Before i get into the numbers i thought I’d just give my overview and thoughts. I think i have been doing an OK job so far of actually trying to boost my web presence, i have been blogging on a occasion basis, updating my twitter feed and looking at trends, as well as regularly checking my Google rankings. But i know i need to do more, so I’m gonna up my game as far as blogging and twitter goes so hopefully by update #2 i feel like i should have a 8/10 for effort rather than the 3/10 i feel like so far.

Coding In The Darkness meets Google spider

Although if you have a look at the image to the right, Google found my blog after 45 minutes of posting, so i was very happy with that! I’ll wait to see how well my other posts and website go down but was shocked to see that the blog was picked up so quick when it wasn’t ranked in at least the top 10 pages before and it jumped to 6th.

So the stats so far;

• Twitter follower increase by 5 to 31 (I have had more followers but i seem to be losing some, maybe i am not interesting enough!)
• Blog views was 128 now 223 with an average of 5 views per day
• Facebook – i have decided to drop this stat as i just think it won’t be a good measure
• LinkedIn – still 23 connections, i haven’t done much with LinkedIn put i am looking to get involved with groups soon so we’ll see what comes of it, hopefully some good connections

Google Results

• ben scowen – 5,650 results, 7 out of 10 on the front page are all me and this blog is 6th!
• “ben scowen” – 121 results, same as above

I haven’t looked at anything else yet but i am going to try and impact the top 100 for:

• scowen
• ben! – Will have some competition for that one
• Not sure what else maybe London freelance web designer etc, let me know your ideas.

That will do for this update, i am off now to write some code, buy my domain and re-enter the Twitter-sphere, but next time i am going to add some data from various twitter mash ups, and some more blog stats, but before i go here is a great piece by MediaSnackers who have a guide for entering Social Media for beginners >,
enjoy.

I have been keeping a watch on this for the past 2 or 3 days now and i just find the whole concept very funny. (Link to story here)
The fact that a) CNN @cnnbrk has only just got ownership of the account, so technically they have only really earned the last 80,000 or so followers, b) That of all of the twitter accounts out there it has fallen upon Ashton Kutcher @aplusk to try and steal this race.
I have nothing against Ashton, i like him actually and i have chosen to follow him because his posts seem interesting enough, i just was surprised that there is only one news feed against two celebs for the first mill (Including Britney Spears @britneyspears who is third).

I suppose it confirms the fact that we are more interested in celebrity culture than news, well celeb news is news but you know what i mean.

I like the whole story as its just a nice fun story in the news for a change and whoever wins the Malaria charity’s and suffers will benefit which is great. Also the special number followers who will get games by EA is cool and should help up the numbers!

Also found this of Ashton on YouTube helping to fight the cause, all i can say is one man, nearly a million followers, what would happen if this guy ran for president, or worse if Britney Spears did!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8AcfKGaEI]

Anyway if you want to follow me and help me get to 100 followers i can be found here @BenScowen, maybe I’ll do something for charity too, but you will get no games!

TTYL

I’ve been reading  alot lately about what makes a good blogger and web writer i guess unsurprisingly it’s similar to writing a good book, you have to know your audience and present your content in an interesting way. But how exactly do you do that when there are no doubt thousands of blogs already which know your audience and know how to grab them in?

So I’ve been thinking what do i need to do to find my voice, grab my audience and most important find what to write about.

I reckon it will take me a while to figure all of that out nut for now a little link dump is in order:

http://www.socmedia101.com/ – Very cool site i found a few hours ago, i will be checking often
http://www.viralvideochart.com/ – Try not to get addicted, good tool for learning if your interested or a great way to waste 30 minutes!
http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/category/helpsheets – Great for Web Designers – Simpellz!

Hope that craves your thirst of Ben for the day…

Basically as it stands i have:

• 175 Friends on Facebook
• 26 Followers on Twitter
• A very Old MySpace and Bebo page
• A nearly finished Web Site
• YouTube & Flickr accounts
• And this blog which needs a good shot in the arm

I admit i am selective and don’t add just anyone, i know >90% of my FB friends for instance.

So the EXPERIMENT!
How famous can i get by the end of the year?
Basically i have no idea how i am going to measure it but i want see how many “friends”, “followers”, “subscribers”, how high up the google rankings i get when i search for “Ben Scowen” (and how many are actually me).
I have to learn a lot more about good blogging, SEO, Social Media but there is no better test subject than myself.

So i will set some rules to make the test fair throughout and not cheat.

1. I will not request people to be my friend, follow etc, they must want to join me on there own accord
2. I will blog, tweet, video blog etc as often as possible but at least once a week
3. On certain sites i will become or follow someone but not ask them for a return, i want to make myself visible without forcing myself upon people.

That’s it for rules unless i get some good suggestions, i will post weekly or monthly updates on my progress with graphs etc for all you stat geeks out there.

That’s it, if you have any advice, or can find anyone else who has done similar so i can compare please let me know, but for now,

Stay Classy (Maybe i need a new non Ron-Burgundy sign off?)