Actions and Reactions

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today I'm talking about something that hits kinda close to home: Actions and Reactions. No links to click today, so you can just sit back and read along with your cup of coffee or tea, and try to enjoy yourself. Ready? Let's get going!

As a self-published author, your attitude, actions, and everything connected to you is part of your brand. I'm not talking about visual branding, we all have logos or something like that. What I mean is the feeling someone gets when they see you or your books. It's that intangible thing that connects you to the people you count on to make a living: fans.

I see a lot of authors shooting themselves in the foot with the way they behave when something happens to them. Someone does the author wrong, and a rant is shortly thereafter posted somewhere the general public can see.

Why does it matter?

Because when you have a visceral reaction to something and blast it all over social media, it follows you forever. Not for the moment, for the week, or for the month. It's searchable for the rest of your life.

This article by an acquisitions agent spells it out in plain words: you will be researched if you submit a book for publication consideration.

That means the agent is going through all your social media accounts. They'll check you out well. If you've behaved badly, it's likely your book will hit the trashcan without another thought.

Authors have to be careful. I recently saw a post on Facebook where a very popular blogger asked the general public what would turn them off a writer's work forever.

Know what the number one answer was?

Yup. A rant by the author on a public space. Didn't really matter what the rant was about, either. You rant, and fans leave. There are so many authors out there for readers to choose from, they don't have to stick with you and your books.

Keep that in mind.

Also consider the ramifications of your actions to the human you're reacting to. We're all human. We all screw up sometimes. Does it really need to be made public?

Why not choose to be the bigger, better human?

I understand the desire to lash out at someone who's made you angry. You have every right in the world to do so.

Just, maybe, do it privately. A little Grace will go a long way.

God forbid you walk into a room and everyone points and whispers, "There's that author that bashed XYZ. Can you believe she had the nerve to show up here?" And all the while, you're thinking they have good things to say. You smile and they smile back. But it was that one time, that one thing you did, five years ago, that was so egregious people can't forget it.

It's easier to remember the bad things about a person.

I learned the following when I was in training for a customer service position at a major tel-com company: When someone loves you, they'll tell a couple of people. When you screw up, they'll tell anyone who'll listen.

Truer words were never spoken.

Your books are your business; don't give them a bad name by doing something because you're angry. It doesn't go away.

What advice do you have for angry authors? Talk about it!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Hootsuite vs. Buffer

Happy Technology Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! As promised, today I'm talking about digital stuff that'll help you on your way to awesome. It's all about Hootsuite and Buffer, and the pros and cons of using each. So grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

As you all may know, I wrote a post a while back on the benefits of using Buffer to schedule updates to social media. I love this feature! Sadly, I left Buffer for Hootsuite about a year ago. Let me tell you why, and what brought me back to the Buffer family as a paid subscriber. Let me start with links to the services:

BUFFER  ~  HOOTSUITE

When I first began using Buffer, it was still in its infancy. While on the free version, you can connect up to four accounts and schedule something like twelve updates. That worked well for me for a little while, and it was great for someone with a blog in the beginning stages. One of my biggest issues was not being able to choose which image appeared with my posts.

So, I left Buffer for Hootsuite.

Here was this new interface that it took me a minute to learn how to use, but I felt the time spent was well worth it. Hootsuite's free account will allow you to pull feeds from your favorite social media outlets, connect up to three accounts, and schedule your stuff a few days in advance on any timeline you wish. Your number of posts are still limited, but it's comparable to Buffer's. Here's a link to their plan comparison chart.

All good, right?

Everything was perfect until...

My posts refused to go and there was nothing notifying me stuff was down. I struggled with it for over a week. Page views hit rock bottom, less than 200 per day, and I tried to be patient while wondering in the back of my head if it was only my account having issues.

So, I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited.

Then, I pulled my head out of my rear and hit up those social media platforms to ask if I was the only one experiencing issues.

Guess what? You got it. I wasn't the only one! Relief flooded me at the same time panic set in.

What was I going to do?

A moment of clarity hit me between the eyes like a glass brick.

Why don't I see if Buffer will post my updates?

So, I cruised on back to my old friend. What I found there is nothing short of astounding. Not only could I pay a nominal fee (Buffer charges $10 a month for an upgraded account called the Awesome Plan), but that small amount gave me access to: Connecting up to twelve social media accounts (do you really have more than that?), scheduling up to 200 posts in advance, setting up a custom posting schedule for each day, adding a team member who can also schedule posts and stuff, and pulling RSS feeds.

