The Future Buzz | Media, Marketing, PR

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A stunning statistic: 70% of surveyed HR professionals in U.S. (41% in the UK) have rejected a job candidate based on online reputation information.

Individuals are beating your entire marketing and PR department online. Not by just a little – they’re running circles around it.

They’re…

• Earning more links.
• Getting more organic visitors/pageviews
• Building more subscribers

Guest Post By Dayne Shuda of Hunting Business Marketing (follow him on Twitter)

“Innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time.” Mike Rowe – Dirty Jobs

In December 2008, Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs took the stage at TED to talk about his outlook on the state of work in the United States. He discussed his experiences working in over 200 jobs that most people find gross, despicable and downright inhumane. It’s an entertaining and enlightening lecture, but the point I want to focus on is where Mike states that “Innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time.”

I’m a fan of Rebecca Thorman, career/lifestyle blogger and PR pro for start-up Alice.com. Her thoughts are usually spot on. However her post last week: bloggers are not writers, gets enough wrong it’s worth dissecting.

Even if you don’t read the rest of this post, consider her point is inherently flawed since to blog, you need to write. The quality of any writing isn’t the point here. It’s no different than if the typewriter were just invented and someone proclaimed typists were not writers. Tools or platforms have nothing to do with product. Past formats – purely from a content perspective – are no more or less valid than current (or future) and vice-versa.

Social media is not new. At this point, you don’t need a social media expert, you just need a good marketer (all marketers should understand social media by now). The term – once meaningful – has been overused to the point it has become nothing more than a buzzword in the hands of most. Social is simply what the web does, and as a net native who has watched the abuse of the term social media over the years, I’ve slowly become adverse to its use at all.

But unfortunately we have to use it. Too many businesses and clients are enamored with it, or perhaps feel if they don’t start throwing it around they will be viewed as passé.