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?
Glad to see that Google Reader is a “shipping” product. Personally, it’s been over a year since I’ve switched to GReader, and I couldn’t think of a better feed reader to recommend. Notice how most of Google’s Web 2.0 software are coming out of beta?
Must be because of some of the news coming out of TechCrunch40, or just a coincidence. There seems to be two current conversations, one on corporate involvement in social media, and one on social media in the enterprise.
Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking on the idea of what I call the corporatization of society. I’m hoping to get that finished yet tonight and posted for tomorrow, because I’ve got a few ideas on the previous two conversations I mentioned above.
It seems to me there is an opportunity out there. I’m going to turn a twenty-two year grip into a suggestion and an idea.
Here’s my problem. In many things we have the chance to have our say and don’t choose to – that’s our fault. In some instances we don’t have a chance to voice our opinions – at all.
Let’s go back to 1985, when Coca-Cola changed the formula of it’s namesake soft drink. Welcome, New Coke. Ugh. Nobody had a chance to really change the course of history on that one – even to this day. No you didn’t. Yes, I know Coca-Cola ‘Classic’ was brought back – I drink it often, but it’s not the original.
Personally, I think it was a staged event to make the switch from cane sugar (expensive) as a sweetener to the high-fructose corn syrup (cheap) we all know and love today. Don’t believe me? Fine, I have no proof to back it up, but there is a difference in the flavor from the true original, and what a great way to make the change and cut costs than to take away the real product for half a year and then bring it back slightly altered, but most people unable to really tell the difference.
At any rate, my point is that there is an opportunity for Coca-Cola (or any beverage manufacturer who has a similar opportunity) here to tap into a great new product. I want my old coke back, and I want it BAD. I’ll pay extra to have that original taste back – I’ll pay for a ‘premium’ beverage that is true to the 120-year old formula. And I want it only in 12oz. returnable glass bottles. Yep, old school all the way.
Hey, what a great twist of PR. Create a new (old?) product, package it in a ‘green’ (I hate that term) reusable (and recyclable) container, reach out to their oldest and most loyal customers (an already established market), and charge extra to do it.
Am I in the wrong here? With the custom, gourmet, and premium beverage markets that abound today, how hard would it be for a company like Coca-Cola to do this?
It’s time. No, not what you think – I have the time available to do what I need to do, it’s just application of that time to the discipline of writing. I’m absorbing a *lot* of information lately, but have not made myself sit and write a list of topics, or to take those topics and flesh them out.
I was brainstorming last night on some Happiness posts and realized that when I simply sat down and did it that I could pound out about a dozen without thinking much about it. As usual, this was another DOH! moment where I got to re-learn a lesson that I’d forgotten. Typical. One of these days I’m going to learn it for good.
So today is a discipline day – I’ve got an afternoon meeting and will spend this morning working on more idea generation (continued from last night) and to get a start on some content generation. Just simply going to sit down, probably at Dunn Bros. Coffee this morning and write without worrying about what it looks like. Kind of a brute force approach, but that has worked for me in the past.
WTF!? A tri-core chip? Why? This makes as much sense as the original Intel 386SX chips. Build a fully-functional chip and then disable a portion of it just to sell it at a discount? No wonder AMD is falling behind.
