After months of amazing blog entries mom’s traffic was almost nonexistent. On multiple occasions I had tried to convince her how important it was to get inovled with networking sites to help increase the traffic to her blog. She loved doing the crafts but couldn’t find the motivation to put the time needed into marketing her website. (In her defense she does have dial up, high speed is not available) We tried running an adwords campaign and she had some limited involvement in BlogCatalog.com but we couldn’t get her traffic beyond a few hundred impressions per day and those were high days. With me being so preoccupied attempting to market my own website it was difficult to find any time to help mom with hers.

After spending about a month and a half stumbling, digging, and blogging, JealousBrother began showing some promising results. It was at this point I decided to make one last effort to express to mom just how important social networking is to a successful website. I decided to send one of her recent Halloween craft project (Spooky Halloween Ghosts) to about twenty friends of mine on Stumbleupon. I wanted to prove to mom that with a little bit of work she could drive some significant traffic to her site. After sharing her website with friends I expected to call mom up and say, see I told you networking can be beneficial, you have 250 impressions today. What I didn’t expect was a big glass of irony to be served up. After a month and a half of marketing my website, even using my entire vacation to do so, I was dumbfounded by what happened. As I checked mom’s adsense account around nine in the morning I couldn’t believe what I saw, 1600 impressions. When it was all said and done, Not2Crafty.com received nearly 7 thousand page impressions the same day it was shared on SU. Even more surprising it received just over 6 thousand the next day with 1200 the day after that. The irony comes into play when you realize at that point JealousBrother had never exceeded the two thousand page impression mark.

I of course have a lot invested in our website but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy for mom. She deserves any and all success she achieves, not just because of the hard work she puts into her website but for putting up with me through all of my troubled teenage years. SU helped me reach my goal, I wanted to express to mom just how important networking is and SU opened a giant can of worms. I think she got the point. Do any of you have an interesting SU story? I’d love to hear them.

When you consider parents are the primary source for a child’s perception of what is right and wrong, the attitude a child has in regards to school and work, and of course are the single biggest motivators a child has, could there be a connection to their eventual blogging skills? As much as I’d like to at times there is no denying the similarities of my father and I. They are not all negative attributes, in fact I have a work ethic that is a spitting image of his and that has helped not only at work but also at school, projects around the house, and of course my hobbies. My mother is to thank for my creativity but also for my large nose, thanks mom!

The question we need to ask is what makes a good blog entry? The first thing that comes to mind is that it should be written well, at least to the best of our abilities. What does that mean? It means a good entry should not be a first draft, just like school papers it should be spell checked and revised multiple times before it’s published. Unless you want people bouncing off your blog, each article should be interesting. This is where the creativity comes into play. The information should be so entertaining or informational that the visitors want to get involved and, once they do get involved, you need to interact with them.

The reality is that most of us are painfully similar to our parents, which is a direct reflection of how we’ve been raised. Everything from creativity, confidence, social tendencies, to ethics and morals can be directly correlated with the way we were brought up. We can certainly relate all of these traits to what it takes to create a good blog entry. A blog post must be creative and we must possess the confidence to run with the idea. For a blog to be morally sound we shouldn’t post material that has been stolen or anything we don’t have the right to use. It is our work ethic that pushes us through from the conception of an idea to the finished product. We also have to be comfortable in a socially driven environment so we can easily communicate with people who interact with the blog. So you tell me, should our parents be held accountable for our blogging skills?

Obviously our parents can’t take all of the responsibility for our blogging skills but certainly should be held partially accountable. It’s our parents who help mold us into who we become. So parents and future parents out there, when little Billy or Jane is playing with an imaginary friend, don’t discourage them, at least they are using their imagination. Creativity wouldn’t exist without a solid imagination. Creativity is a universal character trait; it can lead to success in starting a business, acing a college exam, or even writing some great blog entries. Be alert and be open minded, little Billy’s blogging career could be in your hands. If for whatever reasons you didn’t enjoy this article or you just don’t like me I politely ask that all problems be directed towards my parents, in these cases, my parents are to blame.

If you’ve ever been to Panera Bread you know a couple of things to be true, great food and one of the only remaining companies to still offer free wifi internet. It was just a typical Thursday for me, nothing out of the norm. I worked my first delivery of the day and then stopped off at Panera to grab some breakfast, check my email, and check in with the website. As I was waiting for my buzzer to go off so I could pick up my delicious breakfast sandwich (bacon, egg, and cheese) I began hearing what started off as a bit of an annoying conversation between two women a couple tables away from me.

I was so preoccupied with listening to their conversation that my buzzer startled me when it vibrated on the table. After grabbing my breakfast I rushed back to my table so I could continue eavesdropping on the conversation between the two women. What started as a bit annoying actually became very entertaining; obviously two friends who were calmly disagreeing about everything from the presidential race to health care. There were a couple of moments where I actually couldn’t hold back a smile from being amused by the dialogue. One of the ladies hopped up to get something across the restaurant while the other women made eye contact with me. I took this opportunity to express how much I was enjoying listening to their conversation. The other women returned to the table happily including me in the political debate. It was a lot of fun to discuss current issues with these women; both of them had some great points and were obviously intelligent. For me nothing is more entertaining than having an intellectual conversation with people who have opposing views, so long as it doesn’t get too heated.

You may ask what is so enlightening about two women bickering over politics, trust me I have a point. About half way into their conversation I found myself realizing, holy crap; this is what JealousBrother.com is all about. Here we have two people with completely different points of view and they are managing to calmly discuss things they are passionate about. These types of conversations undoubtedly take place across the country and the world. What if all of these passionate yet argumentative individuals actually knew JealousBrother.com existed and that they could argue and discuss politics, sports, news, or any other topic in a fun and interactive way with not just one friend but hundreds and hopefully thousands of other people? It was these women who motivated me to start one of the newer rivalries, privatized health care versus socialized health care. As I was leaving Panera I stopped for another small dose of friendly debate. Before I headed out the door I explained that I was the owner of a website called JealousBrother.com and that their conversation motivated me to start a rivalry on the website.

Anyone who has attempted to start a blog or website knows the frustration that can set in as you attempt to drive traffic in the direction of your site. For me, it is this event along with countless others that help me stay focused with my eye on the goal. Do any of you have an enlightening story that helped keep you focused? I’d love to hear them.

Ryan Kazinec

I’ve heard there’s a first time for everything and that has become an expression that occurs almost daily in my life. Throughout the entire process of making JealousBrother.com a reality it seems like I’ve ran into one obstacle after another. When everything you encounter is new it can be challenging, especially when you’re faced with tasks like leasing a server, registering a trademark, and choosing a web developer. If I’m being honest the toughest task I have faced so far is the one I’m still trying to get a feel for, marketing/social networking.

It’s not enough to have a professionally designed website with a creative concept. A great website without traffic is like owning a Ferrari that never leaves the garage. It’s real pretty and powerful but no one gets to enjoy it. The only real difference is that I wouldn’t want anyone driving my Ferrari while on the other hand I want as many people as possible to enjoy our website. So how do I drive traffic to our website? That is the question I have been constantly asking myself for the last month.

Before you get your hopes up I don’t have the answer as of yet, I’m still searching. However, I have learned a lot along the way. There are so many great resources to meet new people and to market your website. I have been playing around with several social networks, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Blog Catalog to name a few. All three website are completely different, StumbleUpon is used to discover and share websites, images, and videos. Digg’s primary focus is news, but this can be a multitude of everything from videos, websites, or actual news stories. Blog Catalog is a great website to promote, share, and read about blogs and websites.

Rather than diving into great detail about my likes and dislikes of each of the three social networks I’m going to focus on the biggest similarities, genuine people and the pay it forward state of mind. The one thing I am a lot more conscious of is the fact that networking online is not very different from networking in real life. As a society we don’t like being bombarded with pushy sales or fake people. If you’re planning on marketing your website by sending out spammy messages and attempting to friend as many people as you can, you more than likely won’t get very far.

What happens when you politely ask a new neighbor if you can borrow some sugar? Unless they’re rude unsocial people they’ll kindly give you some sugar. After that first contact your new neighbor will likely be more apt to wave at you as you pass by and may even feel comfortable asking you for a favor down the road. Now, what would happen if instead of politely asking to borrow some sugar you show up pounding on their door demanding a bag of sugar? As nice as your neighbor might be, they’ll probably tell you to go F&*% yourself. Just like the real world online friendships/relationships aren’t built in a split second, it takes time to feel each other out and to build a little bit of trust.

So how do you politely knock on a potential new friend’s online door instead of beating it down? It is so very simple, you need to care. Anyone can come up with a load of bs and shovel it into a comment or shout. If you want to truly make connections and friendships you need to actually care about what you are reading. The law of reciprocity claims that visiting some else’s blog/website will result in them visiting yours. Just dropping by a blog may invoke someone to take a quick look at yours but what good is a quick look? What you really want is someone coming back, getting involved, and enjoying their visits. Being genuine will produce far fewer friends/connections but those that you make will be much more likely to actually want to help you.

I know there is a lot more to learn and everyone has their own approach to networking their blogs/websites but I am having a great time actually getting to know what I’m reading, if that makes any sense. I know from previous research that there are plenty of different views and goals with some people even claiming that you don’t really want people to stick around your site if you’re looking for clicks (advertising dollars) but that’s not the approach I’m looking to take. With JealousBrother.com, sure we want to make money but more importantly we want loyal users who keep coming back to have a good time and to speak their mind.

Ryan Kazinec