An Interview From the Thomson Reuters Innovation Summit
Mister Tom Klein from Digital Scientists sent me along this interview I did with him as part of the Thomson Reuters Innovation Summit. Despite the fact there’s lots of background noise, it does sum up a lot of ideas I often share at speaking events. That was a great event, orchestrated by Digital Scientists, and featuring Guy Kawasaki, Daniel Palestrant, and a few other folks. It’s just under 9 minutes long.
No- I Dont Sleep
For whatever reason, I get this question all the time: “Do you sleep?” It relates to how much content I put out. I usually don’t feel like I’m any different than folks like Jeremiah, or Jeff Pulver or Robert Scoble, who also post something every day. Heck, lots of people blog all the time. But, to answer your question: no, I don’t sleep. Until I do, and then I fall down asleep like a ton of bricks.
Things I’m Working On
- Project Dogfood for work. I’m loving the project.
- A one day Boot Camp for Marketing and PR professionals coming up in September (stay tuned).
- A new newsletter for work.
- My next newsletter for you.
- A book with Julien Smith. We got the second version of the contract from Chris Webb. I think we’re ready to sign, so we’ll be able to announce that project shortly.
- A site related to the book that will contain an interesting opportunity for YOU.
- Blog posts. Because, you know, that’s what I do.
- The New Marketing Summit - my conference in October with David Meerman Scott and Paul Gillin.
- Various email requests that have come in.
- And speaking at all kinds of other conferences.
It’s not that it’s easy to juggle it all, but it’s what I do. Some day, I’ll settle down and focus on one thing at a time. But that’s not now. I’ve got a neat thing going with CrossTech Media, and I like what we’re doing through the end of this year (lots of really cool events and projects). The book will be finished in draft before Thanksgiving (November in the US). And you? I’m still loving what I’m doing with you here on the blog.
What will change?
The business part of what I’m doing will change over time. As things develop, I’ll want to work more on equipping people with step-by-step information on doing what I do. I figure that the more I do in that department, the more I can focus on custom things. I’ll give you the how-to information, and then go speak publicly at conferences and privately at corporations on the customization of that data.
Building the platforms and all that? I work with CrossTech Partners on that. It’s not my personal expertise. I’m good at telling people what to do with them, how to develop the community, how to get business value out of it.
So, as I move into 2009, I’m focusing even more on pure content and how to equip you. Seems fair, don’t you think?
Ten Secrets to Better Blogging
There’s lots of information and advice hidden in the archives of this site, and I admit that it’s not especially easy to find it all. To that end, I’m going to put up a series of posts from time to time where I’ll give you links to 10 of my posts about a topic that might be of use to you. Today’s topic: blogging. Let me know if this is helpful. In reading through these posts a bit, it’s funny how I sometimes echo themes, repeat advice, etc. But I believe repetition is a good teacher. Plus, I’m forgetful. It’s a perfect mix.
10 Secrets To Better Blogging
10 Blogging Tips - So tiny, you can fit it on a 3×5 card, and yet, I think it’s useful.
Growing Your Audience - Some Basics - Here’s a question I get often. “How do I attract more readers?”
Basic Business Blogging Suggestions - Blogging for work? Here’s a place to look for topics and starting points.
Make Your Blog Design Work for You - Layout and design are important. I’d like to think that looks don’t count, but we both know better.
Conquering Fear of Blogging - Sometimes, we’re just not ready to make the next step. Some advice.
Writing Effective Blog Posts - It’s not that I have a formula, but I do have ideas on what works.
Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today - There are lots of ways that blogs thwart your audience. Here are some remedies.
Keeping the Blogging Fires Burning - Sometimes, we run out of motivation. Here’s some ways to fix that issue.
20 Blogging Projects for You - More ideas for WHAT to write, if necessary.
Performance And Your Audience - Blogging Tips - Shakespeare said all the world’s a stage. I believe it.
And if you want the “best of” from my site, there’s always this mega list of posts.
Is This Helpful
Let me know if this is useful, and I’ll continue the series. Let me know if this gave you some ideas on how to improve your blogging. Let me know if you have questions that weren’t answered by those 10 posts. Work for you ?
Oh, and in case you need to save any of these for later reference, in the right sidebar is an Eco Safe widget that saves pages (with their comments) as PDF files. So, if you want to share these around the office easily, you could always make 10 PDF files out of them and send around the bundle.
