How I use social media to build brand and sell socks

Since launching NicSocks we've been lucky to have many people visit the site, follow us on our various social media platforms, buy socks and actually sign up for our subscription sock offering.After reading Gary Vaynerchuck's Crush It! I decided that I should really focus on communicating with people through basic channels and converting every opportunity to into a sale.Here are some things I've discovered about the different social media channels that I've been experimenting with over the past few months.

Twitter

Joined: October 2012Followers: 167Tweets: 248Following: 99I only really started tweeting in November when I launched NicSocks. Since then I have made it my goal to engage with people on Twitter about socks and sock-related fashion. All in all I find Twitter to be a great tool to interact with people about my brand, their concerns, questions and feelings towards what we sell, how we sell and where we sell.Most of my interactions are with people who have just discovered our brand of sock and want a bit more information.Numerous sales from direct interactions with people as well as retweets and references on Twitter.

Facebook

Joined: November 2012Number of posts: 63Likes: 133Here's a quick little "Insights" graph from the NicSocks FB page:Massive highs and lows. Half of the likes I've received to the page are from friends and the largest reach I've had from a post was a picture of an article that was written about NicSocks in Entrepreneur Magazine.I have received zero sales from my Facebook page and continue to receive likes from people who I know are already fans of the page and have purchased socks. I have focused a lot of my attention of Facebook thinking that it would be a great way to build the brand. I think that in the long, long run that may be the case but the last four months have seen very little actual impact on NicSocks from the page.I've said this a lot in my professional life but what exactly does one do with a "like" on Facebook? In my experience so far, nothing.Zero sales from Facebook.

Pinterest

Joined: February 2013Boards: 6 (Boards NicSocks created)Pins: 113 (Things NicSocks has pinned)Likes: 54 (Things NicSocks liked)Followers: 12Following: 54It took me a bit of time to realise that Pinterest was a social network that NicSocks would slide right into and could really do well on. With that said, once I joined Pinterest I wasn't really sure what to do next. I decided that Pinterest would be a great place for NicSocks to begin positioning itself as a Men's Fashion Brand.I created 6 boards and began pinning things that were relevant to Men's Fashion starting with pairs of NicSocks and things that Nic wore every day. I expanded into Statement Items, Shoes, Fashion tips and Outfits.So far it has been a very hard slog on Pinterest. Lots of work uploading things, repinning, following people and liking other pins with very little return. But I think this one takes time to build so I'm sticking it out.Zero sales from Pinterest.

Google+

Joined: January 2013Followers: 3Google+ is an absolute mystery to me. I've googled "How to build a page on Google+" with no luck. I've spent time looking at other pages and adding content, I've posted, shared circled and linked all without any joy. 3 followers and that's about it.Zero sales from Google+

Instagram

Joined:Followers:Following:Here's a quick snapshot of my Instagram:Numerous sales from Instagram, globally and in South AfricaTumblrIt's not really even worth entering details around Tumblr. I found that this particular platform was one too many for me. I had a website, a blog, a twitter account and Facebook. All I was doing was reposting on tumblr to try and build an audience that was probably not going to notice I was there.I started my Tumblr and about a month into it I gave up. Too much work to repost via mobile on so many different platforms. Tumblr was the one to get the chop.Zero sales from Tumblr.

Blogs

The NicSocks blog is a pretty important part of the social media strategy. It's where I post all of my content first, it's where all of my social media links back to when I want to direct users to a message or a specific topic that requires discussion. For this reason I feel like there is great value in having and using the NicSocks blog.I don't have a massive readership yet via the blog but it's something that I am building slowly, organically and using the various social media platforms you read about above.They blog definitely hasn't resulted in direct sales however it leads readers to my website, to sign up to my newsletter and to browse our shop so there is massive value.Social media is a nebulas pit of tricks and tips and effort and time. If you're willing to put in the time and effort to figure out the tricks and tips for yourself then you'll gain the value. If you think social media is a quick way to make a name for your brand you're hopelessly incorrect.

