freshblogtips: blogging tips with a creative twist

New Facebook Upgrades for Fan Pages. Finally!

I asked for your Facebook Fan Page frustrations in my last post (long, long ago).  Thankfully, Facebook is in the midst of an upgrade that will improve the way you administer your Fan Page and solve a lot of the problems that you mentioned. See...if I just wait long enough, Facebook will fix all of the problems, and I will never have to post on this blog! (Kidding.)

I received an email from Facebook last night which listed some of the Fan Page improvements. The email states that admins can upgrade to the new Fan Page now, or wait until March 10th to be automatically upgraded. I have no patience, so I immediately chose to upgrade my page.

Here are the four new features that were highlighted in the email from Facebook:

1. Notifications when fans interact with your page or posts

This is huge! There was no way to tell when someone posted on the Wall of your Fan Page or on any of your photos. This was very inconvenient for a page administrator. You would have to constantly monitor your page and photos to check for new comments. Someone could have posted a comment or question on a very old photo, and you never would know about it unless you periodically checked (which is time-consuming if you have many photo albums).

This change also means that you can see who "Likes" your Fan Page. I know that there is a box that lists all of your Fans, but now you can get a notification for each "Like", instead of paging through the box to figure out who recently "liked" your Fan Page.

 

 

2. A place to showcase photos along the top of your page

Just like the new Facebook profile for people, some of your photos are displayed across the top of your page. I could take this or leave it. It automatically shows the last five photos  that you posted on your Wall, in random order. I wish I could control what photos appear, since these photos could make a bad first impression. (I think the photos that are on my page today are kind of lame.) But, they might also entice a potential fan into sticking around by clicking on the photos. And maybe the clickers will eventually convert to fans. Which is the whole point of this stuff.

3. The ability to Like and post on other pages as your page

Yay! You now have the choice to "Use Facebook as Page". It is strange wording, but the bottom line is this: instead of your name showing up when you "Like" something or when you leave a comment on another Fan Page, the name of your Fan Page shows up. I love this! The whole point of Facebook Fan Pages are to promote your business and/or blog. Personally, I don't always want my name to show up when I like a page or leave a comment on another Fan Page. I would prefer to leave a comment "on behalf of" freshvintage. And now I can! 

One thing to keep in mind is that this only works when you interact with other Fan Pages. For example, you can't leave a comment on a person's Wall on behalf of your Fan Page (unless that person has wide-open security and lets anyone post on their Wall). And your Fan Page has to "Like" the other Fan Page before you can leave a comment.

Despite that limitation, I guarantee that this will cause a rapid increase in the number of fans on your Fan Pages. Facebook readers will start seeing the name of your Fan Page (instead of your real name), and will subsequently click through to your page. And hopefully click "Like"!  

4. A news feed for your page

You've always had the ability to add another Fan page as your Favorite (more recently known as "Liking" the page).  This didn't really do anything other than add a box to your sidebar that showed all of your Favorite pages. This is what it used to look like:

But now, you can see a News Feed of your favorite pages when you are "Use Facebook as Page". So, instead of seeing the News Feed for all of your friends, you can actually see the News Feed of your Fan page's favorite pages. I know - it is confusing. This isn't a big deal for me, because I already "Like" the pages in my personal account, so they show up in my personal News Feed anyway.

 

What Else Changed?

• No more tabs across the top
  They moved to the left sidebar.  I don't get a ton of traffic to my tabs, so this isn't a huge deal to me.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Everyone Link
  Everyone link shows all of the posts on your Fan Page's Wall, whether they were written by you or your fans. The "freshvintage" link only shows the status updates that you wrote on your Wall. This functionality already existed, but the links had a different name. I think this slight change makes the filter more obvious.
  
  

 

Don't Be Afraid of Change

I've only had limited interaction with the new design, but I am ecstatic about these changes. They will make Fan Page administration easier and will give a boost to your business by making Fan Pages more engaging. My favorite change is the notifications when someone leaves a comment - this is a huge time-saver for me.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these changes! Did you upgrade your page yet? Or will you wait until March 10th?

