Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Howdy mates! I apologize for the lack of updates.

*crickets*

What’s that? You weren’t waiting with bated breath for my next post?

Well.

I’ll stifle my pride for your sake.

Just this once.

Some news: There’s a really cool guy I first came across on Twitter, name of Randy, aka @TheWineWhore,  with whom I’ve been having some great wine-related excchanges of late. He is definitely a passionate awine guy, and to my pleasure, is very open and accessible. Thus a few nights ago, on a charitable whim, I purchased some advertising real estate on his website.

Wha?!?!

Yes, yes, I am aware that I don’t have a business. But Randy is a powerhouse in the wineblogging community and for the very reasonable fee of $25 I’ve obtained a bumpersticker, a tshirt, and one month of having my blog featured prominently on the wine whore’s couch.  Check his site (No really, GO NOW!) and you’ll see what I mean.

I figure that if 15-25% of the peeps that check out his blog click over to mine, I will have some fantastic traffic momentum built up heading into the New Year. What do I get out of this? By virtue of this purchase (I could have had a nice bottle of wine for that amount) I’m giving myself added pressure to blog daily, and to really put some sweat into this wine enterprise. Additionally, if one believes the self-branding argument, I’m cultivating those precious eyeballs which,  in the business world = advertising dollars.

I’ve put three wine related videos up on my YouTube Channel in the last couple of days, and will be balancing video with my writing in the coming months.

Things to Do:

1. Figure out a Logo
2. Decide if CraigsWineJourney should be CJsWineJourney (in accord with my twitter account @CJsWine (which you should be following already).
3. Contact Tammy Hart, of Tammy Hart Designs, for help fine-tuning and optimizing this website.
4. Enroll in school to knock out the pre-requisite classes to apply to UC-Davis’ viticulture program
5. Buy a Mino Hd flip-cam
6. Blog Daily
7. Videos whenever I have an idea
8. Start hitting the Bham wine scene; HARD
9. Create accounts on popular Wine forums at Natalie McLean’s site, the WineAdvocate, Corkd, and CellarTracker
10. Read Wine and Food Blogs and COMMENT!!!!!
11. Keep up w/ my social media mentors Sean Malarkey, Lewis Howes, Harrison Painter, Tim Moore, Jamie Crager, Wade Kwon and many others. You should add these peeps on Twitter if you want to know anything about how to use social media.
12. ASK QUESTIONS

Today Gary Vaynerchuk will be in Atlanta. I am going. Tomorrow he will be in Montgomery. Also going.

Merry Christmastime to everyone out there. I hope this special time of year is full of precious memories with your respective loved ones. Be well.

-CJW

[Via http://craigswinejourney.wordpress.com]

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