Interview with New York Times Best-Selling Author Chris Brogan

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Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is CEO and President of Human Business Works, an education publishing and media company helping professionals become the best they can be. His book “Trust Agents” co-authored alongside Julien Smith, is a New York Times Best Seller, and the duo also went on to write “The Impact Equation”. When Chris isn’t busy speaking or working on his next project, you can find him blogging about social media, business, and more. In fact, Advertising Age ranks his blog number three in the world for social media/marketing.

When did you first get started blogging? In what ways has the landscape changed since then?

I started back in 1998 when we called it journaling. There weren’t comments. There wasn’t RSS. And more people wrote about a passion instead of tried to write to get attention only.

The design of your site is pretty fantastic. I’m a little jealous actually. Is great design important, or does the saying “Content is king” ring true?

Great design IS important. It’s the equivalent of an Armani suit and a Rolex vs a backwards ball cap and a tee shirt. Design actually triggers trust opinions.

What are some of the biggest mistakes bloggers make?

Bloggers write far too often from the opinion that others want THEIR opinion and not useful information, and MOST bloggers end posts horribly, without any good resolution or next action. Endings are most bloggers’ problems. [Read more…]

Social Influencers: The Voices Of The Internet Movement [Infographic]

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Social Influencers

The internet is the home for billions of voices. Users take to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and various other social networks, forums and websites to share their experiences with friends and strangers.

Among those billions of voices are a handful of internet evangelists who seem to understand how to deliver web based messages better than their peers and followers.

The team at MBA In Marketing has examined those voices and the communities they support.

The study found that 54% of consumers are more likely to buy a product from a community with a smaller user size while 31% of online purchases are influenced by blogs.

But who is influencing those buyers? In many cases it is the brands themselves, but other times it is people like internet evangelists Robert Scoble, Chris Brogan and Seth Godin. Those users understand the web, they grew up in tech and they have been consistent and unrelenting voices in their fields.  [Read more…]

Using Twitter for Business

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Last week, Chris Brogan wrote a post outlining fifty business ideas on using Twitter for business. Some of his ideas included:

  • Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
  • Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
  • Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).

Valeria Maltoni weighs in with some great ideas on how to use Twitter for business over at Conversation Agent. One great idea is:

Try new ideas in a space where you will likely receive feedback.

The concept of being in beta is great to test whether there would be resistance to offerings and why. Although the number of Twitter users is relatively small, it is a much bigger crowd than just the one customer who bought something custom from you and thought it was a good product. Before you go ahead and make that a product, find more than one way to test its marketability.

Both posts have great ideas on what to consider and how to implement twitter in your business.