What a Difference 27 Years Make

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newspaper-history-1314775-231x173We’ve seen pressure on all traditional media – print and television – for some time now. However, we might want to look at the recent history of radio as a harbinger for what to expect in these other media markets. I began working in the radio industry as an AM disc jockey in the late 1970s, just as, given its superior audio quality, FM was becoming the “go to” frequency band for music fans. Radio personalities had to find a way to attract and keep listeners. While still playing music, we began relying more on talk – mostly of the (innocent) humorous kind. It wasn’t much of a leap from there to Howard Stern and then to Rush Limbaugh.

Print media has been suffering a slow and agonizing death since before we originally started The Sentinel in 1989. I remember, at the time, telling one of my college classmates – whose family owns a well-known west coast newspaper publishing company – that I was starting a newspaper. He told me I was crazy. He had seen, first-hand, the erosion of the traditional newspaper business model. I told him, while the decline in the newspaper Continue Reading “What a Difference 27 Years Make”

Final Tally – Midnight, December 13, 2009 – Did It Really Work?

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 172 Followers: 194 Listed: 9

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 30 – December 13, 2009 (Sun): Have Fun!

twitter_power_joel_comm_150Above you see the final tally as of Midnight, Day 30. In fairness, if I used the same criteria as in all other previous days, the number would have been reported as of the following morning: 202 followers. Who estimated the closest? @mikegastin, who guessed 207. If you’re interest Mike, I hit 207 late on the 31st day. Now, before anyone says anything, Mike was also the first person to guess – on Day 13 – so he really did do the best job.

@mikegastin wants a free trip to Aruba as a result of his grand prognostication. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything the budget for prizes, so the notoriety of the mention represents all I have to offer. Hopefully, it’s good enough. On the other hand, Mike might be pleased to know Continue Reading “Final Tally – Midnight, December 13, 2009 – Did It Really Work?”

Day 30 – December 13, 2009 (Sun): Have Fun!

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 170 Followers: 184 Listed: 9

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 29 – December 12, 2009 (Sat): Find Followers on Your New Timeline

twitter_power_joel_comm_150It’s the last day. Where will I end up at midnight tonight?

You might notice a steep jump in followers between yesterday and today. I must attribute it to one thing: @chrisbrogan started following me. The total increase of 24 followers represents more than a 15% increase in followers in one day. Yes, I know we started with a low base, but I can’t discount the significance. I certainly can’t say it had anything to do with what I did yesterday. I was having fun teaching my daughters how to tweet and how to blog. OK, OK, I did get into a few conversations, including the one that led @chrisbrogan to follow.

Also, for the first time since the start of this experiment, I’ve got more followers than people I follow. I don’t know exactly what that means, but it must mean something.

As I near the end of the road in this experiment, I can say I’ve learned a bunch of things. I’ll compile them and present them as separate blogs – bite-sized pieces if you will. Tomorrow I’ll post my preliminary conclusions. They may surprise you. Because I’ve been holding back a vital piece of information from you. It’s a piece of information all good experiments require.

How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.

Day 26 – December 9, 2009 (Wed): Drive Followers to Purchase Without a Special Offer

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 149 Followers: 120 Listed: 7

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 24 – December 7, 2009 (Mon): Drive Followers to a Blog

twitter_power_joel_comm_150Forget driving followers to purchase with our without a special offer. All the reasons cited in Day 23 – December 6, 2009 (Sun): Drive Followers to Purchase a Special Offer remain valid on Day 26. Here’s a more interesting thing I did. @mikefixs told me about twitalyzer.com. This is a neat little tool that rates your Twitter presence on a variety of scales. You don’t have to buy into its rating philosophy, but it’s good to review and consider. For example, it’s not all about followers. Twitalyzer gives you credit when you retweet or are retweeted, among other things. Take a look. At least it’ll cause you to think.

Hey, I finally did send an @message to @CoachJudy. It was late at night, so I’ll have to give it a day to see if she responds. The biggest news: @joelcomm decided to follow me. Of course, I followed back and asked how he liked my experiment. This, too, was late at night, so I’ll suspect I’ll have to wait for a response.

I’ve continue to notice I’m getting a lot of really odd followers from places all over the world. I think they’re marketers, so I’m not following them. When they unfollow in less than 24 hours (or even less than 36 hours) they confirm my suspicion. What’s the point of having 60,000 followers? What can you possibly get them to do? That’s the story I want to hear.

Tomorrow’s the really big day. That’s when I attempt to drive readers to my blog ChrisCarosa.com. I suggest you stay tuned…

How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.

Find out today’s results on Day 27 – December 10, 2009 (Thu): Have Fun!

Day 25 – December 8, 2009 (Tue): Drive Followers to Subscribe

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 148 Followers: 122 Listed: 7

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 24 – December 7, 2009 (Mon): Drive Followers to a Blog

twitter_power_joel_comm_150Subscribe to what? That is the question. Heck, I just checked and I don’t even have an RSS feed up on my blog yet. Here’s what I’m discovering during my 30-days jaunt with Joel Comm and his plan to dominate Twitter. There’s nothing to dominate if you don’t have a purpose. Said another way, domination means nothing if you have no product? What’s my product? Now that’s a very deep question. Here’s a very deep answer:

Continue Reading “Day 25 – December 8, 2009 (Tue): Drive Followers to Subscribe”

Day 24 – December 7, 2009 (Mon): Drive Followers to a Blog

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 148 Followers: 118 Listed: 7

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 23 – December 6, 2009 (Sun): Drive Followers to Purchase a Special Offer

twitter_power_joel_comm_150That was fun while it lasted. So last night’s plan looks like it fizzled. Maybe not. Remember, the above statistics reflect only those few hours from late last night to early this morning. No doubt folks are just now receiving their new follower lists.

