Be Ubiquitous
Recently, and one more than one occasion, I have sent messages to Joanne that she is “E V E R Y W H E R E !” (For those not familiar with Joanne, she has–around here–also become known as the Pirate King’s Daughter.)
Being known and recognized can be good for blogging and for business. Getting yourself “out there” is the advice offered by many professional marketers. You can’t just build a blog (or eCommerce site) and expect that people will magically find it. You have to get the word out. You have to be seen!
How can you be ubiquitous? Being everywhere at the same time just isn’t possible for the average human being, but here are a few tips to create the illusion that you are.
1. Stagger Your Ads. If you run ads on Google AdWords or other services, pay close attention to your stats. If you get more clicks at certain times of the day and fewer clicks at other times, run your ads when you’re more likely to get visitors. Your ads will be seen by more people, making it appear as though you’re advertising all the time. If you run newspaper, radio or TV ads, stagger them. You don’t have to be in or on all the time or every day to be ubiquitous. Stagger your ads to appear every other day. To most people, it will seem like you’re on every day, especially if you be sure not to miss any holidays or other times when more people are likely to be reading, watching or listening.
2. Comment Smartly. Not all bloggers update their blogs daily, and even those that do don’t get comments frequently. If they have a top commentators list or list of recent comments, making occasional comments to those blogs will have the same effect as leaving regular comments on blogs with more traffic. Since it will be longer before you move down the list of commentators, your name and link will appear longer on the blog, making it seem as though you visit more often than you do. You could spend a lot of time trying to work your way into the Top Commentators list on John Chow’s blog, or spend that time visiting and commenting on multiple blogs where your efforts will pay off longer.
3. Join Multiple Networks. Join them all, if you can. Get on Technorati, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Digg, StumbleUpon, FeedBurner and others. Network, make friends and contacts and join other communities. Use each to its utmost advantage. Before I was a member of StumbleUpon, I had people stumble some of my posts. But, I would have no idea who. Now, being a member, I can easily check to see who stumbled my posts, and return the favor when I can. Joining other communities helps to build your own, and helps give the appearance that you are everywhere!
4. Be a Guest Blogger. If given the opportunity on a blog you don’t find unsavory, do it. I’ve come across other blogs where I’d read a post and then discover it was guest authored by another blogger I regularly read. That certainly helped create the impression that he was everywhere!
5. Do Something Unique to Get Noticed. When Bryan Clark introduced me to viral links, I thought I’d give it a try and see what happened. But, instead of doing lists like most people, I did my first viral links post in song. The next was a pirate story, followed by a castaway story for those I missed. Not only did it help with my Technorati Authority rating, but it also helped me find a lot of great blogs and meet a lot of great new bloggers. Not only do I get included in viral links posts, but I’ve gotten some linkbacks just for my viral stories! And, as the viral links go from blogger to blogger, it certainly makes me feel as though I too am everywhere!
Follow these tips and you too, like Joanne, can be ubiquitous! (Maybe the Pirate King’s Daughter will even grace us with her presence and offer a few tips of her own!)
And, you can also be like Joanne and believe in the power of BAA! Believe. Act. Achieve.
Pirate King’s daughter is really starting to stick, huh? Well, at least now I know the reason for having that random dream! =P
All your points covered a lot of things I did inadvertently at first and now do regularly.
If I join a community, I like to check out the actual page…for two reasons (1) to see if the content interests me enough to leave a quality comment and (2) oftentimes, my IP/avatar gets logged on their widget so people can see I at least made the effort to check out their blog. I think it makes it more honest when you actually visit the community you just added to MBL/BlogCatalog. And, as a blogger always lusting after pretty layouts and designs…I like to let other bloggers know when I really dig their layout and I’ll ask questions about it (who knows, it could be useful information later on for my own uses). It’s a simple way to network and not spam others.
Despite seeming like I was everywhere (HAHA!)…I could only handle each community one at a time. First, I dedicated myself to MBL and after roughly two weeks…I started paying more attention to BlogCatalog. I’m glad I happened to do it that way because while traffic from each isn’t extremely significant, when you’re active in both…it sometimes overwhelms me. Technorati is a fave for being so low-maintenance, I just fave whichever blog shows up as having a reaction to mine.
No personal insight yet on StumbleUpon. I have the account, but it sadly deserves way more attention than it’s currently getting from me.
Thanks for sharing your tips!
I check out the actual blogs too before joining a community. I don’t do a comprehensive read of the blog, but I do read or at least skim through the posts. There are ones that, before you go to the actual site, look like they are more than they are, but once you visit them, you find that they’re a junky ad site or something not worth bothering with.
That’s funny Ubiquitous is one of the words I need to know for the SAT.
Alex, that’s becuase it’s everywhere.
dcr - this was a fine post. I am just getting used to joining different networks. My introverted personality needs to get used to getting out more and meeting new people.
It’s easier for introverts to be extroverted online!
The word pirate king makes me think of One Piece. Those are some nice tips there, is Byran like the creator of viral links? his madness is spreading!
I don’t know if he’s the creator of them or not, but his blog was where I first learned of them.
Good stuff. And of course, posting a lot of lists is also great.
It’s commonly known in the world of copywriting that people absolutely adore lists. Don’t know why, but I seem to like them myself. Maybe it has something to do with the simple structure? Have to read up on this…
I think it is because they’re easier and quicker to read, so you’re probably right about the structure.
I realize you probably can’t tell yet, but I have learned a lot from you DCR. In the past I was a copy & paster, but since reading your blog and expecially your post on “What you can take” I have losened up my style and have gotten to be more original. So I wanted to say thanks for being that model blogger.
Glad I could be of help. I do have a teacher’s square (palmistry) as well as a chalk holder.
Originality is always better. It also helps in the search engines because unique content is ranked higher than duplicate content, generally speaking.
Please tell me my late nights aren’t making me see things. I SWEAR the cartoon head in your header just bobbed it’s head to the left. It happened once. Then I refreshed a few more pages, it happened again. I move my mouse all around, randomly clicking…I don’t know, but it tilted to the side AGAIN, for the third time.
Is this your easter egg or something? Or, maybe I need to get new contact-lenses…
Yes. That is the Easter Egg. But, did you notice what I’m doing at the same time my head is bobbing?
AHAHA! IT IS, isn’t it? It winks after 5 seconds (roughly). Good thing comes to those who wait…
It’s an animated GIF, so the timing actually varies from computer to computer, because it’s not exactly clock-based, or something. Been a long time since I last read the reasoning, but the point is animated GIFs are not accurate for timing, which is why Flash is generally better for anything that requires more accurate timing. Fortunately, this doesn’t.
Actually, it needs to be clicked upon once, right? (sorry for the multiple comments of my play-by-play)
Nvmd, it doesn’t need to be clicked. I just get impatient waiting for it to wink, so I click on the image thinking it make it wink faster…
Wow nice animated cartoon header! I’m still trying to make a logo for my site and I want it to be animated!
It’s easy to do in Fireworks.