I was born and raised in the Seattle-area (read: suburbs) to parents who migrated West from the great cornfields of Iowa (or something romantic like that). I spent many summers crossing the Western United States on various pilgrimages to-and-from Grandparents houses and I can name all fifty states in alphabetical order and lay them out on a map from memory.

I spent my college years studying hipsterdom first-hand in the great city of Portland, Oregon, but made the journey back “home” to Seattle upon graduation.

I am – and always will be – a native Seattleite.

But as another Seattleite pointed out to me this past weekend – we are “rare.”

So today on Twitter I jokingly asked  –

How long must one be a resident to become a “Seattleite”? – asks the native Seattleite

— Laura Kimball (@lamiki) March 27, 2012

Because, in all honestly, I don’t know where being a “Seattlelite” starts and ends if you’re (gasp!) imported. And got the following responses –

@lamiki I always say 10 years. #native #seattle #seattleite

— Keridwyn Deller (@keridwyn) March 27, 2012

@lamiki Isn’t it a state of mind more than a length of time?

— kalen (@kalenski) March 27, 2012

@lamiki I considered myself a Seattleite after a year. Something about that city just clicked. Took much longer to call myself a New Yorker!

— kat selvocki (@shinyredtype) March 27, 2012

@lamiki 1 day

— Ken (@kenfucious) March 27, 2012

@lamiki well it takes nearly 20 years to be local in Colorado:) Everyone else is just passing through

— Kendall Ruth (@iamkendal) March 27, 2012

@lamiki When they can walk by the Space Needle without taking a photo of it.

— David Hoang (@davidhoang) March 28, 2012

My question to you  – when do you officially become a local?

Photo Credit: Laura Kimball (me!)

This morning as I was doing metrics for my own social media handles, I noticed something very, very odd when I went to bitly to check how many people clicked on the links I shared on Twitter last week:

My tweets get an average of 300 clicks per week, so 300 in one single day is outrageous!

It took me a little digging to realize that it came down to this one tweet…that Harley Davidson retweeted.

How to get People on Twitter to Retweet and Click on your Tweets

When it comes to being successful on Twitter, most people talk about how many followers a person has and how many more you can get, fast.

This is because you can easily see how many followers a person has on Twitter (very transparent), so the challenge has been how to get more followers on Twitter fast. Building a large following on Twitter is easy (just Google it). But there’s no point of having thousands of followers if they don’t respond or click on what you tweet.

I spend an enormous amount of time curating what I share on Twitter and Facebook each week. I love content, read a lot, and I want to provide value, not noise to this mess called social media. But it’s not just what you tweet, it’s how you tweet it.

Based on the basics of content curation and how I wrote the Harley Davidson tweet, here are three things that I found that help get my tweets read, clicked on, and shared. (more…)

There was some pretty stellar content floating around the Internet last week, but perhaps the best thing I stumbled upon was CrossFit Ryan Gosling (full set on Facebook and on the co-creator’s blog).

Ryan Gosling, the Meme

“Hey Girl,” the meme, was originally started by Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling on tumblr, and made famous by Danielle Henderson’s Feminist Ryan Gosling. The blog was started as a joke to keep track of the theorists she is studying as she works towards her graduate degree in gender studies. The content has no affiliation to Ryan Gosling, the actor, and as with most things we encounter online, it doesn’t really matter because Henderson’s content is so damn entertaining.

Like all good memes, spin offs happen, and last week I ran into the most amazing rendition of the “Hey Girl” meme and that is CrossFit Ryan Gosling.

CrossFit Ryan Gosling was created (I believe) by Gabe Billings and Robin Runyan out of Eugene, Oregon and shared like mild wildfire on Facebook last week. You can view all 21 photos (so far) here.

Why CrossFit Ryan Gosling works: A Lesson in Marketing

The reason why Feminist Ryan Gosling worked so well and is (arguably) more famous than the original is because of a few reasons:

1) Know Your Audience

People who are “subject matter experts” of the target audience created Feminist Ryan Gosling and CrossFit Ryan Gosling who these pictures were created for. The person behind Feminist Ryan Gosling is studying gender issues; the people behind CrossFit Ryan Gosling is a CrossFitter. They wrote captions for people who are like them and about things that matter.

The fact that Ryan Gosling is featured is for entertainment only.

Takeaway: Know your audience intimately.

2) Find Your Niche and Stick to it

According to Know Your Meme, “Hey Girl” was created in December 2008 but made famous by Feminist Ryan Gosling when it came to the scene in the fall of 2011 and was featured on Ms. Magazine blog, The Huffington Post, GQ, Newsweek, Bust, and about a dozen more.

Why did Feminist Ryan Gosling do better than the original “Hey Girl” in such a short amount of time? Because Feminist Ryan Gosling had a very specific purpose: feminist flash cards.

Granted, I haven’t spent much time on the original site, but the name is telling – “Fuck Yeah!” doesn’t really tell me what your site and your content is about, whereas Feminist and CrossFit does.

Takeaway: When given the opportunity, specialize and become an expert over being a generalist.

3) Do it Because You Want to

The best part about Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling, Feminist Ryan Gosling, and CrossFit Ryan Gosling are that they are all fans – of the topics they parody at least. If you want to create some great content that will have some “stickiness” to it, you have to enjoy what you’re doing and come from a place of curiosity or heart.

