In the next stage in my continuing transparent, authentic, real-time, open-source e-pistolary social media apprenticeship to Shel Holtz, I'm asking Shel to do a little family therapy. I was out in Colorado this weekend, where my three sisters live, and one by one, they were asking me: What do you get out of this blog?

Currently, my traffic strategies are two:

1. Blathering so often on so many subjects that whenever anybody searches for anything on the web, they come to me, as I blathered earlier this month.

2. Waiting for Godin. In March, communication guru Seth Godin linked to a Writing Boots item and my hits spiked massively. Some of those Godinophiles apparently liked what they saw and became Murray-acs, and my regular following increased. Friday, Godin linked to Writing Boots again, with a post that referenced a month-old Boots item about Richard Nixon. My usual weekday hundreds turned into 10,000 visttors on Friday, and more big four-figure days on Saturday and Sunday and probably today, too. (Luv ya, Seth!)

Clearly, this was good. The hits generated dozens of new subscribers to the Vital Speeches YouTube site (the blog item Godin referenced connected to that site). And I hope Boots again got a permanent boost in followers.

As I grandly explained to my Colorado sisters.

Wow, they replied. Cool.

Pause.

But what do you get out of that, exactly?

(Aside from cheap jollies and thin gruel for the ego, of course.)

I shrugged, and thought: Well, this'll be my blog item for Monday.

Shel Holtz, what do I get out of that, exactly? And was/is there anything I might have done to capitalize?

(Feel free to weigh in here too, Seth.)