Social Media | Fuel Your Blog

August 22, 2017August 22, 2017

Conversations of Distraction

As part of my daily routine traveling to work, I take the subway.

As I sit in my little part of the train, I can’t help but overhear the conversations around me. Dialogues, actually – the majority aren’t very conversational.

One in particular was a guy telling his girlfriend about issues he was going through at his workplace. How he was afraid that he was going to lose his job as he was having a major character clash with his supervisor.

The girl nodded a few times, then when the guy had finished she launched straight into a speech about her hair appointment later in the week.

No questions about her partner’s supervisor, or what was causing the clash. No comforting words.

Simply waiting until the talking had stopped and then into her own details.

It’s a common theme.

I’ve watched couples go through the motions of conversation but not really conversing.

I’ve sat in on business meetings before where someone is talking and you can clearly see who’s listening around the table and who isn’t.

And then they wonder why instructions weren’t carried out properly, or key points were missed.

So why aren’t we listening properly?

Have our attention spans really been eroded so much by incidental noise around us that we can no longer focus on the words behind the spoken ones?

Do we need to have something repeated to us before it really sinks in?

I’m not perfect – I know in the past I’ve been guilty of having selective hearing. Probably still am, if you ask my wife.

It’s something I had to work on, particularly when I went into business for myself. If I didn’t listen properly it was my livelihood.

With all the communication tools we have at our disposal today, perhaps we are distracted.

Perhaps the choice has made us lazier at filtering what’s noise and what’s important filler. Perhaps there’s a finer line than ever before between the two.

Whatever it is, one thing is clear – we aren’t listening as well as we’re hearing a lot of the time.

What’s your take? Are we listening less or am I off base? What’s your solution?

July 23, 2017August 22, 2017

The Emotional Punch of a Child’s Lost Tooth

A little before Christmas last year, our five year old son Ewan lost his first tooth.

My wife noticed it being loose at first, and our son got super excited. One of his favourite shows is Paw Patrol, and there was an episode where one of the dogs – Chase – had a loose tooth.

Ewan kept imitating Chase, wobbling his tooth, rolling his tongue around it, and it was fun to watch.

However, we didn’t want it to come out while sleeping, so my wife did her magic and got it out.

Like every other kid, Ewan placed it under his pillow and had a huge smile the morning after, when he saw that the tooth fairy had been and left him money for his tooth.

He’s now the proud owner of a tiny gap in the centre of his bottom row of teeth, and keeps asking people if they want to see it.

There’s another tooth starting to get loose, so the adventure is about to begin again.

And it makes me just a little sad.

The Bittersweet Joy of Watching Your Kids Grow

We have two kids. Ewan, who’s five, and our daughter Salem, who’ll turn four next week.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that they’re growing up before our eyes. In many ways, they’re both still our babies. I guess they always will be.

I think that’s probably a natural parent thing, right? No matter how old your kids get, they’re always your babies.

Thinking back to when they actually were babies often seems like such a long time ago.

Ewan is in the final half of his senior kindergarten year, and begins Grade One after the summer.

Salem is in the final half of her daycare year, and starts junior kindergarten after the summer.

That seems like a big thing – knowing that both kids are now in school. Before I know it, it’ll be high school, then maybe college, then leaving home.

Sure, that’s still a good 10-15 years away minimum, but given how fast the last 4-6 years have passed since both kids came into our lives, 10-15 years doesn’t seem a long amount of time at all.

It’s a bittersweet feeling.

It’s amazing watching our kids grow into the people they are. They have awesome character traits, and you can see where our influence as parents begins and where Ewan and Salem’s own input begins.

Watching them play together, laugh together, read books together, etc., is an awesome experience, and one that makes me glow.

But I also know at some stage, they’re probably going to be more independent from one another, and spend time with their friends from school, the neighbourhood, etc.

They’ll also do things for themselves that currently they need their parents for.

Even now, Ewan is more independent in this regard – things like brushing his teeth, grabbing snacks, choosing clothes to wear, etc.

There are a lot of things he, and his sister, still need us for – but it can only be a matter of time before that comes to an end, too.

