That Instafamous Guy

Your friendly neighborhood IG Supehero

Apr
18

By

Don’t kid yourself, SIZE MATTERS, but we’re not talking about sex here

Category: So Genius Tags: , , , , , 32 Comments

Ha, what did you think I was talking about when I said size matters? Wow, you have dirty minds! We’re talking about blogging here, not sex.

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I’ve heard a laundry list of recommendations regarding the length and girth of a good blog post. Most suggest keeping it under 500 under words while some guides say 300 words is a good marker. 700 has also popped up as the line in the sand that you should never exceed.

The first question I had is what do these people have against even hundred numbers? Are 400, 600, or 800 so much more inferior? Yeah, that really popped into my head. Back to the land of the normal, I did come to a painful conclusion. Shorter likely is Better for maximum pleasure.

By The Numbers

There was no official survey done with previous posts published here, but I’m willing to bet that not a single one of them was less than 500 words. Even worse, there’s a very high probability that say 30% of them breached the 700 word point of no return. Fooey.

I set out with a mission here to make this my shortest blog post but it’s already 200 words for crying out loud. If you have the wordsmithing skills to deliver something tangible and impactful in 300 words, you are freakin awesome. I can’t do it. I’m a story teller. I like to paint a picture and then deliver the message. I think it’s working, but this blog will be taking more of a simplicity is genius approach. Here are a few suggestions why your blog should be a lean, mean, sexing, err I mean writing… machine.

People Scan, They Don’t Read

As much as I’d love to think you all read every word I write, I stopped lying to myself. People read the beginning, the bullets, and the end. Give them something to scan and do your best to draw them in

Avoid Looooong Paragraphs

The only thing worse than a 1500 word post is a 1500 word post broken up into 3 paragraphs. How dreadful would that be? It’s a touch tricky when you like hearing yourself talk and think you have to keep those 7 sentences together to prove your point, but do your readers a favor and break it up.

The Net is caffeine fueled and ADD Riddled

I have ADHD, so I’m allowed to make fun of it, right? Look there’s a flower. People are busier than ever, whether it’s by choice or by necessity. Fact of the matter is that takes half the time to read 500 words than it does 1000… and that’s if they actually read it. They want to finish what they start so they can move on to something else, like the butterfly that just fluttered by.

Screw it, hard-wired rules are for the birds. This post was supposed to be under 500 words but I want to do a conclusion. Hope you’ll be able to survive an extra 30 words! And don’t worry, I’ll still be able to live with myself despite the fact I’ve never written a post under 500 words. Are we in agreement that shorter is better? What length structure do you approach in your writing? Thanks for stopping by!

Apr
13

By

Ain’t no Party Like an #usguys Party cuz the #usguys Party Don’t Stop

Category: So Genius Tags: , , , , , , 23 Comments

Four Score and Two Years ago our social fathers brought forth on this Twitterverse, a new nation, conceived in intelligent conversation, and dedicated to the proposition that all tweeters are created equal. The brave men, and women, who tweeted here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The blogosphere will little note, nor long remember what I say here, but Social Media will never forget what do did here. Yes, #usguys community is so cool that they get their own Twittersburg address, and moreover, we’re proud to bestow our first group So Genius award to them.

PROBLEM SOLVED

The whole #usguys community was born during a Twitter conversation between Thomas Moradpour @tommoradpour, Patrick Prothe @pprothe, Cristian Gonzales @galactic, Jason Mikula @mikulaja, and Chase Adams @realchaseadams. If you’ve ever discussed something with 3 or more people on Twitter, you quickly realized that your handles turn 140 into like 40 or 60. To combat this and promote character conservation, they had the bright idea of adding a tag so everyone could follow along even if they weren’t mentioned. Thus, the #usguys movement was born.

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NON STOP ACTION

Who would have known that a hashtag started by Five Guys (no burgers and fries) would evolve into a 24/7 twitter party? Seriously, if you’ve never heard of this community, test me on that statement. Because of its global appeal, the #usguys stream doesn’t go more than 5 minutes (a way conservative estimate) without a tweet. There’s no specific topic, just daily fun and comradery. If that, for some reason isn’t enough and you need some structure, there are often impromptu and planned #usguyschat sessions.

