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chrisbrogan.com

Covering social media business strategy and personal power

Social media at its basic roots is about the personal touch, right? It’s about the ability to reach out and have our say, to use our voice, to build relationships that we hope have meaning. Can we do that as we rise to taller hills? Can we do that when the masses gather?

Not sure who wrote this, but the ghosts at MediaBadger wrote about The Limits of Corporate Relations in Social Media. It’s a brief but important piece to consider. Here’s my favorite quote:

Once you have a large audience with many people commenting and discussing, you become a “Broadcaster” since you are now communicating one to many. The laws of one-to-few or one-to-one change radically. Yet your audience or customers “expect” a personal response.

The author (have you caught on that I want author attribution on your posts yet, Badgers?) points out that this is an opportunity, and that there are ways to consider this that would be advantageous to PR companies. Not wrong. And yet, I don’t think it’s just PR companies that will figure out this challenge.

How Does Social Media Scale?

If this is a small-form experience, what does one do when it gets bigger? How w

Promoting Your Book OnlineOctober 20

Julien Smith and I are hard at work writing our first book, Trust Agents, about how the social web helps turn relationships into serious business (or some such). We’re still several months off from that book seeing the light of day, but we’re already thinking about how to promote the book.

Seth Godin just launched Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, and as part of the mad rush, he set up some bloggers with free copies to give away. He also put out an audiobook version on iTunes for .99 cents (I bought it). He built a social community ahead of the release of the book. In essence, Seth did a whole new slew of promotions that were completely and utterly different than what he used to sell The Dip. In fact, he does something completely new EACH TIME to promote books.

In thinking about Trust

How Often Do You Promote OthersOctober 19

My favorite bloggers aren’t who you might expect. I love Glenda Watson Hyatt. I love Jon Swanson. I love Marti Lawrence. I think Ann Handley and Shannon Paul are excellent reads, too.

None of these bloggers are on your typical Top 10, but they’re people I read nonstop. I want YOU to read them, too. Not all of them will be your cup of tea, maybe. But they’re voices that deserve more attention than the stuff I write on a given day.

In our space, in the fishbowl business, it seems like there are a scant few people getting all the links and the references. We point to the folks on top of the charts all the time, and riff off their ideas.

Wouldn’t it be more cool if we found the less-known? Wouldn’t it be better if we collected some of our favorites into “starter packs” of interesting content we should be reading/watching/listening to?

And furthermore, even amongst the bigger names, how often are you sharing the good stuff other people are doing? I’ll tell you who’s on top of the heap who shares a lot:

How to Launch a Group Blog ProjectOctober 19

At PodCamp Pittsburgh 3, I launched an impromptu project to build a group blog to be the voice of the city. I enlisted the help of Andy Quayle, Norm Huelsman, Brandice and others. We’re still in the process of building it, but I’ll share the starting steps.

How to Launch a Group Blog Project

Step 1: Choose a Domain Name

This took more time than we thought, but we got it within 30 minutes. We went to Ajaxwhois.com and used that for brainstorming. It’s a domain name finding software that works quickly, and shows you quickly (very!) which domain names are taken.

We decided on OMGPittsburgh.com, which was halfway funny, a little irreverent, and besides, it was getting late.

Step 2: Buy the Domain

We used a GoDaddy.com a

How Bloggers Can Work With Tourism BoardsOctober 18

I had the pleasure to take part of the last day of a tour of Pittsburgh, put on by Visit Pittsburgh. I missed the first few days, which brought the rest of the tour group to see even more of the city, but I had the opportunity to visit a historical museum, a few local attractions, and a Lucky Duck amphibious vehicle tour of the city by land and by water. The experience was great, and because Kristin Mitchell and team at Visit Pittsburgh found some swell bloggers to talk about their experiences in Pittsburgh, they’ll no doubt get some nice write-ups.

The process got me thinking, however. I asked a few people tonight what they’d want a blogger to know about their city. Norm Huelsman had two versions of what he wanted to talk about: the more likely nostalgic tour, but then he also mentioned it would be interesting to talk about how Pittsburgh is really broken into hyperlocal experiences, like the various neighborhoods within. John Carman had a few ideas of his own, too. After talking and thinking a bit, here’s my initial thoughts. I want yours.