DISQUS

This is what absolutely kills me about the music industry. There's so much untapped potential for opening up social media as sales channels. I should be able to share and post any song I want, but instead the industry is still stuck in 90s era thinking that if music is shared, sales are lost, not gained. I have a feeling in 5 years we'll be in a much different place but for now it's still frustrating.

Chris thanks for promoting this. I'm lucky enough to be one of the invited speakers and it should be a blast for small business owners.

Hope to see you at SXSW!

Yep, The Bourne Identity is a classic! It's also on my very short list of movies I can watch again and again.

"This has become even more interesting, however. People got angry pretty quick, talking about the clique-ish nature of Twitter, of the lists being a clique, of them being exclusionary.

Think about this: ANYONE has the password, ANYONE can edit the list."

This is the part that I found completely odd, but how can this be clique-ish, if anyone can add anyone?!?

Sorry but this smacks of some people simply wanting to be offended.

Great post Jake and I'm honored that The Viral Garden is included as a potential reference, especially for college students.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned from blogging and participating in social media is that your success in these endeavors is dependent on how they benefit the larger community. If your efforts can provide a DIRECT benefit to others, your efforts will benefit indirectly.

If you view social media as an avenue to directly promote yourself and benefit directly, your efforts are almost doomed to fail. But if you approach your efforts as a way to bring value to others, the rewards will quickly come flowing back to you.

Great stuff and a great service you're doing to others, which is also a perfect example of my point about giving value to others.

Ok I went back and read the thread you linked to, and the post on her blog about the Blog Council.

From reading BL's posts on her blog, and writing alongside her at Daily Fix, I have noticed that BL's posts are often a bit 'forceful' in tone. Her style is often 'my way or the highway'.

Again, that's her style. I've also noticed that many that agree with her stance in that post will comment that she is 'refreshing' and that they enjoy her 'telling it like it is'.

But if you disagree with the stance she is taking, she can come off as fairly abrasive. I think this is what happened with the posts you replied to. You challenged her and she came across as 'I'm right, you're wrong, goodnight'.

This is BL's style. I also think that since she took such a forceful stance, it prompted you to be a bit more forceful in your disagreement, at least that's what it looked like to me.

Personally I think if you are going to have a 'my way or the highway' tone, you are going to have to accept that you are going to get some 'oh hell no!' responses.

Greeat advice Ben! Agree completely on being careful about too much promotion. This is something that most companies simply do not grok at all about social media. Less promotion, more value creation for readers.

Great post Chris, and very relevant as more and more people are blogging. It's also worth noting that blogging is a great way to stand out in Google search results, and quickly develop a presence online.

"Here’s the rub, marketers answer to managers and boards, etc. They like graphs, no not just social media graphs that shows influence, links, brand extension, but graphs that tie to revenue or the potential for revenue.

So, the issue as I see it is two-fold 1) how can we graphically translate, “the conversation” to “The bottom line”

Exactly, Albert. Social media is still hard to sell to so many companies because they can't see how it directly impacts the balance sheet. We can talk about 'joining the conversation' and 'more efficient marketing due to better understanding your customers' all we want, but companies aren't listening.

Until they can understand how it directly impacts the bottom line, many companies will wait and see. And lose out to companies that are dipping their toes in the waters now.

Traditional marketers are still trying to find ways to turn social media tools into direct selling channels. IF they can get away from this 'me first' mentality, and begin to use these tools as we do, and for the SAME REASONS as we do, then marketing will be literally turned on its head. I think we are seeing some hints that this might eventually happen with the blogging success that Dell and some others are having. The key will be if they can keep pushing to use these tools to create and strengthen connections, or will they revert into the old mindset of monetization first.

Interesting how some pitches are becoming smarter, isn't it? I think the 'pitchers' are beginning to understand the importance of putting a greater value on our attention.

Remember the blog post I made a couple of days ago about the great pitch I got with the pic of the handwritten note? I just received a pitch where all they did was email me a press release. I replied to their email and all I did was send them a link to my post on 'Now THIS is how you pitch a blogger!' ;)

Mark Goren completely stole my thunder as I was coming to suggest Citizen Marketers. All of his other recommendations are excellent as well.

Congrats Jake, so it gave you a headstart on what to be thankful for at Thanksgiving!

"1. Apply for a press pass. You’re a blogger right? Maybe you can get a free press pass to the show? You NEVER know."

If a blogger wants a press pass, a good idea is to drop an email to the event organizers offering to blog the event, if they will comp them a free pass. Many conferences will go for this, I was offered a press pass about a week ago to a $2,000 conference if I would agree to blog the event. And of course that's a great way to network as well, you could even do a few interviews and cross-post them on your own blog.

Good advice Jim, going to conferences IS expensive, but really it's an investment. I used to scratch my head at how all some bloggers did was blog about all the conferences they are attending/speaking at. Now it makes sense.

Congrats Lolly, can't wait for Year Two!

Lolly I am about ready to cancel my MySpace account as well, since I never use it. I am getting into Facebook and I will say that the interface is much cleaner than MySpace. Look for me on there!

Can I have back the 5 mins it took to read all this? Is this really what we have come to; obsessing over whether or not 'Bill Gates' added us to his friend list on some social site?

This is big news John and I'm very excited to see how Ad Age handles it, and how other publications/websites respond.

Ryan I think the problem is, the 'big players' are seeing that 'there's big money to be made in social networking', so they are trying to create these networks with monetization built-in. IOW, they are starting with 2 strikes against them because, again, communities do not form around the idea of being monetized.

Congrats Jake! Will be exciting to see what happens next!

"Problem with hype is that it drowns out a ton of otherwise awesome stories. Sorry, what’s that? It’s not about the iPhone or Facebook? Then I can’t hear you."

Yep and bloggers know that constantly yammering on about whatever the 'hot site of the moment', is great linkbait and for traffic. The endless Twitter hype that was run into the ground has now been replaced by Facebook-hype. A month or 2 from now the current Facebook hype will be replaced by something else.

As Smorty said, it's your blog so write about whatever you want. But hearing every couple of months that Site/Service X is the 'next big thing!' begins to sound like the boy crying wolf.

Again, it's summer. When it gets to September and you're still having those same bloggers tell you that their traffic is down, then you'll have something.

"One trend that bloggers don’t want to talk about? A number of my blogging friends have seen their traffic go down lately. They assume that their readers are off in social networks. I think they are absolutely right."

I think it's more the 'dog days of summer'. I noticed about 2 weeks ago that my traffic started slipping, but feed readers continues to climb. Same thing happened last summer.

I like it John, definitely looks 'cleaner'. Congrats!

"MikeJones: this isn’t about A listers. If the A listers aren’t getting linked to, imagine how the Z listers are going to get on TechMeme."

Most Z-Lister write for their readers and themselves, not because they are trying to get listed at the top of TechMeme.