Jen

It’s a hard thing to do. I know…this year I went from 20 readers per week to 50+ readers per day…not LARGE scale compared to sites like yours but a definite change in communication and approach from a personal blogging perspective.

~Bobby Ozuna
Drawing Stories…With Words

We have to give customers a reason to be Dell advocates. Getting that point across to colleagues in the business is not always an easy task.

That said, any single person can only scale so much.

So, back to the question at hand… yes, I believe social media does scale, but it’s not easy. Building a team is the only way to do it. We’re still trying to build processes and tools to support our customers within our own sites and outside of them. That means we need teams of people in place all working toward a common goal. In my experience, customers don’t really care if they hear from me directly or someone else from our team—all they care about is connecting with someone at Dell who can answer their questions/ solve their issue.

In my experience, being a corporate blogger means being a customer advocate, a writer/ editor and a social media evangelist who is both internally and externally focused. Not easy, but it sure is fun.

I think you pose some really interesting questions and ones that I’m sure you and other A-list bloggers face often. However, the one thing that I love about this space is that many of the top bloggers, you include, take the time out to develop friendships with as many people as possible and you’re truly genuine about it.

Does that mean that it scales? I think it scales but is harder and harder to maintain at that level. It makes it hard to respond to every single question, email, request, etc that you might receive. It involves having to start saying “no” when you were always used to saying “yes”. It also means having to start looking at forming a team to help you manage your other responsibilities. I think the thing that you have to always be careful of though is not to let go of the very things that got you to the level you’re at. For instance, Gary Vaynerchuk has a whole team that now helps him manage his skyrocketing career, however he still stays involved with his community on a daily basis.

I think you are doing an excellent job Chris though I’m sure it’s difficult to manage with the number of contacts and opportunities you receive daily. Keep up the great work!

The trick, I guess, is to make sure each person who is reading/listening/following feels like the “one”. You do it marvelously.

Furthermore, there is a certain continuity in your different pieces, something deeper than the words that ties them together. Those folks who say it won’t scale haven’t figured this part out yet.

Using these tools for the “enterprise” (that word always transports me to the bridge in front of Cpt. Kirk) raises a whole different set of issues. First let me say that for me, the social media tools are kind of a “so what?” Don’t get me wrong, I love that I can publish wide varieties of content at will, but really, they’re just communication tools. They will change things for the enterprise slowly, the same way the telephone changed things. The phone was unique when it came out because it connected people by voice who were miles apart geographically. Eventually, though, a telephone just became one more reality of modern life, for better or worse. I assume (and hope) that in your role as a true thought leader, that you would use SM the way a field general uses his communication technologies – to assemble your troops and lead them to the battle front. And not the way a telemarketer uses the phone, that’s just a silly waste of time.

It isn’t less genuine at all – they are called evangelists, advocates, etc. You have us – your readership is your team. And if they’re paid like your intern, then staff. If your intern is promoting the ‘Chris Brogan’ brand then why not make it public? You are a company of one that is growing :) (otherwise your intern will confuse people if it’s a secret). And if the intern is for Crosstech = then that’s easier.