Categories
Blogging Networking Social media

The four truths of blog and social networks to use to your advantage

Last Friday, Monica O’Brien of Twenty Set wrote about how blog networks sucked and that there wasn’t any advantage to being part of one. I disagree and this post is my response.

Here are the four universal truths about blog and social networks, and how to use them to your advantage:

1. Network means it’s not just about you. Social media by definition is social and is thus a give and take world.Traffic will not magically be sent to your blog, nor will exposure magically occur.

Joining a network – whether that be a blog network like Brazen Careerist, a social network like Facebook or Twitter, or the professional network LinkedIn – doesn’t mean that all of sudden things will be easier for you. Really, it only means that your work has just begun. Hard work.

I mean, I get it. I’ve been there. We think that since we are letting networks have access to all of our writing – words that we have toiled over until 2:00 am and let sit until 2:37 am just to feel motivated and confident enough to even publish – that we should reap grand rewards. That just by giving away permission to our soul, great things should happen. I’ve been there, but that’s not how it works.

It works by not only allowing more people into your world, but by listening to them, hearing them and responding. It works by participating and figuring out how you win with your post and how the community does too.

2. You can’t be found without showing up. A blog network is not your blog. Think of a network as the meeting place – a community house, a bar on a Friday night, the lunchroom at work, whatever. Your blog, in contrast, is your home. You’re the same person – and your posts are the same – in both places, but different people show up and different conversations occur.

If you stay at home, people will find you, but the majority won’t know you exist. Similarly, if you go to the bar and just sit in a corner, that girl is not going to magically give you her number. So you can’t just blog in a vacuum, nor can you join a network and expect that to be the final step if you want to build exposure and traffic. People don’t just find you – you find them.

And that isn’t a theory just for beginners; it’s a commandment for established bloggers. The fact that Penelope Trunk syndicates the heck out of her blog is no coincidence to her success, nor is the fact that Chris Brogan shows up to every social media event imaginable. You don’t stop working ridiculously hard when you’re established. You work harder.

3. Use their network to build your network. A blog network is not promising you a product like cereal, but is selling you on relationships. Before Brazen Careerist started, the sense I had of the Gen Y blogging world was limited; I knew around twenty-five Gen Y bloggers. Now I know and have access to hundreds, not only because Brazen Careerist helped discover those people, but also because Brazen created, inspired and facilitated that particular market to be part of the conversation.

I take advantage of the Brazen network by looking at the community profiles in the same way I look at who my favorite Twitter friends are following, or who my real-life friends and I have in common on Facebook.

And when people comment on a post of mine on any network, I don’t just hope that they subscribe to my blog, I’m proactive. I check out their blog, reply to them, comment on their posts, link to them and begin to build a relationship. I get interested in what they’re doing, because they’ve shown interest in me.

I can’t imagine how I would find these people – those that are interested in my topic – in an easier way. That’s called building community and it’s what social media is all about.

4. Blog networks do give special treatment for two reasons. The first is to attract a lot of traffic from good writers. Want to be featured on the front page of a network? Be a good writer. You could be among the most-hated participants but if you write well, you’ll still be featured.

The second is to reward the people that they have relationships with. This isn’t unfair, it’s smart. Relationships make the world go round. I personally have no idea how blogs are picked to be on the front page, but there’s an easy way to circumvent whatever process the blog network has installed. That is, build a relationship.
Email the community manager if you feel you have an especially good post to, 1) promote yourself, 2) begin that relationship, and 3) make the community manager’s job easier.

I guarantee that a better attitude to success is to ask not what the network can do for you, but what you can do for your network.

Collective truth.

Categories
Blogging Career Generation Y

Nine Gen Y blogs to watch in 2009

I love my blog for two reasons – 1) It’s my space to do whatever I want in, and 2) I get to share that space with an amazing community. I’d like to start 2009 with turning the spotlight on to that community.

This isn’t a list of my favorite Gen Y bloggers, or the most established, or the best or even the most under-appreciated.  And I haven’t included a lot of people I really like. A lot. But looking into the Gen Y crystal ball, I see these fellow bloggers making waves in 2009. Here we go (in no particular order):

1. Politicoholic
Nisha Chittal is becoming rapidly well-known in the Gen Y blogging world. As an extremely talented writer, she easily won the Brazen Careerist blogging contest with this post.

2. Employee Evolution
Speaking of Brazen Careerist, the guys at Employee Evolution have had a tough time maintaining their blog since co-founding the company. But in 2009 that will change. Look for Ryan Paugh to split off and start his own blog here, and for Ryan Healy to re-commit to Employee Evolution with renewed energy.

3. The Schiff Report
Jaclyn Schiff illuminates Gen Y by discovering and commenting on interesting press clips, and more importantly, consistently providing a thought-provoking point of view.

4. WorkLoveLife
It would be hard not to include Holly Hoffman on this list. And it would be hard to imagine the Gen Y blogosphere without her snappy and sensational writing on oh-so-many revealing topics.

5.  FeverBee
Richard Millington talks about ideas for building online communities. I discovered him through Chuck Westbrook’s “Under-Appreciated Blogs” series. Look for Millington to become the Seth Godin of our generation. Seriously.