P.S. Here's my freshvintage Fan Page, in case you are new to my blogs.

Do you have Facebook Fan Page frustrations?

Do you have a Facebook Fan Page for your business and/or blog? Are you experiencing any frustrations while you build and improve your Fan Page? Did you see something on another Fan Page, and you want to know how to replicate it on yours?

I am compiling some tips on Facebook Fan Pages, and I want to know what you need help with. Leave a comment here, or send me an email at colleen @ freshvintagestyle . com. 

Thanks!
Colleen

Six Things to REMOVE From Your Blog (And make your readers happier!)

Sometimes we think that adding more to our blogs will improve our reader's experience. But, in most cases, the opposite is true. Think about some of the most popular design blogs: decor8, design*sponge, Apartment Therapy (and many more here). They are all clean, easy-to-read and have simple designs.

In the past, I've offered you advice on things to add to your blog to make it better. Now, I'm sharing six quick things to remove from your blog to make it better. And I doubt you will hear any complaints from your readers after you do.

1. Remove the music. Yeah, I know. Not a popular opinion. But I always turn off the music when I visit a blog that starts singing to me. Unless you are a musician or a singer or you sell music on your blog, turn the music off! (Or at least keep it OFF as a default, and let your readers turn it ON if they choose.)

2. Remove any ads or previews that pop-up when you hover over a link. Two of the companies that offer this service are Kontera and Snap. These pop-ups can be very distracting - particularly the Kontera contextual ads. You can recognize them by the double-underline under random words in a blog post. Common words, like "sale" and "furniture" become automatically underlined when you use them in a post. When you hover over them, a small ad pops up and covers part of the screen. No thanks!!

3. Remove the blogs in your blogroll that you don't read anymore. Just take a few minutes to spruce it up. I've had blogs listed on my blogroll that hadn't been updated in over a year.

4. Remove any type of counter that tells people how many visitors you have had to your blog. This wastes valuable space on your sidebar, and it could possibly lead to readers judging your blogging merits based on the number of hits you receive. You can use the stats that come with your blog to see how many visitors you've had. (Blogger/Blogspot, Typepad & Wordpress all have built-in stats).

5. Remove any outdated swaps, contests or events from your sidebar.  If you want to let readers know about the fun things that you've participated in, then create a separate page that lists past events.

6. Remove that dreaded Partial Feed. If you don't know what I am talking about, then you are probably safe. There is a setting in your RSS feed to only display the first few sentences of a blog post when people view it in Google Reader or Bloglines (or any feed reader). Please don't do this! I understand the point, believe me. You want your readers to click the "More" link and read the entire post on your blog instead of in a reader, usually to ensure that people are viewing the ads on your blog. But there are other ways to get people to go to your blog, such as including links to previous posts. For example, I sometimes refer to older blog posts in order to give some background information on a subject. This forces the reader to go to my blog if they want more info. If you are using a partial feed because you have ads on your blog, then think about including some of the ads at the bottom of your blog post. That way, they will show up in the feed.

So....do you agree or disagree? Is there anything in that list that you REFUSE to REMOVE from your blog? Or, do you have any more tips to add?

fresh tips roundup: five links for bloggers

Here are some helpful highlights from around the web for my blogging buddies:

1. Discussion about Blog Giveaways

The Skirted Roundtable has a great podcast about doing giveaways on blogs. They offer some unique ideas about bringing traffic to your blog and how to make a giveaway successful for the blogger and the person/company who has donated the product for the giveaway. It is definitely worth listening to. (And there's a giveaway to boot!)

2. Social Media 101 Book

Blogger Chris Brogan's new book was recently released: Social Media 101: Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online. I just ordered it, so I can't give my opinion yet. But I've been reading his blog for a few years now, and I have no doubt that his book will be just as helpful as his blog. If nothing else, the cover is super cute.

