Expression is hard and writing things down is also difficult especially when it’s public but blogging is a very healthy habit and something that I hope continues to grow more and more as my generation matures. A blog is more respected than traditional media these days and consumers are more likely to read a blog over a newspaper, magazine or press release. It’s the human voice that truly captivates people and I’d like to see more of it.
I’m not saying people should follow this method but I don’t edit my blog posts and I don’t modify them later. There’s thought word and deed which is exactly how my blog posts are written. I actually didn’t truly see the power of blogging until two things simultaneously happened to me that, without blogging, would have adversely affected my life, career and reputation. I’ll tell these two tales seperately.
I began blogging at a very young age. To show just how young I was I’ve copied one of my best and well-written posts
Well, i am back. I have to leave in two hours to go teach a martial arts class. I am going to rest and hit some chat rooms before i go. Oh and get something to eat, also. Thinking of getting a veggie/turkey wrap. Today I slept till 9, washed dad’s car., then cleaned house a little bit.
At 1-3, had to do some personal martial art training with an army reserve guy. Dad is the teacher, but I help a lot. this guy has been stationed in Georgia, so can only train every few weeks, for private classes. It does pay well though, and I enhoy it. We went all out, he is bloodied, and my necks is still killing me.
I got home about 3:30, grabbed a snack and finally finished watching a movie, with dad. He left for work again, at 5. I am now here online, checking in with my peeps. Feel free to drop me a message; . I still need some WWII questions for history class,.that is all for now, c ya later. Adios.
That was in March of 2000 which was 9 years ago which means I was 13. I began blogging in early ’99 when I was only 12. It wasn’t even a generational thing at the time but I found this site LiveJournal and started writing things down. I have every blog entry in HTML form so I can look at them when I’m 50 and laugh my ass off. Along those lines, I also have CSV files of all of my tweets so I can index and save them one day (like a diary).
Until I moved to San Francisco in 2008, I kept creating new blogs for specific things. Right, what does a guy between the age of 15-21 have to write about that requires more than one blog? Well, in retrospect, not much but this management actually helped me a great deal with managing blogs, maintaining a voice and subject for each blog and catering to different audiences. In late 2008, I decided to basically kill off all of those blogs and bring it down to 1. The reason was two-fold. The first is that I realized it’s difficult to scatter your audience. This has proven useless in two mediums that I know of. Keep in mind I’m not an expert in either of these subjects but television and religion have followed this practice and it causes, “500 channels with nothing on” and “holy wars”. Since I’m not a fan of either of those, I decided to simplify. Another reason was that I have started ghost-writing for a few people and spreading my work out. Don’t worry, I save the best for this blog but I found myself posting other places for companies and individuals and having 5 blogs myself just wasn’t needed. I posted this final post on my most popular blog and said goodbye. It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made for my personal brand.
I fell into marketing. You know when you were a kid and you had dreams of being an astronaut when you grew up? I had that dream too but, like many young adults, it changed constantly but I didn’t know I’d be marketing anything even after I stepped off the plane upon moving to San Francisco. I moved to San Francisco with very different plans but what never occurred to me was the fact that the move to SF, my work at Apple and my years of travel were all due to the fact that my personal brand was very strong. How did I do that? I failed A LOT but with each failure came a lesson in success and I applied this knowledge and never gave up.
Years of cultivating my personal brand, trying and trying again turned me into a marketer. Sure it was marketing of myself but these strategies paired with my knowledge of the web teamed up and I became someone who could actually help companies or people market themselves or products. It was crazy to me at first so I did something unique. I did it all for free. I committed to 1 year of consulting, speaking, marketing and branding to ANYONE that wanted it. I worked my ass off, pulled 16 hour days and even weekends to help as many people as possible without charging them a dime. Yes it sucked but I can tell you that this is month 13 of living in San Francisco and it paid off more than I could have ever imagined. Let’s get back to blogging though.
