Know thy audience and Cause-it on Facebook

1,700 unique hits after 24 hours of circulating in the blogosphere – we’re totally stoked . The next question is: who are our wonderful “hits” and what do they eat for breakfast?

In my first round, it was not unusual to find that, even after Digg-ing my best stories and releasing news about a  big social cause event to 257 of my friends (and friends of friends…) on Facebook, I got a less than breakthrough response.

No worries, I kept on trekking with these laws in mind: 1) know thy audience and; 2) know thy medium.

Since then, I got a photo of who I think my blog readers are and I stuck their picture on my desk.

That said, don’t miss this Business Week article, which provides a sweet matrix describing blog readers and how they use Web 2.0.

SUVOA Trickle Blog Pays Off – we’re on the 1st page of Google

So it seems that the “trickle blog” technique has paid off in spades.

As you will recall, the technique involves doing multiple posts, as opposed to one big, long post on the person, organization you are targeting. What this does is make Google and other search engines stand up and take notice. If they notice you enough your message or voice will eventually be indexed on the first page of search results. The first page of Google is one of the best places to get traffic, and it is also something organizations hold near and dear to their heart.

To demonstrate the technique I chose the SUV Owners of America, an organization run by auto-industry friendly people who are supposedly standing up for the rights of Americans to drive SUV’s.

Here’s the result after doing multiple (4) posts on the SUVOA over the last few days. When you type in SUVOA as a search term in Google now, you will notice that at the bottom of the first page is a link to my posts on “trickle blogging.”

Here’s the screenshot:

Multiple posts over days with new and interesting content will pay off. Thank god, I was really getting sick of writing about the SUVOA.

1,700 Unique visits in 24 hours

Thanks everyone for starting OnlineActivist off with such a bang!

In the last 24 hours, we’ve gotten 1,700 unique visitors to the site!

We were picked up on Metafilter last night, as well as Stumbleupon and some very kindly bloggers linked to our series on “trickle blogging.”

Update 1: just noticed that we’ve been listed #1 today as the most up and coming wordpress blog. Nice.

Update 2: just got posted on links swarm’s front page by a kinldy  individual>.

By the way, I am not doing this in anway to brag about all the cool people that are linking to me. I am trying to highlight some of the Web 2.0 social networking tools that are out there that you can use to promote your own site. Many of these are free to join, easy to use and can sometimes pay off with huge traffic. Just be careful to pick only your best content to post on these sites, or you’ll gain a reputation as a shameless self promotor.

I hope we can keep the momentum going. And of course, I will continue to offer practical advice on how you can make your activist site be heard!

Kindly,

The OnlineActivist

P.S. If you want to swap links with me, send an email to onlineactivism (at) gmail.com

Why Metafilter’s stinks and shines

Metafilter is a very large “community” blog, meaning that once you’re a member you can post interesting things you find on your journeys around the “internets.” Take a browse through Metafilter and you will see that is a mish-mash of all sorts of things from brazillian waxes to the lastest in software.

The reason I’m bringing up Metafilter is that someone posted an onlineactivist story on “trickle blogging.” Did I mention Metafilter is a LARGE site? It definitely is, and that story provided onlineactivist with over 1,500 unique visitors last night alone.

And then the traffic stopped. Dead.

Plant a rumour and win more eyeballs on truemors.com

Rumours are notoriously viral. In fact, one of the fastest ways to let “the secret” that you promised to the boss’ secretary that you wouldn’t leak be known to the whole purchasing department by 9.22am the next day is to say “it’s absolutely confidential what I’m going to tell you and you have to promise not to tell a single soul…etc.” to Barry, the guy with 1987 era taste in ties that you kinda feel sorry for.

But back to your blog and how you want to increase the number of eyeballs that graze it each day. When you get that soundbite that you think is genius (and it will come with time as you become an expert on your topic), check out truemors.com.

Here’s what cool about truemors.com: it gives you the bang of the big PR company’s newswire subscription for zero buck.

It’s basically a regular guy or gal’s way to send out a “press release” to a massive online audience in a matter of seconds – a bulletin board slash newswire for the rest of us.

Post #3 for the SUVOA “trickle blog”

The SUVOA: we make Hummers look pretty

Here’s the 3rd in my five part series on the use of the “trickle blog” technique. Check here for what I am talking about.

The Sports Utility Vehicles Owners Association is in the business of standing up for the American “right” to drive large SUV’s. No surprise that the SUVOA is run by a former lobbyist and PR guy whose major clients were the Detroit Automakers who think “vehicle emissions standards”are akin to the devil himself.

Another company that plays a prominent role in the activities of the SUVOA is a public relations company out of Detroit (big surprise) called Stratacomm. Any guesses who Stratacomm’s client list includes? You guessed it the Big Auto makers.

So is the SUVOA fighting for the “rights” of soccer moms and Lincoln Navigators across the U S of A? Like my grandpa used to say: “If it looks like an industry front group and smells like an industry front group, 9 times out of 10 you’ve got yerself a bonafide “

Grandpa was wise indeed.

Claiming your blog on Technorati.com

Technorati is the “google” of blogs – it is a place where bloggers go to see who is linking to them, what’s going on in the blog-o-sphere, search out blog content and connect with fellow bloggers.

Technorati is must when it comes to being seen and your message being heard.  The first step is to register with technorati here.

Next step is to “claim your blog.” There are few ways to do it, but I find that just embedding the code right into a blog post, like this: Technorati Profile is the easiest way to do it.

Post #2 for the SUVOA “trickle blog”

So last week I started a series of posts on the SUV Owners of America — a “grassroots” (astroturf) group set up by a former lobbyist for the auto industry named Barry McCahill.

This group was set up to assist automakers in their lawsuit against the State of California over tougher greenhouse gas emissions standards for new vehicles. Above is a snapshot of one of their ads (check out the full size version here). This use of “third party advocacy” groups is a classic dirty trick used by corporations who are afraid to say what they really want to say, so they give these organizations money to do their dirty work for them.

Post #1 on the SUV Owners of America “trickle blogging” series

John Stauber, google jedi

So here you go. My first real-live action post on “owning” someone on Google using the “trickle blog” technique.

For those not in the know, here’s what I’m referring to.

I have a lot of poop on Barry McCahill and the SUV Owners of America.

Here’s what my friend John Stauber at Sourcewatch has on McCahill and the SUV Owners of America.

Want to get under your targetted evildoers skin? Try “trickle blogging”

UPDATE: after 4 “trickle blogs” on the SUVOA we made it the first page on Google. Check it out.

But it’s my right to drive a Hummer

So it might not make for interesting content (which is key to a good blog in the long run), but repeat posting on an organization or individual whose actions you oppose is one way to gain that person’s attention and potentially (if you start to get noticed by Google) owning them on Google and other popular search engines.

The point is that when people type in the words, say… I don’t know, “George Bush” they don’t get the site’s George W would hope we are all reading and instead they get your site and your message.

So check out this site, BushorChimp. When you type “george bush” into Google it is the 5th site listed for the president of the United States. Their point? Bush looks like a chimp — okay?!