Why your blog is your social network
There are many good social networks to be a part of, but as I delve deeper into social media and personal branding I’m coming to the conclusion that your blog is becoming more important.
On your blog, you have a direct feed to your readers. Those readers can be friends as much as it can be potential employers or business contacts. Your blog can take on more of your characteristics, from the way you write to the theme that presents the information to your readers.
A blog can interact with other social networks, augmented with whatever tools you choose to bring into your branding strategy. Adding additional communications, video, audio and so on adds more value to your ability to network and share with your community.
The one big thing about viewing your blog as a social network is to remember the social aspect, which infers the interaction in a community. A blog’s comment system is there to enable the conversation, you are there to help drive the conversation. If you’re disabling comments because you don’t like some criticism, you may want to take another look. That feedback could help you grow in ways that aren’t readily apparent.
Also, your blog is your online hub. Use it to send information to other social networks that you frequent. It’s also the one place on the Internet that you can make sure people find out about YOU. You can make sure to let them know how to find you, to find your profiles and networks that you have left profiles, feedback, and articles on throughout the Internet. From your blog people can download a copy of your resume, talk about your latest work, and so on. Don’t forget that you can have an easier to remember URL to get to your blog than your profile on any service or social network.
Overall, the advantages of having a blog that you can interact with others is a statement about you. You took the initiative, you are reaching out, you are placing your ideas in a public forum, you are inviting feedback. Don’t get me wrong; in phrasing it that way it sounds like The Great You Show - but it doesn’t have to be. It’s up to you to be able to show it’s really about conversations.
On your blog, and through your interests and reading habits, you will find other bloggers in the same genre and begin to share links and comments with. This is one of the best ways to grow your network. No, it’s not like getting 250 ‘friends’ on Facebook in a weekend, but that’s because it’s more valuable. Having two or three blogging friends is more valuable and powerful than large numbers elsewhere. Your interaction in the blogosphere with others is what builds that value. It’s more than any number can represent because it’s real exchange of ideas, real interaction. And that my friend is social networking.
So what else am I missing? What else helps make your blog your entry point to social networking?
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Comments
Comment by paula great post. there’s a book out there, highly recommend, that talks about the ‘hub’ issues. might want to check it out. http://books.google.com/books?id=QTHsGNY4wcwC&pg=PP1&ots=9PvNKdCphh&dq=linked+how+everything+else+is+connected+and+what+it+means&sig=94AT-iFxzDra9zp3leofQD1ahZ8
Comment by Steven Hodson As obvious as this might have seemed I wondered why this hasn’t been concluded before now. It is also the one reason why I find very little attraction to the so-called social networking media - all the proponents have done is taken the blog idea and made it multi-user and in some cases behind a wall with their own access language.
I can be contacted more ways now than I before - either through my blog, or through IM, or over Skype, or through the WinExtra forums and finally though our IRC channels. So until anyone in the social networking world can show me - without the typical marketspeak - how this new and so-called better social network is a better and easier way to maintain contact with me the whole idea is nothing but hype.
Comment by Rick Mahn Steven,
It’s interesting how flexible a blog can be. With the creativity and dilligence, it lets the blogger explore many more avenues of interactivity than a walled garden “name brand” social network. Like you mentioned about your forums on WinExtra - there a number of options in extending the conversation on a blog. It also allows you to grow the environment in the manor you choose, rather than having to work within someone else’s framework.
Pingback by [...] other day Rick Mahn had a post about whether or not your blog is your social network: On your blog, and through your interests and [...]
[...] with how Facebook handles relationships. Set aside for a moment that I think it’s inferior to a blog for social networking. If I was to entrust my social network to Facebook, I’d have a hard time to keep track [...]
Comment by Dave Huston Speaking as the owner of a currently unsuccessful blog, I can say that the one key that I’m missing is the outward advertisement. I spend far too much time working on offline materials than advertising myself by participating in other communities.
Comment by markofando Want to start your private office arms race right now?
I just got my own USB rocket launcher 
Awsome thing.
Plug into your computer and you got a remote controlled office missile launcher with 360 degrees horizontal and 45 degree vertival rotation with a range of more than 6 meters - which gives you a coverage of 113 square meters round your workplace.
You can get the gadget here: http://tinyurl.com/2qul3c
Check out the video they have on the page.
Cheers
Marko Fando
[...] seen this tip over and over again. You can’t survive in fierce online world without others help. You could [...]
I like how you refer to a blog as a Hub. I tend to use it as a central place for information, where I capture all my Personal Branding projects in.