Pay It Forward Blogfest Afterthoughts

After the most epic blog tour/fest/party/hop/madness I have ever been involved in went down on Friday (and over the weekend), I don't quite know what to say. My clinical brain wants to analyze the increase in traffic, the followers that were added, and take a look at those same results for blog that weren't the hosts like Al and me.

But it isn't just about numbers. It's about people. Hopefully some of the new followers we all gained will stick around long enough to become friends. That was my hope when I conceived of the whole thing.

For those of you that do want to hear some numbers, when I first starting thinking hard about followers and blog traffic, or at least when I wrote The Follower Project, I had about 750 followers. That was just over a month ago. I now have 920, which is an increase of 170, in a few short weeks. That seems like a lot to me.

I remember it taking months to get to my first hundred followers. Anyway, Friday's post also got over 100 comments. I have never had that many. I love comments, and I think they're a good gauge for how successful a post is. After all, visitors are nice, but if what you wrote doesn't earn a comment from them, it might not have been all that interesting.

On the other side of the coin, I visited over 285 blogs over the weekend, and commented on and followed every single one. If you're wondering why the official linky list is now reduced to less than 250 blogs, it's because Ninja Captain Alex had to remove some spammers, commercial blogs, and people who just didn't take part in the blog fest.

Speaking of Alex, I would really like to thank him for helping me make this happen. Yes, it was originally my idea, but Alex did most of the work. He made the badge, he managed the linky list, he brought his army into the fray. Thanks Alex! And thanks all of you, for signing up, taking, part, and visiting, commenting on, and following each others blogs. There were a few really special moments when people were shocked to see how many new readers we sent them.

I guess that's it for now. I've got a lot of writing that needs to be worked on, and I'm hoping to take some days off blogging this week, but we'll see what happens, since I'm a bit of an addict.

Pay It Forward Blogfest

This is all about volume, so I'm going to keep it slick, and easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. Here are three blogs I have only recently discovered:

Wine and Words at: Quiet Commotion

Joshua at: Vive Le Nerd

Mike at: Sub-Radar

Go read them. Follow. Then visit the rest of the blogs on the linky list, and follow them too. Do it.

And if you're here as part of the blogfest, because you found me on the linky list, please be sure to click that "Join this site" button over there on the right. If you can't see it, hit F5.

Thanks, have a great weekend!

One More Day

The blog fest is up to 175 people! I'm sure Alex hosts things with more blogs than that all the time, but I never do blogfests, so I'm a amazed, and maybe, just a little, overwhelmed.

It would be cool to see the list reach 200 blogs, but I think we're approaching saturation levels, so I don't think that's likely. I've got a lot of writing and critiquing to get done today, so I'm just going to say:

Thanks everyone for taking part in this! I really look forward to visiting all your blogs tomorrow and over the weekend, and meeting tons of great new people.

Have a great Thursday! See the post below this one if you have no idea what I'm talking about, or need to sign up on the linky list.

Some Pay It Forward Blogfest Tips

I've been getting a few questions from friends and followers regarding the blogfest, and since it's coming up on Friday, we might as well talk about it now.

First things first: you don't have to include the linky list on your blog, or in your post for the festival.

In fact, if you want to promote the festival, it might be better to post about it tomorrow, and tell all your followers, to see if we can get any last minute sign-ups. But when it comes to the actual post, don't worry about. Unless, you know, you want to.

If you do want to make the list a part of your post (or your sidebar) keep in mind that because of the nature of the linky list code, it DOES NOT show up in blogger's preview or compose windows. You can't see it, but it's there. You have to add it in the "Edit HTML" window, and then trust that it will show up in your post. Or you could just link to Alex and my blogs, and let people use the lists we will have up there.

When it comes to what else you really want to include in your post the day of, it's up to you. You can explain the idea behind the fest in your own words if you like, or you could just link to my original announcement, or Alex's. After that, as long as you link to three blogs you enjoy reading and think people should follow, the rest is up to you. All I would suggest is to keep it short and simple, and remember that the point is to find and follow as many new blogs as possible.

When it comes to accomplishing that, you could theoretically start following the blogs on the list now, and I don't mind if you want to, but it kind of takes the fun out of seeing how much new traffic we can all get in a single day if we don't wait.

So for now, enjoy your day, and feel free to post the list on your blogs tomorrow (if you don't have something planned) to see if you can get your followers to join. It would be awesome to see 200 blogs in one festival!