Now that we established that everyone needs a blog, the question remains, where does one start? Well, there is the platform and topic you choose, of course, but those are topics for another time. Before writing a post, or perhaps once you finish writing the post, you are going to have to choose a title wisely. Why does the title matter? Well, the tweet below says it best.
The day started like any other. I woke up at 4:30 AM, turned on my iPhone and launched Flipboard. Like I do every morning, I expected to read about some new startup that got funded, some new technology that was bought by an industry giant, and possibly some new privacy issue that made the press overnight. You know, the normal stuff.
OK, feel free to categorize this post in the filing cabinet of rants because I am writing these words out of utter frustration of watching close friends and relatives turn into full-fledged internet spammers. No, they are not trying to sell me Viagra, but they might as well be! I am talking about friends wasting my time trying to convince me to “Like” their Facebook page, which if I would oblige, would not only be completely spammy, but it would also be completely ineffective. Let’s take a step back…
By: Hillel Fuld
OK, maybe the title is a little dramatic, not EVERY single human being needs a blog, but if you are reading these words right now, then yes, you need a blog. I’ll explain.
If you are reading this blog, chances are you are someone who works or hangs out on the Web. OK, if you just dialed into the internet with your AOL connection and just happened to stumble upon this post from a Yahoo search, then no, this post is not for you.
If, however, you are part of the other 99% of people between the ages of 15-50 who realize the Web is where all the cool kids are hanging out, then start a blog. Right now.
Here’s why:
Yes, people still give out business cards and still send CVs, but it won’t be long before that stops. Your blog is going to become who you are very soon, and in my case, it has been years since I gave anyone a business card. If we meet and you are interested in learning more about me, twenty seconds on this blog, or this blog, or this blog, will give you everything you need to know.
I write about technology, but you should write about whatever topic interests you and excites you. Whatever you do, start the blog for the right reason, which is passion. I have heard many people say “But I am not passionate about anything”. I’m sorry, but I refuse to believe that. Every person has some topic that gets them going. Whether it’s tech, fashion, movies, food, gossip, or any other topic, there is something that interests you in the world. Forget how competitive the niche that you choose is, offer your own unique angle on the topic and start writing.
“But I don’t write well!”. Then there is yet another reason to start a blog. There is no need to share it right away. Write for yourself, improve your writing skills and articulate your thoughts. I did that five years ago with absolutely no plans of monetizing the site, branding myself, or driving traffic. I just had thoughts on mobile, so I decided to jot them down.
If you follow me online, you know the result. I now guest post for sites like Mashable, Gigaom, Business Insider, and many more. All my social media activity started five or so years ago when, one day, I just decided to start writing my thoughts down. Do it, you will thank me later.
Whatever topic you choose to write about, as I mentioned, make sure it is something you are passionate about. The number of other sites that write about that topic should not be a concern for you. This blog that you are going to start right after reading this post, is yours. It is your voice, and there can be ten million other sites writing about the same topic, but none of them have your voice.
While the competition out there should not be something you take into consideration when starting your blog, your consistency should. If you are going to do this, and YOU ARE going to do this, you need to go all in. You need to be prepared to take this seriously because again, this is going to be your future home on the worldwide web. So updating your new and awesome blog once a month, or even once a week, ain’t gonna cut it.
I know this sounds scary but it is not. I write two to three blog posts a day for the past three years and I realize not everyone is as passionate about anything as I am about tech, but even if you post a video, which takes 20 seconds, or a 100 word post, which will take you 10 minutes, the key is consistency.
If you want a concrete number, I would say aim for a post a day. Why? Because then people know to come by every day and see what you shared with them today. Because then, your content database will grow so much by the end of one year that your SEO will already start driving you traffic.
I will give you one example. Over a year ago, I wrote this post. Now, a year later, that post is on the first page of Google results for the word “Instagram”. The traffic is astronomical. That is one of many examples of posts I wrote that drive me traffic long after they were written.
Write as many posts as you can and you never know what post will drive you thousands of readers even a whole year later.
At the risk of sounding egotistical, I think my case is important for anyone who is looking to brand themselves online. And by the way, again, if you are anywhere near the internet, you should want to brand yourself online, at least to a minimal level that when someone searches for you, they immediately know who you are.
