"Goodnight Sunflowers" by Michael Thurber

benbarden.com, my personal blog, has reached the end of its life. This post is designed as a quick recap, a look at why things haven’t worked out, and what I’m doing next.

An Abridged History

If we ignore this blog’s life before July 2010, which is logical as any posts prior to that aren’t online anymore, this is the 156th and final post.

In that time, the blog has had over a dozen taglines, before settling on the multi-topic concept that hasn’t changed the blog itself too much, but has ultimately concluded with what I’ve always felt about this blog. It’s a bit of a mess.

On Post Quality and Consistency

Some of the posts have done quite well, others have been ignored. The lack of consistency is clearly a factor here: perhaps some of you don’t mind this, but regular readers are few and far between. Most people are only interested in a couple of the posts here.

In contrast, Quick Blog Tips has been doing quite well recently, with some readers even saying they read every post. The blog has also spawned my blog newsletter – Weekly Blogging – which is doing OK so far.

Meanwhile, when I show my personal blog URL on social networks, in my email signature and as my “main” blog, it’s started to feel somewhat embarrassing. It’s not the greatest blog.

What Happens Next?

In terms of my existing blogs, Quick Blog Tips is definitely not going anywhere. In fact, February 20th will mark its one year anniversary. The fourth issue of Weekly Blogging will be sent on Monday morning.

Anyone who remembers my other blogs, Spam Comment and TV in Quotes, may already know that they haven’t had any new posts in a few months. I might do something with them someday, but in the end I don’t think they worked too well.

As for potential new blogs – I’m currently in the early stages of setting up an entertainment/reviews blog, to provide an outlet for my love of music and movies. This is going to be a group blog, so if you’d like to have a regular slot, please let me know. I’m also thinking about a social media blog, but would like to focus on the entertainment/reviews blog first.

In the near future, I’ll be closing down this blog and replacing it with a static website, containing links to my various blogs and social media profiles. I may keep some of the best posts online in an archive. Or I might rewrite them into newer posts on my other blogs.

Besides Quick Blog Tips and Weekly Blogging, the best way to keep in touch with me is to follow me on Twitter, add me on Google+, or like my Facebook page. Or why not contact me?

Thank You

Thanks to everyone who’s read my blog, commented, retweeted and so on… I appreciate it!

"malady of modernity" by Will Lion

Do you ever feel as though there are simply too many places for you to go and post new content?

Here are some social bits and pieces for you to ponder:

• Facebook fan page – I use my fan page to share new content from my two blogs.
• Facebook profile – Now that people can subscribe to Facebook profiles, I’m a bit lost as to whether I should post content on my profile or on my fan page. The fan page is named after me, so I guess I could set up pages for my blogs.
• Google Plus profile – I’ve attracted quite a few followers on Google Plus, mainly due to the “shared circles” feature. However, I don’t really post there much.
• Google Plus fan page – I have a fan page for Quick Blog Tips, but don’t really use it.
• Twitter profile – I love Twitter – it’s the social site I use the most. However, I make life a bit more difficult for myself by having not one, but two Twitter accounts. One is my personal account, the other is @quickblogtips.

There’s also LinkedIn, which I don’t use for posting new content. Some people also record videos and post them on YouTube. This is an outlet I’m not currently using. I’m sure you can think of more sites, too.

How much content do you post on social media sites? Unless you only post “metacontent” – such as posting a Twitter tip on Twitter, or a Facebook tip on Facebook – I don’t see how it’s possible to come up with original content on every social site without some degree of automation. And I’m not keen on automation – it feels so impersonal.

Traditional content outlets

If we look beyond the social sites, there are other places where you might publish content.

• Blogs: in my view, there’s still a place for blogs. I think it’s really important not to neglect your blog and only post on social media sites. Historically, social media sites haven’t provided us with a good way to trawl through a user’s archives. This is where blogs are brilliant: you can browse by category, or by date. Try doing that on Twitter.
• Guest posts: writing content for other sites is a great way to get your name out there – fast. I’ve only recently started writing guest posts – the results have already been excellent. Of course, you do need to come up with new content for your guest posts – you can’t just copy your existing blog posts to other sites. Well you could, but you shouldn’t.
• Comments: whether you’re commenting on someone else’s site or replying to comments on your own, discussing the content you’ve just been reading can lead to wonderful things. Sometimes it’s simply a case of having a chat and sharing some views; sometimes you might make a minor breakthrough and come up with a new post idea for your blog, or a business idea that you could run with. Comments that further the original topic are of great value.
• Forums: take any method of communication that’s been around for years, and you’ll probably find plenty of people who say it’s dying out. Maybe the best times for forums are in the past, but I still use a couple of forums and I think they’re well worth looking into.
• Newsletters: I just set up a blogging newsletter – Weekly Blogging. I’ve opted to use it as a weekly round-up, with a recap of content from the last week, some classic content, some useful links and a short editorial. This isn’t a huge amount of fresh content if you read my blogs as the posts go up, but it’s a great option for those who want a weekly digest of blogging tips and resources. If I was writing one or two completely new articles for the newsletter, I imagine it wouldn’t last very long – or my blogs would be affected as I’d run out of ideas.