Photo credit, arquera
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Making Money Isnt Evil
This is the “jolt” presentation I gave at PAB2008 this year. WARNING: LOTS OF SWEARING and I apologize for that, because I had just listened to Neil Gorman’s presentation and he swore a lot, and well, I took it into my ranting exploration of the fact it’s not evil to make money. It’s just under 10 minutes, captured on Ustream.tv via Christopher S. Penn.
Basically, pay attention to this one thing: it’s not evil to want to make money, but be very wary how you try to do this off your community.
Alexa Scordato Weighs In
From a comment left by Alexa Scordato:
I’m a little behind commenting on this, but I really have to publicly thank you Chris for letting me tackle this with you.
As everyone has already acknowledged, the wealth of information you’ve managed to put out in the past year is not only valuable, it’s inspiring. The content you put out is thoughtful, thorough, and always a step ahead. You successfully balance honesty with analysis, humor with opinion, and quality with quantity.
Even though I was a frequent reader of this blog prior to the assignment, it wasn’t until I spent hours trying to archive your posts, knee deep in links and trackbacks that I really grasped the magic you have going on here.
On average, you blogged more than 50 posts a month, sometimes updating as frequently as 3 or 4 times a day. In addition to your content, you also managed to develop an impressive readership - a community of dynamic, creative, and articulate individuals who all do what you preach: think, participate, and communicate. Did you know that out of the 528 posts I read through, the average post had at least 13 comments? Only 6% of your posts had 0 and these entries were audio based posts via Utterz or some other service where comments were posted externally.
I haven’t told you this yet, but I actually printed out the 22 page excel sheet I generated listing every single blogpost on here. Not only is it a visual reference I look at when I want to quickly find a post, it is a daily reminder of lessons I learned from you and this site:
1. Be passionate. Social media is constantly evolving and folks move fast in this world. It’s exhausting trying to keep up, but only those who really love it can.
2. Be a sponge. Read and learn from anything and everyone and constantly seek out new sources of information and opinion. Ask questions.
3. Be a creator of quality content. Whether its blogging, vlogging, podcasting, programming, etc. producing content is key. It’s one thing to observe and talk about social media. It’s another thing to actually make it, live it, breath it.
4. Be a person. Yeah chrisbrogan.com is IMO the #1 source for all things social media, but it’s also a great resource for how to be a listener and well-rounded human being. There are some great posts about family, friends, and balancing work/play and professional/personal time. We all have to unplug sometimes.
5. Participate online and offline. It’s not enough to develop surface connections with people via urls, friend requests, and email. Make the effort to meet someone face to face and converse in real time.
There’s more I can add to this list, but these are really the big picture ideas that are embedded in my head after reading your blog.
To any aspiring rockstars looking to stay afloat in social media waters, this site is the golden life preserver.
Thanks again Chris.
Best Social Media Advice From This Site
I’m passionate about how certain strategies married to certain technologies allow individuals and companies to build things: reputation, trust, personal brand, community, relationships, and even marketplaces. My efforts to cover larger stories, tools, strategies, and more over the last several months have given you quite a bit to consider. But blogs are a tricky method for learning and reflecting. They’re like a running stream, and if you step out for a moment, a certain point in the stream will pass you by.
To that end, I’ve collected some links to the posts that I think might be helpful to you. Peruse these at your leisure. I’ve grouped them a bit for you. Feel free to pick and choose the topics that matter to you. I hope this proves helpful. If it does, please consider blogging a link to this post, and/or feel free to pass it on to any who might want more of this type of information.
There’s a lot here. Feel free to bookmark it for later. (And if you want even more to read, sign up for my free newsletter, which is even MORE original content.)
Thanks!
