Alexa Scordato Weighs In
From a comment left by Alexa Scordato:
I’m a little behind commenting on this, but I really have to publicly thank you Chris for letting me tackle this with you.
As everyone has already acknowledged, the wealth of information you’ve managed to put out in the past year is not only valuable, it’s inspiring. The content you put out is thoughtful, thorough, and always a step ahead. You successfully balance honesty with analysis, humor with opinion, and quality with quantity.
Even though I was a frequent reader of this blog prior to the assignment, it wasn’t until I spent hours trying to archive your posts, knee deep in links and trackbacks that I really grasped the magic you have going on here.
On average, you blogged more than 50 posts a month, sometimes updating as frequently as 3 or 4 times a day. In addition to your content, you also managed to develop an impressive readership - a community of dynamic, creative, and articulate individuals who all do what you preach: think, participate, and communicate. Did you know that out of the 528 posts I read through, the average post had at least 13 comments? Only 6% of your posts had 0 and these entries were audio based posts via Utterz or some other service where comments were posted externally.
I haven’t told you this yet, but I actually printed out the 22 page excel sheet I generated listing every single blogpost on here. Not only is it a visual reference I look at when I want to quickly find a post, it is a daily reminder of lessons I learned from you and this site:
1. Be passionate. Social media is constantly evolving and folks move fast in this world. It’s exhausting trying to keep up, but only those who really love it can.
2. Be a sponge. Read and learn from anything and everyone and constantly seek out new sources of information and opinion. Ask questions.
3. Be a creator of quality content. Whether its blogging, vlogging, podcasting, programming, etc. producing content is key. It’s one thing to observe and talk about social media. It’s another thing to actually make it, live it, breath it.
4. Be a person. Yeah chrisbrogan.com is IMO the #1 source for all things social media, but it’s also a great resource for how to be a listener and well-rounded human being. There are some great posts about family, friends, and balancing work/play and professional/personal time. We all have to unplug sometimes.
5. Participate online and offline. It’s not enough to develop surface connections with people via urls, friend requests, and email. Make the effort to meet someone face to face and converse in real time.
There’s more I can add to this list, but these are really the big picture ideas that are embedded in my head after reading your blog.
To any aspiring rockstars looking to stay afloat in social media waters, this site is the golden life preserver.
Thanks again Chris.
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Comments
Wow Alexa, I couldn’t have said it any better. And I won’t try to. I second that emotion. Thanks Chris!
You are both rockstars! I thank my lucky every day that I can consider you both friends! Thank you both always for the love and light and inspiration!
[…] I recently experienced a surge of traffic to my site as a result of an assignment I worked on with Chris Brogan, social media king and Mr. all around nice guy. Back in March he gave me the challenge of compiling a list of his best blog posts dating back to July 2007 (anyone familiar with the blog knows what I was working with - a lot of content and even more challenging, a lot of *quality* content). To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement because at the time, I couldn’t possibly fathom how I would determine which posts were worthy of a “Best of Brogan” page. There was just so much good stuff there. That said, I spent a considerable amount of time reading and re-reading his archives and compiled a list using a very non-formulaic system. I asked myself if a post was useful to me as social media newbie, contained thoughtful comments from readers, was more than just a paragraph blurb or embedded video, and contained something unique to Chris as a blogger/thinker/writer. What I took away from the experience was invaluable. […]
Alexa is one of the smartest and most knowledgeable people I know. She’s been consulting with me weekly since September. I have nothing but respect for her. Again and again, Alexa has demonstrated her value and insight. I completely agree with her about Chris’ site, it is the golden life preserver.
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Thanks for the thoughts, Alexa. This is as inspiring to me as anyone else. You’ve said a lot of things worth considering, and given me a different view on my own work. Thank you.