Cool it With the Digg Requests
I have this thing about Tupperware and Pampered Chef parties. I rarely go to them. Invitations for these things usually come from people who wouldn’t call me to say hi, invite me out for a drink or even send a Christmas card. Yet somehow I’m a good enough friend to invite over so I can spend my money so the hostess can receive some free merchandise. No thanks.
I feel the same about Digg and Stumble requests. I don’t mind doing them, but if you’re not going to at least drop a line or a Skype to say hello to me now and then, don’t send me your Diggs. I find this so annoying.
I don’t mind doing favors for my friends. Indeed there are plenty of people I’m happy to give up the Digg love for. There are a few others who are wearing out their social media welcome. These are people who I know only slightly or who only contact me if it’s to ask me to promote something. I don’t think so.
Here’s a good rule of thumb, if you’re sending a Digg request to someone you barely even speak to, think again. It’s kind of rude to only come calling when you need a favor.
What, When, Why and How of Blog Linking
One characteristic that I want to be most known for is remaining humble enough to occasionally enjoy rubbing elbows with famed bloggers, but to live daily among the meek. It’s where I feel most comfortable.
When I look at some bloggers who have taken hold of the brass ring and seem to be living life in the fast lane of the blogosphere, one thing I like to do is take a look around their site and see just how fame has changed them.
One of the first places I look for is a links section. I noticed the links when they were among the meek and I notice them when they can officially claim a certain amount of fame. There’s a big difference. Sad, but big.
What I see is a shift of loyalty from linking to the people who helped them climb to linking to the people they believe will keep them secure in the clouds.
About a year ago, I got a very good glimpse at what "famed blogging" does to a person. Someone I had watched climb to fame and fortune from the blogging ghettos seemed to have felt so important that they couldn’t be bothered by a pleasant introduction made to an email list by a new member who was nothing more than excited to be there.
The horrible and degrading email has left a raw and lingering effect on me. That day, when reading the spewing’s of an all important blogger, I vowed to never become one of them.
As a result, on that specific day, I developed my own linking policy. Not one that I make public, just one that I implement as needed.
If I like a blog and want to link to it in my blogroll and the blogger links back to me - I will anchor their link with any keyword or website name they request. However, if I find that I’m linking to someone who no longer links to me - I may consider keeping the link, but I will change the keywords to something that’s a little more beneficial to the success of my blog rather than continuing with a mutual hospitality where I’m left being the only hospitable one.
While my links may or may not be as important as some, I feel that who I link to and how I link to them says a lot about my character. It tells a story of whether I am groveling at the breadcrumbs left behind by fame or whether I’m sharing a common interest in passion with fellow bloggers.
Forget the caviar wishes and champagne dreams - I’ll take a nice cold Coor’s Light, in the bottle and a bag of pretzels any day.
Have you ever thought what your link habits might be saying about you?
When Do You Stop Being Polite?
I only have one rule on my blogs, be nice. With Freelance Writing Jobs, which receives thousands of visitors on a daily basis, I’m forever asking people, well one or two people in particular, to please mind their manners. My biggest dilemma is when a client asks me to post a job and after I do, certain people start ganging up on the client to complain about his rates, his terms, and I’m sure if they could see it, the color of his shoes. The problem with this is it keeps people from coming back to us with their jobs and it makes most of my community uncomfortable. I’ve explained this time and again, but there are still people who refuse to get it.
One regular to my community likes to challenge me every day. On Just about everything I say or post she comments on with veiled cattiness and lots of winks ands smiles to tell me that despite her obvious baiting, she’s really a team player and ever so amusing. It’s obvious however she’s just being…well common decently prevents me from posting what she’s really being.
Some of the regulars are losing their patience and telling her what i can’t because I’m trying to keep it positive - to be respectful and stop picking apart everything I say. She’s still going on though. She throws in everything from free speech to a difference of opinion. Meanwhile I’m getting more and more stressed out at trying to keep the peace on my own blog.
So tell me, when do you stop being polite. When do you take off the kid gloves and tell someone to shut the eff up and if she can’t be respectful would she please take it elsewhere? Do bloggers always have to be nice?
How To Look Like A Smack Amateur
Don’t note your sources.
For crying out loud - this is blogging 101. This weekend I did my weekend prowl for cool news and other items, and must have seen at least 40 blogs with items, pictures, and quotes, yet not a source among them.
If you didn’t build it, make it, think it, create it, let me know who did. Nothing is more obnoxious than a blogger showing a house or cool art creation and not sourcing it. None of the blogs I saw tricks like this at were network based, but some were client owned blogs, or blogs for profit. Some of the blog were bigger names in their niche too. Shame on them. I’d list them, but don’t want to give them any link love.
If you are posting images or statistics or quotes with no source it’s not on the up and up where legalities are concerned, and worse, it makes you look lame and uninformed - read this: Blogs and Images.
Ok, rant over; I guess it’s just that few things make me as mad as finding a cool house I can’t mention or link to at Offbeat, simply because the blogger didn’t source it. Back to our regularly scheduled nice friendly tips.
Typical Conversations I Have
This conversation happened with a family member this week; but friends are guilty too, and honestly, this could be any old week of my life.
Family: We’re having this get-together Saturday! You have to come.
Me: I can’t, you know I work weekends.
Family: But why.
Me: Like I’ve said before, if I don’t get enough work done on the weekend, it cuts into homeschool time (for those who don’t know, I homeschool my son).
Family: Well, that’s dumb, you can take a few hours off.
Me: Yeah, on a weekday.
Family: But everyone else works on the weekdays.
Me: Not me. How about we have a get-together on a weekday.
Family: Why would we do that? We work on weekdays.
Me: Well, then you get my issue, because I work on the weekend.
Family: Yeah, but you JUST work at home. You can take time off.
Me: I don’t ask you to take time off from your job.
Family: (again) but you work at home… all you do is write.
Me: Sigh.
Family member then has other family members call me to try and get me to come over, and I get to have the same conversation ad nauseam.
It’s not just stuff like this. Because I JUST work at home, people expect me to take care of everything going on at the house while I work, because I just happen to be at home. People call and want to chat. Folks continually say cool things like, “Man, you’re so lucky you don’t have a real job.”
My least favorite comment is when I mention something cool going on at one of my blogs, and the person responds with, “Hey, are you ever going to get published again? Now that’s neat. I like when you’re in magazines!” I still had people pulling the same stunts when I wrote magazine articles and business copy, but at least then my name was in print, and for whatever reason, my friends and family took that to mean I actually did some work now and again. Since it was my decision to switch over to FT blogging vs. other sorts of writing, this nonsense irks me more than other comments.
It would seem I don’t have a job. Nothing I say can convince 80% of my family and friends otherwise. So, instead I resort to tactics like turning my phone off when I’m working, and ignoring the rest of the comments. Overall, while I like blogging, this is an ongoing issue in my world. Slacker me without a job (or so people think). I’ve come to the conclusion that only other writers and bloggers get it.
Do you get it? Do you get the same slacker grief from family and friends - and is it worse with some forms of writing vs. others - say proposals vs. blogging.