Community Development
- Understanding Community Development Strategies
- Ways to Disrupt a Community
- Why Do Community Development
- Should Your Small Business Use Community Tools
- The Long Tail of Community
- If Communitites Are Just Marketing Pools
- The Magic of Including People
- Meeting People at Events
- The Community Play
- The Community Ecosystem
- How Blogs Improve Customer Service and Product Development
Social Networks
- Three Things LinkedIN Does Better than Facebook
- How I Use Facebook
- Things To Do on Facebook
- Facebook - Let Me See My Friends
- Fix Your Facebook Profile Now
- Facebook and the Social Graph - Who Benefits
- Five Things to Do on LInkedIN
- Considering Social Etiquette
- Social Networks are Your Local Pub
- Why Join Another Social Network
- Marketers in a Social Network World
- Real Live Human Social Networking
- Social in Real Space vs. Social Networking
- Making Social Networks Work
- Improve Your Social Network
- The Importance of a Human Social Network
- Three Untapped Values of Social Networks
- Five Things to Do at a Social Networking Meetup
Social Media
- Social Media Starter Pack
- A Basic Social Media Strategy
- My Social Media Toolkit
- A Sample Social Media Toolkit
- Participation- The Key to Social Media
- Social Media - Talk is Cheap for Businesses
- How Big Companies could Use Social Media
- Social Media Inside the Firewall
- Social Media Power Secret - Listening
- Small Businesses And Social Media
- Social Media is a Set Not a Part
- Social Media for Your Career
- Help Someone Understand Social Media
- Social Media as Personal Power
- Snake Oil in Social Media
- Using Social Media to Meet People
- Social Media Starter Moves for Entertainers
- Social Media Starter Moves for Real Estate
- Social Media Starter Moves for Freelancers
- How I Use Twitter
- Deeper Twitter - Tuning Twitter for Value
- Newbies Guide to Twitter
- Twitter as Directors Commentary
- Twitter as an Advisory Board
Personal Branding
- The Power of Personal Leadership
- Slicing Time in a Face to Face Environment
- Brand Stories
- Some Quick Branding Tips for Individuals
- The foundations of Your Power
- Personal Scalability
- Personal Branding and Social Media
- Passion Drives Personal Brand
- Elements of a Personal Brand
- Challenges of Social Media Types in the Workplace
- The Value of Networks
- Scaling Yourself
Making Media
- Why Create Personal Media
- Whats Your Social Media Strategy
- Media Makers Next Steps
- Blogging Advice for the Next Level
- Expand Your Audience
- The Future of Microcontent and Hperlocal Media
- Why Bother Blogging Podcasting and Using Social Networks
- Consider Your Media-as-Business Strategy
- Marketing Media Means Moments That Matter
- Using Social Sharing to Extend Your Message
- Performance and Your Audience - Blogging Tips
- Advice for Traditional and Local News Media
- Tagging and Metadata and Why Bother
- A Sunday Newspaper Strategy for Traditional Companies
- Promoting Your Media
- The Power of Links
- 20 Blogging Projects for You
- Succeeding in Independent Online Media
- Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today
- Keeping the Blogging Fires Burning
- 100 Blog topics I hope YOU Write
- 100 PodCamp Topics for You to Cover
I’m writing new stuff all the time at [chrisbrogan.com]. If you’re reading this for the first time, please consider subscribing for free. If you’re a subscriber, don’t forget to get the completely-different content published at least twice a month in my newsletter. And thanks for your attention and time.
Special thanks to Alexa Scordato for compiling this data on my behalf. It was a lot of work. Thanks!
Starting Points for Online Presence
Getting started in social media might feel daunting. In considering what would constitute a “passport” for a would-be “web native,” I found myself adding more and more services to the list of things one might consider adding to their collection of applications and services to use.
Start at your own pace, and go as slowly as you need to for you to feel comfortable getting to understand all these services, but here is a list of applications and networks that I think you might consider joining and developing into your online reputation and presence platform:
The Basics
- Take a reasonably decent photo of yourself for an avatar pic. Size it to 100×100 pixels if you can. (most services want this as a default). If you’re shy off the bat, put something more fun than your corporate logo.
- Twitter - Be sure to add your nifty new photo. Then, if you don’t already have friends on Twitter, check the public timeline to see who’s doing something interesting, or check out Twitter Packs for some starting people to follow.
- WordPress.com Account - Even if you eventually choose another blogging platform, building a WordPress.com presence means that you get an OpenID account, a place to build a profile for lots of the popular blogging platforms (I recommend getting a Blogger/Google account for that reason, too), and also a potential “scratch blog” for putting up ideas that might not fit your larger presence.
- Facebook profile - There are millions of people using Facebook (and even more on MySpace). It’s a good place to build an account that tells people more about yourself, and as an outpost for your blog (add your RSS feed to Facebook through one of many 3rd party apps that will re-post it there), which all goes towards establishing your reputation online.
- YouTube account - YouTube serves millions of videos a month. It’s a great place to comment, to submit your own stuff to a larger audience, and/or to find points of interest. If you want more serious, better considered video hosting, try Blip.TV.