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THE CREAM OF THE CROP

While there are quite a few Social Media Superstars, like Josepf Haslam, (sorry, had to do it, you’re my favorite to banter with) who grace the #usguys stream, it’s the everyday contributors that really make this the best community on twitter. I’m not an “official member” of the tribe, the bell has not yet been rung for me, but I am on Stephen Caggiano’s #usguys pinboard so that has to count for something!! But that’s the incredible thing, you don’t have to be a member to be recognized and responded to. Whether you have a question that needs answers or a blog post that needs feedback, someone will be happy to help. Another endearing quality of this twitterhood is their unwillingness to accept a superficial response, it’s SO refreshing. It’s the collective intelligence they possess that makes you think about what you tweet. I was going to do a list and give some shout-outs because I’ve made so many virtual friends from this group, but I’m bound to leave a few out, and it would make it far too easy for our readers.

Congrats to all of you, you’ve earned this award. While #usguys is the best twitter community in my eyes, I’m not yet a twitter veteran and may have missed some other groups. What other communities do you participate in on Twitter? Any worth checking out?

P.S. #usguys are doing a meet up tonight in NYC. That’s how you know this is one tight-knit crew! May all of you have a good ol’ time and be safe in your travels. Lastly, don’t do anything stupid because you’ll regret the drunken pictures on FB & Twitter tomorrow :D

Apr
11

By

Stay Thirsty Friends – Be the Most Influential Man in the World

Category: So Genius Tags: , , , , , , , 44 Comments

No one in Social Media cares if you are the most interesting man in the world like the Dos Equis Guy… We want to see the most influential man(or woman) in the world! A few names come to mind for that title; but it’s not like Ann Handley, Scott Stratten, & Gary Vaynerchuk need any more accolades. This term influence has become quite the buzzword lately. Who do you influence? How many people do you influence? What is influence? If you’re anything like me, you’ve become nauseous due to influenza from the influence epidemic. Did we break a record for saying influence 7 times in the opening paragraph? Let’s call Klout,since they’re the “standard” of influence( that’s #8!). But before we do that, here are a few ways that you can immediately increase your authority in Social Media

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INFLUENCE FOR $200, ALEX.

Alex Trebek “The number of Timothy Snow’s Klout Score”

You “What is 82”

Alex Trebek “That is correct”

It’s like a game show sometimes, isn’t it? As much as we hate to be poked & prodded, or don’t want big brother watching our every move online, it’s what the people want to know. Like it or not, the measurement apps aren’t going away and you’re always being rated by someone, somewhere. There’s never going to be a perfect assessment of one’s influence, they all have flaws. They often measure your superficial influence, not real influence. You’re not more influential because the cute puppy picture you posted gets shared 30 times or 10 people retweet your retweet of a Mashable story. Real Influence goes beyond an action… beyond the shares and retweets. Influence is the power to persuade, the ability to change people’s thoughts, and sway their pre-conceived beliefs. It’s tricky to measure, but you’ll know the feeling when you’re doing it right.

PERCEPTION IS REALITY

It’s not necessarily how successful you are, it’s how successful others think you are…and I’m not talking about your mom. When you convey a sense of importance, you instantly become more significant. Successful people don’t ask other people to like their fanpage or retweet their blog post. In other words, there’s a fine line between self-promotion and being labeled as a spammer. When you utilize tools like Empire Avenue and Triberr where people promote your content, it makes you appear in-demand. It’s far more effective when others are doing the promotion for you. Also, winners in social media do not clutter their feeds with negative commentary. Remember, winners find ways –losers find excuses. If you’re not getting the desired results, change your tactics.

NETWORK: QUALITY > QUANTITY

While it’s possible to have a marriage of both quality and quality, only a small percentage of influencers will achieve this. Not to say that can’t be you, but I highly recommend building your network through known commodities rather than going for the quick score. There are services that will get you a bunch of twitter followers. You can send friend requests to everyone with a pulse and maxout your 5000 connections in a jiffy. That’s all fine and dandy, but what good are thousands of people who ignore you? Or, what if you don’t relate to what their most talked about topics are? Bottom line, when expanding your network, it’s ok to be picky about who you chum with. It will pay dividends to bring value to those who are more influential than you are. Start supporting them, and you might be surprised how many will start supporting you.

PARTING SHOTS

Before I ask for your thoughts, I didn’t an interesting Twitter experiment that plays into this topic. For the first time, I was approaching a symmetrical number between those I was following and those who followed me right around 1867 last week. Although a bit shallow, one of my own “metrics” when I observed other people was that same follower to following ratio. It’s just human nature, it gives the perception of importance when someone has more followers than they tweeps they follow. So I decided to trim the fat and unfollowed 40 or 50 not-so-active accounts that weren’t following me. In the last few days, I’ve gained 125+ additional followers without doing anything else different. Might be worth considering if you’re in a similar spot with less than 10,000 followers.

