Mixing It Up

Many moons ago, I got to get in the ring with an Australian Olympic and Commonwealth Boxer, Grahame “Spike” Cheney. He had just started his professional career and his trainer ran a gym where I was doing kickboxing.

 

There was about a dozen of us doing this kickboxing course. By near the end of it I think there was 6 of us left. Our instructor AKA the gym owner AKA Spike Cheney’s trainer, thought he’d do us a favour by having us take turns getting in the ring and sparring with Spike. No legs, just hands.

I’m not sure if it was so much a favour for us or to give his prize fighter a good work out. We did 3 minute rounds, one after the other, even after pasting us for two rounds a piece he hadn’t yet broken a sweat.

I learned something in that ring that I’ve since applied to my online promotion strategies. That is to mix it up. Though I must say I learnt it the hard way in the boxing ring.

When you’re dancing around the ring taking on an opponent, or in the very least attempting to, and throwing your fist at his face, you need to think quick and not be repetitive. To be repetitive is to be predictable.

In my last round with him I found that throwing a left straight at his face was met with him knocking my hand down with his right, and then using the same right to jab me in the face. I shook my head and ducked and weaved, then came back in. And did the same exact thing.

I did it three times and was met with the same response. Then my brain told me, “do something different ya idiot!”

I came in swinging wildly with my right and clobbered him on the side of the head. Out of 3 or so rounds that was the only good punch I got in. He was clearly unimpressed and my elation was short lived. Even though I was feeling flogged from the sparring (and he didn’t get a break while I got a 15 minute breather between rounds) it would seem that Spike was actually holding back. I got smashed in the right cheek with his left (thankfully I was wearing headgear, even though he was not) and my mouthguard flew out and exited the ring. It was one of those moments where you can remember it in the third person, in slow motion.

Then he wound back with his right and I already could see the future, with my back on the canvas and tweety birds fluttering around my head.

Just when you could practically hear the cocking of a revolver as his arm reached back to the point where it would soon launch forward like a grenade the trainer called out “stop now!” or words to that effect. He could see what was going to happen.

Now lets fast forward some 20 years >>>

If you’re going to use Twitter and Facebook and other social networking/bookmarking sites you need to mix it up.

Don’t be predictable and go through each and every one like a laundry list of things to do every time you’ve just published a lens or a hub.

Not being predictable is something that might save you from being banned at a lot of sites. Whether its a person reporting you or a filter flagging you, it doesn’t take much to catch a person who is constantly linking to the same domain.

And aside from that, what about your audience. If they see you posting to the same webpage two or more times or using the same links and descriptions on each of your social media channels, they’re going to get bored and tune out very quickly. If all you’re doing is broadcasting noise, people won’t stick around for long.

Learn some new moves. Don’t be predictable. And entertain your audience.

Tags: mixing your strategy, unpredictable web tactics

Category: Social Bookmarking