Analytics puts the week in dead heats

Sundays, we look back through the 360 Convos lens, approximately four weeks back, to see how the posts did for a two week period.* It's not an exact science, after all, the Sunday post could potentially have more play than the others, so take everything with a grain of the proverbial salt, my favorite mineral.

The week of August 21, was a great week for the blog. It was a dead heat for first place between Tips for blogging everyday and Jeremiah Owyang helps me take down Google.

Everyone survived: me, Jeremiah and Google.

The dead heat continued into second place between my daughter, who's famous for keeping me in line with her quips–which I dutifully write down in a little blue notebook so I can remember what the heck I was laughing about, pulled in one more page view than Great is the enemy of good. The enemy piece was a thought process of finding the balance between productivity and the quality we yearn for in our projects.

I'll take the one page my daughter's piece had that pulled it out in front as a sign I'm barely ahead of average on parenting skills. Like the wise people say, "You don't know how well you did as a parent until you meet your grandchildren."

I can wait.

Here's where it gets interesting, the first two posts pulled into 38% of the pageviews, the next two posts pulled in 30% of the pageviews, the next three the last 32%. An even week, where it was hard to truly determine what dominated.

I continue to search for the balance between good blogging, feeding the audience and balancing my time.

Try that for one day.

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DATE	POSTS WEEK OF AUGUST 21
Sunday	What I learned from Jeremiah Owyang that allowed me to take down Google*
Monday	Tips for blogging everyday
Tuesday	Great is the enemy of good and other things I learned from blogging
Wednesday	How blogging is like throwing stones
Thursday	How blogging for 30 days in a row leads to international acclaim
Friday	Fav quotes from my daughter (who's embarrassing who?)
Saturday	'Dale Chumbley' it. What I learned blogging everyday

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*Source: Google Analytics.

How blogging for 30 days in a row leads to international acclaim

360 Convos rocketed into the international scene with a featured
post on Renbor Sales Solutions' blog, a Toronto, Canada Corp.

When I embarked on my 30 Days of Consecutive Blog Posts I had no idea where I would end up. The disciplined effort to blog everyday led to local, national, and even international attention. One of the places I landed was Toronto, Canada as a featured contributor on The Pipeline, the blog of Renbor Sales Solutions, Inc.

Thank you Tibor Shanto.

People south of Canada tuned in, too. In the last two weeks alone, I received pageviews from 33 of the 50 United States: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, New York.

Do it. Figure out which ones are missing :-)

During that same time, 360 Convos also pulled in viewers from around the world including: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Lebanon, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Some of the posts took on a life of their own and appeared in other places . . .

Dining for Women, a national giving circle empowering women in the developing world, featured the blog post: Can a good dinner change the world?

The City of Gresham picked up a post on customer service for their intranet site, which gave me the opportunity to create the post: City shares good ideas (mine).

The Customer Collective, an “editorially independent, moderated blogging community for elite sales and marketing executives,” featured four posts:

1. Interupted Internet Access Causes Depression
2. Confessions of a Social Media Strategist [A LinkedIn Nightmare?]
3. The Genius of Google +1 vs Retweeting: Casting Your Online Vote
4. Google Analytics Confirm Declines in Website Visits

Porter Anderson, a former CNN journalist, shared his laptop power with me at a Writers Conference, tweeted and emailed a link to 800 other attendees of  Words Motivate.

BlogHer.com, which boasts a following of 23 million women, featured a post I wrote on a visit to the Clark County Fair, Families Disrupted by Technology.

Canadian Sales Trainer Tibor Shanto, a favorite Twitter friend @Renbor, featured one of my posts on his blog: When the customer can't be consoled...

TOP 25. The lovely Paula G, career editor for BlogHer, promoted 360 Convos as one of the 25 Career and Business Women Bloggers Worth Reading.

Today, marks the 38th consecutive post. Don't ask me if I'll keep going. I'm still deciding.

In the meantime, I'd like to quote another Twitter friend, Jeremiah Owyang. He summed up a mutual experience on his blog when he wrote, “Even the smallest thing will lead to something bigger.”

Blogging creates its own form of energy and sends you places you hadn't imagined.

Where has your blog taken you??

38 CONSECUTIVE POST

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If you'd like to read the other posts in the blogging series, try these:

1.

What I learned from Jeremiah Owyang
that allowed me to take down Google*
*Almost

2.