How to find old content

Earlier, I said that social media sites haven’t provided us with a good way to trawl through a user’s archives. However, this may be changing with the introduction of Facebook’s Timeline. This feature provides an interesting way to go back through a person’s life and see what they’ve been up to. Of course, it relies on manual intervention to insert the events that occurred before you joined Facebook.

I also think that blogs require careful organisation if you want people to find the oldest content in the archives. Although date-based navigation may facilitate this, it’s not much use for a how-to site or anything that isn’t really time-relevant. Categories and static pages can help to point people in the right direction.

How to manage your content outlets?

So how on earth do you keep up with all these places to post new content, without simply writing a comment once and automatically posting it everywhere else?

I think you have to make a choice how many sites you’ll use. I’ve read so many blog posts that recommend one or more of the above sites. Between those blog posts, if you followed everyone’s advice, you’d be posting everywhere, everywhen. That’s simply not sustainable in the long run.

Find the sites you like. But also know where your audience is. If you’re just getting started, you probably don’t have an audience yet. This means you can probably pick and choose your content outlets. The main one for me is Twitter. When I do post on Google Plus I get replies, but I just don’t think of much that I’d want to post there that I’m not already saying on Twitter. The same applies to Facebook.

I’m not keen on automatically cross-posting content across sites, mainly because there’s a good chance people will see the same content more than once. Thinking about it some more though… advertising is all about saturation – I’ve heard that people may not click an ad until they’ve seen it more than a dozen times. So does it follow that people may be more likely to click your links and read your content if it’s everywhere?

I’d like to my content to travel everywhere, but I don’t have time to write original content on every social media site in existence.

Discussion

What would you do? How do you manage your content outlets?

"99-97=2 Yellow Balloons (75)" by frank3.0

Last week, I ran a social media experiment where I chose to stop sharing my own posts on social media sites, and spend more time sharing content from other people. As the experiment is now over, here are some of my observations, along with what happens next.

Readers Still Viewed My Posts

During the experiment, I put out roughly the same amount of content as in a typical week. Three posts at Quick Blog Tips, a couple of posts at benbarden.com. I think the quality of content was good, and not really any different from the quality of posts I have posted in the past.

Despite my lack of self-promotion, many readers still read my posts. In fact, my visitor and pageview stats were a bit better than normal.

I’m Writing More Content

I don’t mean blog posts – I mean social media comments. During this experiment, I didn’t really use Facebook, and I only used Google Plus a bit. But this week, I talked on Twitter – a lot.

What does this mean? Either I’m making people unfollow me because I’m talking too much – or I’m engaging with many more people than I usually do. Probably a bit of both.

Link Love Posts Are Good

Although this wasn’t the point of the “no self-promotion” idea, publishing a link love post seemed like a good thing to do at the same time.

In the past, I’ve never been a fan of link love posts. I’m still not keen on them if a blog contains very little content other than a weekly link love post. I’ve also had comments where people say, “Why would I share someone else’s post when I could share my own?”

What I’ve found is that linking to other people is one of the best possible ways to connect. I do think you need to keep your link posts quite short though – 7 links works for me – anything more than 10 and I think it’s going a bit far.

Linking Out Can Draw People In

Over at Quick Blog Tips, a couple of the people I linked to stopped by to leave a comment saying thanks. This is awesome – they not only appreciated the link, it got them to check out my blog.

Hopefully this goes without saying, but I’d suggest you don’t link to anything unless you think it’s worth sharing. Also, I strongly discourage using this as a way to get people to your blog. It’s a nice bonus, but shouldn’t be the reason you’re linking out.

The point here is that when you link to someone else, they do notice – and as mentioned above, it’s a great way to connect.

There’s More Sharing Going On

Because I’m not sharing my own stuff, there’s a bit of breathing space on my social media accounts. I can now share much more content from other authors without worrying about flooding everyone with links. Using Buffer is a great way to space out your tweets.