What I saw time and time again is that Twitter or micro-blogging in general weren’t the answer to company messaging or branding and neither is a press release or word of mouth. In fact all of those are totally crap for getting your message across. Personally, I can’t read press releases. They’re about as boring as reading a romance novel and Twitter is wonderful for RIGHT NOW but it’s not the answer due to its character limitations and that your message (tweet) is buried in as little as 10 seconds from the moment you click update. If your company is under fire for something and you’re using Twitter to reply to everyone and set the record straight, it’s not going to work and I’ve tried!
Blogging is powerful, long-form, short-f0rm, can contain rich media and is more respected than a tweet or status update. Blog about it and now it’s law. Twitter as a service is very valuable and it CAN be more powerful than blogging but it’s not Twitter’s fault or the product’s fault. The fault is in the human mind and how we are trained to perceive information and process it. Just as 85% of people that re-tweet something never click the link, people will make assumptions before finishing the 140 character sentence. Reading a blog puts the mind in a wait and see mode as opposed to, “what’s this? Meh.” Trust me. Next time there’s a company that you absolutely HATE, check their twitter feed and try to believe them. IT’s hard but when a VP posts a blog entry explaining why they were wrong and apologizing, you’ll hear them out because you want to believe that they can do better and they will do better.
What I learned from blogging is that you’re telling a story. Telling a story 0ver Twitter can be done but it takes a long time. We tell stories every day and before you call me out by saying that a story can be told in 140 characters, I’d like to better explain this.
This blog post had a few key elements that I included and maybe you’ll notice them as I write them out below.
- Childhood Memories
- Self Reflection
- Honesty
- Story Telling
- Knowledge and Tips
- Personal Experiences in Marketing
- Dreams that failed or became a reality
I’m not a scholar so don’t quote my key elements above but these combined makes for a pretty interesting pitch. It’s very very hard for a company to align with these elements but they can sort of do this by sharing early days of the company, admitting defeat and reflecting on mistakes made. It’s about the story and the message and people aren’t doing that. The masters of blogging and self-promotion have told an epic story and this is what I’ve been doing. The story can be real or it can be fabricated but what’s important is that you tell A STORY. Twitter is remarkable for storytelling but it takes time. I’ve posted almost 45 thousand tweets in the past 2.5 years but my story changes and unfolds every day but what I have shared has brought in quite a few fans, friends and colleagues that have become a part of this or have checked-in along the way.
When I started AdamsBlock / OurBlock.TV in the Fall of 2008, I never envisioned it would turn into a company but it did and things are going very well for the guys that are working on it. I made a big mistake which the new owner of this company mentioned in a blog post. I really respect that post because he’s exactly right. I’ve copied a part of it below but you can read the full post HERE.
Communication from Adam was not very good. His weekly community chats were great but ensuring everyone saw the video wasn’t followed through. OurBlock will have weekly updates on our blog with traffic info, donations, new signups and more really cool stats. I want everyone to know what’s going on with OurBlock on a week to week basis and I’m going to make it very easy to give feedback. I’m creating an OurBlock social networking space for broadcasters and fans to communicate and collaborate, there will be weekly YouTube videos from me where you can spread news virally as well. Finally, this blog will be here to answer common questions on a global level. Before, complaints and feedback were answered one email at a time. If I sense a trend, I’ll post my response to the blog so everyone can be educated and it will also help me manage emails a lot better.
He makes a great point. Blog posts that answer common questions and set a tone / message for the entire organization. This is key. Gossip and speculation will always happen and OurBlock will have a chat room, social network component and fan pages on Facebook but the company word & rules will be posted on the blog and I think this is the key to not having the problems that I had with the site. The chat room was a mess, rumors were started about me and without a blog, I never had a chance to address those clearly. This is my fault and part of the reason the site failed. Blogging is very important for everyone.
Your brand is at stake and blogging strengthens this brand. everyone has a brand to maintain and yours is stagnant without a voice. You don’t have to talk about technology or social media to have a blog. Just talk about your interests, experiences, loves and hates and people will follow. Do it for yourself and for your career but just do it.
*Jeez. Another 1900 word blog post. I really need to trim these down! :)*