6. Personal Branding
The real power of Dan Schawbel comes not from his blog, but his incredible passion which makes him one of the hardest-working Gen Y bloggers around. Watch for his book Me 2.0 to come out in early April of this year.

7. I Hate HR
Both witty and wise, Rachel Robbins’ posts are a short and cohesive snapshot of the HR world, something that I could care less about, but that she manages to make interesting.

8. The Office Newb
I love that Jacqui Tom challenges my opinions and forces me to synthesize my ideas. No, really, literally. And while I don’t always agree with her, she makes appealing arguments as a clever writer.

9. Girl Meets Business
It’s been easy to overlook Angela Marino‘s consistently practical and solid advice, but with the launch of her fun and innovative 2009 YP Rockstar series, I know she will gain well-deserved attention.

Wait, one more…
10. Modite

I’m totally cheating. I know. Putting my own blog on my own list is completely self-involved. But I hear you when you say you want me to post more. And I will.

And finally a note about…
The Almost Royal
Sometimes people do things I don’t understand and should stay out of. Like when Sarah Pare deleted her blog. But I want her to come back. She was a favorite. Come back, Pare, we need you.

Who will you be watching in 2009?

Subscribe to this blog, yo.
Follow me on Twitter.

Categories
Blogging Community Engagement Social media

Social media is difficult like intimacy

“Yeah, but it’s just a blog,” someone said. About this blog. My blog. We were talking about social media.

I didn’t have a response at the time. I was like George in that Seinfeld episode (he goes to great lengths to deliver a retort to a coworker), floundering for the perfect comeback.

I couldn’t come up with anything, and later realized that this person? This person doesn’t even have a blog. Pfft. How can you possibly understand the concept of social media if you’re not a participant?

Of course you can understand it on an intellectual level. Like, I understand war even though I’ve never been a soldier. But you can’t really get it unless you’ve been in it. Unless you’ve been in it to win it in fact.

So let’s clarify something. Blogging is one of the most valuable and intimate forms of social media that exists. It’s akin to writing love letters back in the day. It’s not as good as spooning your girlfriend, but it works.

And when people talk about authenticity, transparency and engagement or the newest five rules of social media, they’re really talking about intimacy. That is, being less lonely in this great big messed up world of ours.

So if you’re not participating – i.e., if you’re not responding to blog comments, or if you’re talking to yourself on Twitter, or you’re refusing to claim your name on Facebook, you lose.

If you do not participate, you are not a part of social media. You’re last year’s season. Obsolete. Outdated. Old-fashioned. And oh-so entrenched in traditional media. Do you want to be a gatekeeper or a gatejumper? I’m going to give you a hint. Gatekeepers are like those London guards in the big funny hats. I told my mother that when we visited London, I thought one guard was particularly cute. She was extremely put out.

“Remember,” she said, “it was 96 degrees and he had to stand there for who knows how long. I felt bad for him.” She felt bad for him.

Gatejumpers on the other hand, they get to go wherever they want. Even into air-conditioned buildings.

Going wherever you want, that takes some gall. It’s such a big responsibility. This is why a lot of people – and a lot more companies – fail at social media. Because we all want to connect to people and ideas, but to do that you have to go ahead and open up. You have to expose that birthmark on your ankle, the stash of Ben & Jerry’s in your freezer, and the fact that you can be hypnotized by a girl hula-hooping.

People fail because it’s scary to put yourself out there. Like Zeus and I, we’re really bad at this. Or mostly I’m bad at it, but I’m trying to be better because I understand vulnerability is good. But practicing it is something different entirely.

Companies fail because somewhere along the line, branding gurus rolled right over the fact that companies are made up of people, not a blacktop of products. Underneath the monolith that defines companies today are ideas, opinions, passion.

Social media is about synthesizing and refining ideas, opinions and passion. You know, two-way conversation, or more often than not those racy three-ways or more. And in being any way but alone, you discover value and an understanding that is difficult to grasp if you’ve never even participated in the conversation in the first place.

Related Post: Social media doesn’t create new generation leaders

Categories
Blogging Generation Y Self-management

What Generation Y fears the most

Some might say Emily Gould is a twenty-six year old attention-craving narcissist. But I empathize with her. Nay, after reading her cover article in the New York Times magazine, I adore her (via Penelope Trunk).

Then I read the response. So not worthy of the New York Times the commenters declared in unison. Obviously. Because the world is so much cooler, smarter, and better-looking than Emily Gould.

Which is sad because if Emily Gould’s voice – a voice for bloggers everywhere or merely for herself – is muffled in the world than the world is going to get a lot more lonely.

But there are so many other things to pay attention to. So many other very important things, commenters lamented to the Times.

And maybe therein lies part of the problem.

Generation Y is generally not able to recognize themselves in these very important things – not war, or terror, economic crisis, or the general misery and abyss that too often characterizes the world today.

To be sure, we are eventually ushered into the real world where thoughts of changing the world are fastidiously and mechanically hampered down by those somehow deemed smarter and more experienced than us. It’s called entering the workforce, and it is an experience that only furthers the distance between us and the issues that matter.