We’re Always Parents Even When We’re Not

I was talking to a friend about this recently, and how you – as a parent – adapt to the changes as your kids grow up.

She has two teens, and her reply made a lot of sense.

Our kids are just going through the same things we did when we were younger, and we’re just going through the things they went through with us. It may feel like our kids are independent, and they may well be – but we’re always parents, even when we’re not.

Essentially, she was saying the obvious, but I liked the way she broke it down.

Our kids will grow. That’s how it should be. And they’ll depend on us, as parents, less and less. Again, that’s how it should be.

But that’s not to say they still don’t depend on us, or we’re no longer parents.

There will always be something they need. There will always be something we can offer, or help with.

Even if it’s just a phone call to complain about their lives, or to ask for a lift from a concert, or to ask why boys are stupid – there will always be a need for parent and child to be just that.

A first lost tooth may be a sign that your little boy is entering a new part of his life. It may also be the sign that the “little years” are coming to an end.

But you know what? In the grand scheme of things, that’s how it should be.

And that’s okay.

July 22, 2017August 22, 2017

The Three Core Tenets Every Successful Blogger Needs to Have

As bloggers, we all have different goals. Some may be to monetize your blog; some may be to get a book deal; some may be to become recognized as an expert in your field; others may be to share company news and updates.

Some may even just be to have a personal outlet where you can let your creativity go and see what works, and what doesn’t.

But no matter the goals you have for your blog, to succeed in them takes more than just setting up a blog and watching the success come rolling in.

While there may be early successes, to be a truly successful blogger you need to have the following three key tenets.

1. Patience

So many bloggers give up in the first few months because they’re not experiencing what they feel they should be, to be classed as successful. They’re not getting the thousands of subscribers, or visitors, or social shares, or sales.

The thing is, much like anything, blogging success is not an overnight success. To build a blog that has both longevity and solid foundations takes time.

You need to cultivate your community; understand who your audience is and what they’re interested in; what social platforms make sense for you to be on; and define your editorial voice.

You’ll make many mistakes in your first few months of blogging – but that’s a natural part of growth.

Don’t let perceived “failure” put you off your game – be patient and your goals will start to happen.

2. Strength

One of the great things about blogging is that it allows the fostering of some truly great ideas and discussions.

Sure, the blogger might start all this off with the original post, but then the following comments can really take the post into a rich and varied discussion point.

Of course, with discussions comes dissent – and many bloggers fail at welcoming this part of the discussion into their part of the web. Which is a mistake.

The very best bloggers not only welcome dissent, they encourage it and meet it head on – because they have strength in their convictions.

The very best bloggers not only welcome dissent, they encourage it and meet it head on. Click To Tweet

When you put something out for the world to read, you need to be strong enough to know that not everyone is going to fawn over your wisdom (real or otherwise), and that often questions will be asked.

Want to run a successful blog? Be strong when questioned, accept when wrong, and understand that the most successful blogs are the ones where the reader feels like they’re really a part of it, as opposed to just being a bystander to your soapbox.

3. Belief

One of the things I always notice when reading a blog is how much conviction is there.

It comes through in the words being written or the video/podcast being shared, as well as the advertising partners on the site, and the products/services being recommended.

In other words, it’s easy to see when a blogger truly believes in what they’re doing, or saying, versus one that’s just mailing their posts in.

Blog readers are smart people – we know when you’re the real deal and when you’re just out trying to make a fast buck, or position yourself as something you’re not.

Instead of trying to fool us, make us believe that you believe too.

Recommend products and services that you use, and would recommend anyway even if you weren’t getting paid to do so.

Believe in the words you’re writing. Passion wins over boring wisdom every time.

Believe in the wisdom of your readers – never take them for granted or expect them to believe your every word.

Simply put – if you believe, we’ll believe.

Which is what really matters at the end of the day, no?

July 21, 2017August 22, 2017

An Experiment in Removing Share Buttons Altogether

Unless you’ve been hiding under a social media rock recently, you probably know about Twitter removing their share counts.