But that's not the best part! In addition to all of the above, I also have access to a world of easy to understand analytic data.

Hootsuite gives you that, too, but it's only available to paid subscribers, whereas Buffer's is free, and Hootsuite's fee is more than I'm willing to put out of my pocket each month. Plus, their data breakdown just isn't this slick.

Take a look at what I'm talking about:

That's just a shot of how my posts performed. But, at the top of the page, there's a little box with a dropdown menu you simply must check out:

Yeah, that's about as easy as it gets! I know exactly which posts are doing well; thereby letting me know what content my readers and followers may want more of.

Quickly! Scroll back up to the top of my blog and look on the right hand side. See that little Buffer button? Yeah, that makes it super easy for my visitors to share my content on their own Buffer. One little click.

How does this save me time?

Glad you asked! When I publish a new blog post, or want to fill my Buffer with posts I've already created, I just navigate to the page and click the share button.

I don't even have to go to the Buffer main page if I don't want to. It's the same for people visiting my blog.

By the way, both of these services have an app you can download from the app store.

Now for a couple of numbers!

With Hootsuite, I got around 1k hits on my blog per day. Not too bad...

With Buffer, I've nearly doubled that number.

You tell me which one you'd rather have.

Now, there are "purists" out there who believe if you're tweeting or posting to Facebook, you should be present. But what author do you know that has the time to devote to being online as often as it takes to be able to do things like that? You can still be personable with an auto update. Plus, you can't really get all that analytic data without something backing you up.

Do you use either of these methods? Let's discuss!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Scheduling and Planning for Maximum Efficiency

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm sharing with you a little tip I read over on The Book Designer. If you aren't familiar with that blog, go check it out right now. Joel is a wealth of information on self publishing, book formatting, book covers, and typography. It's worth your time to browse around.

Anyway, one of the posts last week was about planning your blog posts (they were talking to market a book, I'm talking just planning). I used to do this, and seem to have fallen off the wagon since the move. Actually, everything has kinda been bananas around here since the move, UtopYA, and changing the kids' bus times and stuff around. I've been in headless chicken mode.

Why? Because I didn't take the time to re-schedule my life. To be fair, the kids did just go back to school a couple weeks ago, and I didn't know what time buses would run, etc...

I don't have that excuse anymore.

So, scheduling it is! You all know how much I love schedules. I've written about scheduling your day down to the minute so you're able to be more productive, and there's a post here about scheduling your social networking time so you can hit everything in a week. I even went as far as restructuring my schedule here once I got where I wanted to be search-wise.

That schedule has now been printed off and will be used to create a schedule like the one I shared on ChaBooCha (first link above). I'll also be scheduling in my editing/proofreading on a separate sheet so things are interchangeable when I have a job to do on that end.

Here's hoping.

How about you? Do you schedule like that? Would you like to? What's stopping you?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Monday Morning Musings

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had as fabulous a weekend as I did (though I doubt that's possible). Anyway, moving on! Today, I'd like to talk with you all a little bit about writing; as I so often do here on the blog. It's time for a bit of Monday Morning Musings. What are Monday Morning Musings? Well, it's time to reflect on your weekend and consider new avenues to take your work to the next level of publishing, sales, and other such fun stuff. Ready? Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

As you're all very aware, I'm a meticulous scheduler. I like to plan my writing day down to the minute. This helps me stay focused (and off Facebook), and allows me to know when I need to call upon the most awesome muse in the world (mine). With that being said, I'm considering changing things up a little. I dominate Google searches for my name now, but that's not enough for me. I want to dominate the world.

Okay, that's going a little far, but you see where I'm headed with this, right?

My social media schedule needs tweaking. I need to drop focus on some things and use the time to aim my dastardly glare in another direction. Let's look at where I was putting my time, shall we?

Monday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. You should have something integrated so your posts are automatically sent to your social networks when you click publish. I have the buffer button and all I have to do is click it after I post. 20 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the next two days. 10 minutes browsing Twitter and re-tweeting things you find interesting.

Tuesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes to answer a single question over on Quora. 10 minutes to share interesting things others post on Facebook. 10 minutes to visit and update your GoodReads page. Make sure you're clicking like on any reviews you've gotten.

Wednesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 20 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the next two days and make sure it's all running smoothly. 10 minutes to record a video you'll use later.