- Gmail account - which will give you access to Gmail.com, but also Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and plenty other useful services. I use Google Reader as my preferred news reader, and I use Google Calendar for ease of use of scheduling.
- **UPDATE** Google Reader for listening. Recommended by David Usher
Bonus Round
If you’re feeling like you want to participate even more, you’ll need these:
- **UPDATE** FriendFeed is a way to aggregate your presence and that of your friends online. Suggested by Ontario Emperor
- Digg and StumbleUpon and del.icio.us accounts - Use social bookmarking communities to share things you like, to find things you’re interested in, and to grow a social view of news and information.
- Upcoming.org for events to attend in this space.
- Flickr account - (which is technically now a Yahoo! account, as is del.icio.us.) This is for photo sharing, and gives you an easy place to put your pictures on the web.
- Skitch account - for screen captures, should you want to post a picture off your computer screen simply.
- PayPal account - for easy financial transactions used by many websites.
- **UPDATE** Plaxo for contact management. - Recommended by Susan Beebe.
Your Thoughts
There are certainly dozens more applications to consider, and this doesn’t count one’s primary blog, podcast, video property or otherwise. But I’m wondering if I’ve missed any “fundamental” sites that you’d recommend we add to this list, or if there are any that should come off. What’s your take?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Photo credit, hji
I am NOT Digg
The benefit of having a large following on Twitter is that if I ask for someone’s attention, or point them towards something that I think is worthwhile, it drives a reasonable amount of traffic towards whatever I point out. I enjoy pointing out the occasional post on a friend’s site, and sharing something I’ve discovered out and about. At other points, I really don’t mind putting up the occasional interesting link, or getting the word out for a friend who requests it from me. If you’ve ever asked me to get the word out on something, please don’t read this post and think, “Wow, I’ve really put Chris out.” This is for a certain minority of folks who’ve cropped up recently.
I am not Digg.
Digg is a mechanical platform that uses the efforts of a crowd of people to promote interesting links, and get traffic to the ones voted most worthy by the community. The key points in this definition are “mechanical” and “crowd.” I, Chris Brogan, am neither mechanical, nor a crowd.
As such, it’s sometimes hard (becoming harder) to keep up with the sheer weight of people requesting that I link things for them.
I asked the question in Twitter today, whether anyone could cite whether my pointing towards something was even useful, from a stats perspective. Most folks couldn’t answer, and several wanted me to test it out by pointing to their site. So, for the most part, some folks who have asked for this don’t even know if it’s making a difference.
Beth Kanter said that there was a 30-something percent difference in traffic on efforts where she used me to get the word out, so thanks, Beth.
Where it gets tricky is scale. I’m one guy, with at tonight’s count, just over 6500 followers on Twitter. I’m happy to put out the word on something amazing you’ve done, or something you think is really meaningful, or a cause that really needs doing. But please continue to bear in mind that I’m one guy, with a day job, and a lot of other projects, and a writing schedule, and two kids, and I’m not a mechanical platform run by the voting of crowds.
I think Twitter is a great tool for promoting what’s useful, sharing what has our attention, and driving awareness of causes and information that’s really important. I’m sure you do, too. While you work on growing your network by building meaningful relationships and sharing useful information, I’m happy to help you from time to time. Very happy to help.
But I’m not Digg.
What I Want a Social Media Expert to Know
There are lots of people throwing “social media expert” out there. Hell, I had it as part of my “about” on my blog, but I’ve chosen to just say that I advise people. It’s more accurate, because expertise is fairly darned fleeting out there right now. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about things I want a so-called expert to know (and I want you to add to this list, or call me out if you disagree):
Strategic
- Which department you think your role should fall into.
- How your role ties to marketing, PR, advertising, R&D, finance, HR, sales.
- What tasks you’d expect a community manager to perform, and how would you measure them.
- How you expect a company to engage in “the conversation,” and what processes will go into place to make any of that matter.
- How to turn blog posts into business leads.
- How to listen and find where people are talking about you.
- Ways to report your weekly listening and community work to a very senior level person in a huge company that has about 2 minutes of time to hear your briefing.
- Know about 100 people in the space who are doing something. The more diverse the profession and location, the better.
- How to launch and operate a blogger outreach campaign.
- How to tie other media into social media as an integrated campaign.
Tactical
- How to install a blog (pick your software) on a hosted server.
- How to edit the sidebar to include a widget, or an embed, or anything.
