Thanks, Bloggers, for all that #SundayBlogShare Love

When Suzie81 asked me to host this week’s #SundayBlogShare, I was torn. On the one hand, I was honored and wanted to jump at the chance. It’s an activity I enjoy. I love that I’ve watched it grow from nothing and have had a small part in building it.

On the other hand, I thought it might be a ton of work and that I would screw something up. I eventually decided to do it, and I am very glad I did. It did turn out to be a bit of work, but it was totally worth it. It got me a couple of good days on the blogs, I met some nice folks, and it put @Sourcererblog’s Twitter following above 5K for the first time. Needless to say, I am pleased.

Last week, I put out the word to my friends that I was hosting and invited them to join in. I also shared #SundayBlogShare with a couple of groups I am a part of on Facebook. Here’s an excerpt from one of the status updates I posted to those groups.

So, you might be interested to know that I am hosting #SundayBlogShare on Twitter right now. What being the host means, basically, is:

1. I retweet everything that is a legitimate blog post and doesn’t contain hate speech with my @sourcererblog account.
2. I look at most of the links. I comment on the ones that grab me, either on Twitter or on the blog itself.
3. I follow almost everyone who shares a link to that hashtag and they get a solid month to decide whether to follow me back.

Silly me.

Retweeting everything from that hashtag and following even three quarters of the bloggers who use it on Sundays is officially impossible, at least for an amateur like me. That’s how big it has gotten, and I had no idea. I promoted #SundayBlogShare hard the first week we did it and I join in when I can, but I wasn’t able to really pay attention for most of November. I keep up with Suzie, so I knew it was growing. I just didn’t realize how quickly it was growing.

I started monitoring the hashtag around 2 a.m. London time and just watched it. I retweeted the first few links and warned the first few people who weren’t sharing blog posts off. I typically don’t do that, and in general it’s not worth the time, but I didn’t want  to get overrun by non-blog related stuff before the bloggers started showing up. I did retweets and follows for awhile and had no problem keeping up during the early hours. At some point, I went to sleep thinking things were going fine, but it really wasn’t that busy.

When I woke up a few hours later, I jumped on my phone to see how things were looking. At that point, the hashtag was so busy it took me more than an hour just to get caught up with the retweets, and I had to give up on the following just to stay ahead. From that point, I just rolled for the next several hours, scanning blogs and retweeting links with my two Twitter accounts, and chattering as I was able. It was a lot of fun.

Sourcerer had a good day yesterday, but my personal blog, Just Gene’O picked up almost 40 referrals from Twitter, which is unheard of for me, and had its best day in a couple of months. As I was writing this, @Sourcererblog was up by a ton of followers from Sunday alone, and most of them are bloggers. I don’t manage my @JustGene’O account very closely for followers. It’s mostly there to establish that there’s a real person behind Sourcerer and to retweet my friends, but I am assuming it’s up as well and I’ll give a big bunch of followbacks with that account later this week.

Thanks to everyone who joined in with #SundayBlogShare this weekend, and thanks especially to those of you who showed up as a favor to me. I truly appreciate it. The early links and the late links that you guys shared were especially helpful, because the early ones kept the hashtag from being overwhelmed by non-blog content during the first few hours, and the late ones allowed me to extend the day.

The hosting was pretty hectic and it didn’t leave me much time to blog on Sunday. But it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, and I’d do it again. Now that I’ve watched #SundayBlogShare closely for an entire day, I have a much better feel for the rhythm of it. I’m an even bigger fan of it now than I was before I hosted, and I hope to see all you friendly bloggers for it again next week.

