This blog will be a collection of information used for my own purposes, and freely available for usage by anyone else. Comment as you'd like, although commenting will be restricted or moderated in some situations.
AMA/Ask Me Anything: What You Need To Know Before They Get Their Answers (PART 2/2)
Posted 06-11-2014 at 04:27 PM by forrest.livingston8
Updated 06-11-2014 at 04:32 PM by forrest.livingston8
Updated 06-11-2014 at 04:32 PM by forrest.livingston8
As a note in case it doesn't become obvious: This is not an AMA thread. This is an AMA tutorial thread. You may feel free to ask me anything, so long as it stays within the scope of this thread. Otherwise your comment will likely not even get a ransom note.
Introduction
Make sure to have read AMA/Ask Me Anything: What You Need To Know Before They Get To Ask before reading this unless you've already got an AMA up and don't care for to read through the first bit. Otherwise, enjoy the second part of this series!
The Care And Feeding Of Your Very Own AMA
Minute seven rolls by and you've still got no replies, and only a few views. What gives? Well first, what time is it? Translate that to GMT, and then keep in mind that the forum is slow between 18 (6pm) to 4 (4am) as a large burden of users are in the US and that is before the night time rush and after the morning rush.
Likewise, if you submit a thread on a day that will most likely have people working or at class, such as weekdays, you'll likely see less quick replies. Conversely, weekends are when people will be out partying and not staying around (writing blogs, endlessly.... Ignore the fourth wall wizard behind the curtain!) posting.
Give it time, and it'll either sink from the first page, or it'll get a reply. Now don't jump directly to replying to that person. Give it a few minutes and see if anyone else replies. That'll allow you to get in a bulk of replies, which helps to keep you from needing to be constantly replying to new users in a slow build up.
It is also a good time to talk about the proper bait to use to make sure that people not only post, but also read through the thread. The best way to do this is to include specific messages at the end of your posts such as "For the next ten questions about wildlife, I'll edge myself once per question!" or "Until I go to bed tonight, any post with more than twenty questions can ask me to write somewhere on my body." You can even go meta-bait and say something like "The next three posts may give me some suggestions on other things to do!".
So let's say that your AMA is mildly popular, but no where near as popular as you'd like. Is it time to change your avatar to something with breasts? Nope! You need to start making sure to save up your questions for the right time. Specifically, save up your answers from 18 (6pm) GMT, and answer them after 4 (4am) GMT, or as close to that time as you can sleep depending. By making sure to have you post back on the top of the front page during the busy time.
Likewise, before you decide to go to sleep for the night, include a statement telling people that, such as "I'm off to bed, I'll get to the rest of your questions tomorrow!". This is another good chance to bait, as you can say "For all questions asked while I'm asleep, I'll make sure to touch myself that many minutes before bed tomorrow." or something similar.
What To Do When Sickness Strikes
Sickness can come in many forms. Your AMA could end up being anemic of posts/questions, it could have parasites of non-questioners, or perhaps an overdose on a single person scaring off the rest of the people, and the dreaded case of copy-paste question, too. There is no single answer to any of these issues, and no doctor will tell you otherwise.
When your thread just isn't popular, you should check to make sure that you've followed these guidelines, as well as the ones in the previous thread.
Also, have you been around long enough to have enough social exposure that people might be interested in learning about you? If not, go post elsewhere to try and get some interest made, and some questions asked.
If you're posting often, you can also add a link to your AMA in your signature. That way if anyone sees a post of yours and wants more information, they can quickly go and see, or ask away.
Finally, if you cannot get any attention, leave it be for a while and come back to it after a few days or a week. Try and become more active in the community so it'll give people more of a reason to ask you questions.
When your AMA ends up off topic, your best bet is to ignore it unless it becomes bad enough that you are getting less question posts than off topic posts, send each of the people involved a quick PM to ask them nicely to please not be off topic in the thread. Most people will accept your request and even apologize. Alternatively, you may end up with a user or two who outright refuse. In those situations, you'll need to ignore them, and in time they'll go away.
If you've got yourself a thread stalker, then your best bet is to wait until you have at least one other person's post before replying. Make your answers to your thread stalker less lengthy and worth reading than the others, but make sure that they're still honest and accurate. The idea is to try and get them to stop posting so often. Additionally, bait for getting more questions at once, such as "If you give me fifty questions, I'll lick my toes!" might be worth the toe licking to get them to stack their questions up.
If you did not specifically mention that you do not want any copy-paste list of questions, you may end up buried under some user's go-to list of AMA questions. These can be helpful, but they can also be annoying when a user pastes over five hundred questions, especially when each question is worth two days of orgasm denial when answered. Be wary of accepting copy-paste lists, but when you get them, if need be stagger them.
Nothing Lasts Forever
At some point, you will no longer get the same flow of questions you used to get. If this happens, and you try everything you can think of and that has been mentioned to keep the internet, it may be time to accept that threads die. It could very well come back someday, but let the community decide when that day will be.
