As any professional will tell you, keeping up with professional journals, lectures, whitepapers and the like is a significant part of staying current on your business. Social media makes this a little easier and instead of pontificating on this point, I thought I’d demonstrate by taking you through what I read everyday and why and share how this fits into my MVP Strategy or Maximum Visibility Plan for creating powerful awareness for your brand.
Here’s a list of the top 8 thought leaders I’ve book marked in my A-list.
Every morning I log onto Facebook, first thing. There I’ve set up a Facebook list called A-listers. This list captures those thought leaders that share great links, create important content and whose interpretations of my business arena are important to me. I click on this list which filters my news stream on Facebook to bring in just the posts by the people on my list. Then I can quickly scan this list and see if there is anything I’d like to share with my fans. I make it a point to give a nod to the originator of the content and to the person who brought it to my attention. Why? First, because it’s the right thing to do. Secondly, because by doing so, I demonstrate to these thought leaders that I value their contribution, appreciate their content and continue to look to them for leadership. I claim a place in their community as an evangelizer of their brand. Thirdly, my name appears in news streams loosely associated with their name. This is something called ambient awareness. I didn’t originate the content, but I passed it on and named them. My name and their name are read together by more people as the content is reshared. In other words, I endorse their work and introduce them to others, thereby sharing valuable content with my fans.
Who do I read and why? Here’s a list of the top 8 thought leaders I’ve booked marked in my A-list.
1. Mashable: Mashable is my number one read because he and his highly credible team of uber tech and social media obsessed reporters are 100% on top of all things related to technology, people in technology, applications, social media, and virus attacks. They give me the how, the why, the who and the what and keep me in the loop. If you follow only one blog on social media, make it Mashable.
2. Mari Smith: Mari Smith is the Facebook guru. She continues to invest her time and talents in knowing every nook and cranny about Facebook and she is a serial sharer. She’ll tell you everything she knows and more. She’s funny, generous, gifted and worth your time. By calling Mari a Facebook guru, I actually do her a disservice because she’s more than that. She’s an expert in relationship marketing, whatever the platform. Trust me. Add her to your everyday reading list.
3. Dan Schawbel: Dan is the Personal Branding Guru and author of Me 2.0, and his insights into the brand that is you are simply brilliant.
4. Darren Rowse, ProBlogger: Darren’s tag line is “Build a better blog.” He’s not kidding. Daily posts with actionable ideas for creating a more vibrant blog that people will read and want to follow. I bow to his brilliance and read him every single day without fail. He’s an evangelizer for the blog as your core content base and other social media sites as your syndicators and I think he’s a rock star in both information and delivery.
5. Adam Urbanski: Adam is the king of marketing strategies and is someone who truly understands how to connect the social aspects of social media to the deliverables of selling. He’s a consultant, teacher and businessman who delivers real content that can be implemented by businesses, solopreneurs and brands alike.
6. Read Write Web: This is a blog that does reviews of new technology products, comparisons and analysis. It’s ranked by Technorati as one of the Top 20 blogs in the world for a reason—simply stellar information delivered in easy to understand and digest bits. Go there now.
7. Miles Austin: Miles writes a blog called Fill the Funnel and his pithy, eclectic mix of commentary, review and hot news are all about web tools for sales.
8. Natalie MacNeil: Natalie’s blog She Takes On the World by Natalie MacNeil which gives great career advice to women. I like her style, content and message very much.
There are many, many more that I read during the course of my week but these are my never miss blogs. They keep up current, energized, engaged and motivated. What are your favorites?
Wow Cindy, thank you so much for including me on this list of outstanding people that I follow myself. Also, thank you for the kind words about She Takes on the World. It means a lot coming from someone who is so esteemed in her industry and by her peers. You’re awesome!
You’re so welcome Natalie. So many people have asked me who I follow and why that I thought I might as well share. I’m a huge fan.
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
Glad to have been of service, Marcellus! :)