Flag maps show Marcie’s connection to the rest of the world!
We are atypical bloggers, in that we post more than most. We also probably read more blogs than most. That said, it’s not lost on me that writing a blog is something of a solo activity. I sit at my desk or on the couch in my TV room (TV off, unless husband is home) and draft my posts in Word, find/create images for them, and then upload them to the WordPress site. Yet as I sit and write, I’ve no real idea who is reading them.
(Click twice slowly – not a double click – to see larger image.)
Sure, we can see our subscriber list and we’ve got a bit better a view into some of the more active folks via the comments … but the readership is far bigger than those who comment. Sometimes I’ll say a prayer or a blessing that whoever’s reading our posts is getting something useful out of them, but usually I just write and post, hoping it makes sense and that some number of those unseen people will benefit from it.
This can be a daunting aspect of blogging: WHO is reading my stuff? WHAT are they thinking about it? Is it making sense? Am I basically shouting into the wind? How do I even have the chutzpa to do this in the first place?
Then you get your first comment. You hear back from a reader who really liked (or disliked) what you had to say. We’re fortunate to have many more agreeable comments than disagreeable ones, but we’re also not saying anything that’s too controversial.
One thing about WordPress that was different from Blogger was the metrics. Blogger has this nifty map feature that shows you where your readers are, globally. I had been missing this for a while – MY WordPress.com blog did not have this feature automatically enabled, and I could find no hidden widgets to install it – so I finally decided to find a third-party map function I could use on my WP blog. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the day before the famous International Women’s Day post that garnered us nearly 1,000 hits in 2 days.
I found a site called FlagCounter.com that does exactly what I was looking for. You install it as a widget on your blog that tracks this data; on our blog, it appears at the bottom of the right-hand column. Through it, we were finally able to see where our visitors were coming from.
Then, a strange thing happened. Out of nowhere – I SWEAR –
WordPress started showing similar geographic locations for our visitors. Now, I’m good at the writing and promotional side of blogging – but the back end programming is not my strong suit. It’s likely someone out there somewhere knows a lot more about this than I do. All I can tell you is that once I installed the third-party program, WordPress began giving me similar information.
Why does this even matter? Well, without it, we wouldn’t know that we’ve got readers in 104 countries (or 106, by FlagCounter.com’s stats). Of course, the vast majority are from English speaking countries: my native US, Canada, and the UK at the top. India comes in fourth, with Australia, Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Netherlands, and Belgium rounding out the top 10. And who could have known that two souls all way over in Maldives had visited?
And the icing on the cake (today’s theme for the UBC) is the very cool flag map provided by FlagCounter.com (at the top of this post). It’s just thrilling to see this visual representation of all the people to whom we are now connected, if only in this small way.
Does this change anything about the way we post? Not really. But it could. For one thing, we could use more international examples in our posts. Secondly, we might use the survey function on WP to find out exactly where these readers are, who they are, and what they’re interested in reading. Knowing your readers can only improve your blogging by enabling you to better tailor and personalize your posts to their needs. Not to mention that it’s just plain fun to see your entire world map become populated with flags!
Happy cartographing…
MARCIE
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Download your complimentary copy of the highly useful Website Design & Marketing worksheet from Write | Market | Design.
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We welcome and encourage your thoughtful, courteous comments below.
__________________
If you’d like us to add a link to your writing/self-publishing/book marketing blog, please send us a note. If we think it’s a good fit, we’ll be happy to add you. Of course, we’d appreciate the reciprocity of the same!
Additionally, Marcie would be happy to make a guest appearance on your writing/self-publishing/book marketing blog. Just let us know the theme or your idea (preferably including a 6-panel concept), and we’ll see what we can draft for you.
__________________
Commenting is an essential component of a successful author blog
Posted in Blogmania, Book Marketing, tagged authors, authors blogging, blog comments, blogging, blogging success tips, book marketing, commenting on blogs, Marcie Brock, Robin Harris, Savvy Book Marketer, Storage Mojo on March 23, 2012| 1 Comment »
Commenting is an essential component of a successful author blog
(1) Quality content
(2) A frequent, regular posting schedule
(3) Images with every post
(4) Interactivity
Today, we’re going to focus on #4: Interactivity. Another word for this is COMMENTS, both yours on other people’s blogs and responding to those who comment on your blog.
If you remember that blogging was one of the earliest forms of social media, and that we always want to emphasize the social component of social media, you begin to appreciate how essential a role commenting plays in a successful blog. I had the opportunity for a one-on-one conversation with Robin Harris, author of the Storage Mojo blog, and he reaffirmed what I already knew to be true about the value of commenting. At the time I met him, Robin had been writing his blog since September 2004 and had somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 active subscribers. Keep in mind, even Robin will attest that this topic, data storage and management, is a relatively bland one. Nevertheless, he has a giant subscriber base comprised of industry leaders and other experts in the field.
