I remember when I started Active Rain a little over 2 years ago - lost, confused, isolated and CLUELESS about featured posts. I thought I would never get one. I remember reading a post by Margaret Woda entitled Re-discovering my first FEATURED post on Active Rain. In there, she mentioned that she had 100 Featured posts!
I was blown away. I couldn't even figure out how to get 1 featured post, and Margaret had 100!. How the heck did she do that? And, what the heck was I doing wrong? Anyway, in this post down memory lane for her, she promised that if people went to find their first featured post, she would reblog it, and I thought that was a nice gesture. I told myself that if I ever got to her level, I would do the same and help the AR community.
Margaret's thinking was that if it got featured, it probably has wide appeal and it's probably also timeless. I think her logic is great, so I'm inviting you all to do the same in the comments.
For me, the journey started out slow. My first featured post was the 23rd post I wrote...but it did not get featured right away (I had written 46 posts by the time it was featured). I remember getting frustrated because I wasn't getting any features...and I had invited 2 other members who got featured on their first post. Somehow, that just didn't seem fair. But, I knew, some of it was just luck.
When I first started, I had very few subscribers, especially because my topics were so "niche." After all, I'm not a real estate agent, I'm a Flooring Girl (although last I checked, most homes have floors). So, I kept plugging away, and learning and commenting and eventually I got a few subscribers. And, then, I got more comments, had more fun and learned more and it became a virtuous cycle, but certainly not over night.
Here's a link to my first featured post:
Bamboo Flooring. Is it hard or soft?
It's fun to go back and read some of the comments, especially from those that you now know and see here in the Rain on a regular basis. And, here I am 26 months later and I did what Margaret did, so it is possible.
So, I invite you to look back at your first featured post. Feel free to add a link here, and I will reblog it over the next couple of weeks or so. Oh, and if you want some good blog posts to read, check out the comments - I'm sure there will be some great ones.
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