CrossFit Ryan Gosling was created because someone at the creator’s gym came up with the idea and the set is what they all came up with. The creators are CrossFitter themselves. They’re not getting paid and they probably did it because they wanted to. And that’s what it’s all about.

Takeaway: You will create something noteworthy if you love the topic you’re creating first.

In Other Sunday Serial News

When you’re done lusting over Ryan Gosling, here are a few other articles for you to read:

• Do you want more engagement OR more traffic to your blog? by Mack Collier on MackCollier.com
• 5 lessons from the world’s most successful online community manager by Monica Guzman on GeekWire
• Brands, don’t kill your social feed by over-automating it by Doron Simovitch on VentureBeat
• The myth of the eight-hour sleep by Stephanie Hegarty on BBC Magazine

What did you read this week?

Post updated on April 22, 2012 to reflect multiple authors and the official web “home” of CrossFit Ryan Gosling to be here. Thanks, Gabe and Robin for stopping by!

Hey, did you hear that my blog turned two this past week? I wish I could tell you that I’ve been celebrating by stuffing my face with all sorts of metaphorical cake – but I haven’t. Instead I’ve been reading, and here is the best of that I encountered last week.

Babies can understand what you’re saying at just 6 months old by Robert T. Gonzalez on iO9

Read this because: You have babies, or you don’t, but you are curious about how the developing mind works. This article is about a recent study that shows that babies, as young as six months old, are able to identify nouns when associated to objects. Fascinating.

How Bad Do You Want It? By Sam Davidson on Sam Davidson

Read this because: You’ve heard the story about young business man who meets a guru on a beach, but you’ve never read it before – Sam shares this story on his blog with some advice:

“When a want is unmet, we may feel uncomfortable. We might get sad or upset. Life can continue. But when a need is unmet – we suffer. We cringe, react, and are thrown off course. Something is amiss and we have to set everything else aside until we fix it.

Get rid of your wants. Start needing your dreams. Until you can’t go another day without chasing a passion, you’ll never lace up your shoes and get going. Once it becomes crucial to your happiness and wellbeing, then you’re ready to run.”

How Social Media Can Makes Us Antisocial by Tac Anderson on NewCommBiz

Read this because: You believe that social media has changed the world for the better. But then why are you sitting at home on a Friday night surfing Facebook to see who’s doing what or who’s also online in hopes that someone will send you a Facebook message?

Social media, while it gives us access to the lives of our “friends,” isn’t really all that social. It gives the appearance of being social, but in reality, it distances us from them and them from us. You have over 500 friends on Facebook, but when was the last time you called one of them to wish them a happy birthday in real life?

What did you read this week?

Photo Credit: Casey David

There are some weeks when you cruise the Internet and find nothing of value. Nothing that tells you to think about something you never thought you’d think about, nothing that tells you how to turn your perspective and gaze into the eyes of the same thought for a new time.

This wasn’t one of those weeks. This past week, three gems floated across my radar that flipped three usual thoughts on their heads: we should never have admired Disney Princesses; the customer is always right; and why you will quit your day job to live your passions.

Plus, two bonus articles that will make you a grammar and email snob. Enjoy!

How to Defend Princesses, Give the Finger to Your Community, and Why You Won’t Quit Your Day Job

Day 125: In defense of Disney – At our house, princesses love yoga and disco. by Harmony Hasbrook on 100 Days or More

Read this because: You loved Disney princesses when you were little and have spent every day of your life since you were eight years old learning how these fairy tales that Walt Disney Studios capitalized on were bad for you. They set you up to believe that you would grow up like a dainty little flower and were nothing until Prince Charming came to rescue you.

They were wrong. To most little girls, we did not see them the way that we’re told to see them as an adult. They represent something more than that; they are something that only the world of child’s imagination can create.

Bonus reading material: I shared a link to Harmony’s post on Facebook this week, here were the responses:

Listen to Your Community, But Don’t Let Them Tell You What to Do by Jeff Atwood on Coding Horror

Read this because: As a community manager, one of the most awkward things you can do is ask my community what they think about a product or what features they can see. But what makes it awkward is asking that question if you know that there’s no way in hell that your development team will implement any feature request that comes from that community. So don’t ask the damn question.

This is a great blog post that shows a different side of community management. It’s a great read, for community managers and non-community managers alike.

Why You Won’t Quit Your Job by Daniel Gulati on Harvard Business Review Blog

Read this because: You hate your day job, or perhaps “hate” is too strong of a word. You’re not happy with this life, whatever this life is. And you know exactly what you want to be doing instead. You don’t want to work for them anymore. You want to work for yourself and do what you’ve always dreamed of doing. You want to set your passion free and chase it to wherever it’s going to take you.

Well, I’m sorry to say that if you were going to do that, you would have by now.

In this article, Gulati has revealed why most people described above will not make the leap that they really, really want to do. Since I heard the first person say to me – Quit your day job! Follow your passion! Live the life you want! – I’ve been skeptical as to why the majority of those people who cry and tell others to do it, haven’t even done it for themselves.

How to Become a Grammar and Email Snob

And we’ll cap of this week’s edition of Sunday Serial by linking to two articles with healthy tips on how to be a better you, through writing:

1. 20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes by Jon Gingerich on LitReactor
2. Want People to Return Your Emails? Avoid These Words by Sarah Kessler on Mashable

What did you read this week?

Photo Credit: Al-khairi