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Mel, I can't tell you how many times I've told people USE YOUR BLOG!!!!!! I see these great detailed back and forths and the only platform benefiting is Facebook. It's so damn frustrating to witness. People have come to realize now that I won't get into a lot of back and forth on Facebook. I've even shared with people how easy it is to add content to their sites using a great Wordpress feature named Press This. One of the guys that writes on CBP I taught how to use it and we can easily update the site everyday if desired. I think I will do a video on that for people because it's so basic. Big news for both of you, because you know that's how the board rolls, Disqus has now monetized their feedback system. You both need to take the time to go to the new section and submit your sites that use Disqus. It's called Discus Reveal. I submitted my sites yesterday and I'm waiting on the response, but this is good. If everyone forced the dialogue back to their monetized platforms then change begins to happen and people become a bit more empowered.

Astute observation! I think the hardest thing is not getting swept up in the "conversation" for example; I got caught up in the political implications of Justice Scalia's death allow for President Obama to make a move before he leaves office ... If I would have taken the opportunity to first blog about it then tweet from my blog...I could have capture some passers-by in my excitement. It isn't a habit I've cultivated it - but thinking about my online property as a platform first then sharing my ideas - is what I need to work on.

Off-topic but not really... The same day I tweeted the best black blog list... my own blog - www.dailymindf-ck.com got 786 page views within a few hours... I NEVER get that many page views in one day, ever and that's my most popular blog on blogger ...(I have about 4 on blogger and 1 on wordpress. All of which I'm in the process of consolidating). When I looked at my traffic sources it linked back to aalbc.com with my blog name. The dailymind is the one blog I uploaded to the huria blog list. I think I added blog.theleadstory.net too Even if I faked it, I still couldn't make sense of how I got all those pageviews. The tweet only had 85 impressions and 0 clicks on the link I'm going to wait a couple of days and again tweet the list again to see if happens again.

You know I love to see the stats because numbers are hard to fudge when the data is clear. Great analysis and it only cements my position on social media. However, while I know that social media doesn't really translate to conversions, I don't think completely removing yourself from social is going to happen... unless what you mean is that you aren't promoting info on social outright. I stand by the idea that you have to be where the people are because the people don't search as much and Facebook is now showing up in search so - I just realized why you said you won't post there. By posting to Facebook directly from your account it builds a redundancy and Facebook gains preference in search for your site. By continuing to post through the AALBC site on Facebook that site gains preference in search vs your site. I would say there is a conundrum, but I know from my own experience how little traffic arrives to my site via social media outlets. The majority of my traffic is direct or search. It is more important to generate content than it is to share via social for what you do. I do think that continuing to use social sharing buttons is important because it is how other people tend to share your information. Definitely a good breakdown. I will have a new analysis for a Facebook Ad for CBP Music by next week. I'm waiting on the numbers from iTunes and Amazon mp3 and streaming, on sales for the first half of February to come in so I can do a direct comparison to the increase/decrease/no change in sales. This will be a true test since both of the artists are old cats in their 70s who aren't on social media at all. The majority of their sales and streams come from abroad. I will share it when the numbers come in.

While I'm not the biggest fan of Squarespace, I do love that the layout is very clean. Your old blog posts, all of that good stuff, can be imported into a Squarespace site. Here is the link here: https://answers.squarespace.com/questions/28921/import-website-from-wordpress.html On your project page you need to hyperlink your bookstore site to the page so people won't have to copy and paste the link. I bought hosting and a domain for a jazz musician I dig and he decided to use Squarespace. I really dig the way he is running his site. You should peep it here: http://www.brandonmeeksmusic.com B Meeks is playing Ron Carter in the new Miles Davis biopic. Thank you for the blessings and keep pushing forward. I try to add information when I can and when I visit someone's site. Especially when that person has a catalog of really dope writing. Definitely take the time to Export from Wordpress and Import into Squarespace so all of those articles are in the same place. I know you are attempting to separate the two projects, your blogging (not safe for kids) and your book, but in my mind that creates a fractured search. I may be wrong and I'd love for @Mel Hopkins to throw her ideas into the discussion and of course @Troy to add on. I think the more we help build each other up the better it will be for all of us. Each one, teach one.

I am an avid reader, writer, poet, looking to share my world with those who share the same passion. God Bless and Much Success to all!!

Good suggestions...I'm just worried that they aren't able to be implemented. As an example, I once made a call for writers for my blog. The requirement was the bloggers all needed their own platforms and had all of their ad revenue channels set up so that when they wrote an article that was about a book for instance, they could add their own Amazon Affiliate code. I eventually only added 1 writer and that writer has done a very good job, but consistency is the issue. I'd like to add more writers, but inevitably the writers only want to focus on their own sites. They don't realize that the real strength is in co-ops. It's why I choose to spend my social media time here on AALBC and Facebook. I feel that I have good engagement and it benefits AALBC for me to share what I know or have learned. It also benefits me to be associated with the oldest Black Lit company on the web. I enhance the pockets of the owner as opposed to just throwing away all of my equity to billionaires who sell my info. I choose Facebook because if I do well I will need to be on one of these outlets (Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Instagram) to reach those people who don't understand the importance of visiting websites. Whew, that was a lot to say and ask you this, how does this get implemented and started?

Do monthly thematics with groups of bloggers by blog subject matter, have an overall monthly theme that everyone participates. Post and follow a schedule to engage on each other's blogs around the theme. Use social media to cross promote the posts about the topic making it something of a month long round table discussion. Win win win for bloggers... readers and demographic impacted by the topics of discussion. Schedule themes around topics that are being discussed globally... have a common place to announce thematic changes for breaking news topic changes like 1)the Cosby scandal when it happened, 2)a new Black Lives Matter incident, 3) political developments during the voting season... Even when it is "entertainment" based blog subject matter discussing how current national news events impact the subject matter covered by the blog.