SpeakZA - Bloggers for a Free Press

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democraticsafeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but a insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.Blog Rollhttp://thoughtleader.co.za/siphohlongwanehttp://rwrant.co.zahttp://vocfm.co.za/blogs/munadia/http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/http://blogs.news24.com/needpointhttp://capetowngirl.co.zahttp://thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyohttp://thoughtleader.co.za/davidjsmithhttp://letterdash.com/one-eye-onlyhttp://boyuninterrupted.blogspot.comhttp://amandasevasti.comhttp://blog.empyrean.co.za/http://letterdash.com/brencrohttp://6000.co.zahttp://chrisroper.co.zahttp://pieftw.comhttp://hamishpillay.wordpress.comhttp://memoirs4kimya.blogspot.comhttp://thoughtleader.co.za/azadessahttp://watkykjy.co.zahttp://fredhatman.co.zahttp://thelifeanddeathchronicles.blogspot.com/http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/common-dialogue/http://www.clivesimpkins.blogs.com/http://mashadutoit.wordpress.comhttp://nicharalambous.comhttp://sarocks.co.zahttp://blogs.timeslive.co.za/stompies/http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/http://01universe.blogspot.comhttp://groundwork.worpress.comhttp://iwrotethisforyou.mehttp://fionasnyckers.book.co.zahttp://attentiontodetail.wordpress.comhttp://blogs.women24.com/editorhttp://www.missmillib.blogspot.comhttp://snowgoose.co.zahttp://dreamfoundry.co.zahttp://www.vanoodle.blogspot.comhttp://www.exmi.co.zahttp://cat-dubai.blogspot.comhttp://alistairfairweather.comhttp://www.zanedickens.comhttp://www.nickhuntdavis.comhttp://guysa.blogspot.comhttp://book.co.zahttp://baldy.co.zahttp://skinnylaminx.comhttp://blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswahttp://www.mielie.wordpress.comhttp://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/http://thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbrittenhttp://stii.co.zahttp://blogs.news24.com/FSB_APhttp://twistedkoeksuster.blogspot.comhttp://whensmokegetsinyoureyes.blogspot.com/http://trinklebean.wordpress.comhttp://commentry.wordpress.com/http://matthewbuckland.comhttp://blogs.news24.com/colour-me-franhttp://gormendizer.co.za

Gladly one of my resolutions this year w...

Gladly one of my resolutions this year was not to blog more. If it had been I would have failed in a massive way already.Blogging still bores me somewhat right now. I honestly don't know if I am going to recover sufficiently to allow myself to actually maintain 2 blogs and a lifestream (nicharalambous.me). I'm over it. I'm over talking, writing, opinions, publishing and the bollocks that goes along with it.I'm frustrated and fed up. When is the next big thing getting here? I'm bored.

I think Twitter killed my blog With the...

I think Twitter killed my blog

With the help of Justin Slack I have (read: "He has") finally managed to get nh [dot] com back up. Finally.I say this with much trepidation. I am not sure how I feel about having my blog back up and running. I feel a sense of pressure back and looming over my head. I feel a slight sense of relief that it's up and running and I think I feel a bit sad that I couldn't go on without it. Some part of me wants to let it go.But I can't, and I wont.Strangely though it took me almost a week to figure out that my blog had gone down. It took a further week for anyone else to notice and it took a further week for me to get off my lazy ass and ask someone for help.Three weeks of downtime. Three weeks of no blogging concerns. Three weeks where I just didn't care. Although I must admit that I think it is more than three weeks since I started the end of my extreme blogging days.Twitter has killed me blog. There I said it. I'm not sure if I believe it but I said it out loud for everyone to read.As a writer deep down inside it pains me to think that a service offering me 140 characters has usurped my focus from a platform that allows me almost endless freedom to write whatever comes to mind in as many words, sentences, paragraphs and pages as possible. Maybe this is a further sign of our times? Maybe the 30 second generation has become the 140 character generation and is soon to become the "Icanliketousesmallwordsandnospaces" generation?Am I the only one who is potential a bit concerned by this? Again I give you: Maybe...Nevertheless I love using Twitter and wont stop, I love writing and wont stop blogging and still am not fond of the book in my face.

