2016, meme, top ten tuesday

[Top Ten Tuesday] – #100 – Benefits of the Top Ten Tuesday Meme

45 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.

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This Week’s Theme:
Celebrating 100 Weeks:
Benefits of the Top Ten Tuesday Meme

Initial Thoughts:

This is the 100th week in which I’ve participated in Top Ten Tuesday (out of a possible ~115 ish I think).

Point is: I know how it feels to commit to this shit week in and week out and I’m here to tell you to keep on keeping because there’s a wealth of positives I’ve gained from doing this for more than two years.

Scheduled Freebie

Blogging is kinda like lifting heavy things and putting them back down (re exercising). If you turn it into a routine, then it has the potential be less burdensome or “need to post for the sake of posting” and more like a consistent check mark to your week of blogging.

This is where the power of scheduling posts in advance kicks in.

Pro-tip: while reviews are a book blogger’s bread and butter, regular meme participation sets the expectation that “there will be a post on this blog today”.

Visible Engagement

It’s a nice thought that you can blog on the merits of “doing your own thing” but I’m not here to sugarcoat it and say that stats aren’t important. Everything’s connected–content, engagement, networking–and one day of solid engagement (comments inclusive) gives a boost of blogging confidence and is akin to feeding that hamster within as it runs faster and faster on the wheel.

I mean…tell me you aren’t the least bit happy when you open your notifications and you see your content gains traction. The feels of visibility is a nice perk, okay?

Team Internet

This is all about effort and networking. Part of the equation is having to work for views. It’s kinda like “Follow-for-Follow’s” distant relative, “Comment-for-Comment“. It may not work all the time but there’s this underlying thought that people will comment back if you make the effort to extend the first olive branch. Plus, some of your future best Internet friends could be just a message away on TTT.

Now I know what you’re thinking: but joey, you suck shit at responding back to comments. And yes, I agree. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been horrid recently at commenting back (or replying back to comments left here) but do as I say and not as I do because in the past, when I spent hours dropping comments–let’s say I dropped 40-50 comments in total–roughly 75% of themwill comment back.

Pro-tip: I don’t recommend dropping the “nice list, check mine out [link here]!” on every single TTT list and expect people to gleefully gravitate towards yours. Once in a while is okay but I don’t think you want the notoriety that comes with those comments.

Blog Hopping Made Easy

For WordPress users specifically, all you really need is to have the tag link open (https://wordpress.com/tag/top-ten-tuesday) and you’re basically able to discover new voices and start building those bridges. It’s made infinitely easier than going through your standard feeds with an array of topics when TTT’s are narrow topics that can allow for easy responses.

Creative Leverage

Follow the prompts to-a-T or don’t follow them, what’s important is that you’re invested in what you’re vomiting. Many prompts have been boring or simply don’t work for me, so I either adapt them to fit what I want to say or cultivate those ideas to be used in alternative avenues of discussion instead.

That being said, not everyone has found my TTT changes accessible since I was essentially pulling the rug under those who come to expect the generic theme. Sometimes it works and many times it doesn’t. Case in point: Top Ten Tuesday gives you a cookie cutter and some dough but it doesn’t mean you can’t just throw the template out the window and make whatever the hell you want.

Discovering New Titles

This is self-explanatory but one of the goals of TTT lists is to expand and curate books onto your to-be-read piles as well as to find like minded individuals who you can flail with.

Afterthoughts:

Kudos to anyone who completes these weekly–you’re awesome.

Cheers,
Joey

connect: afterthoughtAn // twitter  |  anotherafterthought // goodreads

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45 thoughts on “[Top Ten Tuesday] – #100 – Benefits of the Top Ten Tuesday Meme”

  1. I’m a relative new blogger so I haven’t engaged in the community-wide book memes yet, but this post is really convincing, so I think I’ll start soon (well, a couple of months, after this school year is over). Great post! 🙂

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  5. Congrats on the TTT milestone! 😀 I was basically just nodding my head to everything you said in this post. Admittedly I did not know you could find all the wordpress Top Ten Tuesday posts in one tag haha. I always feel energized when I do these posts cause I like seeing the picks for the topic and also how you can spin the topic to suit you. 😀

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    1. I don’t want this to sound super negative but I do kinda wish bloggers wouldn’t take any prompt as some hard and fast “must follow” guideline because some posts I read feel so…I don’t know, disingenuous? As if they’re being doing for the sake of being done. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it though.

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      1. I definitely agree with you and if I was a tad bit more creative I’d be more likely to put a spin on the topic. I like seeing the different interpretations of the topic, it’s more exciting. 😀

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  8. Lol “invested in what you’re vomiting” I really like that phrase. I agree with what you say here. I definitely get a boost in stats when I do TTT, which makes me happy, and I think I end up following more new bloggers on Tuesdays too.

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  9. I’ve been very hesitant about participating in this blog meme as I’m pretty sure I’ll constantly be spitting out the same books. Before I started blogging, I didn’t really read for three whole years apart from the occasional novels my friends lent me. I didn’t actively look for books to read.