You Really Notice the Self-Promoters

I’ll hold my hands up here – I was a big self-promoter before I kicked off this experiment. Having held back on pushing every blog post I write on every social media site I use, it’s now much more obvious when I see someone else doing the same thing.

Even if you manage to hide the fact you mostly share your own stuff and new people keep following you, it’s a major turn-off when almost every tweet you post is a link to your own blog – especially when it ends with “please retweet”!

Do you do this? Or do you know anyone else who does? Most of the “big connectors” I can think of are very good at promoting a bit of their own content, and a lot of everybody else’s. There are only a few who constantly share their own stuff.

Twitter is My #1 Social Media Site

Although I also use Facebook and Google Plus, I’ve found that Twitter is the best place to connect with people. Yes, this is 100% my opinion, and you’re welcome to disagree. I just find that it’s too hard to find new people on Facebook, and I use Google Plus more for reading other people’s content than for interacting.

As always, your mileage may vary, and I’d be interested to find out which social media site you use the most – please leave a comment with your thoughts.

What Now?

This has been an eye-opening experiment. Although I’m not going to completely ban myself from sharing my own content, I will definitely keep publishing the link love posts, and keep any self-promotion to an absolute minimum.

One approach could be to include one or two of my own posts at the end of each link love post, but clearly marking them as my own content. Hopefully the link love post could then get a bit of exposure to everyone on the list.

It’s not a particularly original idea, but I think it could work. Let me know what you think.

Discussion

Have you been following me throughout this experiment? Do you prefer to see fewer self-promotional tweets? How much do you promote your own stuff?

"Lab" by howzey

Whenever I write a new blog post, I share it on Twitter. Sometimes I share it on Google Plus and/or Facebook. Sometimes I share it a couple of times, if I think it’s one of my better posts.

In contrast, I don’t feel like I’m sharing enough from other people. I’ve tried to do more of this recently, which I think has worked quite well. But the ratio of my posts to other people’s posts is a bit unbalanced.

What I’d like to try doing is to spend the next week only sharing other people’s posts, and not my own. I’ll continue to update my blogs, so whenever I write a new post, I won’t share it on any social media site. I don’t use any tools that automatically share my posts on Twitter or Facebook, so that won’t be an issue.

The experiment starts right after I share this post (I have to get the word out somehow!), and ends on Friday 16th December.

What You Can Do To Help:

There’s not much point in doing this experiment if I don’t share anything at all. I’m always looking for great content, so if you’ve written a post I might enjoy or you’ve found someone else’s post that you really liked, please tell me about it. The best way to do this is to follow me on Twitter, and reply to me.

I’d appreciate a link to this post – perhaps your followers will send me some links, too. If you’d like to share any posts I publish during the experiment, that would be much appreciated.

Discussion

How often do you publish self-promotional messages on social media sites? How much content do you share that you didn’t create?

"The effect of DVD sales on theater attendance" by work the angles

I’ve come across a few “mass unfollowers” on Twitter – those who follow huge numbers of people, and are followed by equally huge numbers of people – who suddenly remove everyone (or as good as their entire list). I really don’t think this is a good idea.

Can’t Keep Up?

If you can’t keep up with all those people, then why follow them in the first place? I can see why you might have to cut down on the number of people you follow if your stream is getting too busy. But unfollowing everyone seems a bit much.

It’s Not All About the Numbers

Say you have 100,000 people following you, and you’re following a similar number. You then remove everyone. Only 1,000 remove you – just 1%. Seems like a good result, right?

Well, perhaps not. Ironically, the people who remove you may be some of the most active, savvy social media users – and many of those who don’t remove you may not have even noticed that you removed them – it wasn’t that they actually made a decision to keep on following you.

It seems like you may be losing some of the best people, and keeping all those you would probably never talk with anyway.

How Many is Too Many?

I definitely think that there’s a limit as to the number of people anyone can “keep up with”. However, it’s not as simple as how many people you follow. You can actually follow a lot of people who don’t post constantly, and therefore maintain a manageable stream.

I follow just over 600 people, which is hardly 100k – but I usually keep an eye out for lots of consecutive posts from the same people, endless sharing, or blatant spam. And let’s be honest here – I also unfollow people where I start to recognise the person’s avatar, but have never found any of their posts compelling enough to push me to engage with them. I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t find me all that interesting either. Why keep following people who you never talk to, unless you enjoy reading the person’s comments and don’t feel the need to reply?

But the unfollowing of everyone seems like a lazy way of saying “I don’t care what any of you has to say”. Yes, even if you follow 100,000 people. And whether you’re a hobby blogger or trying to run a business, would you really want to risk pissing off that many people in one go?