Thursday - 10 minutes to upload video to YouTube. 20-30 minutes for a blog post incorporating said video. 15 minutes to create a Squidoo lens (can be about and incorporate your video as well!). 5 minutes to pin a couple of things over on Pinterest.

Friday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 30 minutes scheduling everything to update until Monday and coming up with blog post ideas for the next week and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Saturday - 20 minutes sharing on Facebook. 20 minutes re-tweeting on Twitter. 20 minutes to visit other blogs and pop in a comment or two.

Sunday - 30 minutes sharing on Facebook, 30 minutes re-tweeting on Twitter.

I do all of this between the hours of 8 and 9 am.

But it's just not working for me. So, I give you a new schedule that I think will help me reach more readers alongside the authors I try so hard to help:

Monday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post with an author interview. 10 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the rest of the day. 20 minutes browsing Twitter and re-tweeting things I find interesting.

Tuesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes to schedule new posts for the rest of the day. 10 minutes to share interesting things others post on Facebook. 10 minutes to visit and update my Goodreads page if needed.

Wednesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post with a book review. 20 minutes to schedule posts for the day and post the review to relevant sites. 10 minutes to dink around on Facebook and "like" some status updates, answer people, and share stuff.

Thursday -  20-30 minutes for a blog post with something for another author. 10 minutes to schedule posts for the day and include at least one shoutout for one of my books. 20 minutes to pin a couple of book-related things over on Pinterest.

Friday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes scheduling everything to update until Monday, coming up with blog post ideas for the next week and make sure everything is running smoothly. 20 minutes to update my Book Reviews magazine on Flipboard (I'm finally up to over 1k readers, yay!).

Saturday - Is my day off. I'll use this day to come up with new story ideas and spend time with my family.

Sunday - Is my day off. I'll use this day to connect on Facebook and Twitter if I want to.

So, this is where I think my time will be better spent now that I'm where I want to be regarding a Google search for my name.

If you don't dominate Google, consider using the first social media schedule for a little while before moving on to the second. Trust me, it works.

What do you think? Do you Google yourself often?

I won't be around tomorrow. Lots to do in my personal life and not a lot of time to do it in. See you all on Wednesday!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

10 Tips for Creating a Squidoo Lens

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm gonna give you ten tips for creating a great Squidoo lens. If you remember, Tuesday is lens creation day on the Social Networking Schedule. But you don't just want to create a lens that sits there with no activity, right? So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

First off, let me abide by their request on their Squidoo Logo page and say, "I am not affiliated with or endorsed by Squidoo LLC."

Not that I'm selling you anything, see, but they politely ask that you state this if you use their logo. On to the good stuff!!


They have their own lens making tips that can be found here: http://hq.squidoo.com/tips/



Jo's top ten tips for creating a Squidoo lens:

1. Be sure you're creating original content and that you have the rights to publish/share said content. If you don't, your lens will be locked and (eventually) deleted.
2. Decide on a snappy title, give your lens a good number of tags, and flesh out the description well.
3. Use photos to make your lens aesthetically pleasing. Make sure your images are related to your topic. You don't want a photo of flowers in a post about the apocalypse (unless they're dead, maybe).
4. Give your readers plenty of sections to peruse by using the add module button on the right hand side of your lens.
5. Pay attention to the progress bar on the top right hand side and be sure you're fleshing out your lens with enough content to get to 100%.
6. When/if you recommend products on your lens, make sure they're relevant to your content.
7. If there's a YouTube video out there related to your topic, add it.
8. Know what you're creating before you begin to create.
9. If your ultimate goal is to sell something to the reader, make sure you're easing them into the sale rather than shoving it in their faces.
10. Above all else, have fun. Create something folks can't (or don't want to) look up elsewhere. Squidoo is all about discussion and creating a community full of information with your own POV. Be original and have original thoughts.

A couple of my lenses:
Book Formatting
Using Flipboard to Manage Social Media
Things I Learned from My Editor

Have you used Squidoo yet? Why/why not?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

A Checklist of Tools

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Wow, what a weekend, eh? Well, on to another week at the fantabulous Jo Michaels blog. You know you love me. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here, reading this post!

What's that? This is your first visit? Oh my... You should take a moment and give yourself a little tour. Check out the link list on the sidebar, grab your free branding PDF, and browse through some of the awesomeness that's found around here. Then, subscribe via e-mail so you don't miss anything new.

