Digital Marketing | Social Media | Online PR – The Future Buzz

image credit: yago1.com

Several high profile bloggers have been complaining lately about too much noise from the blogosphere, from microblogging, and from the social web in general.

I always find it funny when people say things like “there are too many blogs.” That’s missing the point entirely. Are there too many telephones? Too many Twitter users? Too many email addresses? All of these things (blogs included) actually become more useful with more participants.

There’s a bunch of buzz lately in tech and marketing circles with an ever-increasing disdain for self-imposed titles. The one which stands out in the marketing niche is some incantation of “social media (or new media) consultant (or expert or specialist).” Mix and match as you please.

As an aside, there is a backlash across the web with an ever-increasing disdain for the word entrepreneur as literally everyone who has created some sort of .com is slapping the title on themselves.

Literally throngs of individuals (and even agencies) are dubbing themselves with impressing-sounding titles and claims without much evidence to prove they’ve had success doing much of anything.

image credit: victor nuno

Today is the final day of the year 2008. Our society’s numbering of years always bothered me and makes little sense from a logic perspective – it is a system based on culture, not science. This isn’t the 2008th year the planet has been around. Alas, this is what society has decided to use, so we’ll go with it for now.

Also, yesterday was the final day of my 25th year on this by-chance, life-supporting planet we call Earth. Always a retrospective time of year for me, and probably for you as well.

Most bloggers make lists of their most popular posts of the year, but instead of doing that (you can browse the archives here if you’d like) I thought I’d do something different and piece together a few smart/inspirational quotes from several bloggers I’ve been reading this year.

Image Credit: magia3e

If you are new to this blog and this series, please start by reading social media power users and influencers part 1, part 2 and part 3, as that will provide the full context for this post.

Just to refresh those of you who have been reading along, the main goal of this series is to help you find people using the web in creative and effective ways for positive influence — from the big names to those in the long tail. The real value for you is to subscribe and follow these people to learn how they successfully use social media to share their ideas.

I’ve written some detailed thoughts previously on the rise of personal branding, and the importance of building career security, not job security.

Jeremiah Owyang, Sr Analyst at Forrester Research: Social Computing recently brought up the topic again in a fantastic post: How Companies Respond to the Risks of Personal Brands. Go read it if you haven’t – both the post and ensuing discussion offer good insight from some incredibly intelligent people.

From the post:

Some companies are wary of personal brands
Last week, I spoke to a social media strategist as a very large consumer packaged goods company, he expressed to me over this client call (called an inquiry) that he was concerned about employees getting too popular due to their personal brands and as a result, getting pulled right out of the company.

The topic is worth thinking about further, as in the future more dedicated professionals, especially those in media, marketing and PR industries will gain greater interest in carving out a name for themselves using social communications tools as they discover the value and opportunity afforded.

Image Credit: Gary Hayes

Ken Kadet recently tagged me in a post he wrote on 5 things about social media he’d like to see change asking me to share some thoughts along those lines. Since Ken covered that topic pretty well (I agree with what he wrote), but I’d still like to continue the meme of 5, I’ll instead write on 5 reasons you should learn about social media.

image credit: zeuxis

There was a time not too long ago when a limited few had power of distribution. And with that power and zero competition, the media moguls built monolithic and faceless brands behind them. Sure, there were talented writers behind the publications, but the writers themselves were not directly intertwined with the brand beyond the extent that they merely supplied content.

Think of your local newspaper or even a traditional national media organization – I highly doubt there is one single writer or editor that immediately comes to mind and stands out as the person behind that brand of media.

All of that has changed.

Image Credit: David Armano

This topic keeps coming up around the blogosphere, on Twitter, on FriendFeed, even in Wired and The Economist. Let me bring a dose of reality to the situation: microblogging won’t “kill” blogging: they are not the same tools nor are they even in competition.

In fact, I refuse to link you to any of the articles talking about the death of blogging because they merely are great examples of linkbait. The people writing the articles on the death of blogging know perfectly well that blogging is thriving and use that to their advantage. They know merely by writing that blogging is dead, they’ll cause an uproar of attention for themselves.

Image Credit: Neville Longmore Abstract Artist

McDonalds is to food as radio is to music
I abhor essentially all music that is played on broadcast radio. Yes, musical taste is subjective, but the trite, banal, watered-down music devoid of personality played on radio in America is an insult to anyone with more than a fleeting interest in the form of art.

The problem I have with it goes deeper than formulaic structure and generic, unoriginal content – although you could easily make the case for either of those – but I’d like to also highlight something you may not realize: most of it is way overproduced. It isn’t authentic and is lacking a key element that makes music special: personality.

I prefer music written by one person in their home studio with just a few pieces of gear, music recorded by an amateur band in their garage, music recorded by a live jazz performance for an intimate group – people creating music because they love it without pretense. It is real, and it’s actually far better than what most big studios put out.

There is no shortage of definitions of social media floating throughout the web. Here are just a few…

Wikipedia defines social media as:

Social media are primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.

Duct Tape Marketing defines social media as:

Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value.

Brian Solis defines social media as:

Social Media is, at its most basic sense, a shift in how people discover, read, and share news and information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, tranforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many.)