In other news, CoachJudy still hasn’t followed. That disappoints me. She usually keeps her word. She’s also usually on the ball in terms of her social media presence.

Here’s the reality for today: After spending much of the end of last week preparing for culmination of my year-long the IYA2009 outreach project the beginning of the year – the final top ten countdown of AstronomyTop100.com presentation at the Strasenburgh Planetarium last Friday evening; and then after immediately going to work with the GearFreeze kids over the weekend for Sunday’s  Finger Lakes First Lego League Regional Championships at the University of Rochester; I concluded I needed to spend some quality time with my laptop at the office. In truth, work’s been a relaxing relief through all the buzz of last week. I really like my work. I can’t tell you about it (government regulations prevent me from doing so), but it does offer loads of fun.

Here’s the result: I’m switching today’s step with Thursday’s. So, today I’m having fun. I’ll drive followers to a blog (my blog) on Thursday. I hope Joel Comm doesn’t mind.

How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.

Find out today’s results on Day 25 – December 8, 2009 (Tue): Drive Followers to Subscribe

Day 23 – December 6, 2009 (Sun): Drive Followers to Purchase a Special Offer

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 148 Followers: 115 Listed: 7

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 22 – December 5, 2009 (Sat): Combine Your Social Media Tools

twitter_power_joel_comm_150So how do you drive followers to purchase a special offer when you don’t sell anything? Joel Comm figured (correctly, it turns out) not all his readers would have items to sell. He came up with a brilliant idea. If you don’t have anything to sell, sell someone else’s product through an affiliation. Then, to get a special offer, you just need to get your affiliate to agree to give your followers a special offer.

This whole gambit presupposes I want to sell. I’m not sure I’m there yet. Remember, as I prattled on about in Day 18 – December 1, 2009 (Tue): Start Putting Your Tweets Together, I’m not even 100% sure I know the true objective of the ChrisCarosa Twitter account. If you’re reading this, maybe you can pop me a line and let me know what I’m all about.  Perhaps you’d rather I reveal the rest of the yesterday’s story?

Continue Reading “Day 23 – December 6, 2009 (Sun): Drive Followers to Purchase a Special Offer”

Day 22 – December 5, 2009 (Sat): Combine Your Social Media Tools

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 129 Followers: 110 Listed: 6

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 21 – December 4, 2009 (Fri): Do Some Off-Twitter Marketing

twitter_power_joel_comm_150I must admit, I actually started doing this a few days before in anticipation of robotics consuming my day today. That’s correct, gentle reader, no sooner had I completed one major event, but it was smack dab right into another. Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire!  Come to think of it, fire does have a mesmerizing ability. Perhaps you’d first like a glimpse at the fire before returning to the experiment.

Continue Reading “Day 22 – December 5, 2009 (Sat): Combine Your Social Media Tools”

Day 21 – December 4, 2009 (Fri): Do Some Off-Twitter Marketing

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 128 Followers: 106 Listed: 6

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 20 – December 3, 2009 (Thu): Have Fun!

twitter_power_joel_comm_150Today was the big day, the day I’ve been preparing for since nearly the beginning of the year – the final top ten countdown of AstronomyTop100.com, the IYA2009 outreach project I started in January. For some off-twitter marketing, I spoke to the entire world – about astronomy. Now, to be honest, they’re more likely to end up at my AstronomyTop100 Twitter account instead of my ChrisCarosa Twitter account. No matter, though. Inquiring minds will find me if they want to. And if they don’t, then that’s probably just as well.

BTW, the presentation, a podcast before an audience of probably more than 100 interested and interesting individuals went off with nary a hitch. The “nary” part occurred when I moved my computer during the live production and promptly disconnected the cable providing the live feed to the planetarium guests. Oops! Well, at least the slides moved when I hit the return button (which was difficult to see beneath the darkened dome; hence, the reason why I decided to reposition the computer in the first place).

You can catch my full report on AstronomyTop100.com on that blog once we update and reconfigure the web-site (don’t worry, I’ll announce it). In addition, I will add a few blogs here about speaking, scripting and the curse of technology during presentations.

How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.

Find out today’s results on Day 22 – December 5, 2009 (Sat): Combine Your Social Media Tools

Day 20 – December 3, 2009 (Thu): Have Fun!

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 128 Followers: 102 Listed: 5

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 19 – December 2, 2009 (Wed): Try a Different Sequence

twitter_power_joel_comm_150Have fun! Have fun? Well for fun, I pretty much took the day off from Twitter. @erichnwise congratulated me for hitting 100 followers. Of course, eclipsing this mark no doubt had help from my following a slew of new folks (mostly Buffalo-oriented).

I started to really worry if I would have the script for the AstronomyTop100.com presentation at the Strasenburgh Planetarium Friday evening ready for this afternoon’s rehearsal. I didn’t. Fortunately, the kindly tech guys for the Planetarium and RIT assured me we could run everything through my computer. What a relief. I also learned how to do a podcast today. This was all fun, believe it or not!

How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.

Find out today’s results on Day 21 – December 4, 2009 (Fri): Do Some Off-Twitter Marketing

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