3. Typography

Confused about the fonts that you should use on your blog and/or marketing materials? This post on Big Brand System provides some great hints on choosing typefaces. Pamela also offers a few of her favorite sites for finding fonts (including my absolute favorite, myfonts.com). Her typography post is just one in a series of ten posts that she is writing in the Design 101 series. Here is the most recent (you can find the other posts at the bottom of the page).

4. Breaking Blogger's Block

Having trouble coming up with new topics? Or new ways to write on that same old topic? You'll love this post on Problogger: Blog Like a Cartoonist – Six Stunning Secrets to Help You Break Through Bloggers Block.

5. BlogHer 2010 Registration

Are you interested in going to BlogHer 2010 in New York City? The deadline for early bird registrations is February 28 - you'll save $100 if you register by that date. I am still up in the air about going. Anyone planning to go?

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freshblogtips.com was nominated for an "I Heart Design" award for Best Blog. If you have five seconds to spare, mosey over to Rose Flash and vote for me! You can vote once a day until March 13th - so put it on your calendar. ; )

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Cathy Greschner of Orange Sink, the lucky winner of last week's giveaway! Thanks again to Lisa Leonard for agreeing to answer my questions and for donating the Family Crest necklace.

And thanks to everyone who entered!

freshblogger interview: lisa leonard +jewelry giveaway!

I first heard about Lisa Leonard when she sent me an email two years ago and asked if I wanted to give away one of her custom necklaces to a lucky freshvintage blog reader. I received more traffic during that week than any other time since I started freshvintage (as noted in my post about traffic-building tactics).

So, when Lisa approached me a few weeks ago to do another giveaway, how could I possibly refuse?!  Since my last giveaway in 2008, Lisa has expanded her jewelry line and created a lovely new shopping site for Lisa Leonard Designs. I was intrigued by the marketing approach that she uses for her business, so I invited her to answer a few questions for my freshblogtips readers:

1. When did you start blogging to help market your jewelry business?
I started blogging about three years ago just to document our family life and share creatively about my jewelry.  Although I had a jewelry business, I focused on local retail shops and home parties.  Soon I had readers asking if they could purchase my designs online, so eventually I started taking paypal and the online business evolved from there.

2. Do you use Twitter or Facebook to spread the word about Lisa Leonard Designs?
I've recently started using twitter and I have a facebook account but I hardly ever check it!

3. What was your most successful online marketing campaign?
I would say connecting with other bloggers regularly is my most successful campaign.  It involves making real relationships and it's an ongoing process.  There is no easy, make-money-quickly, campaign.  It's all about networking and helping others, too!

4. Have you ever paid for advertising on another website or blog?
Yes, I pay for ads on other websites.  I really try to assess cost of the ad, number of visitors (the blog owner should provide statistics) and whether or not the readers will resonate with my designs.  I love when blog owners sell their own ad space, rather than working through a middle man.  It's easier to network with blog owners.

5. Do you use any type of web analytics to measure your traffic and conversion rates?
I use Google Analytics to get an idea of traffic.  A lot of people use readers, and that can be hard to measure.  But google analytics give a good baseline.

6. Did your business have a tipping point? (that is, a specific event that really made your business take off?)

This is a great question.  The business has grown steadily and requires a lot of attention.  Getting a full page feature in Parenting Magazine was a huge confidence booster and brought us tons of traffic.

7. Judging from the number of comments that your blog posts receive, it is obvious that you have built quite a loyal community. How do you keep your blog readers and customers coming back?
I genuinely care about my readers and I appreciate their input.  I want to hear their stories--not just share my own.  I think we all want to connect and be understood.  I hop over and visit their blogs and get to know them.

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Lisa has generously offered to give away a Family Crest necklace to one lucky freshblogtips reader! That's a $72 value!

Simply leave a comment below by 12pm EST on Friday, January 22nd. The giveaway is only available to US & Canada readers. The winner will be randomly chosen on Jenuary 23rd and notified via email (so make sure yours is included). One entry per person, please.

Thank you, Lisa!