How quiet is too quiet? I have recentl...

How quiet is too quiet?I have recently been chastised at every turn for "falling off the radar" so to speak. By "the radar" most people are referring to that of the social media world; blogs, twitter, the book of face and many others.But here's my question, How quiet is too quiet? I don't feel I've dropped of the radar too dramatically. I completely agree that I am blogging less but I think that's because my paradigms are shifting a bit.I no longer believe that the web is the best place to throw down your thoughts and hope for some response. I no longer believe that my blogs are the best way for me to spend my time online. I have a job that pushes me to my limits almost every day and fulfills my need to constantly be innovating, creating and developing within a new and uncharted territory. So what do I need blogs for?Don't get my wrong, I love my blogs and they are a great outlet for me to do precisely what I am doing right now, a dump of mental thoughts (moughts?) running around my head that help to keep my very few readers up to date with the direction of my thinking and life. That's it.SA Rocks serves an entirely different purpose so that's not really worth discussing in the same context.Regarding Twitter, the book of face, the space of my, linked in, last fm and any (every) other social network I belong to, I am fast feeling that they are all relatively useless to me. I don't understand the value of Facebook. Linkedin is a network worth keeping alive, but just barely and the others were great for me when I wanted to keep abreast of the latest tech out there. But right now, I am in a different paradigm that has very little to do with the web and how social it can be right now.So I think I am being the correct amount of quiet up in here.

This is P2. A microblogging wordpress pl...

This is P2. A microblogging wordpress platform that inspired Automattic to start blogging again. I've noticed how Twitter has begun to eat in to my drive to blog. So I thought that this might be a solution to the problem.

Using twitter effectively as a blog

SA Rocks is a blog that I own and run. And Twitter is a service that I absolutely love using and am fast becoming addicted to. It's also a service that is replacing my addiction to blogging.This is clearly evident in this blog. I tweet my rants now, I don't blog them. That takes too long.But with regards to SA Rocks I have been trying to figure out a way to make effective use of Twitter. I've struggled as many have been doing. I haven't managed to integrate SA Rocks in to Twitter at all.I don't think that punting blog posts via twitterfeed.com is the right way to go. I really feel like that is just pushing content and gaining no return on investment whatsoever.So I am trying more of a social feel attempt at integrating SA Rocks in to twitter. The pull of SA Rocks is that people want to feel good about South Africa. I know I do. Now what I am looking for is reasons for people to feel rocking in South Africa in 140 characters or less.I will then take my favourite rocking @ifeelrocking replies and put them in a daily blog post and tweet that via @ifeelrocking.Let's do it.

Reprobates and bloggers - The Digital Edge Podcast

I'm still not convinced by the validity of the Podcast in the local market. Yet Saul and Jarred continue to try and prove me wrong. They've been doing a relatively good job of it lately and even went as far as to invite me on to the latest episode of the Digital Edge.You can download it or listen to it live by heading over to the Digital Edge website.From the site:

We speak to Nic Haralambous of SA Rocks, Seth Rotherham of 2Oceansvibe, Exmi from Expensive Mistakes Cheap Thrills, Shaun Oakes of Shaun Oakes.com, Jason Bagley from the Incredible Connection blog and finally Se7en from Se7en.org. We round up that line up with a summary of the blogosphere by Justin Hartman, head of blog aggregator Afrigator.

Nothing particularly groundbreaking came out of the bloggers interviews: We are all egotistical, we all like to win stuff, we all brag, blah blah blah. It's riveting blogger "Days of our living lives online" sorta stuff.Definitely worth listening to. Do it.And thanks to Saul and Jarred for having me on the show. Always a good boost to the ego hey?!

The best pitch email I've ever received as a blogger

Below is an email that I received on Monday in my capacity as SA Rocks Editor/Owner. Read it first and then I'll go in to my reasons for liking the way it is structured (albeit coincidentally).