Here’s what I’m interested in hearing about – What’s your definition of Influence? Who Influences you most and why do you think that is?

Apr
6

By

Blast Off!! Save the Space Program by.. Legalizing #Marijuana?

Category: So Genius Tags: , , , , 10 Comments

After careful deliberation, I’ve opted to speak my mind and invite the readers to chime in on the issue. Those close to me already know about my intention to run for political office in the future, so this is a risky subject to write about. This post could either garner mass support for, or crush, the Tony Bennett for Senate campaign before it even starts. It’s a gamble worth taking because the benefits of legalizing marijuana clearly outweigh the negative aspects that my counterparts bring up. Sadly, we’re skipping the So Genius Award this week because I should have had the cojones to publish this Wednesday instead of switching to a PC topic that I ended up scrapping as it was just “Eh.”

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With all the crime and violence in our society, doesn’t the government and law enforcement have bigger fish to fry? More and more we see innocent children being killed, houses being burned down, shootings at schools, and Tide Detergent being stolen off the shelves; yet there are still hundreds of thousands of cases involving reefer that continue to drain our already extended resources. While it would be foolish of me to argue that the decriminalization of Cannabs would alleviate all the hostility, an old saying does come to mind… there’s a thin line between love and hate, it usually starts halfway through a joint. We’ll save that debate for another day, though. We’re going to focus on how the is government turning a deaf ear toward the people’s calls for reform and how it will help our economy, both financially and socially.

IGNORING THE ISSUE WILL NOT MAKE IT GO AWAY

Similar to the perceived approach to our national deficit, it seems the lawmakers on Capitol Hill are ignoring the problem. The example highlighting this most is the “Twitter Town Hall Meeting” that took place last July. Tweeters were encouraged to #AskObama questions that would be answered in the stream. Dan Holowack and his team at TwitSprout did an INCREDIBLE analysis to reveal the most twopular topics that were tweeted about. Their findings were featured on Mark Schaefer’s {grow} blog. Would you believe me if I told you that questions concerning the legalization of Marijuana outnumbered all the other topics like taxes, jobs, and the economy… COMBINED? Granted, twitter doesn’t accurately measure the sentiment of the whole country; but I find it peculiar that the president didn’t even address the most popular question that twitternation wanted to know. I wouldn’t be surprised if our site is flooded with support once the Marijuana Movement on Twitter (#mmot) gets wind of this because they are such a dedicated bunch. I’m interested to see what reaction we receive from the other side.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Quick Fact – According to the .pdf report issued by The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, over $26 Billion dollars in revenue was generated from taxing these two products. With our deficit still spiraling out of control, I find it hard to believe that the government cannot use an additional revenue stream. Sure, Federal and State gov’s earn monies in relation to penal fines when offender’s are prosecuted, but that’s a pittance compared to what it could make on a Marijuana tax. I’m all about safety and placing restrictions on its use just as much as the next guy, but the excuse I’ve heard about the government not being able to figure out how to tax it is absurd. To put it into perspective, even if the Marijuana tax only generated 75% of what the tobacco tax does, that would be enough to send 5-6 rocket ships back into space. That fact inspired the title for this, but I’m not actually sure that’s the best use of the money (but good to know we’d be able to send a ship into orbit if Aliens ever threaten us). Alternatively, $8 billion split up amongst our 50 states would yield $160 million per state. Come on people, we’re talking about money for education… money for roads… money for healthcare. Isn’t that what it’s about?

CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ABONG

World Peace might be a long shot, but the simple truth is Marijuana smokers are less likely to commit violent crimes. And it’s not like a law legalizing it forces you to smoke it if you don’t want to. In fact, even if you were a registered smoker, there are plenty of people who SHOULDN’T smoke dope. If weed makes you paranoid and you go crazy, DON’T SMOKE IT. If you abuse weed habitually in an attempt to permanently escape your reality, DON’T SMOKE IT. If you’re unemployed and lazy because you partake so often that you’ve become a sloth, DON’T SMOKE IT. But for Pete’s sake, if someone, like many of successful people I know who are closet tokers, wants to hang out with a few friends and enjoy the pleasure of smoking herb to gain a different perspective, LET THEM DO IT. The debate about drinking vs smoking has been hit pretty hard and I tend to agree w/proponents that Mary Jane has fewer dangerous side effects than alcohol. So why do we still not have a choice? I have my own conspiracy theories, but I’d rather hear from you. What do you think are the main forces behind keeping marijuana an illicit substance?