P.S. For those of you attending the sold-out 2010 Blissdom Conference, be sure to visit the panel called Leveraging Social Media to Build Your Business - Lisa will be one of the speakers.

UPDATED: Comments are closed now. Winner to be announced soon!

How the Hell Do I Use Feedburner?

You've heard about RSS feeds and XML feeds and Google Reader and Bloglines and all of that junk. But do you really understand why you should care about your blog feed? If your answer is no, don't worry - I am going to show you step-by-step how to create a Google Feedburner feed and add it to your blog. It is totally free, in case you are worried about the current economic climate and all that stuff.

I guess you are wondering: Why do I need to use Feedburner? Some really technical people can probably give you a big list of reasons, but I have two:

Reason #1: To Help The Lovely People Who Read My Blog

Feedburner makes my feed easily available to my blog readers. I can click a few buttons and magically get the HTML code that enables my readers to follow my blog in their favorite RSS Reader. And it even lets my readers receive an email whenever my blog is updated. Bottom line: you want occasional blog readers to become subscribers, which means that they will keep coming back.

Reason #2: To Measure How Many People Read My Blog Through a Reader

With Feedburner, I know how many people subscribe to my blog. The number of feed subscribers is one of the metrics I use to measure the growth and success of my blog. Some people might not care how many subscribers they have. These are also the same people who don't look at their blog stats (either through their blog platform, or tools like Google Analytics). Personally, I am obsessed with the metrics related to my blogs, so I want to know how many people are reading them and where they originated from.

So, on with the steps. The first thing you'll do is login to Feedburner with a Google Account. If you don't have a Google Account, you'll need to register first.

Step 1: Burn Your Feed

Don't let the phrase "burn a feed" freak you out. You are actually just letting Feedburner create and manage your feed for you. Your feed is just a simplified version of your blog posts that enables automatic distribution of your content. You can find more info about feeds on this page: Feed 101.

After you login, type in the URL of your blog. For this example, I am using vintagedennison.com, a blog that I use for testing purposes.

 

If Feedburner finds more than one feed, you will be asked which one to choose. I've always selected the Atom feed (which is usually the first one listed).

Step 2:  Name your Feed

Enter the title of your feed, and the address. No spaces in the address.

Step 3: Skip the next 2 steps in the Feedburner "Wizard"

Hit Next twice. You will skip through two screens. The second screen asks if you want to use Feedburner Stats. Don't check anything for now. You can always go back later and turn those on.

Step 4: Connect your Feedburner Feed to Blogger or Typepad.

You've created your new feed, but now you need to link it to your blog's existing feed. Since most of you use Blogger or Typepad for your blogs, I am pointing out the links that describe how to connect your blog to your new Feedburner feed. If you have another blog platform, like Wordpress, this page also lists instructions for those feeds.

So, click the link for your blog host and follow the directions. You will have to go back to the Blogger or Typepad websites to configure the feed. It is very simple, though. Don't be scared.

Step 5: Publish a chicklet to display your feed

If you lost your bearings on the Feedburner website, you can find this on the Publicize tab ("Chicklet Chooser" on the left column).  A chicklet is the little graphic that lets users select how they want to read your feed. I strongly suggest that you keep it simple, and use the standard graphic for feeds:

After you select the standard icon, the HTML for the link will be automatically generated at the bottom of the page. You can add these to Typepad or Blogger blogs by creating a Widget. Or, if you know how to embed HTML into your blog, just copy and paste the code into a Typelist or Blogger HTML Gadget.

You can see my SUBSCRIBE link up there in the right column. Click it and you can see what will happen when you add a similar link to your blog.

Step 6: Activate Email Subscriptions

The Email Subscription service allows your readers to get an email whenever you update your blog. This is helpful for readers who don't follow a lot of blogs and probably don't use a Feed Reader like Bloglines or Google Reader. You need to Activate this service before using it. It is also located on the Publicize tab.

After activation, select how you want your readers to subscribe via email. There are two main ways to sign-up subscribers: through a form directly on your blog where your readers enter their email address OR through a link that goes to Feedburner (the reader enters their email address on that page). I prefer to have my readers go to the Feedburner site via a link because I don't want a form that takes up space on the sidebar of my blog.

