Rutters Ramblings

6 Figure Blogging 

Ive been participating in 6 Figure Blogging with Darren from Problogger.net and Andy Wibbels from 6 Apart.  Most of the course so far has been fairly elementary for those who have been blogging for a while.  Indeed, I almost wish there was a disclaimer before I plunked down the money that would have rated the course on a sliding scare between Beginner and Expert blogging knowledge.

One of the things that did catch my interest was the subject of message on your blog.   The analogy given was a good one, and one I am trying to find some kind of balance for in my own blog here on troyrutter.com

Imagine going into a bookstore and looking for a magazine.  You are thinking of going skiing in Colorado this winter, so you go from one shelf to another, and come to a section marked Sports.  There tucked in back of the latest NBA news you spot a magazine called “Colorado Skiing” that was exactly what you were looking for.  You pay for the magazine and go home.

Now, think of what it would be like to go to the book store and instead of having a skiing magazine, you had a “Sports” magazine.   Inside you had all sports imaginable and maybe 1 article on skiing in Colorado.   Now back up yet another level, maybe there was one magazine on …. everything.   This magazine had articles on computers, decorating, potty training your child, baseball, fixing cars, politics, Britney Spears - everything in the world.

And that is where you find most personal blogs.

I love my blog here at TroyRutter.com, but the fact is it will not, and can not, ever be used to do the almighty M - “monetize.”   The only blogs/podcasts that seem to do well that are personal blogs are celebrities. (ie: Wil Wheaton, Adam Curry, among others.)

So what does your blog say about your tastes?

Posting Categories

One of the easiest ways to judge if your blog has a tight or broad focus is to look at your category list.   If you see more than 10 categories on your blog, then your net may be too big.  A focused blog may have 5 or less categories that posts fall into.

When you go to make a new blog post, and are considering making a new category, think carefully about what you are doing.   If you are adding a category, then your net is about to get even larger, and you may risk alienating those who have started coming to your blog because of another topic you wrote about.

Monetize? Blasphemy!

If you don’t have any aspirations to  monetize your blog, then by all means talk about anything and everything.   But if you have any interest on focusing on a niche to help earn some extra money, then focusing your blog’s entries and categories on that niche will benefit you from the start.

Almost 2 years ago I remember reading Wil Wheaton’s blog where he lost all or most of his purchased iTunes music, and I remember feeling jealous when a rep from apple who read his blog, called him to make everything right.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/09/apple_gave_me_b.html

Fast forward to the Twitter age.

DIGSBY

I have used several IM clients over the years, and had pretty much settled on Trillian to be my IM program of choice, since it combined the services of AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN. A coworker then told me about Digsby, which also combined Facebook, Myspace, Gmail and Twitter. I installed the application and had no issues whatsoever.

What I was having problems with was a notification showing up in Digsby that I had a @reply, but couldn’t see them on my twitter timeline (I use the actual twitter.com interface). I almost immediately received a direct message from Digsby offering to help troubleshoot the problem.

Whoa.

Turns out it wasn’t Digsby at all, but my settings on Twitter to “show all @replies on my timeline”

But, I was still very impressed with Digsby monitoring the twitterverse for their name being mentioned, and jumping right on questions that were presented - but probably not even directed towards them.

Bright Kite

I don’t have a phone that supports Bright Kite, so I enter in my location manually, thus somewhat defeating the purpose I suppose. In today’s world of so many different social applications being launched, I oftentimes use a generic password for sites Im not sure I will use a lot.

So, when I really WANTED to use Bright Kite recently, I had forgotten which password I actually used. I searched and searched, but to my surprise there was no “forgot password” link to be found. I immediately twittered my frustration (and almost at the exact same time remembered my password anyway). Within 2 minutes there was a @reply to me saying they were working on it, and within 20 minutes, I got another reply saying there was now a forgot password link on the site.

Yikes.

Yet again, another company that “gets it.”

So bravo to these companies and others using twitter to enhance not only their core product, but also customer service. I’m sure there are many other companies out there doing the same thing. But for once (or twice) - you guys made me feel like a celebrity.

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