Does anyone really know this, and if they did would they tell me?

by Sapphire (February 8, 2008)

I’ve found a very quick way to get through my feedreader these days. When I look at a post’s title or first paragraph and figure out what it’s promising to reveal to me, I ask myself:

“Does anyone really know this, and if they did would they tell me?”

I almost always get the answer “no”, so I can safely move onto the next post. For example, today I looked at a post that promised to tell me how to get more bookmarks (no, I’m not sharing the link because I don’t want to be a negative link-baiter). The first big chunk talks about how nice it is to have bookmarks and what it does for you. The second chunk talks about what on earth people could be thinking when they don’t bookmark your site. The third section contains contradictory info about what constitutes a bookmark worthy site (it must be comprehensive, yet specific, and give them what they want, yet require them to come back - huh?). Then, finally, the tips for getting bookmarks: use bookmarking widgets, ask politely, etc., tell friends.

OH MY GOD I NEVER THOUGHT OF THOSE THINGS TWELVE BILLION TIMES. Finally, I have my very specific instructions for getting people to bookmark the site. “Make it easy” and “ask them nicely”. Hey, I bet this is how to get dates with movie stars, too! Or get the mechanic to lube my car for free! FORGET BOOKMARKING: I BET I COULD BECOME PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WITH THESE INVALUABLE TIPS.

There’s also a section on what not to do. Like, plagiarism. Really, you can’t copy About.com and expect people to bookmark you instead of them? Damn, that explains all my failures.

Recently, I read an article by someone who got lots of feedreaders in the first three months of the blog opening. It started out explaining that the author didn’t know anything about marketing or anything, but just had very clear goals, wrote good posts and told everyone everywhere about the site, from people on the street to Facebook. What? It went on for pages, and still - what? Like 250 other blogs don’t do these things every day? No analysis of why it worked here but doesn’t work for everyone. No discussion at all about niche, for example, which I can tell you right now has a huge impact on what techniques will work.

This is why I wanted to change Does anyone really know this, and if they did would they tell me? - Blue Mushrooms a little. I want it to have real information that maybe you haven’t read a thousand places. I don’t know any secret formulas to earning online. I’m sure a lot of people would think my post today about my card shuffle to do list is completely redundant of everything else out there, but that’s why I added “(for people who can’t do normal to do lists)” to the title: to let you know whether that post is for you or not.

So many of the posts on my feedreader promise information they don’t deliver. Or it’s nothing that hasn’t been delivered a hundred times by another blog. It’s particularly bad in this niche because we’re all looking for some sort of magic formula.

Posted in Staying on Track
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