Follow the directions on the page according to the type of blog you have. You will add the magically-created HTML code to your blog. As in Step 5, you can use a Widget for Blogger or Typepad. Or, copy and paste the HTML into your blog directly.

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That was easy, wasn't it?  It looked scary with all of those steps, but I bet it only took a few minutes.

Now, when you login to Feedburner, you will see the number of subscribers on the home page. Click on your feed to see the details. Here's mine for my freshblogtips blog:

Click the "See more about your subscribers" for even more info (probably more than you'll ever need) about the feed readers that your peeps are using to read your blog.

I just want to point out one cool thing - if you scroll down, you can see a section that look like this:

 

Click the "Manage Your Email Subscriber List" to see the email addresses of all of the people who have opted to get your blog updates via email. Pretty cool, huh?

There are other fancy things you can do with Feedburner, but I just wanted to cover the basics in this post. You can click through all of the tabs across the top (Analyze, Publicize, Monetize, etc.) and see if there is anything that catches your eye. On the Optimize tab, check out the Photo Splicer, which lets you add your Flickr photos to your blog feed. Perfect for a blog that focuses on photography.

Your final step is to invite your readers to subscribe to your blog. Do it in your next blog post. Sure, you've added the links to your blog, but most of your readers might not notice them right away. So, tell them all about it. And keep them coming back for more!

Advice to My Mom: 7 Tips to a Bang-Up Blog from the Very Beginning

I finally did it! I bullied my mother into blogging! I might regret it later, but she is having so much fun thinking of new stories to share. You can find her wreaking havoc at BoggleMama.com.

Helping my mom create her new blog gave me a chance to think about the things I would do if I could start all over again. Here is the advice I gave her (applies to newbies as well as seasoned bloggers):

1. Get your own domain.
If I could do it all over again, I would have used my own domain name for freshvintage. It is not too late for me to switch over, but it will be a lot of work to move my photos. And I am afraid to lose Google traffic, since 32% of my traffic comes from search engines.

2. Install Google Analytics (or equivalent statistics program) on day one
How the hell do I know that 32% of my traffic comes from search engines? The stats on typepad certainly don't tell me that. My mom is obsessed with looking at the stats on Google Analytics, and her blog is only a couple of weeks old. The charts and graphs are practically empty, but she is optimistic that traffic will build.

If you haven't installed it yet, it is never too late. And it's totally free.

3. Write a few posts before you tell anyone about your blog
When I started freshvintage, I made the mistake of sending an email to a bunch of my favorite bloggers after I wrote my first post. And my first post was not anything special. At the very least, I don't think it convinced anyone to keep returning to my blog. In hindsight, I should have waited a while before I jumped into "cold emailing" other bloggers. 

4. Create a theme for a series of posts
My parents have met some interesting celebrities because of my dad's past involvement in politics. My mom and I came up with the idea of having Famous Fridays. If she starts suffering from writer's block (highly unlikely), she can easily come up with a post for her Famous Friday series. Whether it is just a funny photo or a brief story about a brush with stardom, it is a no-brainer for her.

I have a similar series on freshvintage, called freshfind. These are short posts that focus on just one of my vintage finds, instead of the heaping piles of junk that I normally write about. The freshfind posts don't need a lot of preparation, and they keep my family from bugging me about writing a new post.

5. Don't apologize for not blogging
Sure, I haven't written a post for freshblogtips.com for several months. Do you know why? Because I had way too much stuff going on in my life. And I had nothing substantial to say. I even had to remove my BlogHer Ads because I wasn't posting as often as required by their advertisers. But I didn't want to write a post that said that I was sorry for not writing a post. Boooring. Only write when you have something to say.

6. Make each post stand on its own
No one wants to be the loser at a party who doesn't know anyone and doesn't understand the inside jokes. If you refer to a project or event or even a person in your blog, be sure to link back to a full explanation of it on a previous blog post. Give a little background info to help new readers. People will stick around longer if they know what you are talking about!

