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Chris Garrett

What Are You Known For?

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What are you known for? What do you want to be known for?

It’s an important question. Especially if you want to be interviewed.

Consider the bloggers you follow. Can you name things they are known for? I can think of a few, who am I talking about here?:

  • Ideavirus
  • Six Figure Blogging
  • Copywriting
  • Tech startup news

I am sure you can think of better examples than my quick brainstorm. How can you be like the people who come to mind? How can you be known for something good and beneficial?

Today I posted at Blog Herald how there are two Chris Garrett’s known in blogging, both living in the UK, both with our own slice of one niche.

You can hear the “other” Chris Garrett’s opinion in this Xfep podcast. Just for equal time you had better listen to me also, just to prove we are two different people!

The thing is we get on quite happily because Chris Garrett and I are known for different things. He is a great designer, and I have carved out a little niche in blogging all my own.

When I launched my own professional blog in February, I wanted to show that I wasn’t just “Chris from Performancing” so I did a few things deliberately and differently. The first big part of the strategy was to release a free blogging ebook called How to Write Killer Flagship Content. Another was to define a blogging concept I named Authority Blogging. What do people ask me about when I am interviewed? You guessed it.

In the last few weeks I have been thinking how I can make my brand clearer, as I write for all sorts of blogs from a company that develops PDF to Excel converter software to a blog about freelancing, and of course here, but having thought long and hard I think that adds to my brand; I am that freelance blogging guy among other things, or I might get there eventually.

Getting known is hard work, getting known for something positive is even harder. Before others will know you for anything, you have to consciously decide to be known for something. Better decide now, before someone else decides for you.

Social Media for Link Building: Does Just Being on Digg Do the Business?

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A while ago people would submit every story they wrote to Digg. Not just to get it voted up, but because “just being on Digg” was apparently good for SEO. I wasn’t always convinced of this but I heard it so much I started to believe there might be something in it. Still, I didn’t follow the practice.

Fast forward a little while and Digg reorganizes the way pages are generated, particularly where member profiles are concerned. One of the effects of this was that fewer pages per story were created, and the knock on effect was fewer links just for being on the site.

Now today I get a question from a reader who has been following commentary about a social media marketing video that is doing the rounds that recommends you submit stories to Digg just because Digg has great pagerank.

My answer was, as usual, to ignore Page Rank, aim to get links through secondary effects, and to not abuse social media sites because they WILL bite you in the ass. But what if I am wrong?

Over to you guys; Does just being on Digg give you a juice boost?

A Quick Introduction to Twitter for Bloggers

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Twitter

Quite a few times recently I have been asked why if I am ditching social media sites such as Facebook I am still putting so much effort into Twitter. Well, the simple answer is I get a lot of enjoyment and a reasonable amount of professional benefit from the service. You just have to know how …

If you haven’t tried it, Twitter is a kind of online messaging system. It is like a group chat where you post 140 character messages or “Tweets”. You can post links or just text. URLs get converted into TinyURLs if they are beyond a certain length or you can paste short URLs from the service of your choice. WordPress plugins and online services make hooking up your blog feed easy, so every post you make goes to Twitter as a URL.

Just like with other social sites, you add contacts and other contacts add you. Once you have a few followers discussions form. You direct messages to an individual using the @ prefix, eg. “This message is just for @chrisgarrett”. Everyone gets to see these that are following the sender, but these messages appear in the “Replies” tab so you get to see all the replies made to you, regardless of if you are following the sender (optional preference). There is also a DM feature for private messages.

As I say, I find a lot of value in the service, both for information (breaking stories) and networking. It wasn’t always this way, in fact to begin with I dismissed it. Only after taking a second look and working out the wrinkles did I find its true worth. To save you the hassle, here are my Twitter tips:

  • Read first. Find interesting people and see how they use the service. Work out the style and flow of the system before wading in.
  • Audition new contacts and drop if spammy or noisy, your time is precious
  • It is not a popularity contest. While people who follow many contacts tend to have greater number of followers, you want to have a good signal to noise ratio otherwise it becomes unworkable. Follow people who are interesting, not just to rub shoulders with celebrities!
  • Just like with a blog, do not launch into connecting with people on Twitter until you have done the preparation work. You need a page full of tweets and the basic profile information before you add anyone. Set all your preferences and fill in your details at least to the level where a casual visitor would know your name, where you are, your blog and a little of what you think.
  • When you have shared some interesting thoughts and links go after following people. I follow people I know, have heard of, who reply to me or who others send @ messages to. Eavesdropping on others conversations has given me some of the best people to follow as I can see a taste of what their conversations will be like.
  • Do not be upset if someone does not follow you back! People have limited attention to spare so can not follow everyone.
  • Post information, links and questions. Post too many links or follow too many people too quickly and you will find yourself banned or at least flagged by Twitter as spam.
  • For networking, engage people in conversation. Ask interesting questions and you will get back interesting answers. Do not be afraid to reply to a question posed by someone else. The worst that can happen is they do not reply. Do not always blame the user, the system does drop a lot of messages and people mis-spell names (my name has two r’s and two t’s and people are always spelling it wrong, even people who know me really well!). Stupidly there is no reply function.
  • Once you get used to using the web service, try a desktop Twitter client or using your mobile. There are lots of great 3rd party Twitter services that add to the enjoyment too.

