The Reader Appreciation Project

Hurricane Katrina brought a real disaster to New Orleans and surrounding areas. People who survived it found themselves in the situation of not having anymore house to sleep in, no more clothes to wear, and so many times, no more family, or even no more life.

But as the human brain is set to forget, after a while people came back to New Orleans and tried to re-build their lives on the ruins of their old ones. Some of those people are bloggers. Maybe you’ve read their blogs many times without knowing that they were running away from the hurricane as they were writing those posts.

I was thinking the other day at a friend of mine, who’s working with me on an internet project, and who excused himself to be late with some things because he had to prepare for the hurricane. I’m fortunate to live in a blessed area, with moderate climate. The biggest wind I’ve ever seen was barely able to put down a dead tree. I think that if I had to face such a disaster, survival would have taken the first spot in my priorities (and the next ten spots on my priorities list would have been empty).

Today I discovered that there are people like PB, who after surviving Katrina, is now running away from Gustav, and meanwhile he still finds time to make a video post. Unbelievable, while being away, he’ll have to pay some $300 a night (or $100 a night) for the hotel room, as far as I’ve understood from his video. Again, I don’t get this democracy which cannot find a solution for lodging these people who were terribly hit by Katrina and who are in danger to be devastated again, this time by Gustav. Why do they give names to those storms? Only to have somebody to blame it on for so many deaths?

I’ve never read PB’s former blog (which he recently sold), but I cannot stop myself from thinking that maybe other bloggers I read are in the same situation. What I know, is that there are bloggers who pray for PB and for all other people in distress.

I surely hope Gustav dies young. Do you?

You all know by now how important is to give your readers good tips, so they stay motivated to subscribe and read your blog regularly.

But do you know what’s even more important than giving your readers useful tips?

Giving them in form of lists.

If you believe what I’ve written so far, that’s OK, your readers probably love you already. But doesn’t this blogging world start to look like a cookbook? Take two eggs, scramble them on a plate, add some salt and pepper, some small cut bell peppers, throw everything in a hot pan, wait one minute, turn on the other side, wait another minute, put everything on a plate, decorate with parsley, eat, enjoy.

Although there are great recipe books available for almost everybody, some of us are lousy cooks. Or maybe we are good, but the ingredients we use aren’t always that fresh. Or our timing is not exactly the right one: 30 seconds more on the fire can change the taste of the food we make.

Do you see my point? Why writing in lists, when the outcome would be unique anyway? Why respecting the cooking recipe, if I think my food could have a better taste if I cook by inspiration? Do you think the guests you invite for dinner care more about your cookbook rather than about the result, the food itself? If I were a cooking expert, supposed to produce the same outcome each time I combine the same ingredients, that would make a sense. If you go to a restaurant and order a Caesar salad, each time you expect to get the same combination of foods which we use to call Caesar salad.

But cooking by the book when nobody expects that can be a little frustrating, don’t you think so? Having an infinity of blank pages waiting for me to fill them in could be a challenge for creativity and not for making more and more lists. Why limit myself to a given frame, when I feel like crossing the boundaries? Only because I assume that readers cannot focus enough to read a whole page which is not broken into bullet points?

I’m smarter than that and I’m sure my readers are smarter, too.

What do you think about lists?

Running low on ideas seems to be an issue most of the bloggers face every now and then. At least, this is how I explain myself the numerous posts on this topic I come across every day. Is this a concern that readers would be disappointed if they don’t find you posting with your usual frequency? Or is it maybe a concern that they’d go away and never ever come back to read your blog again? Or maybe that’s just their ego, not allowing them to just break the routine and skip posting until they have something to say to their readers…

Whatever the reasons, we want to be creative and to live up to the expectations of others. That’s why we need backup plans and strategies. Let’s see some of them:

Pat B. Doyle provids her readers with an impressive list of 23 great ideas for blog posts.

Lisa, from Hit Those Keys tells about counterweighs to beat Inertia and produce “New Work”.

Spinebreakers publish an audio interview with an author who has never experienced writer’s block. It seems that having multiple jobs ongoing at the same time is key for him to never have this problem.

Finally, this is how Rudyard Kipling explains the six words which prevent writer’s block.

What’s your way? Do you want to get rid of your writer’s block when it comes, or you are just living it to the full and stop posting for a while?