Like I said, I started blogging one day five years ago, for no apparent reason, besides the fact that I had what to say on topics of mobile technology and the Web. Now, after five years of consistent blogging, I am widely and (ridiculously) considered an expert on topics of mobile and web. I do think I know a thing or two about these topics, this is not false modesty here, but I never had any official training on these highly technical subjects. All I did was write a blog.
Yet, I have been quoted on CNN, TechCrunch, Mashable, TheNextWeb, and many more as an “expert”. I have interviewed industry shakers such as Scoble, Mossberg, Kawasaki, Gary, and so many others. I even have my favorite childhood actress reading my content regularly.
At the end of the day, all this happened from that one ordinary day, in which I just decided to start blogging. It used to take thousands of dollars and a marketing agency who specialized in branding to single-handedly create a brand, now it is free and it takes ten minutes a day.
As I write this post, I realize I have so much more to say about this topic. I also realize that my point here is somewhat controversial and many will think I am nuts, but I truly believe that a blog is an incredible medium and platform for any human being to build themselves up and communicate with an audience. If you are going to take my advice and start a blog, you can use WordPress to author it if you plan on taking it very seriously. If, however, you want to be able to jot down your thoughts with no bells and whistles, Tumblr might be for you.
The one thing I will say is that you can ignore this entire post if you plan on taking the “Facebook approach” to blogging. What I mean is that many view Twitter and blogging like Facebook, that they go in once in a while, check out what’s up, and leave till the next time. While blogging does not take long, most of the time, it requires a certain level of dedication and consistency, as does Twitter.
If you are going to attack this project with the dedication it deserves, you won’t see the results in a week, month, or even a few months. I would say, for the sake of giving some sort of concrete prediction, that if you go at this for a whole year, every day, or at least 5 times a week, you will start seeing serious traffic and begin bearing the fruit of your labor. Now, go get blogging!
By: Hillel Fuld
This post is long overdue, firstly because I have neglected this site for way too long due to most of my content going here, here, here, and here. More importantly though, this post is overdue because as social media becomes more and more mainstream every day, with some help from Google, more people take the leap and join services like Twitter and Google+.
Every time another friend joins Twitter, I notice they all make the same basic mistakes and I end up spending extended periods of time explaining to them what they did wrong when they ask me why they are not getting millions of followers. I figured, why not get it in writing and send people the link from now on.
Well, if you are new to Twitter, I highly recommend you read this complete Twitter guide I have written on how to get started. It includes tips on what to do, what not to do, who to follow, as well as a comprehensive list of terms you need to know. Now back to our topic…
To be honest, I am well aware that I am going to get yelled at that there is no right way to tweet and that is fine. Everyone is more than welcome to use the platform as they see fit, I am just giving my opinion on how to succeed on Twitter and how to fail miserably. Take it or leave it.
I have been building up my Twitter network for close to four years now with close to 100,000 tweets, 21,786 followers, and have been placed on over 1,700 lists. That took me four years of blogging, tweeting, retweeting, and most importantly, replying. Let’s assume for a second that me following you is going to advance your goal of getting a lot of followers for a second, which it won’t, why is that something I should do?
You just joined Twitter, you have no content, and you offer no value to the people I have built a trusting relationship with for four years. Why should I tell them to follow you? Better yet, why should I follow you myself? How about you invest the time that others have invested, interact, engage, and contribute, which will help you build your network organically? Yes, it takes longer, but not only is it the right way of going about this, it will also benefit you in the end because those followers will be people who are truly interested in what you have to say and not people who just clicked the Follow button because someone asked them to.
If you decided to join Twitter, chances are you heard that your favorite celebrity is tweeting day and night and you figured you could get them to interact with you. If that is the case and your Twitter strategy, close this post, then go disable your Twitter account. If you are still reading, chances are you realize why that is a ridiculous and childish way to approach this. You know what else is ridiculous? Using spammy tools to increase followers, sending Auto DMs thanking people for following you and directing them to your Facebook page, and sending the same pitch in 100 consecutive tweets to influencers who you think will drive traffic to your business.
@aplusk i have a great Mobile Company for traffic, transit And parking solutions. I will like to send You some information. You like tech!