7. Encourage family and friends to casually proofread your posts
If anyone finds a grammar or spelling mistake on my blogs, I want to know about it as soon as possible. I know that some bloggers don't care about small errors, but I do. Tell your friends to let you know when they spot a faux pas. Case in point: on the About Me page on this very blog, I made a major spelling error that drastically changed the meaning of the sentence. I had NO IDEA about my error until a friend told me about it recently. The page had been live for eight months. Damn you, bitches! This was the error:

Original sentence with misspelling:
In addition to being a mom of two preschoolers, a loving and gentile wife, a blogger and an antiques dealer...

What I really meant to say:
In addition to being a mom of two preschoolers, a loving and genteel wife, a blogger and an antiques dealer...

I didn't mean to say that I am a Gentile! Why in the world would I ever point the fact that I am not Jewish on my About Me page?! I was trying to be ironic by saying that I am genteel  - as in "free of vulgarity and rudeness". Oops.

freshblogger interview: mary from pretty good

Our next blogger on the interview hot seat is Mary, creator of the Pretty Good blog. Mary is also a Kirtsy Editor, which means she gets to search the interwebs for cool stuff that she shares with the world.

Mary has a unique approach to blogging. She overlays words onto her photographs instead of writing separate text descriptions. The results are beautifully photographed images with fun fonts and inspired writing. It is a pretty, design-minded version of I Can Has Cheezburger?. Without the cats. And the bad spelling.

Mary also carefully selects her favorite photos from sites like flickr and displays them on her Tumblr site. This is a whole new form of micro-blogging that I'm planning to try out myself one of these days.

Thanks to Mary for sharing her blogging insights!

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1. What was your blog's "tipping point" (a significant or defining moment)?  

 

So far, my blog has experienced a slow and steady growth, so I can't point to one event -- and, frankly, I'd prefer it that way rather than a more flash-in-the-pan type jump.  My Editor role at Kirtsy has been nice exposure, but mainly I've seen my "audience" grow in two ways:  first, I continue to fine-tune my blog to helped to keep it fresh and interesting.  I'm constantly making tweaks to (and even changing completely) my content and the overall look of my blog so that it really reflects me aesthetically.  I also noticed my audience broadening as soon as I became more active in the blogging community, like commenting more and more on other blogs and connecting offline with other bloggers.  It's a form of networking, really, but you need to stay with it and have good blog content to back it up. 

 

2. Do you ever get blogger's block, when you just can't think of anything to write?  How do you overcome it?  On the other end of the spectrum, do you ever write posts ahead of time when you are feeling particularly creative? 

 

Although my blog is 100% visual (think random photos paired with a few succinct words), I do get blogger's block.  Usually, one inspires the other: I have something to say and I'll take a photo to accompany it, or I have a great image to share and I'll add a few words to it. But sometimes my house is a mess, or it's raining out, or people have seen my hydrangeas 87 times already. And if I don't have a great picture to share, I won't post just anything simply to get a blog entry up.

 

So, since my blog is so image-focused, on days where I have a blogging block I break it by visiting Flickr.  It's my one-stop source for eye-candy overload. I also check out my favorite photography and home decor blogs (already a daily activity, yes; but when I've got a block I really spend time exploring their posts and what they're linking to). Both of these exercises force me to look at my surroundings in a different way. I also just pick up my camera and start shooting away.  Even if it's overcast out and the lighting is horrible, I just play around. I'll walk down to my favorite antiques market and click away at some of their goodies (and, yes, even buy stuff to photograph at home...I like it call it "accumulating props".  You know, like Martha Stewart and her infamous prop room. Somehow this doesn't fly with my husband...)  I never worry about getting a big, exciting shot - in fact, I go in the opposite direction. I focus on the beauty in the details. Some of my best photos are of the most random, simple things -- a strawberry; a scrap piece of pretty ribbon. And once I get a great picture? I snap out of it. I'm excited and re-energized. The ball gets rolling from there.

