Apologies in advance if this seems like a rant(not my intention) but, I recently watched a great video on Big Think. The video was an interview with Jeffery Zeldman of Happy Cog about the history of blogging.
Zeldman talked about the nineties, and the growth of online presence, blogging and the progress of the web. One of the quotes that he said really stuck with me…
If you build a real community you will have something that works
He said this as he talked about the different responses to blogs/online publications and the types of interaction and/or comments that they receive. Using examples he shared different blogs that received positive relevant feedback and interaction from it readers, and the techniques that were used in garnering that response, he also gave examples of blogs that due to their nature and or focus would need more policing to the point of having a specified person to moderate the comments, and feedback. The thing that struck me about his discussion on this topic was the focus on content.
This really got me thinking about content, and what I for one am putting out on the interwebs. This also got me thinking about the way that I use social media (especially twitter), and interact with people online. It raises the question “What am I doing here?”
I have noticed that if I am not careful I end up in what seems like a “high school-esque” pursuit of popularity that takes the shape of “Followers” “Comments” “Re-Tweets”, and “Page-views”. All of these things are positive and do lend to getting your name out there and developing a brand, so they definitely have value especially when trying to build community.
On the other side of the coin twitter is slowly becoming the new myspace(only my opinion here) which for the most part can’t be avoided. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing dependent on how we continue to use it. If you do want to collect followers simply for the sake of having them then cool go for it, we each have to do what we think is best for us.
In the long run I don’t see a value in that. What I do see value in is building a community of people who are pursuing similar goals, a community of people who can help one another achieve those goals by interacting with one another, cross promoting, giving honest feedback, and sharing helpful knowledge and resources with one another.
In no way am I trying to say how to use twitter or any other social media tool, what I am saying is that we are only as good as our content. So how do we gauge the value of our content? I think that brings us back to the question “What am I doing here?”
Each of us has a passion, something that drives us, and the great thing is when we take that passion and inject it into a community of other passionate people with similar goals it will develop each time we interact with one another, it contributes to our development as designers, developers, brand managers, artists, etc. as well as our development as people. Even if we are not 100% sure of what our passion is, being a part of valuable interaction (aka community) can lead to our finding that niche and attacking it with no holds barred.
You are only as good as your content!
My encouragement is that we would not sell ourselves short by just putting anything out there just for the sake of putting something out there.
If you are putting out good content you wont have to ask to be featured, or re-tweeted(more than normal), others will find value in authenticity, and be drawn to it.
Find that niche… don’t try to force something that isn’t you. (Gary V is a good example of this)
We are only as good as our content.
Even if it isn’t the best content, or you are still perfecting your skills, put your heart into it, put it out there, be real, and accept the feedback, and use it to develop yourself and your skill.
“If you build a real community you will have something that works”
What are you passionate about? How can I help you develop it? How can you help me develop mine?
Lets build something that works.
Good article Aaron. I believe that as a medium catches on, you will see people try to capitalize on it with bloated, artificial content. It happened with blogs, design sites, social media sites. At the end, those who will stand the test of time are the ones who produce quality original content, instead of fads.
Jin’s last blog post..Absolut Brand
@Jin,
Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment. I agree about what will stand the test of time…
thanks for the feedback.
Aaron I
I think the thing to remember is that you are what you post. If you’re on about numbers and ‘how to use Twitter’ and things like that, it’ll reflect on you, at least to me, as a content provider. I find for me it *taints* even the other posts or RT’s by the person, even if they may be solid posts.
For me, part of what you are talking about is this sort of echo chamber that goes on with all of the social media articles and retweeting and stuff like that. Actually, it’s sort of like currency and economy, in a way, to me. There are a whole bunch of people now that are getting in the social media game, and they all talk about it and how good it is and write articles and publish articles and retweet and retweet and view and review, and it raises the amount of ‘followers,’ the currency of the realm. Soon, I hope, we’re going to start seeing a sort of ‘price deflation’ in the value of followers or ‘clout’ as it were. We have so much currency out now that it’s corresponding value is dropping. Right now we’re on the cusp, posts like yours denote an undercurrent of frustration with the system as-is.
The single greatest methodology that started working for me was that I just stopped looking into things that didn’t interest me. While that sounds like a no-brainer, it’s something that I at least had to come to realize. I personally have a fairly short fuse, at least when it comes to content on Twitter, and I have been finding more and more that the ‘echo chamber-ey’ stuff that I mentioned above has been bothering me. So, for example, more and more I’ve been relying on Tweetdeck to sort out the decent stuff. I’m a designer. So I’ve decided to only read trusted articles put forth by trusted designers. Am I missing good content? Oh, I”m sure. But this has helped to cut down on both time and frustration (my mood regarding social media swings like a pendulum…..some of the stuff really really grates on me at times, so avoiding reading stuff about it has really made it a better experience).
There are always going to be people out to master the system, to get the ‘high score’ and put their initials in, but to let those people commandeer your experience would be letting them ‘win,’ which is something I’m not about to let them do.
@Chad
Thanks for taking the time to read and give some feedback… great insight… especially your remarks about weeding out the “echo-chamber-ey” stuff.
