Here’s my morning routine:
My cat Rusty wakes up at around 4.30am. He thinks pitch dark is the perfect time to insist on attention. My other cat Rook has learned that pre-dawn is not the best time to ask for petting and waits until a more humane hour.
But Rusty doesn’t wait, and he’s as consistent as a high school bell. He purrs and prods and wakes me up. I throw him off the bed a few times (he comes back; apparently he likes to fly), and I lock him out of the room (he howls at the door and scratches the wood). Cursing softly to myself in the dark, I decide to get up (like I had a choice).
Coffee. Lots of coffee, thick and dark with lots of sugar. No milk.
I check my email while slowly coming to life, answer a few questions from clients, post on a few blogs, read a newsletter or two, and then I head over to Google Analytics to check site stats.
Generally, they’re stable. I stare at the screen and wonder what the hell I can do to improve the numbers. Sometimes I get gleeful when there’s a small spike, sometimes I get depressed when the line sinks.
Today I nearly fell off my chair. The spike on my screen shoots up so high it’s like a straight line reaching for the sky.
What happened? One word: StumbledUpon.
Further to reading the 10-minute daily guide to building your social media profile (written just for me!) by Ben Yoskovitz over at Instigator Blog, I joined StumbledUpon. It was the fastest, easiest social networking profile I’ve ever set up in my life. It was kinda fun, too, and I ended up wasting about half an hour playing with it. I could see it becoming my favorite new toy (the politically correct term for unnecessary distraction from work).
Best of all, I didn’t have to actively do much to maintain the profile. No endless surfing, no commenting, no nothing – as far as I could see, anyways. Join in, fill out a page, add some bling, and let it be.
Well, Ben is my new best friend. In less than 24 hours, my blog received 382 hits from StumbledUpon alone – and for us, that number is as close as we’ll get these days to being kissed by the gods.
I think I’ll go bask in that sunshine for a while.
Congrats Jamie!
Perhaps you may want to expand on info about that site for folks like me who checked it, looking specifically for JCM by name…how and where is it in their directory?
It’s good to know that people are finding out and coming here, regardless! This could be something that my site may wish to consider. It’s wonderful to see that hits have spiked and that more readers have been here, isn’t it? That’s only happened to me twice and I think I actually bounced in my chair and yelled “Wooohoo!” The really nutty thing is that it doesn’t necessarily equate to any more bucks; it’s just one of those things that writers need to experience. “If you write it, they will read.” (The problem is their not knowing where you wrote it!!) If stumbledupon is directing readers here, then it’s woth getting the word out and making the most of the opportunity!
(And, for the record, I think every household with multiple cats has to have at least one who’s a “morning” and one who’s a “night” cat-my Grayboy is racing around before sunrise, while Ruby does her nighttime chore of carrying collars around the house at 11 pm…there’s just no winning.)
I love it when I get stumbled!
You’ll find the traffic will be higher than normal for a few days afterwards too.
*bows and beams* Thank you, thank you…
Seren: Hopefully anyone who Googles for JCM Enterprises finds us. If they don’t, then I have serious SEO issues going on. As for promoting JCM over at SU, I’m still learning.
Stats were real nice today, too. It’s been one of those true moments when you sit back and say, “Damn, would you take a look at that, eh!”
I’m a slow newcomer to all this social networking technology. Do I need a face, a twit and a space to be found worthy?? You have a great page here and I hope to learn something from you and from Stumbling about. I help support a website that reaches socially anxious, shy and avoidant people (avoidant personality disorder) and the people involved want to maximize the site somehow. Anyway, thanks for letting me post something here and congrats on your “spike”
@Shy – Well, I do Tweet, yes. The only space I need is this blog right here. And less than 10 people online know what my face looks like
James,
I really really like your site and the articles are great. I’ll pass this onto the webmaster at the place I volunteer.
I too enjoy physical obscurity and if truth be told (just look at my name) I’ve lived it for a very long time. With all the “open source” stuff it’s tough for people like me to draw on the same networking sources others are using. That’s one factor with the other being; not technically savvy, overloaded and overwhelmed too. Does that sound infantile given the fact that people young and old these days are into every enriched interface that exists?