Such an evolution is chronicled online within the blog posts of Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh, authors of Employee Evolution and co-founders of Brazen Careerist. They are the self-proclaimed voices of the millennial generation.

Once proud and insistent of all that an online community could do and accomplish, Healy and Paugh are now immersed and defined by the culture they once espoused. As such, the reality of what an online community is and can actually accomplish is setting in, for better or worse. If you’ve followed them from the early days, you can tell – real life has entered their posts. That is, the reality of doing something meaningful is ridiculously difficult.

You might substitute family or environmental activism or accounting for online community – whatever your passion and dreams consist of – and should you pursue these ideals, you might find they’re not all they were cracked up to be.

Wait. If I sound too much like the big bad wolf of Gen X in Gen Y’s clothing, please let me set the record straight. I drink the Gen Y kool-aid on a daily basis. I do believe in hope, idealism, fantastical dreams and change beyond our imagination.

I was brought up in all that is sweet and sugary. In a world where some fear their shoelace being caught in a landmine, the worst thing that has ever happened to me is my father’s death. A kind of tragedy that I wouldn’t understand until the day after it happened, and the day after that, and each and every day after that. I wouldn’t understand how much my life would be defined by the lack of his.

But I’ve never been raped or abused. Or had a drug problem, or anorexia, bulimia or obesity. I’ve only experienced heartbreak once, maybe twice. I’ve never been shot at or tormented. I’ve never worried about putting food on the table or a roof over my head.

Really, I lead a charmed life. I’m not being sarcastic. I’m being serious. I feel incredibly lucky.

And so when I write about how sad or happy or anxious or ecstatic I am, it’s because I’m trying to figure out how to use this charmed life for the best possible result. How can I build a life that is meaningful?

Because I’ve been trying really hard, and what once seemed like an upward arc towards significance has come back down full circle.

I think this is the great unspoken truth about Generation Y.

We’re terrified our lives won’t matter.

Should Generation Y have a downfall, it will be that we engage in far too much navel-gazing, yes, but also that others don’t recognize the importance of such introspection. The backlash against Emily Gould, and that what she represents is somehow not important demeans the individual experience that defines the collective identity.

That’s why blogging is so important for Generation Y. Because when I read Emily Gould’s experience, I recognize myself. And when someone reads what I wrote, they see themselves.

When we make one person’s struggle less than another, we put down our own struggle as unimportant. And it’s really important to figure out ourselves. If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that people react most violently against what they fear the most. And people fear some weird stuff – success, happiness, failure, love. You know.

But if you don’t agree with that, and I wouldn’t expect everyone to, let me tell you something else. You can disagree without malice or hatred. You can disagree without judgment.

It’s this thing called respect.

And I think that’s a good starting point to building a meaningful life.

Hopeless. Romantic.

Categories
Blogging

New look for a new month

I wasn’t planning on redesigning my blog. I was planning on spending the evening with friends. But I sat down to make some minor changes and before I knew it, 2:00 am rolled around and my blog was completely different.

Key new features include a new look and feel, drawing inspiration from some of my favorite bloggers. You can also search the blog using the Google widget in the sidebar, and whenever I post something to del.icio.us you’ll know under the “daily links i like” sidebar section. You can also see where I contribute under the sidebar section “community,” and I’ve placed the old mastheads under the “about” section if you’re feeling nostalgic.

I really hope you all enjoy the new look, and I welcome your feedback. I’ll be fine-tuning some things as time goes on, but if you see any glaring problems, do let me know. Thank you!

Categories
Blogging

I’m featured in the New York Times!

I’m featured in the New York Times online today, in an article called “The Young and the Not So Restless” about young leaders by Marci Alboher. Run, don’t walk, and check it out.

If you’re coming here from that article, welcome! Marci is my new best friend. Really. If she wanted me to bake her a cake, I totally would. Now that you’re here, kick back, relax and learn all about the Modite way:

Must read before you leave
Personal branding, accountability, and how to just be yourself already
What it means to be a Gen-Y leader
What gives you the right to be a young leader
7 concessions and a challenge to the Gen Y naysayers
The power of place – What do you think?

Read when you come back, thirsty for more
Prioritize your authenticity
Generation Y breeds a new kind of woman

3 workplace weaknesses that are really Gen Y strengths
Advice from top Executives, CEOs and Presidents
7 networking tips for Generation Y

Categories
Blogging

All better now

My blog is back up! For those of you who didn’t get to read the most recent post on Friday, it’s anxiously awaiting your eyes here:

Life as a Gen Y Leader – Week six

For those of you who have read it already, you’ll notice it’s a lot shorter than the original post. That’s because I like to edit. And while I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules in blogging world, I like to edit, and it’s my blog. Something I learned fairly quickly to mean that it’s actually everyone’s blog. That’s why I like blogging. The connection between me and you. It’s like a novel in real-time, a few pages written each week, and you know the ending just as well as I do. And let’s face it. My dream is to one day be featured on Oprah’s Book Club.

Moditely yours.