Weekend Music: Everybody Wants to Rule the World (and announcements)

I know I’ve shared this here before, but I’m playing the world domination thing for laughs this week, and I’ve heard lots of people like the Hunger Games 😉

Things you need to know:

• I am on vacation next week with the family. I’ll be keeping tabs, but only around if something comes up or someone really needs to chat, and only responding in the evenings. Contributors’ posts will go as normal, and we may even have a surprise thrown into the mix.
• I’ve done a little mini promotion for Suze81’s #SundayBlogShare this week. If you plan to share links on Sunday, you need to give Suzie’s post a read. I’m using a couple of Follow Fridays today to give people an easy way to spread the word. If you’d like to join in, I have a post for you at Just Gene’O, and if it’s not your thing, no worries.
• I’ve got drafts piled up around my ears, but nothing that can’t wait and nothing that won’t be much improved if I work on them a little more. My Saturday Coffee post at Just Gene’O will be my last personal post until I get back unless something comes up that can’t wait.
• Photoblogging is not going away. I’m just a little short on time to do the loading-and-publishing part of the blogging right now. If you’re following for the photos, stick with us. They’ll be back.

Have a great weekend, all!

About my personal blog . . .

Just so you know, I’ve got a new set of about pages and a new tagline for Just Gene’O coming soon. Posting this here because I want Suzie81’s #SundayBlogShare to spread as far as possible before the end of the week, so I’m not ready to disturb Just Gene’O’s front page yet. That’s an ultra-low-traffic blog, but every blogger counts. No telling who might see it and share it if I leave it up. The hardest part of blogging is knowing when not to post.

I’ve struggled for most of the year to figure out how my own blog fits into the scheme, and I believe I have nailed it down. It is an epiphany. It’s thanks to all you marvelous peeps who chatted with me about my Feminist Friday wrap-up at Part Time Monster and my crazy-long planning post here on Sunday, and who responded to my #SundayBlogShare tweets. I saw all those Twitter notifications yesterday after work. It was gratifying.

Just Gene’O can’t be writing-centric any more because it has to be blogger-centric to get us where we’re going. I haven’t done a serious writing piece in ages, and I need a blog for bloggers because that’s more inclusive.

I need an online space to introduce myself specifically to bloggers: geek bloggers, food bloggers, mommy bloggers, diarists, and every other type of blogger you can think of, as well as writers and book lovers. Not to worry, you writers and writing bloggers who have supported me this year. You have my gratitude, and you’re still getting the love from me. I value reading and literacy more than almost anything else, and I am a writer. Thanks for all you do.

I didn’t see the need to do this until now because I didn’t have the portfolio to make it work until recently. But now I do see it. My writing about blogging and social media is the most popular thing I’ve done this year, and it’s mostly bloggers who pay attention to me on Twitter. This change is the next logical thing. It needs to be done soon, while we’ve got things buzzing a little and before the heavy writing starts. I’m thinking I’ll make the changes live on Friday afternoon and roll them out in my coffee post on Saturday, but that is contingent on my schedule.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to write about blogging over there 24/7. The personal stuff will stay,  and I’m still planning to add a fun feature or two. It’s not a space to publish tons of content about blogging so much as place to do things like Social Saturdays and to pass along information (like #SundayBlogShare) that other bloggers might like to know.

Thanks, Luther, for the meme! Follow Luther on Twitter @nfinitefreetime and buy his books. You know you want to. (#JediMindTrick)  😉

– ed. If we manage to get through this next phase and come roaring back in January, there will be pirate and world-domination themed comedy aplenty!

A Social Saturday Thank You Note

The If We Were Having Coffee linkfest at Just Gene’O is going very well. Before I get started visiting and sharing links over there, I need to give Suzie81 credit for giving me the idea of turning the first coffee post at the new blog into a linkup.

Suzie did an awesome linkup last week. I joined in and then did my own Social Saturday thing in which I went to her thread after it closed and shared everyone who participated with at least one of my social media accounts. A few days later, I caught a conversation on my Twitter feed that Suzie was having with another blogger about the coffee posts, which she also writes.

I decided to roll both things into one and do it this weekend at Just Gene’O. I meant to credit Suzie in one of the announcements or in the coffee post itself, but I’ve had such a crazy week and have been in such a hurry to get this done today, it kept slipping my mind.

Thanks, Suzie, for giving me this fabulous idea! I wish I’d seen your social media meet and greet the day you posted it. You’re right about developing links between your blogs and other social media; I’m doing much the same thing, and at some point I’ll put links all my accounts in a post.