Kick-ass social media advice for the real entrepreneur
I used to think that you should not talk about yourself in your blog content. I actually read it somewhere and for a while I was careful not to do it.
“Always think about your audience. Nobody cares if you’re having coffee…”
But today I have a different opinion. Today I strongly believe in delivering the human being in your content. Let me tell you what I mean and share with you my own experience and what I learned:
Did you join Quora already?
Don’t worry, I’m not planning to give you a ride through how it was conceived, who the founders are or how much money they raised. So in order to get that out of the way if you’re not familiar with the story, let’s do the quick version in one paragraph…
Quora is a questions and answers site with the social network characteristics, you can follow people and they can follow you back, you can vote on content, etc. It was founded by two ex-Facebookers in ’09 (why is it always 2 guys? can’t they be 3?). Investors dropped a ton of cash on them with the hopes it will turn out to be the next Twitter and more recently, it has been the talk of the town now that it is completely open and spreading like there’s no tomorrow.
An article on AdAge said the application at the moment is mostly inhabited by social media types. I don’t know, I think they are called “early adopters” but whatever.
Influence was one of the most used and abused words of 2010. I probably contributed with my share too.
But it seems like lately everywhere you turn there is a discussion about it, either to redefine the term, to analyze how it should be measured or simply to say that Klout Scores are not relevant.
Let’s face it, Klout has been under fire for the last few weeks. Then you’re not helping yourself when you come out and say that Justin Bieber is more influential than the Dalai Lama, Barak Obama or Lady Gaga (I think Gaga deserves the top spot). But let’s stop right here, bear with me for a second to explain where I’m going with this and make my point. This is a short post.
I’m not here to recommend you should or shouldn’t use Klout or to question their formula, Justin Bieber is probably more influential than Obama these days anyways. The concern to me is how we use this score, I think it is a fine metric as a marketing tool for your personal brand and I can even see it as some kind of social proof, you know, another counter on your sidebar. But we should not be looking at it as to measure how much influence we really have.
According to the dictionary, Influence is the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.
Yep, it’s that time of the year when we publish and consume an unusual amount of best of and top 10 list. And who am I to change the tradition?
So today I’m delivering a compilation of the Top 10 posts of 2010 right here at SocialMouths. In case you missed something…
Also, there are a couple of things I want you to read at the end of this post =)
But before I start with that I have a quick…
I want to do this now because I know the last week of December is very slow as many of us disconnect to be with our families.
I can’t deny that this has been a great year for SocialMouths in terms of the things you can measure. I’m at about 50k monthly pageviews, bounce rate is insanely low, the subscriptions are at a growth rate that I didn’t expect and I could keep going… I’m thankful for that because it means some of you like what I’m putting out there.
But I’m mostly thankful for the great connections I have been able to establish as clients, fellow bloggers, readers or just friends. The focus for 2010 was to try to deliver as much as possible without asking for anything in exchange but I was definitely able to also receive so much awesome sauce from you guys that I feel I need to come back in 2011 with much more. So that is the intention!
It’s been a while since we last navigated the topic of Personal Branding here at SocialMouths but I guess that’s about to change. I get a lot of questions about best practices on different social platforms but today, I thought it would be cool to take a step back and review some of the basics of building a successful brand regardless of the platforms you use.
I guess the first question to arise when you’re thinking about whether or not you should put yourself out there as an individual instead of using your company logo as a shield is “do I need to become a personal brand?”
There is a lot to consider but I’ll give you what I think are the most important arguments
Being successful online requires that you beat a pretty long learning curve and while I try to contribute with my 2 cents, there are amazing bloggers out there that you should be reading on a regular basis.
These people put their amazing talent and knowledge into blog content and deliver it to their online communities week after week.
I have to advise you that if you see that I’m not going with the obvious is for 2 reasons, one because I like helping you discover stuff that you might have missed (there is just too much content out there…) and two, not that I don’t occasionally read the usual suspects, but this is the stuff I visit frequently. Also let me say that this is not a ranking so don’t pay attention to the order.
Can I be a brand? I’m sure it has crossed your mind at least a couple of times in the last year, specially witnessing so many people turning themselves into true web superstars in their niches.
The answer is simple: Hell Yes
But before the photography, the name, the design and all the cool stuff that goes on the front-end, there has to be a solid foundation. As Seth Godin calls it in his last book, you need to become a Linchpin. I wanted to say that because the 7 people I’m showcasing in this post are the real deal, they are not just a cool image.
The outside perception meets the inside reality. I like setting expectations straight, you do not become a brand by looking good online. The web is an amplifier, be careful with what comes up to the surface.
That said, let’s take a look at these people that have turned their names into kick-ass brands. I wanted to show people that have leveraged the social web to build trust around them, at the same time, I didn’t want to go with the obvious (before you go screaming that I didn’t mention Gary Vaynerchuk…).
Do you need to promote your own content? If you are NOT Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan or Gary Vaynerchuck, the answer will be yes.
Will you ever get to the point where others share your content and you can forget about self-promotion to focus on other, more meaningful stuff?
Hey, my name is Francisco Rosales and I'm the author of SocialMouths. I help entrepreneurs and small businesses turn their vanilla online presence into a profit powerhouse. Read more...