I know it's April Fool's Day, but you won't find shenanigans here. Sorry if I disappointed you.

Today's post is a compliment (call it a checklist, if you will) to my Social Networking Schedule. It's a handy little thing you can flash down to be sure you have all the things you need in your virtual tool belt.

Apps:

• Evernote (handy for syncing information across ALL devices)
• Flipboard
• Hootsuite (or Buffer)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Goodreads
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Facebook Pages Manager
• Blogger (this got an update and works beautifully)
• StumbleUpon
• Tumblr

Social media you should be a part of:

• StumbleUpon
• Quora
• Squidoo
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Facebook
• Twitter
• A blogging platform (Blogger, Tumblr, or WordPress)
• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Goodreads

Tools you should be using to streamline your workflow and up your visibility:

• Hootsuite (or Buffer)
• Flipboard
• Some kind of schedule, posted where you can see it every day

If you don't have a tablet, you might think about getting one. It will help you on your quest to becoming a force to be reckoned with online. I don't know what I'd do without my iPad. Seriously.

What's the point in taking the time to set up all these social networks?

The more places you are, the more places you can be found. Easy to explain.

How many of these networks are you on?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Proven Results Social Networking Schedule

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm happy to share with you my results from using my Social Networking Schedule I posted two weeks ago. I used it last week, and here are some of my stats:

I enjoyed several retweets over the weekend and a number of downloads of my free PDF on cleaning up your image.


I gained five new fans and enjoyed two shares of my posts on Facebook.

Stumbleupon sent me eight new visitors to the blog.

I gained two new followers over on Tumblr.

I sold three books.

I got mentioned twice on Google+.

I now have two featured lenses over on Squidoo. http://www.squidoo.com/book-formatting2 and http://www.squidoo.com/things-i-learned-from-my-editor

I answered a question on Quora.

No video last week; but I intend to do one this week, as scheduled.

Ms. Rebecca Fyfe, over at the ChaBooCha, asked me to write a guest post for her. Integrating the Social Networking Schedule has never been easier! Go check out the post here.

Now that's a lot of activity. How many more people do you think I got my voice heard by? Becoming recognized in your field is easy if you schedule your time and use it to maximize efficiency.

If you missed my Saturday post, it was a blog tour stop for Good Ghost Gone Bad. I'm giving away two e-copies of that book. Go check it out and enter!

Remember, branding is important and so is social media. So, get on it!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Social Networking Schedule - Day Fifteen WABC

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today is the last day of the Winter Author Blog Challenge. I bet you've noticed the influx of discussion on social networking sites, eh? Over the last fourteen days, we've discussed Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, Quora, FourSquare, GoodReads, Squidoo, StumbleUpon (amongst other social bookmarking websites), and Ning. It's been one hell of a couple of weeks! In the last few days, I saw people becoming overwhelmed by all the websites concerning social media. There were a couple I hadn't heard of, but I had a profile on most of them because I know social media works. Our prompt for today is:

What was your biggest takeaway from participating in the Winter Author Blog Challenge? What is your plan/strategy for integrating your social media platforms? What would you recommend to a new author who’s just getting started on social media?

First, I'll answer the questions. Then, I'm going to break down all this social media talk and give you some tools to help you manage your time when dealing with them so you don't have all the hours in your day sucked out by trying to be everywhere at once. Sound good? Okay, let's get going!

My biggest takeaway, as always with a blog challenge, is meeting new people and interacting on other blogs. It forces me to get out there and read and comment other blogger's posts.

I already had a social media strategy when I began, but I realized I'm not using it to its full advantage. From now on, I'll be following a much stricter schedule. One I'm going to share with you in a moment. If you're new to social media, I have one tip for you: Brand yourself across all your platforms. Whether with a logo, your face, or a cute picture of a bug, you need to have consistency. People who happen upon something belonging to you should know right away it's yours. A color scheme is a must, as is a consistent name. If you don't have an identity package, call a graphic artist today and get one. You won't regret it.

You should have a folder containing: Logo, icon, or headshot, preferred background design, html color scheme codes, and a bio. Label it Branding and never ever delete it.

If you don't have naming consistency across all your platforms, change them. This is KEY.

Now, on to the tools! We all know I love free. So everything I give you will have a free option. A couple of them allow you to pay if you want more functionality but it's not necessary.