Hi Editor,You won't know me - I'm a big reader of 2Oceansvibe and was referred by a link there.Anyway, I'm going to take a flyer here - just drop a little bait and hope for a bite...I'm a music producer at the moment, studied at UCT and now living in Johannesburg trying to hit the big time. My record label has recently signed our first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi and are busy in studio recording his debut album. In the mean time, though, we decided to record a couple of live videos of him doing some covers of cool and interesting songs. Basically it's just a way for us to get word out, create as much of a buzz as we can. We've had an incredible response to them so far and I thought I would share the videos with you:www.youtube.com/user/TimothyMoloiNow, I'm sure that you must have MANY people pawning their wares to you, but as a blogger (and in particuler, a South African one), you undoubtedly act as one of the tastemakers of our generation and I figured it would be worth a shot to see if you would like any of the videos. My favorite is the One Republic cover (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4fiPe4U_Ow&feature=channel_page), but feel free to have a browse around and prove me wrong! All the artists on the videos are South African - hope you're impressed!I'm not too sure what to say from here, man. I won't beat around the bush - obviously it would be in my best interest for you to actually cover us on your blog and for that I would be incredibly grateful, but if not, a simple personal reply would be fantastic - another viewpoint to see what we're doing right!Look forward to hearing from you!

Let me break down the above email in to sections/reasons why I was taken by it and responded immediately.

References

The email references 2oceansvibe, I know I have a link in Seth's sidebar and therefore know (or feel) a little bit of legitimacy from the email's author.

Hope and a wish

The author openly admits that he is taking a chance. He isn't being too presumptuous and assuming that I will obviously respond and act. There are no orders coming from the email, there are hopes and requests.

Know the blog

James (the author of the email) clearly went and read SA Rocks. He knew that I liked local music, liked to help promote local artists and liked to support an underdog. So he appealed to these attributes with: "My record label has recently signed our first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi and are busy in studio recording his debut album."

Play on my field

Multimedia and new media content are integral to my world, it's how I make my living and how I interact with people. So it's a good thing James didn't tell me that he hated the internet and would never release any of Timothy's music online for the world to swipe. In fact, he did the opposite. He sent me links to a YouTube video of Timothy vocalising the hell out of a song I knew "Apologize" by One Republic. He had dropped the bait in my lake and I was not only staring at it, listening to it but chewing on it as hard as I could.

Play to my Ego

The crème de la crème, my ego. James played the game perfectly by stating the following: "Now, I'm sure that you must have MANY people pawning their wares to you, but as a blogger (and in particuler, a South African one), you undoubtedly act as one of the tastemakers of our generation and I figured it would be worth a shot to see if you would like any of the videos."How could any self-indulgent blogger possibly say no to a line like that? James got my, hook, link and sinker.

End the pitch

Do not linger, do not be verbose, do not become pedestrian and cliched. Write what you want to write, get it out, close it down and end the email. Do not linger. I hate it when I have to sift through ten paragraphs of shit to get to the point of the pitch. Say what you want and leave me alone.And here I sit blogging about James and Timothy and will be meeting with them very soon to see how I can help them in any capacity I can think of.James, well played. And to anyone who is trying to pitch to bloggers that might be reading this, take note: A good pitch will be responded to immediately and will have the bloggers commitment from the word Go.

I'm tumbling and no one can stop me

I can't see why anyone would want to stop me to be honest.My Tumblr, nicharry, has revived my ability to post content online without too much thought, reactively and instinctively in a short space of time.I am besotted with Tumblr.Let me explain what the service is, in my opinion, for me. It's a lifestream sort of a blogging platform. A stream of consciousness I think sums it up relatively well.Tumblr has legs in the market right now for one simple reason. It's simple to use. I have a "Share on tumblr" widget added to my browser. I click it and automatically a popup appears and allows me to share video, audio, photo, links, quotes and other types of media. The little widget handles the linkback to the source and posts to your Tumblr immediately.I've also installed the Tumblr desktop app for Mac OSX which allows me to tumbl from my desktop. Simple, easy and effective.Furthermore the type of content that I've come across on Tumblr is incredible. It's alternative, different, cutting edge, pushes all the boundaries and seems to not abide by the regular rules and regulations of producing content. It's a place where anyone and everyone can find a home.It subscribes to a very similar model to that of Twitter. You can follow people's Tumbles and they, in turn, follow yours. You can see everyone who you follow in your Dashboard and follow their content as it is published.The person who got me on to Tumblr is Wes over at BlackNotes. If you have some time, head over there and read Wes's Tumblr, you'll be occupied for hours.But for the moment head over to Tumblr, register, choose a theme and tumbl-on.