Of course, my first question was, “How did you do it?”
Well, go back to the top of this post and revisit the four key components I recommend for blogging success:
(1) Quality content
(2) A frequent, regular posting schedule
(3) Images with every post
(4) Interactivity
Seriously – that’s the answer he gave me. Now, he did explain that as he started the blog, he was posting an average of five or six times a week. That’s an enormous commitment, but very important if you expect to develop good search engine rankings and create a following. He tells me he’s pulled back to about three times a week now. The other key for Robin’s success was regularly commenting on other industry blogs, so much so that he was as much a presence there as he was on his own blog.
Fellow SBMs, you can do this, too!
Here’s an overview of some excellent advice from Missy at Netchunks.com about five easy ways to show your readers (i.e., commenters) you care. Again, please go read her entire post – it’s worth the time!
1. Reward Comments with a placement in your Top Commenters list.
2. Acknowledge Their Contribution. This is unbelievably important: respond to people who talk to you through the comments section on your blog! If someone asks a question, take the time to answer to your best ability. Just tell them you notice them and appreciate their feedback.
3. Link to Them. More than a general link to their blog, Missy’s advice here is to find a specific post that is worthy of recognition and mention in your blog.
4. Tweet About Them. Follow your contributors on Twitter and share the love.
5. Show Some Facebook Love. I love Missy’s caveat, “regardless of how you feel about Facebook.” She’s right, though. Your readers are probably there – so why not say hello?
BONUS: Accept guest posts. We touched on this last time, so I’ll leave it at that.
Lastly, I want to acknowledge Stopping the Wind, a gal who commented on our blog. She wrote a brief comment on my post about not letting your background image overpower your blog or website: “I agree and find it very frustrating trying to read content with an image behind it…great tips.”
Because we usually follow our own advice and always respond to comments, I noticed her e-mail address, “readytochangenow.” What a great name! It really caught my attention, so I paid a little visit to her blog and was so glad I did. Her tagline is “Daily actions to become who I was intended to be.” That’s amazingly inspirational all by itself, but then I read about the motivation behind her blog:
The Beginning
Something has to change. I whittle away what I want one choice at a time. The wind of my immediate desires blows my dreams; I dream to be fit, but trade it for Cheetos; I dream to travel, but trade it for a latte; I dream to be financially fit, but trade it for a new app on I-Tunes.
I am a workaholic in a job I love, but feel like my world has shrunk to work, sleep, cleaning, and surfing the Web. One day while web surfing my world got small. I watched a video of sites around the world and it hit me – my mortality. I felt like my life was like a vacation to the most amazing location in the world but that I had spent it all locked in the bathroom cleaning the tiles. One day I will die and will have missed it. I felt trapped by my debt, income, and body.
I work as a planner and one day, right after seeing this video, I was helping an organization do a envisioning exercise. One of the participants kept balking at identifying what they really wanted to do by saying “But how will we pay for it”. I said the same line I have said for years, “Determine the need, build the program to meet that need, and then find the funding”.
It hit me like a lightning bolt; I have said that 100 times. Why am I not applying that to my life? Do I really believe it? Lofty words – it was time to put my money where my mouth was. I thought of the video and my dream of travel – to see the world and experience new things.
I fell in love with her blog. The only tiny flaw I see is that she never gives us is her name. 🙂 But I wrote her immediately to tell her how inspired I was and that I planned to mention her in a future post. That’s how it’s done, my fellow SBMs.* You build one relationship at a time.
Have I mentioned that you can do this, too? You can. So go away now. If you don’t have a blog, set one up. If you do have one, sit down and write a new post. And if you’ve already posted today, send me a link to your book blog so I can share it with my readers.
Happy commenting!
MARCIE
*Savvy Book Marketer
__________________
Download your complimentary copy of the highly useful Website Design & Marketing worksheet from Write | Market | Design.
__________________
We welcome and encourage your thoughtful, courteous comments below.
__________________
If you’d like us to add a link to your writing/self-publishing/book marketing blog, please send us a note. If we think it’s a good fit, we’ll be happy to add you. Of course, we’d appreciate the reciprocity of the same!
Additionally, Marcie would be happy to make a guest appearance on your writing/self-publishing/book marketing blog. Just let us know the theme or your idea (preferably including a 6-panel concept), and we’ll see what we can draft for you.
__________________
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