So long as you stay active in the community and people retain interest in you from your posts/blogs, you'll find that your AMA should never stay dead for long.
Final Words
Not to let this end on such a down note, I hope that you find this short series useful for your AMA needs. If there is anything you'd like to point out that you believe is wrong, or you wish to add, add it to a comment on this blog (or if it is specifically about the setup of the AMA, feel free to add it to the other blog).
Introduction
Make sure to have read AMA/Ask Me Anything: What You Need To Know Before They Get To Ask before reading this unless you've already got an AMA up and don't care for to read through the first bit. Otherwise, enjoy the second part of this series!
The Care And Feeding Of Your Very Own AMA
Minute seven rolls by and you've still got no replies, and only a few views. What gives? Well first, what time is it? Translate that to GMT, and then keep in mind that the forum is slow between 18 (6pm) to 4 (4am) as a large burden of users are in the US and that is before the night time rush and after the morning rush.
Likewise, if you submit a thread on a day that will most likely have people working or at class, such as weekdays, you'll likely see less quick replies. Conversely, weekends are when people will be out partying and not staying around (writing blogs, endlessly.... Ignore the fourth wall wizard behind the curtain!) posting.
Give it time, and it'll either sink from the first page, or it'll get a reply. Now don't jump directly to replying to that person. Give it a few minutes and see if anyone else replies. That'll allow you to get in a bulk of replies, which helps to keep you from needing to be constantly replying to new users in a slow build up.
It is also a good time to talk about the proper bait to use to make sure that people not only post, but also read through the thread. The best way to do this is to include specific messages at the end of your posts such as "For the next ten questions about wildlife, I'll edge myself once per question!" or "Until I go to bed tonight, any post with more than twenty questions can ask me to write somewhere on my body." You can even go meta-bait and say something like "The next three posts may give me some suggestions on other things to do!".
So let's say that your AMA is mildly popular, but no where near as popular as you'd like. Is it time to change your avatar to something with breasts? Nope! You need to start making sure to save up your questions for the right time. Specifically, save up your answers from 18 (6pm) GMT, and answer them after 4 (4am) GMT, or as close to that time as you can sleep depending. By making sure to have you post back on the top of the front page during the busy time.
Likewise, before you decide to go to sleep for the night, include a statement telling people that, such as "I'm off to bed, I'll get to the rest of your questions tomorrow!". This is another good chance to bait, as you can say "For all questions asked while I'm asleep, I'll make sure to touch myself that many minutes before bed tomorrow." or something similar.
What To Do When Sickness Strikes
Sickness can come in many forms. Your AMA could end up being anemic of posts/questions, it could have parasites of non-questioners, or perhaps an overdose on a single person scaring off the rest of the people, and the dreaded case of copy-paste question, too. There is no single answer to any of these issues, and no doctor will tell you otherwise.
When your thread just isn't popular, you should check to make sure that you've followed these guidelines, as well as the ones in the previous thread.
Also, have you been around long enough to have enough social exposure that people might be interested in learning about you? If not, go post elsewhere to try and get some interest made, and some questions asked.
If you're posting often, you can also add a link to your AMA in your signature. That way if anyone sees a post of yours and wants more information, they can quickly go and see, or ask away.
Finally, if you cannot get any attention, leave it be for a while and come back to it after a few days or a week. Try and become more active in the community so it'll give people more of a reason to ask you questions.
When your AMA ends up off topic, your best bet is to ignore it unless it becomes bad enough that you are getting less question posts than off topic posts, send each of the people involved a quick PM to ask them nicely to please not be off topic in the thread. Most people will accept your request and even apologize. Alternatively, you may end up with a user or two who outright refuse. In those situations, you'll need to ignore them, and in time they'll go away.
If you've got yourself a thread stalker, then your best bet is to wait until you have at least one other person's post before replying. Make your answers to your thread stalker less lengthy and worth reading than the others, but make sure that they're still honest and accurate. The idea is to try and get them to stop posting so often. Additionally, bait for getting more questions at once, such as "If you give me fifty questions, I'll lick my toes!" might be worth the toe licking to get them to stack their questions up.
If you did not specifically mention that you do not want any copy-paste list of questions, you may end up buried under some user's go-to list of AMA questions. These can be helpful, but they can also be annoying when a user pastes over five hundred questions, especially when each question is worth two days of orgasm denial when answered. Be wary of accepting copy-paste lists, but when you get them, if need be stagger them.
Nothing Lasts Forever
At some point, you will no longer get the same flow of questions you used to get. If this happens, and you try everything you can think of and that has been mentioned to keep the internet, it may be time to accept that threads die. It could very well come back someday, but let the community decide when that day will be.
So long as you stay active in the community and people retain interest in you from your posts/blogs, you'll find that your AMA should never stay dead for long.
Final Words
Not to let this end on such a down note, I hope that you find this short series useful for your AMA needs. If there is anything you'd like to point out that you believe is wrong, or you wish to add, add it to a comment on this blog (or if it is specifically about the setup of the AMA, feel free to add it to the other blog).
Total Comments 0
