Kids are fighting about kid stuff, dog is barking about dog stuff and the neighbors are mowing the lawn and revving car engines so I am putting on the handy dandy noise reduction headphones.
Sometimes being a parent means letting your kids settle their differences without your playing referee and this is one of those moments. Time has come to try to build the readership up again here, got to go out and earn some more sponsorships and that comes by building a bigger platform.
So it is time to use a few social media tricks, do some things that lend themselves to sharing and that is why I am trying to use Canva to create more images that people want to pin on Pinterest and to produce content that people want to share on Google Plus.
Do You Believe in Serendipity?
Yeah, I believe in Serendipity, didn’t for a long time or maybe it is more accurate to say I really hadn’t thought about it much. But when I look back and think about the conversation with The Shmata Queen and look at how far I have come in this blogging gig it is clear to me it exists.
My first real troll helped introduce me to the inner workings of analytics and got me thinking about different ways we could use eyeballs and the role content played in making people feel.
Because the secret of blogging is to make people feel something. Ideally your words make them feel good and they keep reading because you lift them up but you can get their attention by attacking their beliefs too.
Write about politics. Write about religion.
Write about both or just one and you are guaranteed to uplift and offend. People won’t let you straddle the fence but if you really want to have fun tell Christians they whine too much about being oppressed, suggest all Muslims are terrorists and tell moms that breastfeed in public that unless they are going to serve as a mobile drink station for adults who need cream in their coffee to put those things away.
Let’s see, who didn’t we offend. Oh yes, gay people you need to stop pushing your agenda on us. Anti vaccination people need to be rounded up and sent to leper colonies because we won’t let you kill our children with your middle age medical philosophies and anyone who is anti-circumcision is welcome to come see me privately so that I can prove everything works just fine.
Satire and Traffic
If you are not a long time reader you might not know what to make of what I wrote above. Some people will tell you it is satire and suggest you shouldn’t be offended but I’ll own what I believe and what I wrote to help illustrate an example.
I don’t believe Christians are oppressed, at least not in the U.S. I don’t believe all Muslims are terrorists.
You won’t find me supporting the anti-vaccination crowd. I won’t really advocate they be rounded up and moved into leper colonies but I will tell you it is selfish and ignorant. Some people have tried to convince me otherwise by telling me they have read enormous amounts of material on the topic.
There is merit in reading but by the same token I can tell you I have read quite a bit about flying planes and brain surgery. Might even have read cutting edge material that a pilot/surgeon with 20 years experience hasn’t read, but would that really make me more qualified to make a decision.
Would you feel comfortable letting me fly your plane or cut your head open based upon my assurances.
I believe in gay marriage. I believe in circumcision and I don’t usually care about breastfeeding in public.
That is the short version, but I’ll bet some of you are still fuming.
Confession, I have a romantic bone in my body and that quote works for me, just makes sense. Might have to write a story around it. You do know I write fiction? Right?
You can find it here.
Write From The Heart
If you don’t write with passion your readers are less likely to relate. I don’t know why, but it is really easy for me to remember things that hurt me as well as things that made me feel good.
I tap into those feelings when I write and when I do it well you can see the picture I painted and you relate.
Maybe it is when I share a story about my children or talk about the crazy stuff we did in college. Maybe it is when I write about that one person who made your heart pound and who never stopped or maybe it is the story about the concussion.
Whatever it is if passion is a part good things tend to come with it, at least as far as social media goes.
Maybe those tips aren’t so stupid after all.
I’ll must try to avoid from this thingy and stupid activies on social media, because its about to building brands not just getting temporary traffic.
Lardavbern  I am often amazed by how some people think reading a book about a topic makes them an authority on it. Takes more than just reading.
Faryna  That social contract is key, so very important and often overlooked and or missed.
You are not a nobody.
@Mike Smith  Hi Mike. I am glad you did. I am looking forward to reading your words.
The lines about reading something doesn’t make you expert are spot on. People read a few things on the internet about a particular topic and all of a sudden they are experts.
Awesome.
I can accept you for you, if and only if (1) you can accept me for me, (2) what you believe does not threaten or harm me, mine or my world AND (3) we can help each other with our things on occasion.Â
That’s the social contract, right? Screw Locke, Rousseau and all those other seekers and fans of power-based relationships…
And that’s the problem of politics of any kind.
And religion gets into all sorts of problems when it gets political. And, yes, it gets political for all the right and wrong reasons.
I’d like to see a Jewish nation as large as the promised land – it currently occupies about 10 percent of the promised land. And that is a challenge that includes the failure of the moral character of Israel as much as the ambitions of the Devil. Me saying that may be unPC, but my saying it doesn’t actually represent a threat or harm to anyone. After all, I am a nobody. And so are most of us. We’re nobodies.
It was serendipitous that I chose your post to read among all those on Dad Bloggers. I enjoyed your honesty and passion. Although I have a sense of humor, my posts are generally serious in tone. Hopefully I also show my passion. Thanks for your tips!