This post was written originally in April of 2013, after I attended NMX (a blogging/social media conference). There were a lot of big names there. I was especially impressed with Amy Jo Martin. She did a keynote and I even got a free copy of her book, which I started reading on the way home. The thoughts expressed here are still so relevant that I wanted to share them again – with a few updates and revisions here and there.
In January of 2013 I attended #NMX, or BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas. This was the largest blogging and social media conference I’ve ever attended. I was excited to get to either meet or sit in on sessions of folks whose netcasts I’d been listening to for some time.
Amy’s (with my) Thoughts from her #NMX Talk and Book
(Quotes from Amy Jo are in purple)
Everyone can post content and information, the differentiating factor is you and your personality. Think about who you want to buy products and services from, who you’d want to work with or for. Most likely, it’s the person you’ve gotten to know, either via their blog, personally, or through social media. They have differentiated themselves from the crowd. We like to deal with people we know, have a connection to and those connections are forged by how we present ourselves.
Social media gives you access to people previously out of reach. I’m convinced this is true after getting a tweet both from @AmyJoMartin and from @JayBaer (75,000 Twitter followers). He was also a speaker at #NMX. I was very impressed with his talk on Youtility and tweeted about it, and I was once again very surprised that he’d take the time to respond! When the prominent social media personalities take time to respond back to ‘regular’ people like me, it makes us loyal fans.
On the other side of genuine, I was rather disappointed to find out @chrisducker, in his session, asked those of us who had signed up for his session if we got a tweet from him. Since he has his photo and his name front and center, I thought the tweet was coming from him. He proclaimed to all that it was not him but one of his assistants who tweeted to all who had signed up. If someone tweets me and uses the pronoun, ‘I’, I’m going to believe it’s that person sending me the tweet, not a ‘ghost-tweeter’. I can’t speak for how others felt, but I felt like one had been pulled over on me-not a good feeling.
Who is your brand? The answer is that our brand is what we make it. It’s up to each of us to develop and build it for us or our company.
Access leads to connections, then relationships forms. Twitter allows us access to anyone out there. It’s up to us to form the connection and then relationships with people. If you observe the Twitter streams of those you admire or have gotten to know, you see they are having conversations, not just the posting of links and information. A couple people’s podcasts I’d been listening to were Dustin Hartzler’s weekly WordPress podcast (excellent quality material for those of you interested in WordPress), and Todd Klindt’s weekly SharePoint netcast (also recommended as a source of quality information). I knew Dustin would be at #NMX, he even coordinated a great breakfast meetup which I really enjoyed. When looking through my Twitter feed Sunday morning, I saw that @ToddKlindt posting he was needing some directions getting to registration. I was able to help him out and then asked if he had time to meet up with me that morning. So it was great getting to meet these guys – as a result of Twitter and social media!
Influence converts. Here, I believe Amy Jo is saying as we build ourselves into our ‘brand’, we become an authority in our chosen field and with persistence, we become influential and that influence we have attracts people to us and they realize we can help them.
Where your passion, purpose & skills reside – that’s your Royal Bliss. Social media is the Royal Equalizer – it gives you a voice and opportunity. Love these statements. They seem to sum up Amy Jo’s philosophy succinctly and of course, go along well with her Digital Royalty University!