How many hits can you expect on a new blog in a month?

On July 30th I started a bet with Kamary Phillips of Murphy-Goode Social Media fame to see who would increase blog traffic to their *new* post-Murphy-Goode the quickest.

I have yet to proclaim where you can find my new blog to my readers here, so as not to leave poor Kamary at a disadvantage… *she smiles wickedly*, he should have the benefit of his MG fame to push his campaign forward.  Today I want to let you know how I am doing from my side of the bet–Kamary is in the process of moving, so I don’t know if he is able to give us a quick report at this time or not.

On August 10th I showed you my stats to date then:

At that point Kamary had already gone over 200 hits so he won the first stretch (the milestones to hit were first 100, first 500 and first 1000).   I ran into some trouble with the backend and then once I ironed that out, I had trouble with the visuals on the layout.  I had my moments thinking: WordPress.com is not all that bad.  No need to deal with code.  What you see is what you get… yada, yada, yada.  But I bit the bullet and got a rocking solid blog up.

Here are some stats relevant to today:

What I find neat is that there are more than one comment per post–almost 3!  This is cool.  (Just for comparison, Andy’s Goode Life is at about 7 comments per post on average.)  No subscribers to FeedBurner, so this will be one of my next topics to tackle:  Feed subscriptions and opt-in’s for newsletters.

So, you want to know how many hits a person can generate from scratch in a month?  Here it is *drumroll please*:

The relevant number for the bet with Kamary is this one:  547.  But if you want to know the total hits, then 24320 would be the number.  (Can anyone tell me *how* awstats comes up with this number?  Apparently the bots are NOT part of this number, they have come almost 4000 times to scour my blog… and awstats says this number is NOT part of the total hits!)

I said at the beginning of this week, I plan to reach 500 by Wednesday, and perhaps 1000 by the weekend… and with a little luck and some good old fashioned hard work, I think I can do it.

So tell me, what have you been up to since the MG gig finished up?

7 more days… a spectacular week for A Really Goode Job!

It’s the final countdown! I cannot believe how nervous I am, those fortunate 10 must be *oh I don’t know what they must be*–geesh!

Here a little distraction for y’all.

And have a great week. Life will never be the same, no matter what happens!

Top 10 choosen for Murphy-Goode

To those of us who did not make the cut, you may think the world of wine (social media) is confusing (or the choosing of a wine country lifestyle correspondent), but this video shows you that even the straight forward world of coffee can be just as daunting…

You have run a wonderful campaign and the game is NOT over, regardless which side of the fence you are sitting on.

Stay tuned for further developements and strategies.

Why women are the better social media mavens

Besides the fact that women are natural communicators, the proof that women are better social media mavens can be summed up in one sentance:

Women can think outside of the box.

I must admit that there are a few men out there looking for a really goode job… but let’s be honest with each other… this is the perfect position to be filled by a woman, don’t you think?

(It is like the internet super highway… It is one of the reasons why women tend to remember everything.)

Wine and winners: Bringing the wine home

What a great time it has been and very challenging to toss up my first carnival.  There were 7 great answers to the three questions I posed and I have the impression that you all had fun partaking in the challenge.

To recapture, contestants were to choose one from the three questions:

1. How to avoid red teeth while drinking red wine?
2. How to avoid palate fatigue while at a wine tasting?
3. Why smell the cork?

Submissions were allowed in any format (blog post, video, podcast) and were judged in three categories:

1. People’s Choice by poll (which took place here on my blog)
2. People’s Choice by comment (any comment I could find relating to any individual post)
3. My Choice by a) education, b) entertainment and c) tech savvy values.

Everyone who participated I want to extend a great shout out!  I can only recommend your blogs to my readers… the fact that you took the time to get involved with this little action shows that you have a good grasp about this specific aspect  of social media, about networking and pooling together on one topic and connecting with others.

Participants were (in alphabetical order):

• Gwendolyn Alley
• Karen Catchpole & Eric Mohl (twitter @TransAmericas)
• Rob Cole
• Natasha Foy (twitter @tashicake)
• Michelle Lentz
• Kris Vera-Phillips
• Jennie Wong

So without further ado, here I present you with the winners!  *drum roll please* (please excuse, I had a video in the making but my programme is striking in this heat, sorry):

Peoples Choice by poll:  Natasha Foy with 33%.

Peoples Choice by comment (including comments I found here directly concerning the submitted posts):  Michelle Lentz

Andy’s Choice:

You all educated me.  I see in all entries the ability to take a mundane subject and translate that into education and present it in an entertaining manner.  Some of you were funny “ha, ha”, some were very subtle and some of you simply entertaining in how you presented a non-eventful question.