This meant that, as of November 20, any blog posts that had some form of Twitter sharing button (native or third-party) would no longer be able to show how many times that post had been shared on Twitter.

Cue content marketers and social media sharing companies decrying the move, with dramatic quotes about it “being the death of Twitter”.

#SaveOurShareCounts Tweets

Because, yes, Twitter has nothing more serious to worry about than whether or not it shows share counts…

For the rest of us, it didn’t mean as big a deal. At the end of the day, a share count is simply one metric of a blog post’s “success”.

Given there are enough shady companies and scripts out there that can artificially inflate these numbers, it’s not even a great metric.

Personally, I’d rather go by engagement, reactions (as in discussions and thoughts elsewhere), and growth (either subscribers, readers or share of voice) as metrics that matter.

But it made me wonder – with so many people getting up in arms about a little number, what would they actually feel like if you removed the option to share via on-site buttons altogether?

And so I’m going to find out.

To Quickly Share or Not to Share

Last year, I read a post from a few other bloggers who were discussing the value of social sharing buttons, and whether they helped or hindered sites.

One of the best articles I read was from Sam Solomon, called Why I’m Done With Social Media Buttons.

Sam’s main premise was from a designer’s angle, and how sharing buttons could ruin the user experience.

Yet he also shared a couple of case studies that looked at on-page sharing, and the results weren’t great.

While he admits that he didn’t do any real conversion tracking on his own site before switching off, his points around the topic are very valid, and worth the read.

His closing argument has remained with me since reading his post:

If people really love your content, they’ll share it.

And it’s true.

Yes, having on-page buttons may make it easier – but then do they take away from other calls to action that you’re trying to achieve (comments, subscriptions, etc)?

For example, this company saw conversions increase when they removed their share buttons, which is clearly a more important metric than how many tweets they got.

But perhaps that shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise – it’s simply following the golden rule of marketing: that you have one main CTA and that’s your primary KPI (key performance indicator).

You then set secondary CTAs and KPIs based on the key one – but only if they don’t jeopardize your main one.

If you take this to your blog, your core CTA might be to get a comment. Or it might be to get a subscriber. Or to download an ebook, or something similar.

I’m going to hazard a guess that these will come before social sharing. So are we diluting our goals by the [apparent] importance on social sharing buttons?

Time to find out.

Setting 30 Days Comparable Metrics

If I look at my Google Analytics, I can see how much social traffic means to my blog.

In the last 30 days, my breakdown has been as follows:

Organic search – 58%
Direct – 22.3%
Social – 9.5%
Referral – 9%
Other and email – 1%

Just looking at that simple pie chart, I can see that – in the grand scheme of things – social isn’t a huge part of this blog’s traffic.

While 10% might mean X amount of visits, I tend to find the bounce rate (how soon someone leaves a page) higher for social traffic than search or direct.

Additionally, if I look deeper into my social analytics, I can see that both Facebook and Twitter are the key social drivers – Twitter accounts for 31% of social traffic, Facebook accounts for 29%.

That’s almost 2/3 of all my social traffic coming from just two networks.

So, truth be told, for this particular blog, maybe social isn’t a key driver of visits, even though I’ve continuously made it easier to share with ever-improved social sharing options.

Of course, the argument could be made that perhaps the content just wasn’t shareworthy. In which case, get off my lawn!

One thing I do find interesting (and another reason for this experiment) is that when I look at both my Google Analytics as well as Share Tally, I can see there are a solid number of shares from Buffer and Pocket.

These are two platforms that my current social sharing solution doesn’t support – which suggests that readers are still happy to cut and paste a blog post’s URL onto their preferred platform of choice.

Well, I guess I’m about to find out.

For the next 30 days, I’m not going to enable on-page sharing for the posts I publish.

Instead, whenever a reader enjoys a post and wants to share it, they’ll need to grab the URL and paste it directly into Twitter, or Facebook, etc.

If they do, great. If they don’t, well, maybe great, maybe not – I guess we’ll see based on traffic comparisons as well as network activity.

Either way, I’m interested to see how removing share buttons impacts the shareability of this blog.

Let the fun begin!