WordPress – The Red Pen of Doom

Social media experiments–the good, the bad and the ugly

September 15, 2018August 3, 2021Posted in 7 Media Strategy SaturdayTagged social media experiments, Twitter, WordPressLeave a comment

Listen: the best place to do testing is where it doesn’t really matter, and that includes experiments on social media platforms like WordPress and Twitter

This silly blog is a good example of that.

So let’s talk, you and I, about what’s works, what doesn’t and what we all can learn.

Lesson 1: Start small

When you first start a blog, or hop onto a social media platform like Twitter, there’s no guarantee that you’ll (a) like it, (b) become good at it, (c) the thing won’t go bankrupt or (d) it may get bought by Apple, Google or Microsoft and get folded into some other app.

Whatever you try on social media, it’s good to start small.

I started this blog to sell a car. Seriously. Didn’t know a craigslist ad disappeared after a couple weeks or whatever and the ad needed a free home. My genius sister said “WordPress, fool” and that ad went viral.

https://atomic-temporary-28158232.wpcomstaging.com/epic-black-car-deserves-good-owner-are-you-worthy/

Doing a premium account from the start would’ve been a mistake.

I had to learn WordPress for a while before moving to a premium account and messing around with themes and such.

Same with Twitter and Facebook.

Start with a free account whenever you can and explore it fully before doing more.

Doing posts about books, movies and zombies truly helped me get good enough at WordPress to make new sites for other stuff, things that mattered, without a lot of sweat. And sure, after a while, go deeper. Just don’t try to learn how to swim in the deep end of the pool. Won’t work out.

Lesson 2: Try all kinds of things, relentlessly and constantly

There’s a ton of conflicting advice out there about any topic today. That includes social media.

Check them all out, then try out all kinds of things.

Just don’t think that once you figure out a process, you’re good to go for years.

The Series of Tubes isn’t like that. It’s always changing. Because of that, it’s smart to constantly switch things up. Remember that you’re doing experiments, which should be temporary unless they work like gangbusters.

Example: I tried a thing that sent a DM to to thank everybody who followed me on Twitter, and that was a big, giant NOOOOO. People hate DM’s with the passion of a billion burning suns. Experiment over.

Photos turned out to be a great experiment gone right. Now, every post I do has a feature photo, and I’m sticking more and more photos and video into everything I do. There’s research on this. They put Pulitzer-prize winning text on a page with no photos or graphics, then complete drivel on a page with a nice layout and a photo. What did people like better? The drivel with a photo. We are visual creatures, people. Visual visual visual.

Bottom line: You learn more by trying all kinds of things than by doing the same old thing. It’s more fun and more effective.

Lesson 3: Don’t get distracted–remember your core priority

I truly doubt that more than 1 percent of you make a living doing social media.

Remember that messing around with your blog, or posting to Twitter, can easily suck up all your free time.

If you’re a writer, it’s wise to do your writing first. Only play around with Twitter and such after you’ve gotten that daily word count nailed.

And try to think back to the real point of it all. It takes a crazy amount of traffic (and usually staff) to make a living off web traffic by getting millions of hits a month. First, you won’t ever get that. Second, you’re shouldn’t try, because that’s not the point. Most of us are doing social media to be SOCIAL–to write about what we love and meet people around the world who are into the same exact things, whether it’s Underwood typwriters from 1934 or knit hats for cats.

P.S. I did recently go from Premium WordPress to Business, to try some things out. Will report back on those experiments, including instant translations of the blog to many languages, which is why I’m suddenly getting traffic from Bulgaria and such, along with other craziness. Good times.

Why Facebook friends, Twitter followers and blog hits don’t actually matter

August 11, 2018August 3, 2021Posted in 7 Media Strategy SaturdayTagged #redpenofdoom, BlogPulse, books, Canada, facebook, Hollywood, Matrix, Movies, New York Times, Steve Pavlina, the matrix, Twitter, woman in a red dress, WordPress, Writing30 Comments

Hear me now and believe me later in the week:

Blog hits don’t really matter.
Most people actively trying to collecting bazillions of Facebook “friends” are wasting everybody’s time, including their own.
Your number of Twitter followers doesn’t mean diddly.

Just saying these things is heresy to Internet Fanboys, who believe nothing is more powerful than the series of tubes.

If they can only find a way to implant a USB 3.0 socket in the back of their skull, they’ll be able to jack into the Matrix, do insane kung fu kicks and stop bullets JUST BY THINKING ABOUT IT, but they’re too busy looking at the woman in the red dress that they never leave the keyboard, go out in the real world and, I don’t know, kiss an actual girl.

Am I saying unplug from the series of tubes entirely? No. The internets, they are useful for many things.

I’m saying the real world is ALSO useful for many more things.

Why blog hits don’t matter

Everybody wants to be read. I mean, it’s sad to start a blog, put time and effort into writing great posts and have virtually no traffic.

However: let’s get practical.

When I started my old blog, it was to serve a specific purpose: a permanent home for the craigslist ad to sell the Epic Black Car.

WordPress is free. My sister, who is a flipping genius, told me that she loved working with the WordPress, that it was easy and fun. So I popped the ad on there, threw some photos in the craigslist ad and thought nothing of it.

Did it really matter whether I had 50 visitors a day, 500 or 5,000?

No. Not at all. Really, I wanted to sell one car to one person. Once.

The fact that silly ad went viral didn’t matter. Fun? Sure. But that’s all.

Now, our brains aren’t wired to be that logical and practical. We all have egos, which like attention and get all sad if nobody shows up. WHO WILL PAY FOR OUR THERAPY? Continue reading “Why Facebook friends, Twitter followers and blog hits don’t actually matter” →

The random junk in our garages, it is multiplying, and IT MUST BE STOPPED

April 25, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 5 Random ThursdayTagged champion juicer, east grays harbor swap and shop, emir's bike, facebook, hitting machine, junk in your garage, junk junk junk, Material Girl, materialism, plastic bins taht nobody opens, Twitter, WordPress5 Comments

How much stuff is in your garage or basement, taking up space?

I feel your pain. Once you put something in a plastic bin and shove it in your garage, there’s a 95 percent change you’ll never open it. You could move across the country three times, loading and unloading those same plastic bins into U-Hauls, and never crack open the seal.

This is wrong. And it doesn’t have to be this way.

Though my first social media love remains Twitter, and my affair with WordPress lives on, the useful thing about Facebook is you can connect with local people who’ll pay you monies to TAKE JUNK YOU DON’T USE.

Here are three ads I put on Facebook today for my local group, East Grays Harbor Swap and Shop, or as I like to call it, EGHSS, which you pronounce kinda like “eggs” except slower and in a Danish accent.

Also: here’s a link to the craigslist ad that started me blogging in the first place: Epic Black Car deserves good owner; are you worthy?