If you run a blog or two, you may already know that some of the means to promote your blogs to the world are social media and commenting on other blogs in your niche. Both methods imply communication. Your avatar meets my avatar on the same page and we exchange words and thoughts.

What if my avatar has been “borrowed” from Flickr and designed to represent that other “me” I want to be in relationship with you? If you knew that your web 2.0 friends who helped you when you needed were just “somebody elses” hiding behind fake social media profiles, would this discovery lower your appreciation for them?

Is this situation similar to the one of the little boy who wanted to get his grandmother married, so he pretended to be her in some dating websites, and befriended some potential grandfathers in her name?

Do you remember the last time when you did something for your readers to make them feel better on your blog? How did you come to the conclusion that you had to do exactly that particular change and not others?

One of the niches I’m writing in is internet marketing. As I want to stay informed on what other people in the niche are writing, I’m subscribed to a gazillion blogs, and every now and then I even remember to read them. Many bloggers in this niche feel like monetizing their blogs is a must, taking into consideration that they write about making money with blogs. However, every once in a while, there’s a blogger who decides to get rid of all blog advertising as tribute to his readers. The results? The readers’ appreciation? I quote from the blog of Garry Conn, who’s the person in question:

Since this time, I have written some really good articles — at least what I thought to be — and have received virtually ZERO reactions to these posts. I even wrote a post about my daughter’s 16th birthday and out of 1200 subscribers on only 4 people wished her a happy birthday. So for me, I am truly offended by that. I understand nor do I expect that all 1200 people would have wished her happy birthday, but I would have expected around 20 people to do so…

So, ads are back on the blog, and so are the comments from readers. This is the last comment on the post I’ve quoted from:

I’ve never seen a marketer chew is viewers out … ?? I get great feedback, and most others do to. Only 25% of people come back to your site, meaning you’re failing on building the emotional connection. Don’t blame your viewers when you fail at generating buzz or comments. You are the one making the “first move” with your website. If you fall on your face, then work on your style, or add more value.

What do you think? Was this reader unfair? Or is it just that our readers are in such a hurry themselves that they really don’t find the time to stop and wish Happy Birthday to the daughter of somebody they learn from?

There was this research some years ago which was showing that the staff of a company fully renews itself over a period of three years. People come and go, and if you have the curiosity to pay a visit to your former colleagues after a few years, you may end up with the surprise of not knowing anybody in that company anymore.

Thinking at myself as a blog reader, one of the things I notice immediately is that the list of blogs I read has almost completely changed over the past two years. Although I watch on average 100 blogs (or more), the ones which are still on my favorites list can be counted on one hand’s fingers only.

I don’t remember when I’ve lost interest in some blogs and how long it did take until I wasn’t interested in them anymore. However, I believe that for most of the blogs, my lifespan as a reader last some 4-6 months. I have no idea if those bloggers were starting to repeat themselves, or was it only that I didn’t care for those topics anymore?

How are you as a reader? Are you aware of your lifespan as reader of a certain blog? When you stop reading one, do you know your reasons, or it’s just that one day you discover that you completely forgot it existed?

After how much time the readership of a blog is completely renewed? I wonder if we could measure that. What do you think?

Most of the biggest things in life started by being small.

This is not a saying of who-knows-what-smart-personality from the past. This comes straight from my personal wisdom well, and it was issued with the occasion of getting tired to submit stories to Digg to see if I can make it to the front page. After Digg, there was Sphinn: another enigma, another trial. Here I noticed from the start that I cannot find an appropriate category for my submissions. There’s no wonder that very few members actually cared to vote for those stories, although some of them were not bad at all.

After two years of being a submitter, I decided to become the one who receives submissions. No, I haven’t got hired by Digg, nor by Sphinn. I’ve just launched my own social networking website, BlogLancer.net, a place where there is no specialization: there are lots of categories, so all readers would find a suitable place to submit their work. If they can’t find it, I’ll create it for them.

On BlogLancer.net, all members are equal and all stories are accepted. Who cares if you choose to publish them on a Squidoo lens, or on a HubPages hub, or on a free Blogger blog? If you thought it to be good for publishing, then I think it is good for reading. All you need to get promoted on the front page are 5 votes from the other members. There is also a WordPress plugin, for those of you who may want to include the “vote” button in their articles.

