I have a secret, and I want to share it with you. I did something recently that made a lot of people mad, and they probably hate me now. But hey, at least they’re talking about me. And that’s what’s important anyway. You see, when people talk about you, you get recognition. And recognition brings you traffic. New blogs, or in my case, a new blogger, needs to stir the pot a little to emotionally engage readers to induce commenting. You want to know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You know you do.

What I Did

I recently started a series of posts called the Weekly Whiskey Tango Foxtrot of Real Estate Blogs, which I lovingly refer to as the WTF. I basically find a really awful blog somewhere in cyberspace and explain all the things I see. Of course, as you all know, the things I see are huge mistakes that are killing these blogs. I write a list of all the mistakes and explain why they’re wrong, and how they can be corrected.  It is then up to the blog owner to either ignore me or fix their mistakes.  I made a conscious effort to NOT select business or real estate blogs, as my intention was to be unmerciful in my critique.

Sometimes the blog owner will fix their mistakes, in which case, I will retract my verbal “attack” and congratulate them on having a blog wonderful enough to send home to Mom. Other times, the blog owner gets mad and issues a ridiculous rebuttal, and of course, I respond.  I can’t let them think I won’t stand my ground, right? And, finally, unfortunately, some blog owners simply choose to ignore me. That’s okay, they’re only hurting themselves.

At the bottom of every post in this series, I also ask my readers to recommend a bad blog that I can critique. I think it’s a pretty obvious assumption that you’re more than welcome to recommend your own blog as well, though I can’t see a logical reason why anyone would want to do that.

Some people are livid.  Some people sent me fan mail.  Some people wrote about how they felt in posts of their own and in comments on my blog. But, hey, they’re talking about me all over the place right now, because they think what I did is “taboo”. Read what they had to say about me at Bloodhound Realty. I personally want to thank the kind folks at Bloodhound, and Lani for writing that article, because it drove HUGE amounts of traffic to my post. The Bloodhound piece really got people interested in what I had to say, especially when she refers to my use of the word “sucks” as “foul language”.  And people were probably so shocked that a company is being called out for using “foul language” that they had to come see for themselves exactly what I said. I hope my recent visitors weren’t too disappointed. They did get an awful lot of buildup simply to see the word “sucks” on my blog. Oh, well. 

I want to give you an example of exactly what this “bad publicity” did for the RSS Pieces blog and, more importantly, for me as a blogger. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the article condemning me was going to be written, so I couldn’t have possibly had the foresight to take screen shots of my hits to the most recent WTF prior to this article’s release. I wish I’d known. I’ll just have to give you the information and cross my fingers that you’ll believe me. And if you don’t, well, you’re a cynical one, aren’t you? 

Prior to the release of this article, I had a little over 400 views on my second WTF post. I pimped out (Is that considered foul language?) the post on RealEstateVoices.com and Digg.com. That was all I did. Once Lani’s article hit cyberspace, my views jumped dramatically. Right now, I have 1511 views to just that one article. That’s pretty impressive, because the first WTF (Lani was referencing the second one) only has 397 views currently. That might seem like a sad little number to some, but you’ll have to remember that this type of post is generally not RSS Pieces’ style, and things like this take time to catch on. In addition, this is a series, and most series-style posts get very few views on the first post. Series posts have somewhat of a snowball effect, where they take off after the first few of its kind. Each new addition to the series will get more views than its predecessor. And I can guarantee you that this particular series will now do extremely well, simply because people will want to see what I say next. 

If you happen to be one of our lucky clients, then you already know that one of the features on your Dashboard allows you to see where your viewers were just before they came to your page. So, I can tell you that almost all of the views to my second WTF post came straight from Bloodhound. Thanks, guys!

As for what happened to me personally, people know my name. Lani called me "sassy" on her own blog (which I think is a fairly accurate compliment.  Thanks, Lani!) which helps to build a reputation for me, and, more importantly, I received about 15 emails from readers that thought the series was hysterical.  To be fair, I got some creepy email as well.  But I'll credit that to my new found infamy.  You take the good with the bad sometimes.

Read also: Are you Contagious: Viral Marketing 101

The Conclusion

Contrary to the popular belief, all press IS generally good press. At least it is for me. You could say the same for my targets as well, since they probably only had about 8 views in their entire blogging lives until I wrote about them. I’d love to see how many hits they’ve gotten since my posts hit the net. I’m sure they never would have gotten that kind of traffic if I’d left them alone.

Just look at all the mainstream celebrities. Take Lindsay Lohan. She goes to rehab every other week, and the whole world is in love with her. Britney Spears shaves her head and traipses around half naked, and everyone’s watching. Paris Hilton is locked up and whining like a four year-old, and you KNOW you’re checking her status on TMZ.com all day. Don’t deny it. Controversy is working for them. Maybe you think being controversial is a bad marketing strategy, but I guess you have to be able to handle the negativity and ride it out. If you can’t ride out the bad, you can find yourself in a sticky spot. People love to hate.  Basically, they love to be emotionally engaged, so while I wouldn't suggest taking a critical approach to all your blogs, I do recommend causing a stir from time to time with a controversial piece.

To Quote Mary, "It's alright to get a little catty and start controversy once in a while.  People love strife. We love to watch it and be a part of it, oddly. The hearts and rainbows, love-fest blogs die because they get boring. So, create a little controversy and watch participation and new visitation climb. Controversy re-engages existing readers to invite friends and family to your site. It creates a buzz for your site. People love to be the one to say, 'Did you see what so and so said on such and such blog?'  The plan is to create a 'tightly knit community' and a 'war' within it. Once you have created community, engage it!  Incite strife with an article at least once per month.  People like managed strife.    Too much becomes uncomfortable and you become a curmudgeon, but a little helps create community."

Read also: How to drive traffic with blog wars

Marketing is what you make it. You just have to have a strategy, a back bone and thick skin. If you take the safe road all the time, you will have a harder time becoming a household name and gaining a loyal following.  Especially at the beginning of your blogging career you need to rock the boat a bit to get people to read you, to become emotionally enagaged in your writing (either because they agree with you or because they disagree with you), and to anticipate your next post.  If you do decide to be a bit controversial, some people are going to dislike you. But, it’s better to have a few people dislike you than not know who you are at all.

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