy and remade the bed.

You see since Mr. G. so enjoys the cool air on him while he sleeps I added an extra blanket to the bed. We sleep with a flat sheet, a blanket and then a fluffy feather comforter inside a duvet. It’s a lot of layers and it keeps me warm until about 4am. At 4am I typically wake up a little overheated. I readjust and fall back asleep. It’s not horrible, but it’s the way I’ve been living for a few years now and it’s not what I’d call “good”. When I remade the bed I stripped it of the blanket and went to just a flat sheet and the duvet. When I put the blanket against my skin I was horrified to find that it’s a really crappy polyester blanket. It’s no wonder I’ve been suffocating.

The problem with making a bed is the same problem as every other part of your life. Without a little distance you have no clue what’s really there.

Last night I slept better than I’d slept in years. I am not meant to spend a third of my life covered in polyester.

On to the bombshell. I am an asshole. This isn’t news, everyone knows I can be/have been/might continue to be. Half of my readers are my family and friends and I’m convinced that the other half of you are waiting for an implosion. Congratulations waiters, this is the day you’ve been waiting for.

Up until last week the internet (the blogoshere in particular) was a place that I saw as Utopian. I thought, wrongly, that bloggers shared snippets of their lives with us. I believed that what they said was true, or at least their truth. Last week a little light was shined on someone local and I suspect that they’ve been running scams and hurting people in the process. I’ve heard from people who were caught in the wake of destruction and I remind myself that white collar crimes have very real victims.

My trust is limited now. I don’t even trust my own judgement as much as I’d like to.

When I read about bloggers quitting their jobs and then going into debt and then asking for money I want to scream at everyone and say STOP GIVING STRANGERS MONEY. And then I want to remind everyone that when you have kids you don’t get to follow your bliss anymore. You get to GET A JOB.

Most importantly, and most bombshellish is the revelation that Shellie Ross is a wanted (arrested?) woman. Shellie Ross tragically lost a child to drowning in December 2009. Laura Freed writing under the pseudoym Madison McGraw started asking questions about Shellie, how the baby died and whatnot. Laura was relentless and clearly saw that something was wrong. I thought at the time that Laura should have laid off and let the Ross family bury their child in relative peace. I posted Laura’s whois data, which is really underhanded, crappy, ____ [you fill in the blank].

Laura (AKA Madison McGraw) came under fire being called every name in the book. She didn’t back down.

Sometimes moms just band together. We see a woman struggling and we try to protect one of our own. Sometimes we stop thinking and just react. When a dead baby is at the center of things we protect the mom the best way we know how because she is living our worst nightmare.

It appears that Shellie Ross is actually Shellie Schnell. Shellie has [probably] abandoned another family in Ohio and owes [it seems] tens of thousands of dollars in back child support. This is completely indefensible behavior.

I’m flawed, we all are. The problem is that the internet is a giant megaphone where we can amplify our flaws and I’ve certainly used this platform more than once to prove to y’all that I’m capable of supreme assholery. What I want to say to Laura is that I’m sorry. I was one of many who led the charge against you, and we were wrong. We did the wrong thing for what we believed were the right reasons. It’s not an excuse and it doesn’t make it any less deplorable, it simply attempts to explain why. It is not nearly as noble as doing the right thing for the right reasons which Laura did here.

I’ll give you a hint, it’s not because of self respect.

If you aren’t on twitter (why aren’t you?) please understand that @iRespectFemales is the username that this young man has chosen for himself. Isn’t he adorable?

Today a woman is being raped, molested or harassed. Right now a woman is being disrespected or hurt. Please talk to your sons and daughters and let them know that it doesn’t have to be a reality, and that self respect has nothing to do with somehow earning abuse.

If you’re unfamiliar with twitter it’s not unusual for a large brand to have more than one person tweeting on the account. What they do is then add their initials to the tweet so that you’ll see who sent it.

This morning this was on the @KennethCole account. Note that whomever posted this tweet had the foresight to customize the bit.ly link to read KCairo instead of the random string of characters bit.ly will create on it’s own.

Is this from Kenneth Cole?

A few hours later this anemic apology showed up.

Is this an apology?

A few things are clear about this (in my mind). They don’t understand the power of twitter. Twitter is being used right now by the Egytpians as a major communications tool in their uprising. Worldwide Digital Natives are creating open source software that allows the Egyptians access to the internet.

This morning women are mourning the loss of their children who died because they dared demonstrate in hopes of a freer Egypt. This evening more families will join those ranks.

When people are dying for a chance to have freedom, real freedom, it’s the time to be reverent. It’s a moment for inflection, and to be proud of humanity. This is a time where every Digital Native should look at the country they are in and ask themselves what they can do to keep the Internet Open and Neutral.

This is not a moment to sell mid range shoes.

What are you prepared to do today to help ensure that the the Internet Stays Open? Net Neutrality matters.

UPDATE: Ranker (of course) has a list of House Representatives who are against Net Neutrality. I’m asking each and every one of you to contact your representative in some capacity today.

In spring of 2009 Micah Baldwin started a twitter Meme that would never die. It’s called #FollowFriday.

The idea behind #FollowFriday is that you (the twitter user) would take one fascinating person you follow on twitter, and explain to the rest of your followers why they should follow them.

I embraced Follow Friday for most of 2009. I loved sharing great finds with my community.

Unfortunately 2010 was the year that I didn’t use Twitter on Fridays, mostly Friday mornings. I would go to twitter and my entire stream would be flooded with tweets like this

I see absolutely no value in 140 characters with a bunch of names and no explanation. I follow almost 5,000 people on twitter, and each and every one of them is worth following and interacting with.

Tomorrow morning, and every Friday moving forward I will be logging onto twitter, but instead of reading the live feed (as I typically do), I’ll be looking at my short list of people who have promised to not #FollowFriday.

The list is here, it’s short, but at least you will be able to navigate twitter.

If you won’t be participating in #FollowFriday please leave your twitter id below in the comments and I’ll add you to the list.

If you will be participating in #FollowFriday I’d love for you to recommend just one person (maybe two) and give a reason for following them. It’s possible that people will actually pay attention. Just not me, I’m using lists to filter the noise out.

Oh gawd I’m going to love it even more.