Don’t Be Popular. Be Useful.

Lisa, I should not agree, it is not my style! lol

But you did say it the right way, “What is it about!”

What ever happened to JUST BEING YOURSELF?
There will be people who are class clowns or total shut ins. Be yourself be authentic but don’t start letting your core business drop aside to hit refresh on replies.
It’s about something I know very little of “Balance”. I’m trying to figure out the proper time to spend in different places but there is no universal recommendation.
That being said for the most part if you’re doing SM for traffic why bother. If you’re doing it to build relationships and let people know you exist that’s a different story.

I agree with you..being useful is more important than being popular..^^ maybe you will be popular for a few days or months but if you started to become useful you can go a long way..^^

The more useful you are, the more people will link to your content. The class clown is not a reliable source of information. You look to authority figurers for facts, not some bozo!

I think you took Jon a little too literally, Lisa. He’s not saying don’t teach; in fact, his main point is that people have to find value in what you offer, which is another word for useful information.

For example, you’re much more of a class clown in your writing style than I am, and I’m much more of a teacher. So maybe you shouldn’t use “copyblogger” throughout your article, and instead attribute directly to Jon Morrow, the author?

Or I can call you Bruce Clay, if you like. :-)

I’d rather be useful than popular. But it won’t hurt to be both.

You aren’t a squishy sheep?

Stephen Ward took the words right out of our mouths. Never write anything you don’t believe in or something that isn’t you – what’s the point for getting recognized for something that isn’t genuine?

I don’t necessarily think Jonathan at Copyblogger was saying that being a class clown is the only way to get your blog noticed; it’s just one of the more effective ways. It’s a tactic like any other, and it has its place. That being said, I’m in the same camp as you, Lisa. Don’t be so concerned with attracting attention. Write valuable, well-thought-out content and let the rest of the world notice you on its own time. When it does, your words will actually mean something.

I think you might have taken the humor part of the Copyblogger post a bit too literally. In fact, your style of writing combined with your visibility in the industry (and visibility of your employer) makes you an excellent example of what the post is trying to illustrate. You are giving the people what they want to hear (search information mixed with commentary) and you have become quite popular in the industry even if that wasn’t a goal of yours.

A great example of this concept is Robert Scoble. At one point I started following his online activity because he is cutting-edge with technology and interviews. He has access to stuff and people and places many of us are far from reaching ourselves.

But then he changed a bit. He started twittering and doing friendfeed more than blogging. He changed from bringing us content, so passing along others’ content via Google Reader. He follows thousands on Twitter so he can report a tsunami before the traditional news media. He shifted from being useful to being a content aggregator. In doing so, he became less useful to me, and I no longer follow him.

Sure, lots of people still do follow him, but to me his feeds are just noise. I still have his blog in my reader, but there is no way I have him in my Twitter stream.

let’s stop worshipping numbers and fleeting popularity, and actually be useful to the world. Let’s start taking 30 minutes to write a blog post instead of 30 seconds to twitter. Let’s take a few minutes to craft a thoughtful response to a blog post, instead of a 10-second desperately-trying-to-get-visitors “great post!” comment.

Thanks for the thoughts Lisa :)