First and foremost: Buffer and Hootsuite
I'm a huge fan of Buffer. I can go to a site, hit the buffer icon in Firefox, and schedule it to Tweet, post to Facebook, and pop a message on my LinkedIn wall with one click. It's awesome. Since I'm a free user, I get up to ten buffered posts. Best of all, I can control when they're posted. I can manage all three of those social networks for two to three days at a time by scheduling my posts to span.
Hootsuite is a little different an incorporates up to five social networks. I'm not sure if they have a Firefox plugin like Buffer, but here's a list of stuff they can help you manage:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• FourSquare
• WordPress
• MySpace
• mixi

Now, you can also incorporate free apps into your Hootsuite. Just remember, you get up to five with the free plan, more will cost you money. Here's a list of their free apps:

• Tumblr
• Instagram
• Flickr
• Trendspottr
• Evernote
• MailChimp
• Constant Contact
• SocialBro
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit
• Storify
• Vimeo
• Scoop.it
• SlideShare
• Blogger

On a hunch, I did a search through the app store. Guess what? There's an app for that, too! Both Buffer and Hootsuite have an app you can download. If you haven't signed up with one of these management tools, please do so right now. It will help more than I can put into words.

Why is this important? Because it lets you manage all your social networking from one application. Imagine spending just one hour a day managing everything! Of course, visiting the app isn't really all you have to do. But it'll still only take an hour a day. Without further ado, here's a handy dandy schedule. If you follow it, you'll be on your way to social media ownership very soon!

Monday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. You should have something integrated so your posts are automatically sent to your social networks when you click publish. I have the buffer button and all I have to do is click it after I post. 20 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the next two days. 10 minutes browsing Twitter and re-tweeting things you find interesting.

Tuesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes to answer a single question over on Quora. 10 minutes to share interesting things others post on Facebook. 10 minutes to visit and update your GoodReads page. Make sure you're clicking like on any reviews you've gotten.

Wednesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 20 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the next two days and make sure it's all running smoothly. 10 minutes to record a video you'll use later.

Thursday - 10 minutes to upload video to YouTube. 20-30 minutes for a blog post incorporating said video. 15 minutes to create a Squidoo lens (can be about and incorporate your video as well!). 5 minutes to pin a couple of things over on Pinterest.

Friday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 30 minutes scheduling everything to update until Monday and coming up with blog post ideas for the next week and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Saturday - 20 minutes sharing on Facebook. 20 minutes re-tweeting on Twitter. 20 minutes to visit other blogs and pop in a comment or two.

Sunday - 30 minutes sharing on Facebook, 30 minutes re-tweeting on Twitter.

Now, lather, rinse, repeat. I added Saturday and Sunday because most people don't work on the weekends, but are on Facebook and Twitter just hanging out. Why not share a couple of things while you're at it? After all, social media is about being social, right? So many people shied away from FourSquare and Ning, I didn't include them.

Granted, it's going to take you an hour or so to get one of the above apps working in the first place. Once you do, you'll wonder how you ever got on without it. They're time savers! Use them! They're FREE!

Does this help you break it down? Does it all seem more manageable and do-able now?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

My Social Network - Days Thirteen and Fourteen WABC

I've decided to compile today, good people of the blogosphere! There were two prompts from the Winter Author Blog Challenge that are quite close in nature, so I'm gonna discuss them both in one post. By the way, happy Thursday! Here they are:

What if you could create your very own Facebook? A social networking site that you run, based on your interests and whose members must abide by your vision, goals, and rules? Guess what, WABCers – you can do just that through Ning.com! I know – it’s crazy. Here we’ve spent the last 12 days talking about other social media platforms, and now your kooky leader is bringing up the idea of hosting your own network. There are drawbacks to be sure. T-I-M-E being chief among them. But if you have a special interest and haven’t found the perfect social site yet, Ning offers you the mechanism by which to create your very own social network. Ning has other benefits, though – chief among them being numerous sites on all sorts of topics that may attract your target readers. Are there any circumstances under which you could see yourself creating your own social network? Take a spin around the Ning Directory just to see what else is out there. Much like blogs, you’ll find half-abandoned Ning sites (ahem … I have one of those) and thriving sites. Are you inspired? Could you find time to visit one or two in your genre just to see if hanging out might be worthwhile? And by all means, if you already have a Ning site, share the link with us!