Discussion

How do you feel about mass unfollowers? How many people do you follow? Have you ever considered a mass unfollow?

"newspaper kitty" by Brit.

Recently I’ve noticed a number of different news sites with Facebook apps called “readers”. I haven’t used them yet, mainly because I’ve seen what they do: they seem to notify your Facebook friends whenever you read an article.

The Guardian Facebook App

I noticed the Guardian app when I saw a link on my Facebook news feed, containing a link to a Guardian news story. When I clicked the link, I was presented with a screen that asked me to log in.

On that screen, there is a disclaimer saying that if you log in, it doesn’t automatically share posts with your friends. I didn’t test that part, but I did find out from the description of the Guardian Facebook app that you can click “Cancel” and go straight to the article.

Indeed, clicking Cancel allowed me to “opt out” and view the article. Also, when I tested clicking the link from Facebook a second time, it took me directly to the article. Not a bad experience so far then.

But hold on! Why did I have to see that “login” screen when clicking a link to view an article?

An Unpredictable User Experience

My usage of Facebook over the last few years has made me come to expect that when you click a link to an external site, it’ll go directly to the site. In fact, that’s my experience of the Internet in general – not just Facebook.

What really threw me about the “login” screen is that it looks very similar to the page that asks if you really want to add a Facebook application to your profile. In essence, the screen I saw was probably not dissimilar from the app request screen. But unless I knowingly ask to add an app, and would therefore be expecting to see the app request screen before I can proceed – it’s a little unnerving to be presented with a very similar screen when all I wanted to do was go to the site.

To me, it seemed as though I needed to click “log in” to view an article that was already on a public website. Clicking “Cancel” would surely take me back. And yet, clicking Cancel actually did the opposite of what I’d expect – it took me to the article.

Of course, I now know that I could just click Cancel to go to the article. In fact, I don’t have to do it again. But when I reached the request page, it really wasn’t clear that the Cancel button would actually take me to the article.

So Here’s What I Did…

In the end, I copied the title of the article and pasted it into Google. (I just went back to find out what clicking “Cancel” would actually do.)

Discussion

I wonder how many people will think of this screen as an app request, and click Cancel on principle? Or maybe they’ll click the Back button and not bother proceeding?

What do you think?

"african pygmy hedgehog" by Adam Foster | Codefor

Are you someone who has views on lots of different topics? Do you tweet about a variety of things without sticking to a single topic? Have you ever found it difficult to isolate the specifics of what you could blog about?

Maybe Klout can help.

You see, Klout has just told me that I’m influential about 10 topics. Four of them were automatically suggested by the Klout website, while the remaining six appear because people gave me Klout for those topics.

Below are some of my topics.

Klout: Influential Topics

Aside from the mildly amusing comment that “Klout believes you are influential about Klout”, this list shows some of the topics where people think I have influence.

This may not be of interest to everyone. A very inactive social media user may not have many influential topics listed – if any. Or they could be largely irrelevant. Also, experts in their relevant field may already know exactly what they’re influential about.

I believe there are people who just start talking about things as a point of interest, without realising they may be building influence in those areas. Social Media is an area I’m getting into more, but it’s not what I do for a living, nor is it something where I’d call myself an expert. But I do have plenty to say about it. I clearly talk about it quite a bit.

Note also that my career (web development) isn’t listed. You could say that Web Design is closely related; perhaps it’s simply a matter of terminology. But design and development are very different things. I’m certainly not a designer. However, I don’t write a lot of posts that would be of interest to other developers, so I understand not having development listed there.

The point here is that I can see what I’m already talking about, which gives me possible ideas for future blog topics – or maybe a new blog. I don’t think I will be starting another blog for the time being, as I closed several earlier in the year. Who knows though – there might be a new idea that jumps out.

Discussion

What are your Klout topics? Are they what you would expect? Do any of them give you ideas for new blog topics, or a new blog?

"Closed" by San Diego Shooter

Last week, I posted on the CMF Ads Blog announcing that the ad network will close on October 30th, 2011. After a quiet day or two, some of the members wrote on their blogs about the closure.

