A whirlwind is whipping around in my head. I spent the morning discussing social media with a friend who is looking to expand his presence in the world wide web. We talked blog talk and I fear I stuffed his brain to overflowing. He looked at me with shock, perhaps awe, and definitely incredulity at what I was saying. I talked about widgets, tags, posts, comments, SEO, and touched on how it all affects your presence on the web. For every post you put out and the frequency you put it out there, the higher you rank in search engine finds. It makes sense, but there are so many ways to spin anything you do. When you start it seems huge. When you have been doing it for a while, it still seems huge. I know that the more I know, the more I realize that I have so much more to learn.
What I found interesting in talking to a friend about social media was how much I really DO know. I am also taking a writing course and last week we interviewed classmates. The gentleman that interviewed me is formulating his interview about me and my writing, and my presence on the internet. Questions like, "How long have you been maintaining your blog?", "How does the social community you have linked up with affect your writing?", and "Who is your audience for your blog?" were posed. All good questions that made me think.
And what did I think about, you ask? Well, I started this blog almost two years ago, but only started to hit a bit of a stride just over a year ago. The more I interact with others in the blogosphere and social media networking sites, the more I learn and grow. Participating in various memes, like
Magpie Tales,
Monkey Man's Sunday 160, G-Man's
Flash Fiction Friday, or my favourite poetry day at
One Shot Wednesday, really challenges me as a writer to write, write, write. Sometimes the challenge is to write in a certain number of words or characters. This has helped me to let go of flowery words that really don't always help my writing. Visiting picture prompt sites gives me inspiration to write in my own voice, but taken from a specific angle. One Shot is an excellent home to search other poets and learn new styles and just read lots of great poetry, plus the bonus of potentially having people come and view my own poetry. More comments means that perhaps people have really liked what I have written. Sometimes people will comment on specific lines that have jumped out at them that they have really liked. That tells me that I am doing something right. Other times, I have had the joy of having new followers, and that helps to build up the old confidence meter a notch or two. That means I have done something right either more than once, or at the very least, I have done one thing REALLY good and my readers feel that there is a high potential for me to do that again. Both good things in my books.
You out there in the blog-o-sphere know all of this yourself. I have read many a post of people looking for visitors, hoping for comments and growing from the regular comments and support that is received in this world that we blog in. That support keeps on bringing us back again and again. Every time we write, we get better at our craft. This truly is a craft as well. We are writers, poets, and creative beings coming together. For every site I visit, I push your SEO numbers higher and in turn my own. Looking back over my many hours spent blogging, I am happy with where I have come. My writing is better, my confidence is better, and my presence just keeps growing. I will still have my down days, those days when the cursor blinks and nary a word is to be found, but the look of awe helps me to see that maybe I do have a smidgen of expertise in this field. That is something to give myself kudos for. And you as well my bloggy friends. We are in this together, and together we rise.
Write on my friends. Write on...