— Nacho Viale (@nachoviale) January 18, 2012
Twitter takes time if you want to see real results. Repeat that sentence to yourself f?i?v?e? ten times. You are going to have to forget everything you heard about Ashton Kutcher and his 700 bazillion followers and do the leg work. That means follow relevant people, create a complete and interesting bio with a profile picture, and start tweeting interesting content. Then reply to people and once you’re done with that, reply some more.
Based on Twtrland, a service I would recommend using regularly, close to 80% of all my tweets are replies. If you follow me on Twitter, you know that for me not to respond to you, you have to say something extremely unintelligent or annoying. I respond to everyone, whether they have 10 followers or 500,000 followers. Is that scalable? Yes, I have been doing it for years and I get over 300 replies a day. You can handle it too.
Honestly, the only thing worse than spammers are trolls. In case you are a normal person and have no idea what an internet troll is, first of all, I am jealous of you, and second of all, let me explain. I cannot explain the psychology behind trolls because every atom in my body tells me never to behave that way, but unfortunately, I have seen way too much trolling lately, I just had to include it.
So what is a troll? A person who has the mistaken impression that if they comment on a blog post and call you a derogatory name or use profanity to express their utter disagreement with your content, that you will engage them and help them get exposure. I must admit, I have to learn from the big guys how not to let trolls get to me. I have yet to succeed. Of course, these trolls do not stick to blogs, they send you nasty comments on Twitter, hoping you will respond in an extreme manner, which will then generate curiosity among your followers, thereby increasing their audience.
Not only does this not work due to technical reasons, it will not in any way help you reach your ultimate goal of building a loyal and captured audience. At best, you will get a few followers that will unfollow you in a matter of days when they notice your pattern of trolling people across the Web. So to summarize in four words… Don’t be a troll!
For the sake of keeping this post short (oh, that’s another thing, keep things short and to the point on Twitter), I am going to stop here, but don’t think for a second that there are not other things you need to learn along the way, there are. Many. Try to bring value, offer your own unique content or at least your own take on other’s content. Don’t tweet the same format every single time “New Blog post:<Title>” for example.
But if you take away one thing from this post, remember this. Social media, and Twitter included, is nothing more than a platform to help you communicate. Communicate, not broadcast. What you would do in a real life conversation, you should do on Twitter and more importantly, what you would never do in a real life conversation, please, for the sake of your followers, the platform as a whole, and for yourself, don’t do on Twitter.
OK, this is just getting ridiculous and I waited long enough to write this post. Technology moves fast, I get it, but there’s fast, and then there’s the pace at which the world of social media has been moving over the past few months.
Twitter, as a company, has made its share of mistakes over the years. These include implementing its own retweeting system that makes it significantly more difficult to see how many people retweeted you and who they are (not to mention the fact that when I use the Twitter retweet, I can’t add my two cents to the original tweet, it all kind of defeats the purpose), the Twitter URL shortening service, which seems to break more links than it shortens, or many others. But the good news was that with all these issues, I always had Tweetdeck to fall back on. Then Twitter bought Tweetdeck.
Truth be told, I kinda love putting these posts together, it helps me feel productive by seeing exactly how many posts I have written in the last week or month. The fact that people keep telling me they love them and use them as a resource to catch up on all the technology news they missed, well that is just the icing on the cake.
So I just finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs and to say I loved every word of it would be an understatement. I wrote a review of the book and if you can only read one post, this one or that one, read my review. Of course, what made the book so amazing was not just my love for technology or Apple products, nor was it my admiration for Steve Jobs, it was the story of a man filled with contradictions who ended up revolutionizing anywhere between seven and nine industries, depending who you ask.
It has been quite a crazy month in and out of the tech industry and while I usually try to post these articles on a weekly basis, clearly, that did not work too well in the last couple of week. But since many (many) people seem to depend on these posts to get up to date, I am forcing myself to get back into the swing of things.
If I had a dime for every person who said to me “I don’t do Twitter. Why do I need to announce to the world what I am eating or when I go to the bathroom”? Now, I am not sure how or when Twitter got the reputation of being a service for pointless and insignificant status updates, but if anyone deserves that title, it is Facebook. The amount of content, relationships, and engagement I have gathered on Twitter over the years, or even on a daily basis, is absolutely unprecedented anywhere else on or off the Web.