Tips for blogging everyday

3.

Great is the enemy of good and other
things I learned from blogging

4.

How blogging is like throwing stones

5.

How blogging for 30 days in a row
leads to international acclaim

What I learned from Jeremiah Owyang that allowed me to take down Google*

A poignant moment spurred me to not blog about good blogging methods, but to actually practice them.

Jeremiah Owyang, web strategist.
Photo by Thomas Hawk. 

In 2007, Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang posted, “Pay yourself first” and “One thing leads to another,” an encouragement for online enthusiasts to blog before they did anything else.

“When did blogging ever generate revenue?” I wondered.

I'd been blogging since January 2009, and at any one time I had two to three separate blogs bouncing along on separate topics. After almost three years of blogging, my Google Ad Sense account still only boasts a whopping $16.23 credit. That would almost buy me lunch and a coffee.

At one point, I got so mad at Google's practice of serving up my pageviews without sharing the wealth, I started a protest. I single-handily came up with the concept to take Google down.

If you're going to blog for free, I said to myself, GIVE THE ADS AWAY FREE.

On one of my blogs I added advertising for local businesses free of charge.

Google was so scared they started Google+, an ad free environment.

That money thing was intriguing though, and I kept thinking about what it meant to 'pay yourself first.' It took me awhile to figure it out. It wasn't about money, it was about mindshare and market influence.

If I were re-writing Owyang's post I would paraphrase it to read, “invest in yourself first.” I would encourage writers to do something that benefits the id, the ego and the super-ego before they attacked a single piece of email.

Jeremiah Owyang is interviewed by
Nate DiNiro on visit to Portland, OR.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Bunch, vimeo.

Let the inbox overflow, folks.

Build a blog. Add content. Add free ads. Readers will come.

As long as they find something new on a consistent basis.

Tomorrow I share tips for blogging everyday. And don't worry...Google survives.

*Almost.

35 CONSECUTIVE DAILY POSTS

When time stood still, okay it's a screen shot

For a blink of an eye my work stood in front of the Altimeter Group. It was a beautiful moment, a social media coup. It started with an email from SlideShare: Congrats, 'Carol's Save a Life Birthday Party' is hot on Twitter.

That would make you wake up and sit up, right? Well, I did. It was extremely exciting. Especially the part where they called me by name, "Well done, you!" The handy dandy exclamation point did not escape my notice. It was perfectly placed.

My shaking fingers trembled over the keyboard as I surfed over to SlideShare.net and scanned their home page. There on the left rail was a light blue text link that connected every Slideshare viewer on earth to my uploaded power point, and not just any power point, it was the very first one I'd uploaded to SlideShare.

The purpose of my power point was to recap the social media trail I blazed while organizing a blood drive for Southwest Washington Blood Program.

It's quite believable that I would click the link and review the SlideShare 'Hot on Twitter' landing page, right? Well, I did. 

It's UNBELIEVABLY lucky that I grabbed a screenshot, because that is the only proof I have that my creation stood three paces in front of the Altimeter Group's work, and as I said in the beginning it happened in the span it takes to rub your eyes and wake up.

Of course, someone who would think it was base to brag that their work eeked out in front of the nations top analysts would never have begun this post in the first place. That person would not be me. And I'm keeping track. Yes, according to ItDatabase the Altimeter Group houses three of the nation's top analysists: R "Ray" Wang, Jeremiah Owyang, and Charlene Li. Both Ray and Jeremiah follow me on Twitter and we've had some lively conversations, and Charlene Li tweeted a comment I made on on a blog. Once.

The trio is well respected and actively followed in the social media sphere. When Owyang posts a SlideShare such as, 'Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management'  he pulls in 38,000+ views. When I post a slideshare I pull in . . . well, check it out here. Almost as good, right?

Most of the time when something really cool happens you call your parents and blurt out your success in semi-comprehensible excitement and they say, 'Yay, way to go, honey.' For some reason social media coups don't have the same impact as getting your name in the newspaper, or showing up on time for the family dinner and remembering what you were supposed to bring.

I needed an alternative cheering squad. I turned to my kid and jumped up and down, "Slideshare, my PowerPoint it's like on their home page and it's neat-o, and wow."

She blinked and returned to texting.

Therefore, my 360 Convos Friends I have chosen this venue to celebrate with you.

You get it, right?