Oct 11, 2010

As mentioned previously, I was fortunate enough to moderate a panel with the following folks:

Ginny Skalski – @ginnyskal
Damond Nollan – @damondnollan
Dan London – @danlondon
Patrick O’Keefe – @ifroggy

As always, I learned a ton. First off, thanks to everyone who was there… especially the panelists and Claudia Kimbrough. It was an awesome topic and a fun and informative night.

Tell stories.

Anyone can repost a popular article and add a bit of commentary… and this isn’t a bad thing. However, to take your blog and readership to the next level, you need to tell stories. Stories help us relate to others and are a better means of communication than regurgitating content.

Be yourself and be consistent.

I have several soapbox posts about being passionate about what you write, but too often we find ourselves straying from who we really are. Don’t do that. If you want a smarter person telling you that, read what Amber Naslund wrote about it and how her presentations were impacted. Consistency is also extremely important, both in your delivery and in your process.

More is better, but less is too.

This seems counter-intuitive, but stay with me. More posts will yield more traffic, so keep grinding and get content out there. However, niche is better. If you’re passionate about something specific… be the expert at that. A good example is my main man Greg Ng. Freezerburns.com is the leading frozen food review site, but if Greg had chosen to do food reviews… it might be a different story and would definitely take more time to become the leading expert in a more generic and competitive space. This is similar to SEO and long-tail keywords.

Brain crack kills.

If you’ve worked with me, you’ve heard me say “analysis by paralysis” and I probably advocated to go ahead and get something out there. Patrick led me to a wonderful video by Ze Frank about how sometimes it is best to put ideas into play rather than trying to make them absolutely perfect.

Check out the slides I put together to guide our discussion below.

Blogging – A panel with Patrick O’Keefe, Ginny Skalski, Dan London, Damond Nollan and Chris Moody at NC State University for the MBA Program

View more presentations from Chris Moody.

A sweet blogging panel at NC State for the MBA program

I’m excited to be a part of an awesome panel assembling tonight at 6pm to discuss all things blogging. I’ll be moderating some insanely smart people (note: insanely smart != insane).

Ginny Skalski – @ginnyskal
Damond Nollan – @damondnollan
Dan London – @danlondon
Patrick O’Keefe – @ifroggy

Rumor has it that the event will be live-streamed or recorded (maybe both). I’ll be sure to add those details as I get them and will post a recap and some slides later this week. Watch the live stream at 6pm EST.

Props to NC State for understanding the importance of social media and incorporating that into their MBA program.

Ask us questions now: Managing social media with limited resources Social Fresh Panel

Whatcha' wanna know?

I’m taking trip number three to Social Fresh and making the trek to Charlotte for the rockin’ August 16th event. Social Fresh Charlotte is poised to be the biggest and baddest yet… and we’d love to make sure you get what you want ahead of time.

In what could be my favorite panel topic ever, I’ll be joining moderator David B. Thomas (SAS) and panelists Brian Dresher (USA Today), Lisa Hoffman (Duke Energy) and Jennifer Ecclestone (General Motors).

I’ll be talking about how we listen to our customers with social media and use their feedback to improve our product, Phonebooth.com. I’ll also discuss escalating issues and how to find ways to make your company more social (without increasing head count… at least until you’re told to do so). Everyone will be discussing some cool things that they’ve done and hopefully you can take our use cases and run with them.

What kinds of questions do you want to make sure we answer?

Hopefully, we’ll get a few good questions on Twitter or via comments and we’ll be sure to mention the question and who asked it during our 45 minutes.

Also… keep this hush hush… but this is the first time Phonebooth has had a sponsorship role at SoFresh… and let’s just say that we’re going to get our money’s worth. Look for the big red Phonebooth and something really cool to help everyone answer more difficult questions.