Category: AdventuresNBlogging

Stories and experiences from Toi Thomas and her journey into blogging. Currently discontinued. See Author Insights for blogging updates.

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AdventuresNBlogging

Adventures in Blogging: Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves

adventure

I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
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Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves

When I visit a blog, there are certain things that turn me off, but I’m not too obstinate about my reaction to these. I realize that while some of these things drive me crazy, they may not brother someone else at all. In the end, good content always wins out, but…

If it’s troublesome for me to view the things I want to read, I don’t hurry back to read them.

Cool crazy fonts– These look good until you try to read something. Then it becomes a matter of interpretation. Is that an ‘o’ or is it an ‘a’; was that word supposed to be “bubble” or “babble”? Hopefully the context will help with this, but that’s only if you can read it well enough to understand the context.

Cool crazy wallpaper– For, pretty much, the same reason as above, complex background images drive me crazy. I am currently following one blog through Feedly, where 90% of its posts appear in the Feedly preview. Anything I can’t read there, I don’t. I made the mistake of visiting the actual blog to continue an article and I couldn’t read it. The background image interfered with the text to the point where it was hard to see the letters, let alone understand them.

Too much going on– This is something I constantly stress about on my own blog. I have lots to share, but I try really hard to keep it all well-organized and sectioned off so as not to clutter up my blog. There are many blogs that I stopped reading because there was just too much going on; it was too distracting. On the other hand though, one of my favorite blogs to read, is full of clutter and it drives me crazy every time I visit it, but the content is so good that I just bear it and move on.

Pop-ups– Advertisement is part of the blogosphere, so complaining about it is pointless. People do what they have to do to maintain their blogs and some of us are just stuck with the consequences of using particular services, but pop-ups are something else. Sure there is always pop-up blocker to help with that, but sometimes something gets missed, especially on pages your computer knows you visit a lot. It drives me crazy to be in the middle of an interesting article and then have someone walk across the screen offering me classes on how to write a book.

Last one, for today.

Hunting– Hunting isn’t a feature blogs have, but is the result of something they don’t. I really don’t like having to hunt down information on a blog that should be clearly displayed or searchable.

When I visit a blog and the owner of it leaves a message on the page somewhere, stating to the effect, “Contact me for more information,” but then I can’t find a way to contact them, it drives me crazy.

When I read a good article, which is clearly part of a series (such as this one), and would like to read more; it drives me crazy when all I have is an archive sorted by date to search through.

It really drives me crazy when I start to like a blog and want to know more about the blogger, but can’t find anything about them. I search their bio and find a one liner, “My name is Bob and I write this blog.”

So there you have it, for now anyway. These are some of my Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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AdventuresNBlogging

Adventures In Blogging: Social Media Marketing- Rafflecopter part 2

adventure

I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
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Social Media Marketing- Rafflecopter part 2

Thank you all for stopping by to see what craziness I have to share today. This is part two of my Rafflecopter discussion, but unlike my last post which was nice and sweet, this one is stern. I’m going to rant a little.

Before I begin my rant, know this now, I use Rafflecopter and appreciate its great value and am glad that I don’t have to blog in a world without it.

So, here I go.

I can’t stand trying to participate in Rafflecopters that have so many entry options that I loose count after 20. I totally understand why these exist, but I still don’t like them. Collaborative efforts are what keep much of the blog world spinning and when awarding prizes, bloggers should have an opportunity to build their social reach in order to do so, but why does it have to be so extensive?

A blog hop featuring 20 bloggers offering a prize bundle made of donations of all those participating never seems to have less than 50 entries, and averages around 80 or more.  With 80 entries, each participant gets to include a link for their blog, twitter, facebook, and one other social media outlet. Again, I agree with the reasoning and understand the why, but it just feels like too much.

I have participated in these kinds of rafflecopters and probably will again, but I will give it a second and maybe even a third thought before agreeing to it. For non-regular blog readers, I feel that a Rafflecopter like that is a deterrent. This is one of those times when knowing your audience really helps. Sometimes it works out great to send someone to a contest or event like this and sometime is backfires.

Whenever I create my own Rafflecopters, I do make an effort to not have the entry process seem overwhelming…Then again, sometimes I think I’m over thinking things. We live in a competitive world. People love voting, and entering to win, and trying to beat out the next person. Maybe the average person doesn’t mind these long contests and it’s just me…

In any case, I’ll still make an effort to keep things as simple as possible; it’s just who I am.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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AdventuresNBlogging

Adventures In Blogging: Social Media Marketing- Rafflecopter part 1

adventure

I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
—————————————————————————————————————————–

Social Media Marketing- Rafflecopter part 1

Social Media Marketing….AAHHH! 😮

I don’t hate social media marketing, but sometimes it really does suck the fun out of social media.

There may be more, but here’s what I think are some of the main social media marketing outlets and topics to consider.

Facebook |Twitter |Google+ |Youtube |Email |Blogs | Interviews | Reviews |Contests and Giveaways | Rafflecopter |Video and audio | Other: Pinterest, LinkedIn, GoodReads, etc…

Today I’d like to talk about the tool Rafflecopter. Many of us are familiar with this tool and some aren’t, but I’ve come to realize one thing about it…non-blog users are afraid of it!

Since most of the people who visit our sites and blogs daily are regular blog readers and users, this isn’t a big deal, but sometimes we have to consider those less net savvy than ourselves.

–Sometimes we need those people who don’t actually understand that a blog posts new material on a regular basis and just because they visited it a year ago doesn’t mean there isn’t something special for them to see now.

–Sometimes we need those people who only get online to watch Youtube videos and update their Facebook status.

– Sometimes we need those people who only visit sites ending in .com because they are leery of everything else.

People who don’t use social media every day, sometimes just don’t get it, but they are still part of our potential audience. When someone like this stumbles upon a great article offering a cool prize and a contest entry with this, Rafflecopter, thing that has 20+, 30+ and sometime 50+ options to choose from, they become discouraged and terrified.

Don’t jump to conclusions; I’m not downing that type of Rafflecopter usage. I’ll talk about that next week, but for now I’ll mention three alternative ways I’ve started to use and will try to use Rafflecopter to cut down on the intimidation factor.

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Rafflecopter is simply great for data collection and verification. Why try to run a contest or promotion and try to keep up with the entries yourself and then figure out a way to randomize your winner selection when Rafflecopter will do it for you.

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1-I’m currently running a promotion that was set up to inform people of my free downloads that will be available on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but I’m also offering a gift card giveaway. I am using my Rafflecopter (with only 5 simple criteria to choose) to simply track my data. While Rafflecopter is great for building up followers, that’s not my current objective, so I’ve left out a lot of possible entry criteria to make the process and use, easy and fun for possible participants.

2-Rafflecopter can be used to collect data in the use of a scavenger hunt. Again, I’d try to keep the choices to a minimum. A scavenger hunt with 10 to 20 options wouldn’t be too much and would give participants plenty to do.

3-Rafflecopter can also be used to collect data in the form of a questionnaire. Polls are great, but sometimes you’re looking for more information and aren’t sure how to go about asking for it, tracking it, and verifying who’s posting it…Well, that’s where Rafflecopter could come in.

I like to try to think outside the box whenever I can; sometimes I do a great job with it and sometimes I don’t. I think these alternative ways to use Rafflecopter are pretty good.

I’m no expert and am just here sharing my opinions; I ‘d love to know what you think.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords