Today I’m trying something new. As you’re reading this post, I will be immersed in a conversation with a group of bloggers at blog|Philadelphia, an unconference. So it is quite fitting that my chosen topic be open source marketing.

I’ll get right to it. The three main reasons why blogging is open source marketing.

Blogging as News Broadcasting — Your Feed, Live all the Time

Many of you are used to the concept of live blogging –- you go to a conference, and blog about it as the event takes place; your readers enjoy the news as you hit the “publish” button. Notes taken this way serve your audience only in part.

It takes a while for you to process the fresh content you’re learning and mesh it with what you already know, and your post may not end up capturing the essential piece of the live experience –- the conversation and its dynamics. One of the most powerful aspects of joining the conversation is that you’re learning about what you think as you go.

If you’re busy typing, in your haste not to loose the thread of your writing, you are not present to the thread of the talking. One ear is busy listening to your internal talk about the subject matter; the other is busy keeping up. Your attention is divided. And you may lose the nuances and lessons contained in the voices of other attendees.

Consider what would happen if you posted about the subject matter of the conference before attending and then came back with a follow up post afterwards. Yes, this would require more work on your part. Researching the speakers and topics, figuring out who else is going to be there, etc. Think how much better your posts would be.

In fact, I would like to propose that you are blogging live all the time, you just never thought of it that way. The insights, lessons, and tips you include in your posts are streaming from your thinking as it occurs, while it is processing information. When someone links to you, you’re not only making the news, you are the news.

Blogging as Self Publishing -– Your Expertise for Finding (and Sale)

The term open source was born to identify a set of principles and practices created to provide access to the design and production of goods and knowledge. It popularized the concept of making source code available to allow users to create software content through incremental individual effort or through collaboration.

From term to culture, this concept would not have been alive today without the Internet. Online you have access to an even greater array of inexpensive digital media and tools and are granted an unprecedented access to other users. Both the platform and the tools make it extremely easy for anyone to become a publisher today.

Do you want to become a self published author? Start a blog. This will give you the discipline to write on a regular basis. Your readers will provide the essential stimulation and measurement through feedback and a challenge to think harder. Have you noticed how much easier it is to produce better content when we’re part of an active dialogue?

If you look for a couple of recent examples of books published as a result of conversations launched on blogs, look no further than The Long Tail by Chris Anderson and The No Asshole Rule by Bob Sutton*. To date, the only author that I know of who published a book collecting blog posts successfully is Seth Godin with Small is the New Big. He demonstrated that it can be done.

Are your posts well thought out and of high quality? The beauty of blogs is that they are rich in content that nobody sees more than once. Dig into your archives and you will find plenty of material that showcases your expertise. That can be repurposed, it’s yours. And it can help you reinforce your brand and sell your expertise.

Blogging as Relationship Builders – Talk is not Cheap, the Tools are

When you talk about the fact that you blog with family and friends who don’t, they might look at you strange and question your sanity. There are some days when you question it yourself, I’m sure. “Why do you need to spend so much time online when we’re right here?” It’s a good argument.

Because they are tools that allow conversations in real time, blogs are a great way to build relationships with many professionals all over the world. Where else can you find subject matter experts just a few keystrokes away? Relationships are important for the health and wealth of your business.

So why are relationships so important? People recommend people they know. People work with people they respect. People do business with people they like.

When your friends ask you if blogs are places where you can form relationships, what do you say? I suggest that you reply that talk is indeed not cheap, the tools are.

So here we are. You reading this post while I’m having a conversation with a group of smart professionals who want to learn more about why blogging is open source marketing *and* are helping me define what that means in real time. For now, remember:

1. Your feed, live all the time
2. Your expertise for finding (and sale)
2. Talk is not cheap, the tools are

UPDATE: The main impetus for publishing The No Asshole Rule was the e-mail reaction (personal emails sent to Mr. Sutton, not blogs) to a short Harvard Business Review article that he published in 2004. Blog attention ignited by an early interview on Guy Kawasaki’s blog drove early Amazon sales, which then got the traditional press interested and encouraged traditional book stores to carry the book.

It’s been almost ten years since Tom Peters first talked about it –- imagine you’re the CEO of your own company: Me, Inc. What makes you different? What are you better at than anyone else? What do your style and voice look like?

“To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

It was true then of Web sites as it is now of blogs: anyone can have one. And because the cost of entry with tools such as Joomla, Blogger, Typepad, Movable Type, and WordPress is so much lower, many people do. What guides your choices of blogs to visit, to comment on, to subscribe to? The answer is quite simple: branding.

The blogs you include in your daily reading diet are the ones you have come to trust. They are the ones where the brand experience tells you that a visit will be well worth your time, over and over. The brand promise those blogs keep is the value you continue to receive.

If you think about it, today’s blogs are very much like mini services organizations. When you self publish, you own very little in physical assets. In many cases, you don’t even own a server –- your blog is hosted elsewhere. So the assets are chiefly what you bring to the table. You’ve enlisted yourself, you do the work, in some cases join a team, and you start to figure out how to deliver value to your readers -– whether they are buyers or not.

As the chief marketing officer of Me, Inc., you will need to answer a couple of questions for yourself and for the reader.

What Makes You Different?

Even if you have a regular — do we still say day(?) — job, you will need to begin thinking about yourself in a new way. I’ve worked in nonprofits organizations and in corporate America my whole career — five industries, marketing products and services. I still do. Yet, when you come into contact with me, what I write in my blog, and the conversations we have at live events, I am quite clearly Brand Me.

What are your favorite brands? I’m partial to Benetton, Prada, The Body Shop, Adidas and Armani. What I’m saying is that you’re every bit as much a brand as those. The brand managers at those companies have asked themselves the same question you should ask yourself: what is it that makes what I do and write about different?

Write down your answer and take a look at it. Does it light you up? Would someone coming into contact with your work see it? Keep writing down all of the qualities you think you have that nobody else does. What have you done lately to stand out? What would your readers say to qualify you?

Think in terms of features and benefits. A feature is something you possess; a benefit is what’s in it for the reader. One of my features is that I pay very close attention to everyone I come into contact with –- I listen actively, I am interested in their story, I want to learn about them and from them. The benefit for you: you feel interesting and welcome. An ultimate benefit to all: I get to know a lot of people well and I am a better connector because of it.

Do your example. I’ll be waiting here.

Done? Good. Now think about those characteristics in terms of value. What can someone see as measurable, distinctive, belonging just to you? If you look at all that you know and all that you can do, what are the things that make you most proud of? You got it! One more step. Ask yourself, what do you want to be remembered for?

What’s Your Pitch?

Now that you know what you’re about and want to be famous for, you will need to develop and practice a pitch. This is a brief, natural-sounding (please), statement you use when introducing yourself in conversations. Since you don’t have the budget of an Armani brand, you will need to do all the work of getting a consistent message about you at every opportunity you have.

You are already doing it with your blog. You decided on a topic or topics, created or had help in creating a design, structured a menu of categories, maybe you have a blogroll. Everything on the site talks about your brand, from the colors you selected, to the decisions you made about adding feed counters, email subscriptions, widgets, etc.

How do you get people who are not online and should know about your work to visit your blog? Join professional associations or initiatives that cater to your audience. Help the local community in any way that makes sense to raising your personal standing. If your reach is quite regional or global, find those places and people you want to meet, online and off line, and introduce yourself.

The point is that visibility multiplies itself –- the concept wasn’t born with blogs. The more people you know and who know you, the better exposure your brand gets the more upside to your brand. Remember that everything matters when you’re promoting Brand You. Every single thing you do, write, and say –- even all those things you choose not to join and do.

Now take a look at your business card. Do you have one? What does it look like? Maybe you don’t need a logo; still does your brand come through visually? Is the information on the card consistent with your blog?

And keep in mind that your personal circle of friends and contacts can be your best ally when it comes to your personal branding campaign –- they are your word of mouth marketers.

Why is it Important?

Having a strong personal brand is the equivalent of having influence power. I was in a discussion with a colleague not long ago about this very topic. No matter what your title or social standing, influence is a very powerful currency. For me, the more I expand the network of people I know, the more the people in it can benefit from the resources and ideas contained in it.

Your about page is not a resume or a sterile list anymore. It is a portfolio of Brand You stories: project deliverables, achievements, and things you got done. It’s a living and breathing marketing brochure.

Another benefit of Me, Inc. is the partnerships you have formed over time. These are your colleagues, friends, and like-minded professional connections. They can be not only your loyal allies; they can also be the user groups for a periodical review and check of your brand. Are you still writing interesting and fresh content? Do people feel the passion from your work come through?

Many of you blog because this is a way to reinvent yourself, share information, uncover and learn new practices, better yet to invent them. What does Brand You stand for?

It’s hard to believe that this content is as fresh today as it was ten years ago, isn’t it? Ah, and one more thing –- a strong, resonant brand can be a lifesaver when it comes to reputation. That will be the topic of another post. For now, just remember that your brand is the sum total of all the impressions you create and give as well as the perception that others have of you. What will you do differently today?

Maybe you have noticed, too. There tends to be two kinds of people on this planet — those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. This is valid of course also for all sorts of opinions and things beyond people. Let’s stick with the people for a moment, as this will help us understand how people interact with you and your blog.

They can be one and the same and two different paths. Since the blog is an expression of who you are and what you do and think about, let’s start with you. Whether you consider yourself creative and right-brained, or you stand more firmly on analytical and left-brain ground, your world is filled with stories. Some you tell, some you hear. All of them can help you connect with people.

It’s a matter of understanding how to welcome all people so they relate to you and your work — no matter how they see the world and how they came to you and your site. All those relationships have the potential to convert into loyal readers, business partners, work associates, and friends.

The People Who Are Just Checking

People mostly come to your site on purpose. They might have followed a link from another blog. Maybe the link was through a comment you made on a person’s post. In some cases, someone they trust linked to something you have written because they found it interesting. Or maybe one of your loyal readers was talking with a friend and suggested they check out your site.

These visitors are already interested in browsing at least one of your posts and taking a look at your site. There is always the rare occasion in which people find you by chance. What they see depends more on who they are than in what you (and your site) look like than you suspect.

A person may come in, jump on the specific link from the referral site, zoom onto the first post that catches their focus and attention, and take a look at your inventory of links and comments on their way out. Another may come in and take a little bit more time to dig into things. They will follow many links, look at your selection of ‘best posts’ (so make sure you have one) and test the waters by making at least one comment.

The People Who May be Buying

They checked you out, but will they be buying? Before you object by telling me that you are not really selling through your site, consider this. You are selling with your site –- what you’re selling may be ultimately a product (the final site you design/program is a product, for example) or a service. It may be an online or offline offering. Right at first blush and visit, what you’re really selling is a story.

How do you do that? A well crafted about page helps. It doesn’t need to be a long description to be an effective story. Take the author profile I just uploaded at The Blog Herald as an example:

With New World attitude and Italian style, Fast Company expert publisher and Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni demonstrates her unique talent for synthesizing marketing, public relations, and communications. See how customer relationships are always conversations, and why this knowledge is essential to doing business in the Information Age.

Everything else on the site helps you convey your story, too. And remember that people will judge what they see depending on what they like and how they think. The decisions you make on the look and feel, the content, and the style, will all determine the type of story you’ll be telling about yourself and your work. This is how you start the conversation.

They way you continue it depends on how well you’re listening. That is the piece you can tailor to the two different kinds of visitors: those who seek more proof and information and data, and those who are more comfortable with finding inspirational and quotable thoughts.

The point is that referrals can come via online and offline conversations. People can be of two kinds and minds. In both cases the beginning of a relationship with them depends on the story you craft –- yours alone and yours together.

The strongest connection you can make with people is of the emotional kind. I watched only one episode of the NBC hit show, but I was impressed very favorably. No, that’s not right, I’m talking about emotional connection –- I was smitten. By the time I realized that I had hit the TV remote button “on” (I never watch TV) I was totally into the show, advertisements and interruptions included. That is the effect you want to have on visitors of your blog.

Some may visit you by chance, just like I did by flipping the TV on, and may have never otherwise found you. Some readers may find you while surfing another site through a link to your blog in the blogroll. Or the visit may be the result of a Google search. How people find you matters, of course, and I will talk about it in another post.

Right now I want to focus on what they find when they come into contact with your blog. How can you build a blog that reflects who you are in a genuine voice, and resonates with people at a level deep enough to keep them coming back?

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