I looked to a few technical indicators and you really did not make my job easy.  All of you have definite (and to certain degrees very different) strengths and weaknesses  so I will be sending you all emails with some advice concerning what I observed in the hopes to help you along.  But before you get your knickers in a knot:  I am not as tech savvy as you may think so there will be many other parameters which you could be doing well — but which I did not notice, or they may be some grave errors which I am also missing out on… and we are all in the dark.

Before I tell you my choice, you must know that I truely believe that all of you have excellent opportunities waiting for you in the social media scene… think of it, you have been learning loads and discovering lots, and you have already shown by going for the Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent that you have the guts to go for it.  If you keep on track, I can assure you that not too few wineries are out there watching, watching, watching what happens with the MG gig.

Imagine you place yourself as a key player in this happening?  Do you realize that you have been networking with all the other hopefuls?  Do you realize that we together have the power to make this work for MG?  Do you realize that the greater MG’s success means the greater chances that other wineries take the plunge?  Do you realize that those who take the plunge will already have a good idea who and what they want when they take that plunge?

*You* can be as central a person you want to be in this network!  And *you* can go as far as that successful applicant for Murphy Goode…. if not further!

Yes, you are all awesome and I look forward to seeing you go places!

But I have to choose ONE of you.  And the winner of my choice is Natasha Foy. Natasha, you were only slightly savvier than most here, but you want to know what pushed your submission over to the winner category?  It is the fact that you made a viral video.  Did you know that your video was published and highlighted on another Murphy-Goode blog?  In fact, on a blog  which is more a vlog?  Yup.  Was it planned or a lucky stroke?  It does not matter, you educated, you entertained, you showed me your tech savviness and you impressed more people than just Andy.

Congratulations!

Thank you all again for taking part, I really enjoyed it and look forward to a continued networking with you in the future!  Keep your eyes peeled, on Tuesday I will be sending out your little information emails with some deeper tips and observations.

Here is to your blogging success!

Spezify: areallygoodejob for search engines

Ok, for all you visual people out there, here is a new and funky search engine. Spezify. I tested it for the terms “areallygoodejob” and “murphy-goode” and had a great time seeing many trusted faces and noticing a few new people, posts, pics I have yet to discover!

more about “Spezify: areallygoodejob for search …“, posted with vodpod

Cook, eh?  So, who & what all did you recognize?

From the office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

One of my handicaps concerning the MG reallygoodejob is that small yet not insignificant fact that I am not American.  Or perhaps I should be more specific:  I have no working permit in my hand, no green card and no hope of a quick solution.

So I did the only thing a gal could do.  I hit the Governator up for help as I was seeking to become the Gewürztremantor.  (And I even asked if he would be interested in giving me a guest post ).

Two days before the apps need to be in I received a response.  Here it is:

So.  There you have it.  Governor Schwarzenegger “is honored that you would seek his assistance with this matter.”  But as usual, he it is out of his jurisdiction.  Anyone know anything about Senators Feinstein and/or Boxer?

Murphy-Goode has expanded my personal experience in ways I never imagined.  It has been a learning experience from the get-go.  When the next social media guru gig hits (as we can all be sure it will), we should all be ready to boldly step forward and shine, shine, shine.  I know I’m taking home a whole suitcase full of “how-tos”, “don’t forgets” and “think abouts”… like solicite help as early as possible and don’t be afraid to do so:  Regardless of the position of the person or the percieved time, you will never know unless you try and you have nothing to loose.

Wont you share a lesson or two you have learned along side your Murphy-Goode application process?

Is this what you can expect at areallygoodejob interview?

I am a fan of Murphy-GoodeTV, let that be stated on the onset!  Kamary is awesome and I love his take on the MG gig.  Today I found another video-caster:  Patrick.  He takes a totally different approach (at least in this video) and shows us what you can expect when MG actually gets to interview you…

Hav you seen other creative takes on the interview process?  Love to hear about it!

What do Magnum and Star Wars have in common?

Some times I “discover” some neat things about people online, or I find that one blog they so cleverly believed to have hidden elsewhere out of everyone’s reach… that is the super sleuth within me… finding people, conversations, happenings.  Oh, don’t worry about me, I am no where intelligent enough to do any harm, nor am I witty enough to toss out an ingenious comment on the spot.  But I would like to toss this out to all those “private investigators” amoungst us.

Magnum and Star Wars:  one and the same!

Hope you enjoyed that blast from the past.  Have a great weekend .

Murphy-Goode: Having a good time, YEAH!

At the latest when Wayne the Great Gretsky left his homeland to play hockey in California there has been a deep connection between CA — Canada & CA — California.

This little video sums up my feelings during the run for the Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent job… Having a goode time, YEAH!

What song best captures your Murphy-Goode emotion?