How to get blog traffic from Farmville

It all happened innocently. My intrigue with our addiction to farmville – including my own (which was a bit too brief to be included in a New York Times article.. but it did get me an interview!)..      No. Wait. Stop right there. It was not my addiction to Farmville that got me the interview. It was my blog posts about Farmville.

The posts were never meant to attract readers or a NY Time’s journalist.  I simply like to contemplate how our minds work, what empowers us, what distracts us (especially related to creative right brain thinkers).   That’s all.  Farmville quickly became a huge distraction to (at the time) 40 million + users a month.  How could this not interest me? 

Sure, the blog posts are entertaining, with tips and humour ( I know this because the NYTimes journalist said they are ‘entertaining stuff.”  How cool is that?) .. but there was never an intention to reach readers of my blog. 

Well, be darned if I don’t have 100 – 200 readers a day now.  

Point of story? Write from your perspective about very popular topics. There’s something you are already doing, no doubt, that millions of others are interested in.  And tag well. (How else will they know you are writing about this topic?)  For example, do you have something brilliant, controversial or unique to say about “New Moon”  from the Twilight Series?  Better yet, are you a vampire?  You could get a sh-t load of readers writing about that.

You’d think that millions of others would be interested in what I do in my non-farmville life.  Oh. I mean, my real life.  But alas those millions have not yet found my blog.  Maybe it’s all too general – this coaching, self discovery, creativity thing.  Oh my, I just had a most Brilliant Idea!  You’ve just witnessed the epiphany… .. must run, I’m off to create an facebook app for that….

(Update: If you are looking for the farmville posts, I’ve deleted most of them My apologies, farmvillains.  They were just far too random to hold even my attention on the blog!  ha!)

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Dear Farmville.. are you serious?

SEriously. Now the barns store things. After all my brilliance of ‘storing’ animals in the barn, now you’ve made it easy.  Just like my crop circles. I do think you ought to hire me. So will you be providing ready made labyrinths next?

However, I did not come up with a carnival before you did. Kicking myself for that one.

Farmvillain Exit

Ah, yes… the coach who understands creatives has inspired me to leave the topiaries, elephants, ugly ducklings and fellow farmvillains. That coach being me. Me  also being a creative being who can easily be distracted, thus sabotaging my own creative projects – even though I attempted to justify being a Farmvillain by my creative play with it.   Not going into an essay on why creatives do this, but alas, we do.. even we who know so much better. So let’s call my soiree with Farmville a reminder of that.. and although my time there was reduced to once a day or less (because really I only had trees left to harvest), I still was tempted to alter my ever growing labyrinth. 

You too can leave Farmville. Click, sell, click, sell, click sell.  Everything gone.  But darn, there’s money left then! If you are like me, I couldn’t leave the gold in an account so this is my last hurrah:

Off I go now.. to write and perhaps illustrate my next workbook.  Shall I do the pirate themed “change your thoughts about money” one.. or perhaps one ‘how not to be your most creative self – facebook games”    hee hee.

Ps. Unless someone knows otherwise, you still cannot delete your farm. You can block the application, you can block accepting gifts.. but when you type in farmville and go back in, you are still there.  Anyone know otherwise?

Hey, I heard Yoville is a good game…..    (NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!)

Farmville – how are we so hooked?

It’s just a little game in Facebook. Pretty much duplicating real lives. Work, get cash, work, get cash, .. oh look, I can buy a mailbox! Oh look, I can grow artichokes!  Work more.  Buy a harvester. It needs gas. Work more. Unlike real life, there isn’t even an option for a passive income.

But alas, I have tried everything to completely unhook myself.  I discovered it only two weeks ago when, in my notifications page,  I found 30 ‘gifts’ from friends for farmville. Little pigs, peach trees, that sort of thing.   So, I accepted.  That was my first mistake.  

I can’t even begin to think what the attraction is.  The graphics are cute.  I was thrilled when I created little sign posts that sent people on treasure hunts.  But the sign posts kept disappearing, making it a pretty rotten treasure hunt.  But I kept working so I could buy wishing wells.  And the tree house! 

I bought a barn and ‘hid’ the animals inside.  That was fun. Some of my friends couldn’t figure that one out.  But when I hit and killed a squirrel in real life (I’m still sad about that), I felt bad for my hidden animals on Farmville and I let them ‘out’.

When I was out camping in real life, I noticed how the fields of real farms were arranged like Farmville farms.  And I’m sure that the fruit trees in the neighbourhood are copies of Farmville trees.

One day, I realized…umm… I was spending wayyy too much time checking my crops. And I kept visiting other farms and leaving messages intended to be funny (I thought they were funny, but it’s a subjective thing) so that I could win AWARDS… red ribbons, blue ribbons! 

So I sold my farm. I sold everything for peanuts, everything I”d worked so hard for.. except the outhouse.  I figured people might like the pit stop. 

Seriously, if you sell everything, there’d be no point starting over, now would there? (Like other game apps on facebook, you cannot actually  delete yourself and your access. Scary)    But people kept sending me gifts.. and if I got 15 unique gifts in the gift box, I’d get an award! AND I could post it and my friends would also get a cash gift!  

But there’s no way I am  going to rebuild the whole farm.. so now I leave the crops in the shape of letters… messages for airplanes that fly over. But there are no airplanes, so I think the messages are for aliens.

My friends buy in… I now have messages from aliens posted on my farm, and I hear I’m going to be gifted an alien transmitter.  (Some people call it a birdhouse, but we know better.)

One friend deleted a duck and is horrified. I suggested she try finding it in her recycle bin.  Not sure she thought that was funny.

I’m okay, really.  The very few crops I planted won’t be ready for harvest for 4 days or so.. so I can go camping.

Is there some sort of conspiracy going on, do you think?  Is there something in the game’s ions/electron/colour that’s addictive? Is there something going on in the real world that ‘they’ don’t want 40,937,105 monthly active users of Farmville to notice?  hmmm…

And then there is FARM TOWN.  What’s up with having TWO very similar applications?  Friends sent gifts and told me it was better.  I started a facebook group called “I will NEVER join Farm Town.”  Nobody joined so I deleted it.  I see that at some point in my facebook history I had actually looked at this application, because I ‘peeked’ and there I was.  It’s okay, though, I haven’t been back. 

But back to Farmville, any psychologists reading this that can explain 40,937,105 monthly active users’ addiction?  This is beyond my field of expertise.

And as for ‘them”… I’m on to you.  I know you are up to something while 40,937,105 monthly active users are distracted.  Don’t feel threatened or anything. I’m not near as ingenious as you.. so I won’t be a danger to your mission. Really.

And I”m okay.  When I click publish on this post, I am NOT going to go check my farm.  The crops aren’t ready, anyway.