Ryan Anderson dot ca

This is definitely a new one… and I’m not sure how it happened.

That’s what my blogroll looked like until I nuked it tonight. Absolutely no idea how this happened, or if it’s going to happen again.

Anyone have any idea on how to combat this in the future?

I just came to the realization that I hadn’t written anything in almost a month.  The reason is simply that October (and the weeks leading up to it) have been fairly mental, and I’ve once again gotten stuck in “no time to think” mode.

October began with a trip to New York with Brady to meet with some industry reporters and bring them up to speed on what we’re up to – all very fun.  I enjoy those trips mostly because reporters writing on the digital space know so much about it, and have such strong opinions that for the most part never get published.  Picking the brain of those who spend all of their time reading, writing, thinking and analyzing our market is always eye-opening.

The past two weeks, on top of the daily grind, have been made up of researching and preparing for a two-day workshop that Brady and I are going to be giving in Singapore on the 25th and 26th on branded entertainment and social media.  I’m incredibly excited about that, though I’m dreading the 20+ hours of flying it’s going to take to get there.

The group is going to be made up mostly of marketing directors of Asian telecom, financial and consumer goods companies, and the subject is going to cover everything from how the media is changing to examples of marketing with branded entertainment and reaching clients through social media channels.

So, if anyone has any recommendations on things to do in Singapore, tips on presenting to a Singapore audience or dealing with massive jetlag, I’d love to hear them.

I didn’t talk too much about the z-list meme that Mack started, but I have been watching intently. I joined in on a lark, and was extremely surprised by the results.

I started getting the odd alert in my RSS subscription to Technorati Mentions of “ryananderson.ca,” and it started to climb. Neat, I thought, but I was still unimpressed. I’m always excited when I see that someone has linked to me, not because I love links, but because I love hearing what people have to say about what I’ve written. Sometimes they’re brilliant, sometimes they’re flattering, and sometimes they’re downright ignorant.

These were just links, though. No commentary, no controversy. In fact, the people who were linking to me likely had no idea they were doing so.

Then I started noticing that I was getting 10 – 15 per day – even over Christmas. Once Seth picked it up, that number increased even more. All in all, I had over 75 blogs link to me. Even though the majority of the links I was receiving were impersonal, some interesting things happened.

My traffic increased. That’s always nice, though I don’t sell advertising, it’s nice to know someone is reading. The number of unique visitors went up about 35% from November to December, which is an increase from the usual 15 – 20%.

My influence increased. I gotta hand it to him, when Mack sets his mind to something, he does it. My Technorati influence increased significantly. I went from the medium authority to the high authority group. This, of course, puts me higher in the search result listings on T’Rati, and is certain to get me laid.

My subscribers increased. This is probably the smallest increase in terms of actual numbers, but the stat that makes me the happiest. The number of RSS subscribers to my site, after remaining stagnant for a few months, jumped by almost 50%. My RSS traffic is fairly negligible, but it’s the only stat I strive to increase.

More commenters. I reposted a question I had posed 6 months ago to which I received no response. Within a day, I had five responses. It’s not an avalanche of email, but it’s something. Thing is, I didn’t know most of these commenters. Always nice to see new faces.

Some bloggers proved themselves to be assholes. See, when Seth picked up the story, he put the list on Squidoo, and asked people to rank them. Thing is, you can only vote for yourself once, and you can vote everyone else down at least once each. Some overly competitive asshole bloggers decided to vote down the sites above them, which is why 70% of the blogs listed have a negative number of votes. Real classy, guys.

Stats and rankings are all fairly stupid, and I think that’s a lot of what Mack was pointing out when he started this. There’s no a-list or z-list, only blogs that are worthwhile, and others that aren’t. The trouble is that it’s getting harder and harder for the worthwhile blogs to get noticed out of the crowd. I consider this a good jumpstart for the good ones. Their traffic will die down, but some will stick if the quality is good.

Really, that’s all they can ask. Thanks, Mack.

[additional:]

Okay, so there’s no a-list or z-list, but just in case you were wondering, this little flurry of link-love places me on the “B-List.” Mom would be so proud if she knew what a blog was.

My blogebrity is mediocre at best.  I hope we can still be friends.

Find out what your blogebrity status is at Kineda.

[via SpinThicket]

This blog is about public relations, about social media, about where business-to-consumer communication is moving, and about how we as PR professionals can be a part of a major social shift rather than just a spectator in the arena. But more than any of these, this site is a way for me personally to wrap my head around these changes.

I recently went for with a former colleague of mine to talk about online and social media PR, and I realized that I had a lot of unrelated thoughts written on invisible sticky notes in my head. As the nature of my job ends with me being a lone PR wolf in my organization, it is sometimes difficult to organize my thoughts and the thoughts of others that pour through my RSS reader every day into a cohesive philosophy, which is something that I think PR pros all over the world are searching for now.

Not surprisingly, friends and acquaintances often find talking about blogs and social media tiresome, so I now turn to the most obvious way to discuss the changing nature of social media for insight, validation and that ever-so-sought-after conversation.

I’m going to make a lot of assertions here – and a lot of them are going to be wrong. I urge you to challenge me on these assertions, to become part of the conversation. The purpose of this site is not for me to preach from a pulpit (though for the purposes of the metaphor, I am the one with the pointy hat and sceptre) but rather to encourage collaboration, conversation and cooperation to arrive at a best practice for online public relations.

If you’re a blogger or a practictioner of online public relations, please feel free to introduce yourself. Email me at newpr@ryananderson.ca, or leave a comment here.

The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, etc.