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The Future Buzz

Adam Singer on social media, marketing, PR and creating buzz online

Forrester Research Says No To Analysts Keeping Their Own BlogsFebruary 7

Previously, I wrote that companies and personal brands have a symbiotic relationship.  Smart companies nurture personal brands, those personal brands promote their employer, and situation emerges where all parties experience digital reputation benefits.  When there is mutual respect and transparency involved, everyone wins.

Employers should embrace team members interested enough to share thoughts on their industry on their own time under their own brand of media.  Sharp employees understand the importance of career security, and if you’re hiring strategists how can you blame them for creating personal marketing strategies?

And yet…Forrester – an organization that should understand the above – is muzzling team members from sharing thoughts about the industry on their own blogs.

As reported by

Analysis, Commentary And Controversy Are Proven Frameworks: Ignore Them At Your Own PerilFebruary 7

I like Chris Brogan.  I’ve even referenced him among social media power users I recommend this community connect with.  With that said, I don’t agree with everything he  says and have disagreed with him in the past.  I’m going to disagree with him again today.

Before I get further into it, I’d like you to consider this:  in any industry, especially those that are new (at least to some) there is a natural tendency to agree as default with leaders.  This is something that always bothered me about marketing industry conversations.  What it creates are hordes of Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse clones.  These guys are great, don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t mean you should be them or blindly agree with them.  Unless you want your voice lost in perpetual obscurity.  The world doesn’t need another Chris or Darren, the world needs and wants you, but not if you’re a parrot.  Be unique, take changes, disagree, analyze, use a sharp wit and stand out.

In a recent post, Chris advises his readers to not analyze others:

If you’re spending your time analyzing what other

Some Thoughts On Redesigning Your SiteFebruary 3

Recently, I worked through the redesign process of this site.  While I had my blog designer draft an overview from his perspective, I wanted to share some thoughts from mine.

First up – it’s worth it:  invest in a custom design

I was using a free theme I customized myself up until the end of January, 2010.  It was simple and did what I wanted it to do:  share ideas and build a community.  Although this worked, I should have invested in a custom design sooner.

Many reasons to do this:

• If you’re going to vest time in anything, it’s worth investing some resources to make it be as successful as possible.
• A custom theme helps you stand out from the crowd.  With the number of blogs growing larger each day, every little advantage you can get helps.
• Templates are well and good – but I can’t help but think they communicate to the world your content is also templated even if it’s not the case.  That’s the initial reaction it can inspire.  Your content now has to work twice as hard to prov

Digg/Reddit And Marketers: A Love-Hate RelationshipFebruary 2

I’ve made it no secret how much of a fan I am of Digg and Reddit and how much there is we can learn from these networks.  In terms of horizontal sharing communities, they’re especially interesting because the entire community gathers around the same content.  What this creates is a tribal culture due to the normalized experience everyone has.  Whether I’m into business or technology, I’ll see all the stories that go popular if I’m subscribed to Digg’s main feed.  Reddit is not exactly like this due to subreddits, but similar in that much of the community is subscribed to the larger feeds.

Today I want to focus (mostly) on Digg.  I used to actively Digg stories and comment, but now I just lurk and study the communities/content/interactions (it’s a one of the places that helps me stay on top of the latest viral images).  Once in awhile content from this blog gets Dugg too, which is surprising considering I’m a marketing blogger.  For the uninitiated:  the influential web communities of Digg and Reddit have a love-hate relationship with marketers.

Love, in that clearly top users are some of the sharpest content marketers around (although this isn’t publicly acknowledged on the communities themselves).

How I Built A 6-Figure Facebook Fan PageFebruary 1

Visualization of a Facebook fan page I created for a brand eclipsing 6-figure fans between April-May in 2009 (it has since grown to +700,000 fans).

Platform-specific communities can be a challenge to grow.  It’s daunting because you’re probably already growing a voice for your brand on something like a self-hosted blog.  But if you can spark rapid growth in a network external of your own, it can be a consistent organic referral source to the places you’re really interested in funneling traffic.  Essentially, it’s a valuable outpost.

Let’s first look at some of the results of this page — then get into how it’s possible for you to do the same.

Before I share anything else, I do want to say Facebook fan page analytics leave much to be desired.  They allow you to see:

• Total fans/basic subscriber data
• Growth daily
• % male/female
• Age range
• Top cities/top countries/top languages
• Basic interaction/engagement metrics
• Pageviews

I cut off the data as it just lists