Switching gears from emo to grouchy now…
This post really set me off, so much so that I don’t particularly want to link to it…but I will, for no other reason than to illustrate the silliness of the current trend toward “social media experts”. There are a couple of truly recognized experts and there are some great bloggers around the topic. The best bloggers don’t refer to themselves as social media experts, though.
There are also some good reasons to blog about how to use Twitter, Friendfeed, Identi.ca, blogs, Facebook, etc. My next blog post will be about that. This blog post is about posts that are written in such an authoritative tone that the unsuspecting reader will actually believe what the writer says, whether or not it makes sense.
What is the name of the person writing this blog? Your first name isn’t sufficient, unless you happen to be named Madonna. I want your name. Your full name that you are branding. Don’t make me guess. Don’t try and be cute and/or aloof. Your name, please.
Here’s a news flash: When you write a paragraph like that, you might want to have your author name show on the post where you just demanded that I publish my full name.
Another news flash: I am not a brand. I am a person. I’m a person with opinions, thoughts, a life, a family, and a pug. I don’t write this blog to sell myself. I write it because I like writing, to possibly inspire, and maybe share some knowledge I’ve acquired along the way. A wonderful, terrific side benefit is being able to meet people on Twitter and around the web because I’ve bothered to write or post something they liked to read. That’s what I do and why I do it.
No, I won’t post my last name. You could probably figure it out if you really wanted to, but I’m not going to flash it all over these pages so that I have to stop and think about what I write and whether my husband (who agrees with almost none of my politics and could care less about what I do on the web) will be humiliated by something I’ve written.
Read my type: I’m not a brand. You’re not a brand. You’re a person. Robert Scoble isn’t a brand; Scobleizer is. Robert is a person, a dad, a husband and has a job that happens to include lots of web participation.
You might say that drumsnwhistles is a brand, but it’s really not. It’s just the domain where I write my blog.
There is community, and there is marketing. The two occasionally intersect, but it isn’t a given and it isn’t a requirement to blog. Don’t let self-proclaimed social media experts tell you otherwise.
Use whatever name you want. Be consistent. Engage. Enjoy the people you meet on the walk, and treasure the friendships you make along the way. That’s what really matters.
side note: It probably *is* a good idea to have contact info, but a good email address will do just fine. Don’t post your phone number unless you truly don’t mind weird calls in the middle of the night, or you’re Robert Scoble.
