From the Desk of Devin Jeanel April 22, 2008: The continuing presentation of Devin's vision. The vision for the new Starlite has been painted in broad terms. Today, I want to speak to just one aspect of the vision. I would like to talk about how Starlite can help your poetry get better read. How can we help you be more successful? If you are interested in only the social aspect (fun stuff), feel free to bail now. The next newsletter will cover the social and fun part of Starlite, which is just as important.

Even though there are some of us that enjoy just writing in a journal hidden behind the bookshelf, a lot of us would like our words to reach out to someone else. We would like to feel other people are impacted by our poetry, either to help, to make them cry, to feel fear, or shout with joy. How can Starlite help you reach your goal?

First, we want to share a special Mothers Day promotion. Lambeth-Troxler Funeral Service has asked to partner with Starlite on a project. At this time of the year, they take small gifts to the local nursing homes. It is a wonderful idea that shares love with someone who many not have anyone else. This year, they plan to deliver a bookmark with a packet of seeds. On the back of the bookmark will be our selected Mother's day poem. We are excited about this opportunity for not only the chance to touch a life, but also to get one of our poets better read. Look for the special Mother's Day Challenge coming in the next couple days for more details.

Second item of interest is something you probably have already noticed; the new tab menus. As new readers arrive on the site, it is important that they quickly see a navigational path for our site. We needed to make it as easy as possible for someone who sees our pages for the first time to find something of interest. Currently, they tend to be quite full and yes even cluttered.

As I started this newsletter, I mentioned that I was focusing on getting you read. Now let me share something with you...

Go to http://google.com
Enter the following into the search window:

site:thestarlitecafe.com devinjeanel

(but replace devinjeanel with your userid.)

This search will show you how much name recognition you are getting via Starlite. As you will see, each activity that you do on Starlite is picked up and indexed by Google. So each time you add a poem to a celebration, garden or challenge, it is added to Google's Index. Each time that your poems are bookmarked or you are added as a friend, you add another item to Google Index. Remember, the objective is to get you read, but before you can be read, you have to be found. Take a look at how your userid is indexed and then look at some of your friends. Since Google has registered us as a site that changes quickly, new entries will appear in the search results list very quickly.

A related feature will be coming to your HomePage tab soon...a quick summary of your investment in Starlite. You will be able to see the number of poems, number of friends, mailing lists, bookmarked poems, challenges, etc. It will be a great way of seeing which areas you are heavily involved in and which you might want to work on more. We recognize that you have a lot more invested in Starlite than your poetry.

The last thing that I would like to offer to you is some thoughts of how to build your readers.

Linked Group -- Try the linked poetry groups. Any Starliter can create one of these groups on any subject. After you create the group, it is open for other Starliters to add their contribution. Each poem that is added to the group is given a link back to the rest of the group. So when you participate in a linked poetry group, you benefit from the traffic generated from the other poems.

Photo-- I suggest a photo of some sort for your homepage. It will make you eligible to be a Featured Poet. More importantly, it will help people to visualize you and therefore connect to you better. Here is a Devin saying.. "people tend to read people more than they do poems. If they like the person, they will be much more likely to read the poem."

Bio-- tell us something about yourself. It doesn't have to be your darkest secret. However, it is nice to allow the reader to identify with something about you.

Comment-- Take a look at some of the challenge winners and comment on their poems. The comment works in two ways. It will encourage the poet to read your poems. It will also serve as advertising for you to other people who read the comments. The poet gets a well thought out comment, and you are seen as a someone who they may want to check out.

As with everything at Starlite, these are all tools for you. Feel free to use the ones that appeal to you, and disregard the ones that don't interest you. As we said at the beginning, we are doing everything we can to increase the traffic to your poems. We will continue to add new tools on a regular basis.

Next time, we will talk about the fun and relaxing part of Starlite.

Devin Jeanel
Starlite Poetry


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