- How to create, edit, and post at least one other type of media besides text.
- At least five social network accounts active, including but not limited to: LinkedIn, Yahoo! Groups, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
- How to find and subscribe to a podcast WITHOUT using iTunes.
- Five stats worth knowing for any blog/website.
- How to structure a blog post so that humans and Google like it.
I’m thinking there are probably another 40 things I could add to either list, but instead, I’m going to let YOU. (Ones that I agree with will go up into the main post until we have a pretty decent list.)
And remember, call me out if you disagree. What’s your take on what you expect a social media expert to know?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com].
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Photo credit, Joe Shlabotnik
Who Am I Really
I am 38 years old today. I am a child of two parents who were brilliant and creative, and who believe deeply in who I am. I’m the grandson of a candy salesman / bodybuilder / artist / comedian and a nurturer / cook / giggler. I have a brother who is far smarter than I will ever be, and far more interesting than I will ever be, too. I’m husband to a creative, passionate, empathic wife. I’m father to a sparkly-hearted, brilliant daughter and a happy son.
Definitions
I’m mostly defined by my passions, and my passions are quite often YOU, so I’m a person who’s given a lot of his time, thought, and consideration to studying how you do what you do, and to giving you ideas how to reach others for your particular needs and interests. If this sounds wishy washy or hippie, it means you’re an evolution behind, or on another path, and both are okay. I’m not here to explain it to the other “you,” the ones who get me.
Job
I have a job that challenges me to deliver the evolution of how people meet face to face, and to deliver an improved value for all involved. It’s complicated, because the part of my job where I falter always lies in the details, and yet, my role is currently defined by details instead of the part I’m passionate about: the “experience” that people will feel. This make it fun for my employers, who are clever people with a great track record, and a passion for seeing this evolution turn successful.
Everything else I’m doing relates to future trends in these technologies we call social media and how businesses and engaged individuals can make something out of them.
My Friends Matter
I have friends who matter a great deal to me. Most of these are in other states, other countries, and other points in their lives. Each of them do something different in my life, excite some part of my being, and give me hope that the future will continue to be comprised of friends like you. When I talk with you, when I email you, when I send you 140 characters or less, it revitalizes a connection in me that rarely fades the way you might occasionally worry that it does. It’s always there.
Strengths and Weaknesses
My strengths lie in understanding complex technological systems and being able to communicate them in human terms to business people and individuals. I’m also strong at communicating, at speaking, and at building relationships.
My weaknesses lie in execution of detail, in repetitive tasks, in thinking that I’ve handed something off in such a way that others are running with it to completion. I’m a bit fleeting in what I find fascinating, which is a strength, but a weakness if you’re the something that I find fascinating.
What I Do
In any given day, I do several things. I blog at different times than most (usually either late at night before bed or early in the morning before I get my kids to school. I usually have 3-5 posts ready to go, and I schedule some of them to run mid-day, in case my day’s lead story doesn’t do so well.
I blog because it’s a way to parse all the information I absorb, and a way to share it with you. It’s a way to give you my insights and ideas, and then let you comment and add your voice. It’s a lot better to me than writing standalone papers, though I do that, too. The reason? Because sometimes people want to give someone else something a little more substantial than a URL, and you can print or mail the file around easier than printing a particular blog post. (Then again, don’t forget the Eco Safe widget in the right sidebar at [chrisbrogan.com]).
I’m working on a book. Can’t remember how much detail I’ve given, but suffice to say that I’m at the proposal stage, trying to capture the meat of what we’ve already done (there’s a collaborator, and I’m not sure if he’s authorized me to decloak). Following this book, I have ideas for two more that are in similar stages. Remember, I write WAY more than what I put up on the blog, when I have time to do so.
Ultimately, I’m working in lots of directions towards three major projects over the 2008-2009. I’m excited by what I’m doing with my job right now, by what I see coming next, and by the potential that a few books in the space might offer.
Coming Up Next
Over this next year, I will outgrow a lot of things. And I will focus on fewer things, to do them well. I will develop some new thoughts that I hope will prove interesting enough to keep me fired up, and I will share as much as humanly possible, with the hope that YOU prove out what I believe to be true.
Today is my real birthday. I LOVE my birthday. Not for presents, but instead, for presence. So, make yourself known. Tell me something about you, something about me, something. Take a moment and say more than “Happy Birthday, Chris!” Share something the way I’ve shared with you.
And thank you for another year.