    But your discussion is very convincing! Maybe I will give this a shot once I sort my act together and have a larger diversity of read books under my belt. Great as always, Joey!

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    1. When I started doing the meme, I only had only read around ~20 books (that’s including academia) but I watched a lot of TV so I adapted the prompt to include that into the mix. Just something you could consider if # of books is what’s turning you off. Admittedly, it’s a struggle sometimes coming up with a full list of 10 but no one will chirp you if you don’t get reach the max.

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  11. Yes 😀 you do suck shit at responding back to comments lol but it’s understandable that you might feel overwhelmed by all the comments. It must take a really long time to respond to everyone.

    P.s. really seeing an improvement in your writing **thumbs up** not saying it was bad before.
    Thanks for the advice.

    Alina

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    1. LOOK, IT TOOK ME 6 DAYS TO RESPOND TO THIS COMMENT! That’s 24 days better than average haaaaaaah.

      The struggle for me is in the television. I swear I watch so much shit that after work it’s like “hello food and bed and comfort and mindless tv…goodbye blogging” and if I’m actually trying to work on the blog, it’s for posts that I feel bad for not keeping up with churning out content. Damn this is hard.

      And thank you for that comment! Made me happy haha.

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      1. LOL Good for u!
        TV is amazing, have u seen Daredevil yet? IM in LUUURVE with the Punisher.

        I know how u feel. Blogging is too much sometimes.

        Your welcome 🙂 I don’t intentionally observe writing, I can’t help it now. It started when I began working on my novel.

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          1. It took me a really long time too. I didnt enjoy the first season, had it on in the background whilst I did other things.
            Season 2 however takes a huge leap. Daredevil isn’t the main focus anymore, the secondary characters develop so much. You know when u watch something really good and it makes u want to write, thats how much I loved it :D…same thing happens when I watch GoT.

            Thank u, I’m doing camp Nano this month, 2nd day still havent written a thing.

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  12. This is a great post! I’ve done TTTs in the past but I don’t do them routinely. It’s great to hear that you’ve found doing these posts to be beneficial. Not that they are terribly hard to do, but as a semi consistent blogger, I always have a hard time getting them up in time lol. I get back on my TTT horse and write them up ahead of time! 🙂

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    1. You hit the nail on that one–it’s consistency. Sure you can churn 4-5 posts in a sitting (well, I can’t but others surely can) but time goes by damn quick and all those posts scheduled now turn into a hassle to have to queue up another several posts.

      It’s made infinitely worse when you’re doing them week by week.

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  13. 100 top ten Tuesday’s! *standing ovation** that’s seriously hard work Joey! Congrats man!! I think I’ve had this blog since like October 2014 and I haven’t even made 40 TTTs yet, I’m to lazy 80% of the time haha!

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      1. I feel the same way most of the time! Like, get your lazy ass up and write the easiest post ever!! haha! I do fail at doing it most of the time though!

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  14. I love reading TTT lists but I gotta admit, sometimes the same books come up over and over again and it can get repetitive. I like what you do with them though to make it unique to yourself! And yes, I’ve seen so many of those blog dropping links that I don’t even bother anymore.

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  15. Haha yeah, people who post TTTs every week are crazy! They’re really dedicated, and it would be awesome to be like them, with how focused they are! 😀
    Although I rarely post TTTs, the points you made here were really interesting! I recently posted a post about why I rarely post TTTs, and it was just interesting to read your post and compare it to my points haha 😀 You reminded me of why some people do do TTTs! 🙂

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    1. They have you fooled–memes are easy content to churn out but probably not the most “appreciated” posts as far as publishers are concerned LOL (at least that’s the vibes I get).

      But I think most of all people forget that readers can definitely read into what you post and see that you aren’t really into the TTTs you post etc. As if TTT is some soul draining post.

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  16. Great post, Joey! Love the self-awareness and analysis this post entails, as it forces you to reflect on your writing and what it accomplishes. Glad to see you still blogging on a consistent basis and having fun with it.

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  18. Wow. I absolutely loved loved *loved* the sheer attitude to this post. I found myself nodding along to everything that you were saying and it’s like you even further sparked that part of me that loves blogging and especially loved blogging more consistently. You made me want to pick up those weights. I loved this, especially, because it can be applied to life beyond blogging if you substitute or paraphrase: Top Ten Tuesday gives you a cookie cutter and some dough but it doesn’t mean you can’t just throw the template out the window and make whatever the hell you want.
    I sort of read this and it was like almost watching a video like I could see you lifting the weights. Great post is insufficient, this was excellent. Keep being a badass blogger!

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    1. I definitely do not lift weights; too brittle for that.

      Glad to hear this post poked you into the direction of wanting to blog more! Consistency, in my opinion, is the death of most bloggers who wither away from the honeymoon phase of finding their voice on the Internet as their actions start to feel machine-like — “oh look gotta review this soon, gotta do this post because it’s popular” — and while that is basically one’s blogging life, it’s so much more than that and I just hoped to remind people of the why.

      I guess my thought was that if someone couldn’t reflect on being able to answer “why this post”, then really, why post?

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