OK, some might compare today’s prompt to yesterday’s – but they are different. This one is a little more creative than necessarily practical. Your answer doesn’t even have to be physically plausible – the goal is just to have a little fun, now that you’ve worked so hard for nearly 2 straight weeks! Here’s the question: If you could create a social media platform that doesn’t exist yet, what would it look like? What would it do? How would you use it to promote your books as well as those of other authors you know/like?

First off, let me say I won't be joining Ning unless I can round up a ton of people to help split the cost. Plans starting at $25 generally turn into much more when you add bells and whistles. But I took a cruise around the site, and those with the cash flow have done some awesome things. So, let's jump onto the real question in both the prompts above: What would your social media platform do?

My rules would be simple:

• No spamming
• Keep it nice or get the hell out
• Love thy neighbor
• No reviews allowed
• Have a lot of fun

Functionality would include:

• A place to do a giveaway of your books - must be free and not require purchases
• Ease of upload for book covers and a place for a link
• Book lists
• A wall like Facebook's where things are streamed as they happen
• Easy to find author lists
• Easy to find reviewer lists and their genres
• One-click sharing across all social media
• One-click linkup of all social media accounts

Basically, like GoodReads and Facebook combined but only one 'group' allowed. It would be a place where authors could go and add themselves and readers could go to find great books without all the mumbo-jumbo of other sites. If you see something you like, share it. If you don't, leave it and move on to the next thing. Like a bookstore online where the authors are present and giving stuff away. How awesome would that be?

It's not a realistic site, but it sure would be fun.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be presenting a list. Call it a schedule, if you will. So everyone can use every social media platform we've discussed this week and it only take up an hour a day (this includes your blog!).

Let me tell you, I've used an hour a day for over a year. In January of 2012, if you plugged my name, Jo Michaels, into Google, I didn't show up anywhere. Now, just over a year later, because of that hour a day, I'm every search result on the first page but one. Remember that video I uploaded last week? It's there already.

Check it out: Jo Michaels Google Search Results

And tell me I'm crazy. How would you like for that to be you? It's possible. Don't get overwhelmed by all this stuff. It's easy to manage when you take small bites and spread the butter thin.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

To Stumble is not to Fall - Day Twelve WABC

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today's prompt is all about social bookmarking sites. Mine of choice: Stumbleupon! Here's the prompt:

A social bookmarking site is a “centralized online service” that gives its users the ability to add, annotate, edit, and share links to web documents. Bookmarking, also known as “tagging” is a significant feature of social bookmarking systems, enabling users to organize their bookmarks in flexible ways and develop shared vocabularies known as folksonomies. Popular social bookmarking sites include Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg. Do you regularly use any social bookmarking sites? Why do you use the ones you use? What are the benefits of social bookmarking? What are the specific benefits of social bookmarking to authors? If you’re not using a social bookmarking site, you’re missing out on a key aspect of social media: referrals by the users. Is social bookmarking something you should consider incorporating into your online book marketing strategy? Give us links to your profiles, if you have them.

You followers of my blog already know my age, so I'm not really dating myself when I tell you I was around when Stumbleupon was the big thing. Not only that, I was around when it was the only thing. There was no Reddit, Digg, or Delicious back then. By the time those hit the market, stumbling was a thing phasing out.

I remember getting lost for hours stumbling around the web when I would come across a site like: Perpetual Bubble Wrap or Jackson Pollock Painter. Turn up your volume before clicking the first link. If you click the second, move your mouse then click the left button, then repeat, and again, and again! It was a time suck, for sure. Greater than Facebook could ever be. Seem hard to believe? Go sign up for an account on SU and click the stumble button. You'll be hooked like a fish after a juicy worm.

I created this today on the JP website above:

How cool is that?

How does this help you as an author? Well, get out there to one of the sites, make a profile, tell the darned thing what you like, and see what happens when you click the button to take you to the next relevant site. If you go stumble your own pages, the social bookmark will be filed and others can happen upon your content without you ever doing a thing but filling out a form and putting it out there for the world to stumble upon.

Here's what a profile looks like: Jo Michaels on StumbleUpon.

I'm sure there's an app for that, I just haven't taken the time to go find it. But I do have some statistics for you! I had this image on a popular photography website:

It got stumbled. Within the time span of three days, it got 25k views. That's a significant number and one that shouldn't be ignored. It's 25k potential new customers/readers/clients.

So, if you're out to waste time or looking to join the fray of internet marketing, you want to be on one (or all) of those social bookmarking sites. It take minutes to tag a page but it could be the difference in being seen and being passed by.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo