By Gregory K of GottaBook

ANATOMY OF A SMALL, FAST PROMOTIONAL BLITZ

On Friday, September 19th, I posted an original poem, I’m Pretty Well Connected, on my blog (http://gottabook.blogspot.com). The poem is about social networks and other Web 2.0 sites and concepts and seemed a natural for online promotion (with no selling). So:

WHAT I DID

1) I subbed my link to Poetry Friday (hosted that day at http://authoramok.blogspot.com).

2) I emailed three listservs I’m on that are related to children’s literature. Since this poem was about online connectedness, and many on the list only know each other online, there was a natural reason to share it beyond it being Poetry Friday. There are a total of 641 members on the three lists, with probably about 10% -15% overlap in membership. Still, let’s call it 600 people.

3) I emailed specific people to say “hey, I think you might like this Web 2.0 poem.” Because, in fact, I thought they would (and thought they might not see my blog).

4) I posted a link to the poem on my status update on Facebook. My brother used the “SHARE” feature on Facebook.

5) I submitted the poem to Slashdot (www.slashdot.org) and BoingBoing (www.boingboing.net) as a possible story for them since it was tech/pop culture related.

6) My brother emailed the link to a few people, gave me a contact to email, linked to my blog from his (http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/), and included a link to my poem in an email to one of his lists.

RESULTS (FROM FRIDAY THE 19th THROUGH MONDAY THE 22nd)

95 people entered my blog via a direct link to the poem (or a quirky link that ended up in one email). I also saw 9 other entries to the main page of my blog with the referral being listed as an email server within hours of my emailing. Over the prior seven days, no one entered any other new post directly. On the above points:

1) 12 people visited from the Author Amok site.
2) The bulk of the visits came from my email to listservs.
3) I’ve already heard back from 50% of these people. More on this below.
4) I got five hits via Facebook.
5) I did not get picked up as a story (though I did get two hits from Slashdot, where proposed stories wait in a queue and get voted on by readers).
6) My brother’s efforts resulted in a handful of visits that we know about (because they said so!), all from new-to-me readers.

Besides the Facebook and Poetry Friday links, I picked up five other links to the poem (and therefore my blog) that I know of, including one from the RateItAll.com blog. (RateItAll is a social networking site that was mentioned and linked to in my poem.) Per Feedburner, I had 10 more subscription readers compared to the prior Friday. There are 20 comments on my poem (two by me as part of the conversation) – for my blog, and my poems, that’s a large number. I also gained one new subscriber to my poetry subscription list and got many nice emails! Plus, I had fun writing, posting, and watching.

INTANGIBLES

Of the non-listserv emails I sent, one person said they’d Twitter my poem at some point. Another is interested in doing something about/with Poetry Friday. Others said “Thanks!” and more friendly-like stuff. These are all net positives with no downside.

If you Google “social network poem”, “web 2.0 poem” or just the phrase “pretty well connected”, my poem comes up in the top 10 (at least as of this typing). This will lead to hits over time. How many? Unknown. I get 22 Google-referred hits a day on average for my soccer poem. One day recently I got 8 hits for “vegetable poetry.” Don’t ask me why. The point is that I will likely get 200 new visitors minimum in a year from this poem and potentially thousands of new visitors who will see my name and work.

A very well known children’s poet visited my blog on Sunday the 21st, read this poem, and emailed me a nice note. The visit was not related to my blitz, but as a poet myself, having access to one of the top names in my field (potential blurber, potential source of information/advice) is invaluable to me. Having the poem up led to a happy accident.

LESSONS

On national Talk Like a Pirate Day, it’s probably better to post a pirate themed poem.

Beyond that, there would have been better times to post this poem. In National Poetry Month, for example, tech places might have been more inclined to feature a poem. Posting on the weekend of a major blogging conference might have been poor timing.

The listservs you’re on tend to be full of people predisposed to “like/listen to” you. Keep in mind that I post 40+ poems a year on my blog, but this is probably only the second time I’ve singled one out. I participate in these lists actively, so when I mention something like this, hopefully people believe there’s a reason I’ve done it. Remember, I was selling nothing, asking for nothing, and just having fun.

It is very hard to get attention whether you’re selling something or giving it away. But it’s definitely harder to get attention if you’re not out there in the first place. Also, don’t view a four day snapshot as the sum total of results for any action (to wit: I was Twittered about on Tuesday, gained two more links, and got 20 more hits to the poem).