Unknown

Just recently I read a fantastic blog entry – 15 Steps to Becoming a Blogging Rockstar   – on a great blog, A Note From Lapland. It was factual, informative and just the advice I have been looking for. I have taken each word to be true – it is now my Bible of Blogging and I have decided to apply its steps to my blog. You see, I’m new to this and I want to  be a blogstar. I want people to follow me. I am in such need of an ego boost, aka ‘followers’, I check my blog every half an hour to see if I have any new ones. A month ago, I didn’t know that ‘followers’ even existed. I was happy, self assured and content. Now, I’m riddled with insecurities and have developed a mild form of ‘follow me OCD’.  So, before you read any further, I plead with you, if you haven’t done so already, scroll down and click the ‘follow’ button to the left of this blog.

Ok, so you’re back. I thank you. Now, let’s get on with this – How to Become a Blogstar.

1) Get a blog, make it look pretty, the cutesier the better. Ok, so I already have a blog, but from tomorrow it will change. I’m thinking pink, I’m thinking bears, I’m thinking of linking to a scrap booking site. And it will definitely have pictures of my children’s hand prints. And the name will change too. It will become – bigwords from little people, with cute faces like tiny puppies. Tales of a mummy who likes to see the sparkly-arkly side of life.

2) Don’t worry about spelling, grammar and interest content. Yep, got that covered. My grammatical powers are craptastic. As a lapsed reporter, I’ve always relied on a top-table of sub editors to check my work thoroughly, without them I struggle. That’s is obvious, just read my prior blog entries.

3) But whatever you do, don’t swear. I try. I really do. But swearing comes naturally to me. It is one of my skills and I don’t have many of them. For this post I will try and refrain from saying fuck. Ok.

4) Also don’t write about sex toys, sex, sad celebrity stalking etc. Apparently, PR companies don’t like unsanitary, booze-fuelled, potty-mouthed, sexed-up bloggers, particularly mothers. Mums do not do stuff like like and they definitely don’t blow, suck, snort, drink or “do” anything. They mother. That’s it, be motherly, do what mothers do. Ok, check. From now on, all my blogs will be about ‘motherly’ things.

5) Definitely don’t put a picture of a dildo in the middle of your page. I think A Note From Lapland took a bit of “celebrity” licence here. It was her chance to stick that big, pink, penis-shaped rubber toy right there up on her website. I would definitely not scoop that low. But, as I need people to follow me, even XXX followers would do the trick (mind the pun). And I’ve never inserted a picture into my blog before (another pun) so here goes it…

6) Come up with a lie about why you blog. Well that’s simple. I don’t even need to lie. I was born in the jungle with only a pack of lions to raise me. It was a lovely childhood. I roamed free, I ate antelope, I rolled around in the dusty soil. One day a lovely couple found me and took me into their home, teaching me how to read, write and speak. Then I met my husband and become a mother. And now that’s what I do. I mother, nothing else, just mother. I am inspirational. Not only that, I am aspirational. And soon I will be a blogstar. Even someone who was raised by a pack of lions can transform their life.

7) Stats. Learn what they are and how to read them. Live by, breathe them and check hourly. Oh man, do I know my stats. I think it’s good to get to know your stats. Because if you don’t love your own stats how will anyone else love them. Self stat love is the often the best kind.

8) Link like a pimping bitch ho, especially to famous bloggers. Ok here goes it. I am going to learn how to link right here, right now. I will even link to another blogger who tried linking for the first time recently and she hit a bullseye, with John Cusack adding a comment on her blog. She’s been blogging on and on about it, so I’ll link to her. I like to refer to her as the John Cusack stalker. And here’s another few links here, here and here. And my favourite ever.

9) Do loads of memes. Here is where I come unstuck. WTF is a meme. No time to google. You don’t get medals (or followers) for googling. Now click on the follow button – you know where it is.

10) Write about how perfect your children are. Why write about that? Everyone KNOWS my children are PERFECT. They have perfect hair, perfect smiles, perfect little hands, perfect manners, perfect sleep patterns, perfect chevapchichi-shaped poops, perfect eating habits, perfect, perfect, perfect. And it all comes down to me. Since I became a mother, I have been perfect at it. I am the perfect mother. Do no wrong. Absolute perfection.

11) Nothing is off limits. Stay tuned. I have some pretty meaty blog posts coming up. There’s one about my vagina, my friend’s vagina, her Aunt’s vagina and her Aunt’s brother-in-law who was once married to a vagina. But they had a nasty divorce, things got a bit hairy and well, it was time to move on to cleaner pastures. He is now a rug salesman, but that’s another story.

12) The best ratio for review posts to real posts is 5:1. Send me free stuff and I will review it. Anything. I have no limitations, no moral high ground here. I will review ANYTHING, as long as it means I get more followers. I’d even review the Two and a Half Men box set. And that is scooping pretty low.

13) Slag off other bloggers. This one I haven’t really got the backbone for, so leave a comment and then I’ll slag you off. It’s easier that way, then I can really target my insults. And then, I’ll comment on your blog, with a link back to me. And then I’ll tweet about it, with a link back to this blog entry. And then every four hours for two days I’ll post it on Twitter and Facebook so people will be compelled to read my blog and then they might even follow me and put a comment up and then I’ll slag them off. What goes around, comes around. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen.

14) If anybody says anything bad about you, threaten to sue them. Ok, I’ll do that. I’ll use all the money I make from my blogtastic blog to pay for the legal costs because I am going to make a lot of moolah out of blogging. I am going to be RICH.  Because everyone who blogs get rich, don’t they?

15) If you are finding the above aren’t working for you then you need to break out the big guns. Complain about how few people read your blog, how miserable your life is and that you are going to give up blogging forever. Well it’s true. If by the end of this week I haven’t reached at least 10,000 ‘followers’ I will give up. I mean, I am only blogging for ‘followers’. For NO other reason. Not for myself, not because I’ve missed writing, not because when I escape into the world of words it makes me happy. I only do it so people like me more, they show their appreciation by ‘following’ me. More ‘followers’ = more popularity. I want to be cool. I’ve never been the cool kid. I will give up blogging forever if I think no-one reads me. It will be ALL YOUR FAULT *shakes fists in the air, falls to knees and wails “why doesn’t anyone love me”*

And now I am going to add another to the list….

16) Copy and paste large sections of other much more popular blog entries and address each point, in the hope that some of their followers will then read your blog and then decide to also follow you.

Have you got any more tips for me on how to become a blogstar? I need all the help I can get.

PS: A big thank you to A Note From Lapland for your hysterically funny and helpful blog post.