B'Liz wrote a recently featured post in which they exposed 7 Truths and Fictions about Featured Posts.
The subject of featured posts is one of those that gets the Active Rain membership all hot and bothered. Some are thrilled to tiny-little-pieces "Hey! I done got me one of them stars!", and others fret relentlessly that their beautifully crafted posts have gone unreasonably unnoticed, in favour of some favourite bloggers who always, always, always get the stars.... did I mention they were teacher's pets?
Let's see if we can follow along with a similar post, and perhaps a counter-point.
1) Not every featured post actually deserved to get featured. We have all seen posts that can barely speak English, let alone carry a coherent thought throughout entire post. This is likely an indication that Bob Stewart, Kerrie, or whomever was at the God-panel that evening, was probably choosing featured posts whilst driving through the Taco-Bell drive-through.
2) Just because there ain't no comments yet, don't mean that the post ain't just bee-yoo-tee-ful, and worthy of a gold star. After all, who knows what joke will appear funny whilst driving through the Taco-Bell drive-through? Besides, once it's featured, the comments will fill-up thereby proving the feature-fairy correct. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.
3) Now B'Liz tells us that there is no magic number of posts that entitles you to a feature, but we both know the s/he's wrong about that. Let's dissect that, shall we? As of today, including their current post, they have written 2,474 posts... and of those posts 453 of them have been featured (egads, that's a respectable amount of features!) That means that they get a feature for just about about 18% of their posts. As Debbie Gartner points out in comment #6, that's about 1 in 5 posts. Now, in fairness, not all of us can write as eloquently as B'Liz so we shouldn't expect the same results... so how about a feature for every 10 posts... yeah, that sounds about right... every 10 posts.
4) Monkey Business. Features do increase monkey business. The more features you get the more comments you'll garner, and the more comments you garner, the more likely you are to attain shenanigans. And we all know that monkey business and shenanigans result in additional business.
5) If you're not getting featured, don't blame it on the Ambassadors. Blame it on the Feature Fairy... I'm thinkin' these days that's gotta be Bob Stewart... I'll give you his cell phone so you can call him and ask him why you haven't been featured this week. Dial 1-800-hey-you!
6) Most featured posts don't make much sense. After all, Ben Kinney doesn't really want any competition, so he's going to make sure that the featured posts don't have any relevance at all to real estate, particularly if you're anywhere near the Pacific Northwest.
7) Reputation. We, as members of the illustrious Active Brain, have a reputation for foolishness, and the Feature Fairies are going to make sure that we maintain that reputation by featuring the silliest posts they can find. I mean, one day they even featured a shopping list, (go figure). And the more familiar they become with your reputation, the less likely they're going to be to feature you, let alone read your blog.
8) B'Liz didn't write an eighth point, so I've got nuthin'. Let's just be careful out there, alright?
Comments (23)Subscribe to CommentsComment