 

If all else fails, I just forget about it. I put the camera away, I shut down my Google reader, and wait until tomorrow. Sometimes I just need time off to clear my head.

 

If I've gone through a particularly great photo-snapping spree, I'll stockpile a few photos for a rainy day (literally and figuratively). This not only helps during dry spells, but also when my 'real job' gets too busy for me to break away and do a post.

 

3. What is the biggest mistake(s) you've made since you started blogging?

 

For me, it would definitely have to be trying to be like other bloggers instead of just being myself.  I love to write, I love to take photos, I love to share bits of my life and style with others. So I've really had to find and ease into my own writing and photography style, and I've had to really had to figure out what exactly I wanted my blog to be about. And, be secure with it.

 

My old blog looked completely different from the way my new one looks now; not only visually, but content-wise. I started out with much longer, wordier posts, and I eventually found that although I love to write, I was forcing myself to come up with words just for the sake of making sure my post was long enough. (Hey, some of my favorite bloggers practically write chapters of books for their daily posts; wasn't that how I was supposed to do it, too?!) 

 

In reality, though, I was really more comfortable communicating in a tone that was as conversational and easy as possible; I wanted readers to hear my real voice, rather than some perfectly polished paragraph.  For me, that meant being less formal and wordy and just getting to the point of what I wanted to say.  And that's when I realized that my blog wasn't going to be a diary; I'm too private a person for that. It was simply going to be bits of this and bits of that; little snips of things that I saw that I thought were pretty or interesting.

 

So, my posts started getting shorter and shorter, and I quickly realized that I was counting on the photos within my posts to communicate just as much as my words were. I eventually decided to blend the two and incorporate the words right onto the picture. This new format has also given me a chance to play with fonts and design a bit, making it even more fun for me. 

 

While we're talking about photographs...another lesson I learned is that I didn't have to post 57 pictures with each entry. Now, I post only my very favorite ones. I prefer quality over quantity.

 

4. Have you ever kept your blog a secret from certain people in your life?  If you work outside the home (in a non-blog-related job), do your co-workers know that you blog? 

 

I do have a full-time job, and my close friends at work know about and visit my blog. I heart lunch breaks and the ability to schedule posts for future dates :)      

5. Do you regularly monitor the traffic statistics on your blog?  Do you use a stat tool, like sitemeter.com or Google Analytics? Do you make decisions about blogging based on the results that you see in your stats? 

 

I use Sitemeter and I love it.  However, it can stress me out if I pay too much attention to it -- I'm actually a much better blogger when I'm not checking it.  If visits are down one day from the next, it's way too easy to get sucked into obsessing over why, and that's no fun. But I check it every few days, and I do notice that when I am posting regularly, my stats hold steadily increase. And sometimes that's a bit of an incentive when I get lazy.

 

One thing I do think it's a really, really great resource for is seeing who refers readers to my blog. Sitemeter has allowed me to discover when another blog has mentioned mine, when people have added my blog to their sidebar links, and when my blog has hit a site like Stumble Upon. 

 

6. Name a blog that you love and tell us why you love it.

 

It's really super hard for me to name a "favorite" of anything (I'm a Gemini, you see). Especially when I have almost 200 blogs in my Google reader, ranging from photography to decorating to business to shopping to food to personal blogs.

 

But one blog I just love is Oh Happy Day. My heart literally skips a beat when I see that it's been updated with new posts. Why? First of all, Jordan is the epitome of cool. All of her posts -- whether they're pictures of her walking her baby up a hill or of a party she's thrown or a bedroom she'd love to live in or a part of her hallway she's just wallpapered -- simply ooze style. A really unique, very personal style. And whereas I tend to see the same things hit the same blogs across the blogsphere, Jordan seems to post things I haven't yet seen, and I always leave inspired. Her words are straightforward and brief (yay!), and I get the feeling that everything she posts about has been selected with care and are things that she genuinely loves. I also think she has a fantastic way of presenting just the right amount of her life so that it doesn't over-expose her or her family, yet you're left with dy-ing to know more about her. 

