This is part 5 in a series by 6 digital mavericks.
- My friend Mars Dorian, the master of spreading your digital influence kicked off this series with The Guerilla’s Guide to Attracting Your Write Audience.
- Francisco Rosales at Social Mouths followed it up with a genius installment on the idea that less followers is the new more followers. I think my feelings on that are fairly well known
. - Literary seductress Ashley Ambirge showed us exactly how we can seduce our audiences with poetic blogging that leaves them constantly wanting more.
- Corbett Barr showed you how to join forces with other bloggers.
It’s kind of fitting that my installment falls somewhat later in this series. I consider myself somewhat of a social engineer and according to Malcom Gladwell I’m a connector. I guess that’s why Mars Dorian asked me to take up the task of explaining how to build relationships and your personal army, the lifeblood that keeps the blogosphere pumping with kick ass content.
Surround Yourself with Awesome
One of the well known secrets of success in both life and business is that we become the byproduct of the people we surround ourselves with. In fact I read somewhere once that your income can be determined by the income of your five closest friends. I think the same goes for your life as a digital maverick. Every day millions of people start new blogs, and new talent pervades the blogosphere. New voices clamor for somebody to listen, yet people get too caught up in star-fu#$#ing mindset.
I’ve talked before about the importance of a blogging entourage, but now I want to talk about how you become the CEO of your digital destiny. Look at the blogosphere as a pool of talent that you get to recruit new employees from, however you can’t actually hire anybody. You can only invite them to join your tribe. You’re good at certain things and you suck at others. Surround yourself with awesome by connecting with people who know how to do the things you don’t. Hopefully you’ll see where I’m going with this, but let’s look at some concrete examples.
- Jonathan Wondrusch(@bybloggers): For those of you who don’t know Jonathan Wondrusch, you should. He’s a talented desginer/eproduct creation specialist at. I can’t design web sites or do layouts worth shit. Fortunately, Jonathan contacted me within a few weeks of starting Bybloggers and I consider him a member of my tribe and I’m a member of his. He’s currently helping me with my manifesto.
- Jenny Leonard: Jenny is another digital baby on the rise and another talented designer/branding specialist. She rebranded her own site and came out the gate in full force and she’s not slowing down anytime soon.
So what’s the point. As my friend Stanford Smith at Pushing Social brilliantly put it, “kiss lots of digital babies.” Emerging talent is one of the most undervalued assets in the blogosphere. It’s theperfect opportunity to surround yourself with awesome with a group of people who are all looking for YOU. You’re the Morpheus to their Neo. Unplug them from the matrix and invite them into your world.
Make Friends not Followers
I think the number of followers you have is the most meaningless statistic ever. I know I have 2500+ followers. But, the inner circle is who I talk to and that’s who talks to me. Interestingly enough I don’t look for people who can do anything for me, which might seem like a contradiction to the points above. But hear me out. The people above just happen to have a talent, but I didn’t know much about that until I got to know them. This is like the ultimate dinner party and an opportunity for you to be the popular kid in high school, without being an asshole. I like people and I like stories, so let me give you an example
- Chuck Johnstone is relatively new to the blogosphere. I think he’s only been at it for a little more than a month. You might be wondering what would cause me to strike up a relationship with him. I think he tweeted one of my posts or something so I checked out his profile. For the love of god, anytime somebody new mentions your or tweets your post, give them the courtesy of checking out who they are and what they’re up to. When you don’t it’s like a digital fuck you… (I realize at some point that it wont be scalable, but this is really key to how I’ve done things over the last several months). Anyways, I looked at Chuck’s site and I saw that he was a surfer. The rest is history and now I’m helping him with a crazy idea I had for a project that requires something he has that I don’t, a fiance..(details coming soon).
- Archan Mehta: For those of you want to read comments that will make you want to build this guy a blog so we can get more of his genius, take a look at Archan Mehta. His comments are so poetic that I couldn’t help but email him and ask him to share his genius here on The Skool of Life. Again, this comes down to friendship instead of followers.
Give everything you can
When I get interviewed I make a point to give away the farm. Locked up in the vacuum of that head of yours, your ideas are not doing the world much good. If you want to change the world, then the world needs to know about the genius inside you and believe me, it’s there.
- When people email me with their questions, I try to send them a relatively intelligent answer when I actually know what I’m talking about.
- Every week I make a point to share whatever I can in a U-stream chat and it’s free. I also giveaway about as much info as I would in a 1 on 1 consult with somebody
What you need to realize is that you possess knowledge and skills that only YOU have. Share it with the world and you’ll receive tenfold what you give.
In conclusion all I can really say is that technology has given us the gift of attending the world’s most interesting dinner party on a daily basis. Embrace it, love it, appreciate it, and make sure you tip the staff. Don’t get too shit-faced while you’re here. Save that for when we get together in real life .
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Great post, thanks for sharing your personal stories, they make it so much easier to relate and digest the advice given, which I think is lacking on a lot of other "how-to take over the world one blog at a time" blogs out there.
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