Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Housekeeping

(Wikipe-tan, cleaning up)
A few housekeeping updates...

Apparently today is "Spread the Word to End the Word Day" and it completely escaped my attention (not that I'd have written about it anyway).  But it didn't escape a lot of other people's attentions.  Here are some of the ones I'm aware of:

Jillsmo's version
Jessi's version
Mama Fry's version
John Franklin Stephen's version
Jordan's version

Pick your favorite!  Vote online and qualify for fabulous prizes*

*subject to availability

So that's the first thing.  It's weird, because I have acquaintances who still use the term.  Even friends.  And up until maybe...5 years ago, I was using it too.  Well, I've changed my viewpoint.  I don't like it anymore.  You don't have to stop saying it.  Just...you know...if you say it, I don't like it.  So you can decide to say stuff I don't like or not and that's really up to you.  But you're kind of a douche if you do.

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Next...leave this website immediately!  Wait...wait...before you go, after you leave, type "justalilblog" in your browser window where you normally would have typed "blogginglily.blogspot.com".  Okay, I'll wait here.  If you're not back yet it's because you typed the fucking quotation marks.  DON'T TYPE THE QUOTATION MARKS.  Okay.  Waiting again.

WELCOME BACK!  Yeah, I bought the domain name (Surprise, Leslie!  You can't get your nails done this week.  It's no longer in the budget) so that when people are looking for the blog now all they have to remember is the name of the blog, not that arcane blahblah.blahblah.blah nonsense. 

The idea is that at some point I'll self host...meaning no longer on blogger.  But I'm not really sure what my time table is for that.  In the meantime, all me having my own domain name means is that when you type "justalilblog" it redirects you to "blogginglily.blogspot.com" so that you don't have to remember the address, just the name.

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What else...the wine tasting is this weekend.  I'll post my presentation along with some pics of the event.  I'll talk about the theme and the food and the wine next week some time, but last night Leslie and I finalized our pairing.  And it is BOMB, yo!  There were some snafus along the way that created some stress in our lives related to fucking up the wine or the food or the wine AND the food along the way.  But as of last night we're feeling pretty bullet proof.  And that's not just the wine talking.  Or maybe it is.

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For those of you on Facebook, I reposted a couple pieces from here on my Huffpo profile.  It tends to get more traffic than my little blog here does, but if you're not on Facebook, you're not missing anything.  I just took two posts... 

  1. http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-letter-to-my-autistic-daughter-to-be.html
  2. http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/2014/01/love-for-nt-parents.html
...removed the eff bombs and other swearing, edited out a lot of the personal information and sidebar garbage, and posted the guts of the posts.  Huffpo brings in a lot of traffic.  For example, the letter to Lily got retweeted on Twitter by Holly Robinson Peete.  If you don't know what that means, then don't worry about it.  Essentially, it just means someone with a GIANT audience of followers posted my article on her twitter feed so that they could all see it.

To put that into social media perspective:
When I tweet (@blogginglily):  2,008 followers can see my post.
When Huffpo tweets (@huffpostparents):  168,000 followers can see my post.
When Holly Robinson Peete tweets (@hollyrpeete):  475,500 followers can see my post.

That's why RT's are important to twitter users.  When I post, the only people on twitter who see that post are my followers.  When Huffpo or Holly repost or post my stuff, I'm instantly seen by 80 to 290 times as many people.

It's similar to sharing on Facebook, but unlike twitter, it's really hard to tell how many people actually saw the posts.  The NT parent one got shared a lot.  The Letter didn't get as much play.

This goes to show that I really have no idea what stories will really strike a chord with people and what they will enjoy but not share.  It's like the time I told Leslie that "Dancing with the Stars" would be canceled during the first season.  

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That's all for now.  I'm going to try to make a point of posting more frequently.  That may mean that the stories I post are less touching or poignant or autism-driven or whatever...maybe it'll be a story about how I went to the grocery store and they were out of butter lettuce so I had to use bibb instead...I don't know.  I'm just going to make my posts more frequent so they seem more current and timely and anchored "in the now".




4 comments:

  1. There is no now. Time is an illusion. I haven't posted in a month, so that is my new philosophy.

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  2. I don't even know what butter lettuce is.

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  3. Good for you for buying your domain And trying to post more often-I'm trying too, more often, shorter blog posts. Hope it helps !~!

    ReplyDelete