Tips From Twitters

I asked for some Twitter Tips from my Twitter contacts, here are the answers:

  • sheagunther Twitter tip: Use Tweetscan because you ARE going to miss tweets about you. And make sure to follow  @chrisgarrett ;D
  • duncanriley  Twitter is only as good as your network. Add lots of people, build it up, and the rest will follow
  • SebastianX Alerts folks to neat stuff faster than RSS * Don’t post PMs with @ * Frequently check your following options coz sometimes Twitter screws them * Track your user name
  • DebNg – Don’t just follow people you know. Making new Twitter friends is a great way to get turned on to new blogs
  • deswalsh before you click to follow a new follower, check their current/recent tweets – some are just companies pumping out links
  • splitbrain msg ‘track foo’ to get notifications whenever someone twitters about foo
  • film_girl – if people follow you, assuming they are not bots or spammers, follow them back. It’ can open you up to tons of brand new ppl
  • pureCaffeine Add lots of contacts you don’t really know thereby reducing the relevance of conversation & diluting the value of the app
  • drmani – Understand that it’s ‘socializing’ – NOT ‘work’
  • dossy I learned that the Pareto principle is closer to 95%/5%. 🙂
  • bck A quite tip: get your Twitter Stats 😉 http://tinyurl.com/259jbf
  • danzarrella More tips here: http://tinyurl.com/2gpxow
  • YoungGoGetter – Twitter has served as a phenomenal replacement for e-mail to nonchalantly introduce myself
  • nowsourcing Twitter Tip: make sure you answer all Tweets directed at you. Or use terraminds.com to see anything you may have missed.
  • splitbrain controlling twitter from IM is cool too. using the commands follow <user>, track <term>, untrack <term>
  • silvertje While I am hardly connected to the Dutch blogosphere by my blog I am connected to aprox 99% of its bloggers by Twitter
  • michaelreuter twittertip: multitweet.com for running differnt twitter/jaiku accounts in one window
  • scottclark never forget that some of your twits – and replies to them – can be found on search engines later. site:twitter.com yourname, for ex.
  • ConversationAge It allows me to see people’s communication style, content preferences and even values. It’s not what people say as much as how and what
  • DebNg other people have been turned onto my blogs and stumbles or link to them in their own blog posts – a new audience.
  • graywolf use twittermail to get daily updates of replies from people U may not be following but “@” you

You may have gathered I am now a fan of the service. It is putting me in touch with people I would otherwise have never met and giving me early news that would have passed me by. For all its faults you should definitely at least try it, especially if you are a blogger. Share your Twitter URL with friends, in your email and forum signature and as a button on your blog. Twitter is becoming an effective way to grow your subscriber base and following.

Holiday Switch Off After Effects

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Last week I didn’t blog at all on two of my blogs. I had every intention to, I just found myself sick, looking after my daughter who was also sick, visiting family and nursing a brand new puppy who had decided to be more active at 3am than during the day. What I found interesting was on return the blogs had not suffered all that much.

Analyze :: Feed Stats Dashboard

There is a dip, obviously, but not as bad as I was expecting (probably just natural seasonal fall off) and the recovery, while not complete, is better than expected.

I have long held the opinion that you are better off NOT posting every day if you have to force it. You are only as good as your last post. Far better to wait and post good stuff than post lame stuff just because you have a schedule to keep.

What do you think? Did your traffic and subscribers fall off? Did you keep posting last week? Let us know in the comments.

Censorship Versus Blogs

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I have been thinking about Australia’s plan to censor internet content for their citizens and my initial reaction was to believe this can only be bad for bloggers. I thought I would ask you guys what you think?

As Duncan states in his post linked above, there is little chance their government will start with pr0n and such and leave it there. They will filter all content they deem “inappropriate”, there will be much disagreement about what that actually covers and special interest groups will pile in.

