webrampage

Oh Twitter! It has turned into just another one of those shallow popularity contests. Its a race to see who’s ending up with the most number of followers. In the process a ridiculous number of useless tweets make it to the top because of the huge fan base of faithful followers who’s only impulse when viewing the tweet is to click the retweet button.

Now as you’ve guessed in a popularity contest like this, people do forget about the good, old-fashioned need for quality. Quality of what you may ask. Well the quality of your followers as well as your tweets. I would rather have 50 faithful followers who read and interact than have 5000 followers who are no good, but may retweet your funny ones once in a while.

You might have the most amazing tweets, but without followers it would just feel like you’re talking to a wall. And its not even about getting retweeted. At times its about feeling like someone is actually reading your tweets. That’s not a lot to ask for since Twitter was designed for that purpose (at least in the beginning).

Now lets get into some details, shall we?

Your followers and followings

I would definitely want a 10k+ follower base, but as the number gets bigger the sense of connection goes away. You get lost over all the chatter. If you’re there for networking purposes then I’m not quite sure how much of a reliable connection you would be making simply because your followers might feel like they are not being heard by you.

Oh and followings. The question of “How do you keep up everything?” comes in. If you’re following 5000 accounts, how many of their tweets are you actually able to read? The level of honest interaction would simply drop and once again making your followers feel like they are not being paid attention to.

Your tweets

Would you still be tweeting with the same level of quality that you once did when you had a smaller follow base?

Yes, its okay to tweet whatever your mind pleases. Twitter is supposed to be personal. But, are you spamming your followers timelines with your tweeting-spree? Yes take a moment to think about it. You would be getting unfollowed by some, but its very rare that you would notice it because it would be a tiny drop out of a huge bucket.

If you don’t know that a problem exists then you simply keep doing what you thought was right, right? In other words, you would be slowly pushing away your faithful followers and only be left with spam-bots, “teamfollowbackers” and inactive accounts.

The Balance

Now there needs to be a balance (obviously). Its not going to be more of an equal balance, but lets think of it as this way: Quality of your quantity. Now that’s smarter, isn’t it? You keep your followers and following, but only with those with honest intentions. Your tweets are look less accidental and more informational or entertaining. Something around those lines.

What works for you?

This topic is very debatable and I would like to know what works for you. I’m sure you have a Twitter account. Who doesn’t? Well tell me what you would rather have: a small faithful following or a large unconnected one? And your tweets! What do you mostly tweet about?

Before I even started this blog, I had the big decision of choosing a blogging platform. Now that is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Anyways. I had the classic option of WordPress, and I had this hip trendy choice of Tumblr. Both very excellent platforms.

Pros and Cons

Now I had to weigh out the pros and cons, and see which platform would work the best for me. One of the biggest influences for me was WordPress’ reliability and ability to transform into whatever you need to create yourself the perfect blog. On the other hand, Tumblr had a sense of sharing and loving community around it. Which certainly did make me think that getting readers (or followers as referred to on Tumblr) would be slightly easier.

And before anyone accuses me of judging the book by the cover, I wanted to add that I had a blog running on WordPress and also a Tumblr account. So, yes these words are coming from experience.

Alright so we’ll also have to consider the fact that Tumblr is meant for a more laid-back type for blogging. Original thoughts and content are not one of the requirements. Its simple, easy-to-use, but it is very limiting. Whereas WordPress is very powerful with its flexibility, but could also be a bit complicated for the average user.

My choice?

WordPress. I simply could not rely on a platform that is based around re-posting quotes and pictures if I wanted to be serious about blogging. I mean I have nothing against Tumblr. I have an account of my own, and I plan on continuing to use it, but it would be something that is full of interesting garbage from around the net and myself.

Oh and not to mention the fact that I wanted the ability to put up ads on my blog. I’m not quite sure if that would be possible with Tumblr. And I wanted to be in control of all my content and analytics, so I went with a self-hosted WordPress platform.

I believe one of my Twitter buddies said it the best:

WordPress is the answer. Unless you’re an NYC hipster/OCD sufferer. – @raincoaster

Would you agree?

Feel free to disagree with me because after all it’s more about how you use it than what you use.

Do you blog? If so, what are you using and how happy are you with it?

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. – Shakespeare

Seriously though what is in a name? Does such a small thing matter? Yes and no.

Look around. Its a very busy world. Ads all over. TV, radio, internet, newspaper, magazine and what not. What do they all have in common? Short, simple, catchy phrases. Do you know where I’m heading with this?

Now before we even start with having a little catchy tagline for your site or blog, we’ll have to deal with the name. So, yes names do matter (especially on the web) unless you would rather listen to the ancient playwright.

I personally have a hard time finding a decent name. I keep changing my mind more than I change gears while driving standard. A true fact. And I honestly know how hard it is when you finally find the perfect name only to find out the domain is taken.

Alright lets assume you have a domain and you’ve got a better one to work with. Now what? The fear of losing traffic and SEO. Well no worries. You can always do a 301 redirect using .htaccess.

Open up Notepad, paste the following and upload it to your root directory. It works like magic.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yournewdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Now its very important that you make sure that this file is named .htaccess (no extentions like .txt or anything). And lets just hope this time you’ve picked a better domain.