Couldn’t agree more. Excellent aticle.
Janko’s last blog post..Add zoom icon to images using CSS (and jQuery, of course)
@Janko,
Thanks for the comment
seriously great post aaron.
SEO Andy’s last blog post..Links for 2009-04-06 [Digg]
Totally agree with you. For me personally, I had to take a step back as well after I began to follow so many different types of people originally on twitter as an internet marketing tactic, but found I wasn’t getting any real value out of the people I was following. So I’m slowly unfollowing and following those that makes sense (i.e. those that can help me grow as a designer/web consultant and vice versa). Totally agree in that it makes sense to be grouped with/in a community where we can all help each other.
In addition, on the content side, I’m trying to focus more on providing content to my target audience (potential customer – i.e. small business owners) instead of writing content to gain popularity from my peers.
Good stuff.
Mike Locke’s last blog post..Promote your Website on MySpace with MyAds
@mike
Thanks for reading and posting feedback. I really like the idea of posting content relevant to your target audience. I think that will really ad value, especially as twitter search grows more popular.
Aaron I
Great article Aaron. It seems like it might be easy to get caught up the “myspaciness” of Twitter, follower counts, follow friday mentions, and the lot. I hated the whole having 1 trillion friends on MySpace thing, and my approach is similar with Twitter in that respect.
I could care less about my follower count- I’m going to be myself, post content I believe to be useful to others like me, post good information, good articles, and leave it at that.
Great post Aaron.
TheRedOwl’s last blog post..TheRedOwl: Designer @relevantstudio billed $18K, accused of stealing his own work. http://tr.im/ikCX #savejon
Great article Aaron.
Understanding why you are a part of something or what the intention of your actions are is key. Without knowing why you are doing something, how do you intend to become a valued member of a community? If a person doesn’t understand how social media can of value to them it’s probably because they are not putting any value (content) in.
Jack @jackalert’s last blog post..Tempe Chamber Social Media Launch
Aaron,
Hey man. Great article. I actually wrote out a whole response the other day when this first got posted, but then got really busy at work and it never ended up getting submitted.
But I think that was for the best, because I mainly droned on about twitter, and that’s just one aspect of the greater community. So I’m glad I didn’t post that comment, looking back on it now.
So to answer your question; “what are you passionate about?” – I think we both have some of the same passions, as far as helping other people out become better at what they do and help build the design community to adopt more of the “open-door policy”. And by that I mean where no one should feel afraid to ask for help from a well-known designer, just because of their popularity.
Also, I’m super excited about onecss and working together with you on some icons.
-peace-
kyle steed’s last blog post..the house of steed
@Kyle
Thanks for taking time to post. That is great that your post changed… I always think of something better after the fact… I guess it pays to hold off a bit sometimes.
I am stoked to see what happens with OneCss and definitely look forward to working with you on it,and other projects in the future.
Aaron I
A huge problem that I find is that sometimes I get lucky when I find good content on the internet. At the same time, some people with amazing content never get found because they don’t have the right “friends” to pass the word around, or places like stumble, digg, and the like simply don’t have the sort of crowd interested in what they offer, so the content gets demoted. I hope that if a person puts their all into their content making it truly unique, that they will get found by the right people, but it’s not always the case. If Content is King, then “networking” is its parliament.
Fred Mcoy’s last blog post..Video Game Photography – Wipeout HD ushers in a new trend
If it were just a popularity contest, then I’d have to say I’ve got better things to do, but I’ve discovered some great content on Twitter, like yours, which has been enormously helpful in staying focused on the main task, which is providing great materials for people to build their lives with, as well as, hopefully, attracting people to my message. I agree with the comment that some great people never get the attention they deserve because they don’t take the time to really connect. Community, whether online or off, is the key to a well-lived life. Thanks for adding your name to mine.
Aaron, thoughtful post.
And you can tell by the quality of the comments that those who are reading have taken the time to digest, form their own opinions, and share relevant ideas.
Your post is an example of exactly what I believe you are talking about – value. As Chad said – we might be on the edge of currency deflation with regard to valued content in the world of social media.
But value will rise to the top – assuming SEo ducks are in alignment with the internet universe. That’s the caveat. Seems when we write now – we have to have SEO in mind to be found. I wonder if that throws a monkey wrench into the creative process.
This is a really great post, Aaron. I agree that the most important part is having great content, as frustrating as it may be at the beginning if no one is reading it! I wonder what will happen to Twitter once it goes mainstream- I kind of enjoy it being the fairly small medium it is now.
good post, i agree, i think that you should take your time and only put out quality posts, it really will pay off in the long run. if you have nothing but great stuff, your site will take off. you just need to be patient and not force anything.
You’re only as good as you can market your content, your content being good is not enough. Period. I know much & much & much absolutely awesome graphic, web, identity, you-name-it designers who never been heard of in the so-called ‘design community’ because they get lost in the vast and infinite flow of the web.
Let’s be absolutely honest – how many of you would check my blog or my Behance profile if I wasn’t joining your designchats on TinyChat? I think not much, somehow.
.-= ´s last blog ..Project goes live: Planning Poker =-.