31 DBBB: Post Promotions and Another Matticus Interview

Yesterday’s task via Problogger was on list writing. Readers who have followed me know that I have a personal affinity for list writing. I’m currently fighting off an end of semester flu. It’s a constant occurrence. It always seems to happen during exam periods. As a result, I decided to skip out on that particular task since I love writing lists anyway.

Today’s task is on blog post promotion! It’s a topic I’m also extremely familiar with. In the Blog Azeroth chatroom, something I frequently advise to bloggers new to the scene is to not necessarily link to their blog. Assuming I’m a first time reader of their blog, I wouldn’t know where to start. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Instead, what I tell them to do is to link a blog post or two that they’ve written that they’re really proud of.

Of course, a common response I get back is:

“But I’ve never written a blog post I’ve been proud of!”

Even now I still don’t quite know what to say to that except:

“Then write one that you are proud of!”

List Posts I’ve Liked

Here’s a few that have appeared on the blog recently.

• 11 Reasons Guildmasters Fail 
• Five Reasons you Want to Heal my Pet
• 6 Signs of Raiding Burn Out

But I can’t hog the entire spotlight. Here’s some other posts from off the blog.

• 5 “Go-To” Resources for WoW Healers – From Kestrel’s Aerie
• Ten Commandments for All Tanks – Via Arrens
• Configure Your DBM to Show Distance – Courtesy of My Hearthstone
• Five Reality Checks of Epic Storylines – Written by Anna as a guest post for WTT:RP (I butchered your title, sorry Anna)

Another Interview

There’s a new blog that’s stirring that’s targeting players with a more casual mindset or those that are actively seeking balance between their lives in the virtual world and the real world. They are here to offer a sense of WoW Relief.

A sudden rash of interviews have been requested recently. I’m quite flattered. I just hope that the questions aren’t too repetitive.

Some of the questions asked:

Referencing your site and posts on Wow Insider, you sound like a natural leader, does that leadership in game also come out in real life?

Every once in a while it does, I play a lot of hockey and volleyball now, being the goalie I don’t really direct people but I will tell them what I’m going to do when they are by my side of the rink. It helps a lot when you tell other players what you’re doing so they can adjust and react to your actions. I notice a lot of skills are transferable since I’m always the one organizing events and get togethers with friends.

Lastly, for anyone who is looking to start a blog about WoW or their toons, what is the best advice you can give them?

There is so much I could say to help but pretty much the best advice I could give is just go ahead and do it already! You don’t have to be a nut like me and grind out posts day in and day out, but start a schedule of setting time aside for writing and stick with it. Otherwise you will lose the habit and it’ll just disappear.

Here’s the link to the full interview on WoW Relief.

I do believe I’ll have another shorter interview tomorrow that I will link to.

On Twitter

I like to link to various websites or posts that I find onto my Twitter. One of the built in services of TweetDeck (a Twitter client I prefer) is that it can compress URLs. The service I like to use is from http://www.is.gd/. Another popular URL shortener used is TinyURL.

Does it matter which service you use?

In a sense, it does. Twitter has a character limit of 140. Every space and character counts.

https://worldofmatticus.com/2009/04/08/my-newfound-respect-for-melee/ – That is today’s post by Syd. It takes up many characters.

http://tinyurl.com/cggf77 – The same post shortened again. 25 characters.

http://is.gd/rtNf – The same post shortened. 17 characters.

That’s another 8 more characters I can use in a Tweet. Some people won’t really care too much about that sort of thing. But 8 characters is the difference between having one tweet vs having two tweets in order to clarify a URL. Do keep that in mind especially when promoting your own or other blog posts.