Anyone who believes a government can efficiently and fairly decide this stuff only has to look at the most banned or challenged books. If memory serves we are talking about such subversive titles as Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter.

The tin-foil-hat-wearer part of my brain is thinking anyone who disagrees with the government or deals with adult themes in their blogs will also be caught in the trap. Bloggers swear. They talk about sex. There are blogs about drug and hacker culture. I have had clients caught in corporate and school filters, stuff people really needed to access, such as sexual health education material. People will demand a way to add to the blacklist, will evil competitors start blacklisting each other?

I have a daughter and want to protect her from bad stuff. I do this the way I protect her from bad TV shows. The way any responsible parent does. I supervise, if you don’t want kids to see bad stuff don’t leave them alone with it.

That all said, there seems a lot of folks well in favor so I would like to hear your thoughts. Is this a good thing and I have it wrong?

Twitter as Popularity Contest

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I love Twitter. Of course I didn’t always, I have both loved and hated it with equal measure. It can be an incredible waste of time but if you are careful about who you follow there is just the right mix of socializing and signal v noise that I am kept involved.

The funny thing is the service today has been taken over by talk of the “Tweeterboard” which ranks users based on their conversations by counting how many times their name is referenced. Will this turn it into a popularity contest?

It seems if today is any indication, a lot of people are trying to game their rankings. I do hope this is a one day aberration.

What do you think? Do you Twitter? Will this spoil it for you?

Controversy Versus Content – Live!

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My thoughts on controversy are that I would much rather have low traffic with a good brand than massive traffic and a poor brand. But that is just me, others believe the traffic is worth whatever backlash and all publicity is good publicity. Who is right? Well, we can see what happens as it happens as a story is just ending over at 1938media …

Step 1. Release a video that causes a blog storm.
Step 2. See stats have dropped back to normal levels so hatch a scheme to get them back up
Step 3. Release another controversial video

Step 4. Stir it up even more by banning a whole country
Step 5. Bask in your traffic
Step 6. ???
Step 7. Profit!!

Results are already coming in. You can see on Twitter and blogs “Loren who?”, “Racist?”, “Racist!”, “Not racist!” … Not the kind of publicity I would want, probably a text book case of exactly what you DON’T want brand-wise, but it is certainly bringing in the traffic.

What do you think?

How to be an Assertive Blogger

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Many people believe that confidence is something you either have or have not. Perhaps it is something you are born with, or something that magically appears after a certain age. Thankfully this is not the case.

Confidence is a learned behavior and anyone can acquire it. By the same logic, anyone can lose confidence or have it knocked out of them.

Why is confidence important in blogging?

A great deal of blogging happens on the surface. When we happen across a new blog we do not give it much time before making assumptions. It is like non-verbal communication, we look for cues and skim impressions rather than investing time to dig deep.

If you, and therefore your blog, lacks confidence, then your reader will not have confidence in you or your blog.

The danger with giving this advice is people tend to swing like a pendulum from confidence-lack to aggressive arrogance. We all know that dialing down to zero or up to 11 is not the right approach but getting the balance right can be tricky.

Happily the middle-ground is something you can cultivate with practice. This middle ground is what I describe as blogging assertively. You do not have to come across as an ass to be confident, it is not even about having all the answers, telling people they are wrong or winning awards.

What are the traits of assertive bloggers?

  • Accept feedback – Being confident does not mean being an island
  • Are generous – Think about it. What does generosity demonstrate?
  • Look good – Take care over your blog, design and comments, make your confidence visible
  • Share wisdom – This isn’t about beating people with your opinions. Offer advice while accepting differing opinions
  • Are polite – Say please and thank you, while accepting thanks and compliments graciously
  • Achieve and praise – Do not minimize or boast your own achievements, be generous with your praise of others success and news.
  • Say their piece – Speak up when necessary while accepting others right to do the same. Do not rant, stay calm and outline your thoughts rationally.
  • Know – Have faith in own abilities. If you do not, who else will?
  • Succeed – Decide on goals and work towards them. If you do not have goals, how will you know what success means for you? If you are directionless, how will you know you have arrived?
  • Ask for help – It is not wimpy to ask for help, it actually shows confidence and courage
  • Are not doormats – Value your own time and the time of others. Do not give in to time leaches and freebie hunters. Do not feel guilty about saying no.
  • Succinct – Do not waffle, get to the point. If you believe something is true, say it without qualification.

You can be confident now. You owe it to yourself. This is not something you are “allowed” only after a threshold of visitors or technorati ranking.

If you feel like you are not getting respect show that you deserve it! Keep blogging assertively and see the change reflected in others. It works!