Let's Get Engaged: Surf's Up!!!

This is the final article in the social media strategies series "Let's Get Engaged"


I don't know about you but I have a love-hate relationship with stats. I love them in the sense that they give me an idea of where me and all my blogs stand but the part I hate most is that now I feel a pull towards checking them on a daily basis and sometimes more than once a day.  I literally have feedburner, google analytics, and "add this" at the top of my list on my bookmarks place so that I have easy access to them. Success in social media is knowing what engages your audience the most and their reasons for coming to your blog. This is how I found out that the theme of "Cross Cultural Caring" and my friendship with Marisa was being followed as well this is how i know that many of you out there love Andy Spandy's webisodes.

But the funny thing is that after one year of being steeped in the world of social media, my audience continues to surprise me and I literally never know how they will react. Sometimes I will post something thinking "This is gonna be hot!!!" and I get little or no hits on that blogpost. And then there have been other times where I posted something that I did not spend alot of time preparing or putting much effort into and the hits for that blogpost are almost through the roof.

If there is any one thing the social media world has taught me is if I want success, I sometimes have to work while others play but in turn I later get to play while others work. I absolutely cannot put things off because I don't know what will happen on the internet the next day or even in a few hours. If I don't have my blogs ready, I could miss a gigantic wave of opportunity that would have brought me a ton of hits and visitors to my site. I have to work hard during downtime and then wake up the next day to find that the hits on one of my blogsites is literally peaking with a flood of visitors.

I liken the relationship between me and the internet to that of surfers and the waves on the ocean. You have to prepare, watch, observe, and then when the moment comes you just leap out with your post or blog. Some waves that you thought would be great, aren't that great once you are riding it. And waves that you thought were nothing can turn out to be beyond your wildest expectations and imagination. If there is anything I've learned this year is about little I do know about social media and each day when I wake up, I feel like I have to climb the ladder all over again, but this time with a little bit more wisdom than yesterday.....


Blogging Like a Pro: A 10 part crash course