 

7. Do you have a blogging tip that you would like to share?

My number one tip is to post on a regular basis. Whether it be daily, weekly, every Wednesday, whenever: give your readers a sense of when they can expect to hear from you.  The beauty of sites like Google Reader or Bloglines is that you don't have to check in with blogs on a daily basis to see if they're got a new post; instead, you're automatically updated when they do.  But even so, in order to establish and keep a readership, you've got to provide content. (Trust me -- even though I live by my Google reader, I do housecleaning regularly and I not only unsubscribe to blogs that I'm bored with, but also ones that aren't updated regularly.) If readers know that you are a dedicated blogger and will be posting on a regular basis, they're more apt to stay with you.

 

My other tip is to just be yourself. Because although I sound like your mother when I say that, it's harder than you think to let your guard down when your blog is published for the entire world to see. Post about what you love, and let your personality show through -- it's the one thing that sets you apart from everyone else -- and people will be attracted to your passion and genuineness. Forget about what you think your blog should look like or be about or have in its sidebar and just make it be something that you're totally pleased with. Be inspired by (rather than try to be a carbon copy of) the blogs you love.  Readers have so much to choose from out there, and not everyone is going to subscribe to your feed. And that's totally OK!  Because chances are there are a lot of people you will resonate with; so just keep at it and be patient. It takes time to develop a readership, and your consistency will be rewarded down the road.   

 

Oh, one more thing: please, no black backgrounds with white font. It hurts.

Curses!

I received my first hate mail last week.

I know. Moi?

It has taken all of my strength, but I decided that I am not going to reply to her email directly. With a nod to Dooce and her infamous hate mail posts, I've decided to post it on my blog instead.

Without further ado...

Hello Colleen
Today was the first time and last time I will ever go to your website. I started reading and read a curse.
I then went to your profile and when you talked about cursing too much I had to heartily agree.
I am a Christian, and those words are not in my vocabulary. I stick to the Christian Internet Code of Ethics, where it talks about not visiting websites that compromise my life in Christ. Do I think I am better than you? No, Jesus says we are all born sinners! But I am a sinner saved by grace,the blood shed by Jesus on the cross!! "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak,  they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment". Matthew 12:36. I hope and pray that you may see this and accept Jesus as your Saviour.
Sincerely,  the Servant

I would love to tell her that I curse because it brings a sense of levity and irreverence to the seemingly mundane topic of yard sales. And I curse on my blog because I occasionally curse in real life. I write the same way that I talk. My cursing has nothing to do with God or religion. Nothing that I write in my blog would personally offend a normal person. (Unless you are averse to stories about defloration on bridal night or throwing pennies at hookers. Which I would totally understand.)

No, I don't think an email response would have been constructive for either of us. She wrote about her ethical & religious beliefs, and any smart-ass reply that I write would not convince her to change her point-of-view. The same way that her email doesn't convince me to get my ass to church.

And that is fine with me. She has strong beliefs, which I completely respect. I'm never going to sway her to think differently. So, it doesn't make sense for me to waste energy on a potentially ugly email exchange.

Don't get me wrong - I love a good debate. Just ask my neighbor, the Tastykake Man. We almost got into a fist fight while we were debating the merits of alternative energy for automobiles.

But when it comes to my blog that has nothing to do with politics or religion, I've learned that I shouldn't waste time arguing with strangers about politics or religion.

How about you? Have you ever received negative comments or emails because of something you wrote on your blog? How did you respond? How would you have responded if you received the same email?

P.S Thank you to all of the lovely freshvintage readers who left very nice comments when I wrote about my hate mail. I am going to re-read all of your comments whenever I feel stupid and depressed and don't want to get out of bed.

P.S.S. Here is the Christian Internet Code of Ethics. I think the one that talks about "not visiting websites that compromise my life in Christ" is really referring to pornography. Not blogs about Pyrex and vintage rick-rack.