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At the end of last year, I compiled a list of the Top 9 Blogs of 2009. If you look at the post, you might notice something doesn’t quite work with that title – the badge and link itself both say “Top 10.” There are only 9 blogs listed there because I wasn’t about to mention any of them without the express consent of their authors, and I never received a response from one of the bloggers on my list.
This is a story about the 10th blog.
I’m sure that Dan Schawbel of the Personal Branding Blog is a busy guy. He’s running a terrific site, has a book out that I’ve put on my Amazon wish list, and has a ton of speaking and consulting gigs. It’s not hard to imagine that my hastily-written email got lost in his inbox. Considering how clogged my gmail account is without being a personal branding rock star like Dan, I’m definitely sympathetic. And he’s been nice enough to tweet about some of my posts, which is always great for blog traffic.
Dan is truly a guru in an age of expert backlash, and his posts have helped me develop my own personal brand more than I would ever have been able to do on my own.
That being said, I’m going to take a few risks that might shove my personal brand in the toilet, and they fly in the face of a lot of what Dan preaches. The approach is twofold:
- I moved my blog, which has (so far) provided me with a 7/8 drop in readership. Or in other words, almost 88% of my readers haven’t followed me over (although a lot of the traffic was due to random searches through WordPress.com, so maybe I’m a bit inaccurate). I’ve decided to completely change my direction and move away from my niche (discussed here).
- I co-founded a new site called DumbassBoss.com, an FML- and MLIA-type site where people can share stories of the incompetence – or competence – of their bosses. And did I mention that all submissions are anonymous? I’m pretty much encouraging people to tell the world how dumb their bosses are. If that doesn’t hurt my chances at getting a job, I’ll be very surprised.
I’m taking a huge risk with my personal brand that has a high potential for failure and decreasing my buying temperature. But you know what? I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
So thanks for the personal branding lessons, Dan. Even if I’m not going to completely follow your advice, it’s helped me out a lot. And no matter what anyone says, your blog will always be the 10th of the Top 10 of 2009 to me.
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Comments
01.29.10
You don't need anyone's explicit permission to write about their blog. Either legally or even morally.
01.29.10
Thanks for the plug :)
When you move your blog, as long as you're using Google feedburner for your readership, you won't lose your base. What you do lose is the link equity in your blog domain name.
I'm not sure why I never received your email either. It must have been taken into some filter so I apologize.
Keep up the good work and best of luck in the future.
01.29.10
Well, any time you move a blog, you're going to see a drop in readers in the beginning, since most people either added the RSS and didn't think about it, or they just hadn't been keeping up on it beforehand. That being said, make sure the basics are done on the new site (proper title tags, etc)
As for asking Dan (or anyone else's) permission, Caitlin is right. You don't need their permission. Especially someone like Dan who would WANT the promotion.
01.29.10
Thanks for the comments everyone!
Caitlin - I’ve found in the past that some bloggers can be very protective of their personal brands and where their blogs are mentioned, so I've grown accustomed to always getting permission first. And I realize that this post makes the previous sentence quite ironic.
Dan - Thanks for the advice. Can I safely assume that you won't hate me forever?
Andrew - First off, awesome name. And I have been making sure that all of the new site stuff is cohesive - I think my main problem was that I didn't bother mentioning it to my readers until the day before I moved the blog over, which, in retrospect, was incredibly dumb.
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