Getting the Words Out There

Seven, they say, is a lucky number. I hope that's true, because I've now been doing this blog for seven weeks. It's still in the experimental stages, still finding its feet, but I've been enjoying the process and have had fun playing with the tone, format, and length of the posts. It's an evolutionary process, and feedback from readers has been an important and helpful part of it.

A blog with no readers is really no blog at all, and I'm grateful to everyone who has read my posts, especially to those who've taken the time to comment. Feedback is essential for a writer, and I've been fortunate to have received some very supportive comments.

I think the next stage in the evolution is to try and widen the audience. This has been running around in the back of my head for some time, now, of course, but I've been more focussed on getting into a routine and establishing my topics.

But now, methinks, it's time to delve into the realm of self-promotion. This is something I've never been entirely comfortable with, but it's also something that would seem to be necessary for anyone who wants to get their writing "out there." I know there are tips and tricks for getting a blog or website noticed, and I've read a few here and there, but I want to make sure I'm doing the right things, and doing them for the right reasons.

I do have an ego. Despite my moniker and its awkward history, I do still have a desire for approval and a fear of rejection. I suppose everyone has these in varying degrees, but I'm painfully aware of the fact that my self-esteem does not have the most solid of foundations under it, and that the emotional carpet can be quite easily pulled out from under me.

And yet, I keep writing on this damned thing. And I want people to read it. And yes, I'll be honest here; I want more people to read it. Because I feel that writing is one my strongest abilities, and I want my writing to be read.

So I wish to promote the blog.

But I want to do it the right way, and I want to do it in a way that doesn't get in people's faces and annoy them. At the moment, my main promotional channels are Twitter and Facebook. I have an account on Twitterfeed, which is a service that automatically sends out a tweet on my behalf when I post a new entry on the blog. And I have Facebook set up so that it uses my most recent Twitter tweet as my status line.

It works nicely. When I check my WordPress blog stats, it usually shows me that most of the traffic to the blog has come from Twitter and Facebook. Which is pretty much what one would expect.

So now I need to take the next step. And there are a lot of resources out there with information on increasing blog traffic. I know the first thing I need to do is what they call SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. There are a lot of techniques for increasing a site's visibility on search engines, and there are even a bunch of WordPress plugins that can greatly help in that area. So I'm planning on doing my research and experimenting with that a bit.

But then what?

I know I need to comment on other people's blogs, and I intend to do that as well, but again, for my own peace of mind, my intentions must be honorable. I don't want to just comment on other blogs willy-nilly, with no intent other than to get attention for myself. I need to engage in meaningful dialogue with other bloggers and actually contribute something (useful or entertaining) to their sites and their communities.

Then there's the whole Twitter thing, which I know people are using like crazy to promote their businesses and websites. As of this writing, I follow 106 people and have 90 followers. Most of the people I follow are people that I know, and they tweet various random things and have mini-conversations. A few of the people I follow are promoting their businesses, but they also post really interesting and useful links. If someone does nothing but promote their business in their tweets, I'm just not interested, so I unfollow them. I need useful (or at least entertaining) information in order to keep following someone.

Every once a while I'll see a tweet from someone that goes something like: "Get 400 followers a day using <insert-URL-here>". This is amusing to me, and if I see one of these, I almost invariably unfollow the person who posted it. Sure, I'd love to have more followers, but I'd like to have some quality over just quantity. There are a lot of spam-bots out there automatically following people, and it's annoying as hell.

And here's the other thing. I feel guilty if someone follows me and I don't follow them back. I feel like there's some code of conduct or unwritten rule that I'm not abiding by. But not everyone who follows me is of interest to me. It's as simple as that.

I don't like spam, I don't like annoying repeat tweets, and I don't like in-your-face selling. So why would I want to do any of these things myself? I want to connect with people who are actually interested in reading my stuff; I don't want to blast indiscriminately and attract readers with whom I have nothing in common. They'll take a quick look at the site, and then never return.

I'm basically an ethical person. I don't want to misrepresent myself, I don't want to waste people's time, and I sure as hell don't want to annoy anyone. But I do want to keep writing, and I do want to interact with people who are interested in what I have to say. So, for me, the goal is to find ways to promote the site that won't make me look like an attention-grabbing egotist.

Ultimately, I'd love to make some money from this blog. But I refuse to just dive in and start doing what the "experts" say I should do. Because I don't believe in the model that most businesses use these days. I don't believe in saturation marketing, and I don't believe in the typical "make money by teaching people how to make money" scheme that seems to be damn near everywhere.

I need to find a model that works for me. Something ethical, humanistic, and real. Something that incorporates human interaction, information, entertainment, and above all, humor. Good God, there has to be humor. I cannot survive without humor. And I'm sure as hell not going to work with a self-promotion scheme that doesn't make use of humour in some manner.

If any of you out there have any suggestions for me, I would welcome them. I'm new to the whole promotion thing, and I need to take small steps, get my feet wet before diving full in. All comments will be enthusiatically and gratefully read.

I know there's an answer to this, because otherwise why would I believe so strongly in what I'm doing? It feels like I'm heading in the right direction, and I think it's only a matter of adjusting my course by a degree or two one way or the other.

This is important.

So I want to do it right.

Thanks for reading.

Gesundheit.

(And in honor of self-promotion, here's the video for one of my favorite songs, "Look at Me" by Geri Halliwell. Man, it looks like she's having fun there at the end.)