I haven’t been as active on this blog as previously, and part of that was due to the Twitter experimentation I was doing. Now that I have concluded that for the time being, I am going to be resuming my normal posting pattern of 5 times a week. Honestly, I miss blogging here! Other endeavors have been swallowing my time as of late, but I feel I learned some valuable lessons which I hope to share here.

First off, I welcome all the new readers that have started following this blog in the past month or so! I am glad you find my ramblings at the least entertaining, and hopefully, thought provoking. Since April, I have increased by almost 100 RSS readers! That is exciting to me. Thank you!

A good majority of the emails I receive on a day to day basis are regarding my experience with promoting using Twitter. Since that is the case, I am going to link to my three part series in this post, and they will be permanently linked on the sidebar.

Part One - Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends

Part Two - Don’t Take Promotion Personal With Twitter

Part Three - The Twitter Effect

Last week on Twitter, I asked if people would be interested in trading guest blogging posts. I received a number of responses so in addition to increasing my posting I will also be featuring guest posts, the first of which will be tomorrow. If anyone would like to trade posts or just be featured here with a guest post, feel free to contact me or leave a comment here.

I saw a posting on Flimjo doing a weekly recap of what was discussed on the blog the previous week. I liked the concept a lot. It was a good way to put everything all in one tidy post, and give love to those who have commented this week. I like the concept so I will be giving it a shot to see if it is worthwhile or not for the reader. Let me know your thoughts.

This week was a slower week in general as I was putting more effort in to a new layout at Review Chicago. For those who don’t know, Review Chicago is my newest website. It is dedicated to my hometown of Chicago, and I intend to make it a contributor based website. If you know anyone who lives in Chicago and would like to contribute, email me!

Sunday, April 20th I posted at length on how I use Facebook to promote a website or a blog. There are several tips included within the post, including simple instructions to creating a Facebook application.

On Monday, I discussed using alternative methods to drive traffic to your website. This is part one of a three part post. The other two parts will follow this week. In an additional post, I talked about Max Davis at the Blogging Experiment and a class he is offering on buying and selling websites.

On Wednesday, I authored an article on how to use Twitter to promote a blog. It sparked up some intresting dialogue in the comment portion.

Top Commentators This Week:

On Cath Lawson’s blog, there was an excellent guest post by Tim Brownson discussing whether or not one is a leader or one is a follower. It was a well written article and because of it I subscribed to his blog.

Diane wasn’t really active this week, but her blog is an excellent read. Check it out here.

James Mann posted a good column about focusing and taking care of business. His blog is one of those how to make money blogs, but he offers some good advice. Read and see for yourself.

Highlights from the big boys (or girls):

Darren at Pro Blogger has a great post on staying accessible to your readers even after your blog becomes more popular. He practices what he preaches, he is the biggest blogger ever to respond to an email I had sent. Some of the others have not. Caroline Middlebrook has a great new course on using StumbleUpon to drive traffic. Check it out here.

Upcoming this week:

This week I have a slew of posts coming out. I am starting a new weekly series profiling inspirational people and how their life stories can be applied to your blogging techniques. The first one is on Michael Jordan and will come out tomorrow. I also have a new wordpress theme review, this one on the Mimbo theme and a post on using timestamps effectively.

I intend to be more active here in the coming weeks, I have hit a lull with some of my other sites.

Cheers!