The understanding and appreciation of the members has been wonderful. Here’s a selection of the posts I’ve read so far:

• CMF Ads to Close Oct. 30 (TysonChaney.com) – September 16th
• CMF Blog Advertising Network to Close (Just Throw Money) – September 17th
• The End for CMF Ad Network (Word Grrls) – September 18th
• CMF Ads to Close Down (The Blog Report) – September 18th
• Goodbye CMF Ads (The Bloggers Nook) – September 19th
• CMFAds is Closing (Invest and Work At Home) – September 19th
• CMF Ads Closing (Tech Tips From a NonGeek) – September 19th
• CMF Ads Closing Down! (Web Logger Dai) – September 20th
• CMF Ads Shutting Down (My Frugal Ways) – September 21st
• Blog Advertising Network, CMF Ads, To Close in October (Blazing Minds) – September 23rd
• CMF Ads Closes Down (Living and Writing in China) – September 26th

I’d like to thank everyone who used CMF Ads over the years. My next project is to resume building Floor15, and turn it into a great community for bloggers. Here’s hoping, eh?

Discussion

Did you ever use CMF Ads? Will you be sad to see it go?

Please let me know if you find any more blog posts about the closure and I will link to them. Thanks!

This week, I noticed a new Facebook feature: subscriptions. These allow you to subscribe to the updates on a person’s profile page. It’s very similar to adding someone to a circle on Google Plus.

Once you subscribe to someone’s updates, you can click on the “Subscriptions” link on your profile to customise which updates you’ll see from them. Here’s a screenshot of the available options:

Facebook subscription options

That’s a pretty good list – I especially like the option to unsubscribe from “Games”. I do play some Facebook games, but I’m not keen on seeing the game-related posts that flood people’s walls.

Once you’ve subscribed to someone’s updates, they will appear on your News Feed.

What about Facebook Likes?

We now have a way to like a Facebook page and subscribe to a Facebook profile. All of the updates will appear on your News Feed.

If a company has a page and an individual has a profile, you can like the page and subscribe to the profile. No problem there.

However, what about people who have set up a Facebook page, and who also have a profile? This is the situation I’m in right now – and I know other bloggers have done the same. Having a Facebook page under your own name is a really good way to share content from multiple blogs, instead of having to manage a separate page for each blog.

Likes vs Subscriptions

One of the annoyances I’ve found with subscriptions is that we now have a list of profiles we’ve subscribed to, but the list is only accessible from your own profile page. Currently, there’s no way to see your subscriptions from the Facebook homepage (when you’re viewing the News Feed).

Thinking about it though, there’s also no way to see a list of pages you like without digging into your profile page, and the list that’s presented there is hardly the easiest way to unsubscribe from those pages. I do prefer the layout of the Subscriptions page.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Facebook recently say that groups will eventually be replaced by pages? I wonder if anyone who had a group converted it to a page, and is now wondering if they could just do what they need on their profile? If so, how likely is it that everyone will re-subscribe for the second time?

A recent post from Tom Anderson (ex-MySpace) highlights the confusion:

FB just created a feature where you can “subscribe” to profiles. They asked me if I wanted to convert my “page” into a simpler profile. Complicated? I suppose.
- Tom Anderson

The only difference I can think of is that by subscribing to a profile, you avoid making the statement that you “like” whatever you’re subscribing to. As I wrote in Should Old Content Appear First in Google?, perhaps we do need a way to separate “liking” from subscribing.

However, until the duplication is cleaned up, we’re left with a confusing interface and the potential decision, “Do I want to like this page, or subscribe to the person’s profile?”

What does the future hold?

Maybe this doesn’t matter. For all I know, we may be moving to a simpler, more streamlined Facebook, with less overlap and more consistency.

But I’m sceptical. It seems like some of the recent changes to Facebook, such as subscriptions and being able to “share” a post, are very similar to what we already have at Google Plus. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I can see the new features having positive results. It’s just that the features don’t fit in all that well with how Facebook is organised. Hopefully things will be a bit more organised in future.

Discussion

What do you think of the new features at Facebook? Have you used them?

Is Facebook becoming more complex? How could it be simplified?

"the rain's romantic pour" by ashley rose

If you’re on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, do you post a “goodbye” or “goodnight” message before you disappear?

I don’t. It feels similar to going away on holiday and leaving your doors wide open. Are you inviting spammers to take advantage of the fact you won’t be around? Or perhaps a potential attacker might try and get into your site while you sleep.

I’m not really all that paranoid, just cautious. So instead of saying “I’m going offline”, I’ll just sneak away. This also applies if I’m stepping out for a moment, perhaps for some food or drink, as I’ll be back soon.

I may be reading Twitter without joining in, so I might not have said “Hello” yet!

Generally speaking, instead of saying goodbye on social media, I don’t say anything. However, on instant messenger software, if I’m having a chat with someone then I will say goodbye before I leave. It just doesn’t seem necessary on social media.

What do you think?

Do you say goodbye when going offline?