As the site is only four days old (or maybe I should say four days young), it is small and ignored by search engines. But Digg and all others must have looked the same in their first week of existence: small and ignored.

So, if you have stories craving for attention, I invite you to submit them to BlogLancer, so we can all read and comment them together.

In the longest day of the year, hidden away in your personal oasis, you can get Google send 16350 visitors to your blog only by blogging about the first day of summer, or you can close your eyes and imagine how ICANN is going to open up the internet to those who will show full wallets and solid business plans.

No matter how much you’d be thinking, you’d never guess what’s in the Mojave Desert, nor for how long is Microsoft going to support Windows XP in the future. Some people may not care, but I do, because I tried Vista once, and on Mac I’m lost forever. How to get used to a one-button mouse when you have so many fingers willing to click?

My brain got a bit fried today because of the incredible summer heat, so this was the best possible shape I was able to give to all the interesting things I’ve read and wanted to share with you.

There’s one more before I go: if you need to install WordPress on many domains, forget the never-ending ftp and get Easy WP Installer to help you.

Do you still remember the moment when you published your first post? What were your feelings? Were you anxious and eager to see readers commenting on your thoughts? Were you checking on your blog 100 times a day, from fear of not answering a comment fast enough? How did you feel?

All these questions popped in my head when I discovered that a new blog was born, authored by Doreen, Jim Kukral‘s wife, and named Mom Goes Green. I liked the way Jim described what he saw in his wife’s eyes when she hit Publish for the first time. I liked this new, fresh blog, full of the energy given by the beginning. But what I liked most was the impressive number of comments.

Do you know why? Because this says something about Jim Kukral’s readers. And if I’m going to tweak an old saying, like “tell me who your readers are, and I’ll tell you who you are”, then you’ll see how much Jim Kukral respects his readers and makes them feel at home in his Daily Flip.

One of the most controversial topics in the blogging world is making money online. Actually not exactly making the money, but talking about how to make it. All kind of “experts” are raising their heads from the dark, claiming they have the absolute secret to the treasure chest, and giving it away for a measly amount of $47, or $97, or $147. What’s one second, compared to the Eternity? What’s one hundred bucks, compared to the millions you’d make if you read that book, or if you joined that membership program?

The Simple Theory Of Making Money Online

When I used to work in advertising, before developing a campaign, we always used to depict our target audience: we attached a persona to it, we gave that persona a name, a face, needs, desires… weaknesses… it was almost like we became friends. The dialog got much easier after we knew who we were talking to. Our campaigns were selling like crazy, the clients were happy, so that seemed to be a good formula for success. Was it really?

Since the summer of 2006 I’m playing with blogs. I like it. Whenever I manage to reach the top position in Google for some competitive keyword, I’m happy like a child who’s just got a new toy. However, in the beginning of this year, I’ve started a make money online project which was supposed to go on like this: write some beautiful posts to resonate with people willing to make money online, then create products (namely ebooks) which those people would either buy from me, or get them for free but stuffed with affiliate links all over the place.

How To Apply The Theory When Readers Are Looking Into Your Eyes?

My first ebook is almost ready. I’ve written it a couple of months ago. It is a decent read, but I’ll never release it to my readers. To make you understand what made me feel this way, I’m going to give you a quote from Grizzly, not the bear, but a guy who teaches people how to make money online, and who put this feeling into words I wouldn’t be able to express better myself:

Somewhere along the line I got sidetracked. I quite unexpectedly started getting readers – real people asking me questions. This threw me off a bit. It’s one thing for the conscience to slap up a page of links and collect commissions off of a nameless click. It’s another thing to make money off of “Bob” who has sent me an email asking for my opinion on the product I am flogging. At least to me it is. It turns out that Bob is down to his last dime, out of work, heard you can make money online and is willing to buy the product on my page if I say it’s a good deal. He trusts me. Oh man…

Please follow the above link and read the whole post: you’ll discover what reader appreciation really means. Reader appreciation means to be able to look your readers in the eyes. Readers are more than figures on a daily chart. Readers are those Bobs, and Johns and Janes whom you’ve just impersonated for your next marketing campaign.

Always impersonate your target. Then re-evaluate your ways. You might find a better one.

P.S.: my money making project has turned into a resources consuming one, but I’m feeling much better and so does Diana, my partner in this enterprise.