learning Archives

How many blogs do you read? I mean, REALLY read? Regularly. How many can’t-miss, always-awesome, have-to-share blogs do you read?

For me, there are just a handful. I peruse lots of them, and scan over even more, but the ones that I can say that I ‘read’ are limited to a select few that consistently deliver the goods that I can’t seem to get anywhere else.

I will state right now that yes, Seth’s Blog is great. We all know that, so let’s talk about something different.

Blog #1 – Mitch Joel‘s ‘Six Pixels of Separation’ – http://www.twistimage.com/blog/

Mitch is one of those fantastic bloggers that not only gives you advice that you can deploy today, but also makes you really THINK about where we’re going with all this ‘marketing’ stuff. No two posts on Mitch’s nearly decade-old blog roll are the same. He does brilliant podcasts and interviews with the top thinkers & doers in business. I’ve seen Mitch speak live on more than one occasion, and I can say with certainty his blog delivers just as much personality in writing as he does in person. A truly great business blog that is my default go-to place when I’m looking for marketing inspiration.

Blog #2 – Sam Fiorella‘s ‘The Social Roadmap’ – http://www.senseiwisdom.com/Home/bID/3/

Sam is all about results. Actual, measurable, results. If you can’t translate your actions in to a real benefit for your business, then WHY are you doing it? This is the question that Sam’s blog posts answer. One of the first things you’ll notice about the writing on the Social Roadmap is that it’s infused with passion. It’s a no-holds-barred assault on pretentious marketers who spew buzzwords and measure success based on what CAN happen instead of what DOES happen. Read this blog if you want to break through the BS and develop a plan that gives tangible results.

Blog #3 – Mark Schaefer‘s ‘{grow}’ – http://www.businessesgrow.com/blog/

Mark is truly a great author, speaker, and thinker. His focus is, quite obviously, helping you and your business grow and thrive. Mark’s articles span a wide range of topics, but always seem to come back to a central, overriding theme of ‘Do It Right’. It’s not a matter of doing things because they’re new, shiny, or fancy. It’s a matter of doing them because it’s the right move for your business and for your customers. Mark is a true advocate of relationship building as the core of success. Those businesses that can forge the strongest relationships with their partners are the ones that will grow and thrive. Mark often brings in guest writers to shed a different perspective on certain topics, and only chooses those writers who hit the same high standard his readers have become accustomed to.

These three blogs are indicative of what I look for when searching for the latest and greatest in marketing thinking: Passion, diversity, experience. Too many blogs tell you what you already know, and not enough of them tell you what you need to hear. Bookmark these three, add them to your RSS reader, follow them on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or wherever you turn to for good stuff. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

So those are my top three, but what are yours? Where do YOU turn to for the ‘awesome’?

Jonathan on Google+

Being involved in Social Media is to be a perpetual student who is also teaching the class.

I stumbled across an old proverb today: “By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn.” I’ve come to realize that never has this been more evident than in the world of Social Media. We now find ourselves participating in one big, continuous learning environment, with access to the most brilliant minds in whatever field you happen to be in. It’s like living inside the best convention/event/conference that you’ve ever seen, 24/7/365. It’s never been easier to learn from others, and to have others learn from you.

Social Media is an incredible tool for exchanging information. It allows you to connect with others who operate from a similar mindset to your own, but a big part of the power is that it allows you to connect with those whose brains use a completely different operating manual. This is often where the most inspirational ideas come from. I may not like the same music or foods as you, but that has nothing to do with your ability to generate an idea that blows my mind. Connecting with people of all different mindsets allows you to grab the best of all perspectives, and use it to form a completely new approach that you would never have been able to obtain before.

But lets also think about your ability to teach others using Social Media. Just because you don’t have 10,000 followers doesn’t mean that you’re not capable of providing valuable information to others. Think about it in a simple example like this: the internet is a huge place, with millions and millions of new pieces of content added daily. There’s no way that one person, or even a group of people, can find all the gold that exists. Everyone has to do their part to find the hidden nuggets of awesome that can be shared with the community. If you find even one piece of gold that may have been missed otherwise, then you’ve done your part. Share the wealth of knowledge that you find, and you’ve become both the teacher and the student.

Even the ‘learned masters’ in the Social Media world are constantly searching out new material and information from the community. The reason they are so successful in these new channels is not because they are the single brilliant mind that everyone yearns to become, but because they are constantly learning from others. What works, what doesn’t work. They take the info, digest it, process it, tweak it, apply it, and test it. Repeat. This is how the smart get smarter. No one person has all the answers, but when we all come together, the collective does.

This is where the learning power of Social Media lies. The ability to create, the ability to discover, and the ability to share. Only by doing all three are you able to maximize your learning through these communities. As a result, we all become better. We all become more knowledgeable, more effective, and more successful.