2oceansvibe FINALLY adds comments and joins in on the blog fun

I have moaned about 2oceansvibe for a long time but more recently have been in touch with Seth and am enjoying reading his brashness.I must commend him on finally placing blog comments to his posts. Many times I've wanted to bash him in a comment, commend him on his arrogance or leave a general comment but to no avail.I can now do that. And this year there will be no controversy if he wins an award at the SA Blog Awards because he can now be classified as a blog.

Preliminary blogger results for Speak UP!

I've just had contact from organisers of the Speak UP! blogging census.Seems as though the big guns in the blogosphere relating to number of bloggers is Cape Town. I find this one a tough pill to swallow. I think there were some extenuating factors to consider. But that's just me as a JHB resident talking!Apparently there were ±1000 responses to the census which is relatively good considering there are only estimated to be ±7000 bloggers (allegedly) in SA who are active. So 1/8 turnout isn't too shaby. Not fantastic, but not too shabby.Here's the slide I received about location.I am still very interested to see what the final results will be. Apparently they are coming out on Monday so keep your eyes peeled for those.

We Blog the World - A South African Bloggers Tour

I am really chuffed to be a part of a fantastic (and very smart) initiative by the International Marketing Council (IMC).The basic idea, as I like to understand it, is that 11 international bloggers who are all prominent in their respective fields will all be heading for SA for a ten day whirlwind tour of our magnificent country. You can see more about the project over at We Blog the World. So the ten day tour will invariably allow the readers of the 11 international blogs to be exposed to the wonders of SA. Therefore invoking a desire to find out more, experience SA, travel to the country or simply read more SA stuff. Great move by the IMC I think. It's social marketing. Brilliant.I have been invited to take part in the tour.Don't fool yourself thinking that I will be on a joy-ride for ten days. Big Mistake.Bizcommunity have proudly offered my a column for the ten days where I will be writing about the trip and publishing video and photo content through the ten days. I will also be double posting the trip on my two blogs, nicharalambous.com and SA Rocks. If that isn't enough I will also be posting to the Zoopy blog sporadically, the We blog the world (WBW) flickr group and the Zoopy profile/landing page for the event. I am going to be one blogged out blogger by the end of this week.But it will most definitely be worth it. The IMC have put together an incredible trip for all of the attending bloggers.Here are a few snippets of the trip, where we'll be and what we'll be doing:A heli flight over the peninsulaAn Electric Car DemoThen we head to Alexander Bay to delve in to SA's oyster culture.and then we head off to JHB for various events, viewings and museum tripsI am incredibly excited to be taking part as many of the things on the itinerary are things that I have been wanting to do in SA for ages but have never had the chance.Expect some great content.Head over to Matt's blog and see who else is taking part. Leave comments or contact me if there are specific questions you would like to see the visiting bloggers answer while they are here in SA!

Blogging is dead, move to twitter because Wired said so

I have just read an article over at Wired Magazine that blogging is oh so 2004 and we all need to jump ship if we aren't part of a professional blogging network that dominates Google search results.What Wired says in the article is that bloggers are being taken out of the equation by professionals who blog and put out 30 or so posts a day. They are being taken out of the equation by online magazines that were once, maybe, blogs and are now business ventures. Bloggers are being taken out of the Google rankings by professional media organisations such as NYT, Time, LA Times and others with similar stature. Bloggers are becoming invisible according to Wired Magazine.Wired goes on to explain that bloggers of the personal, one man band nature, are becoming tired of comment trolls, masses of spam, irrelevant audiences and other frustrations. The solution? Move to Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and similar services. I wonder if these services paid Wired Magazine to write this article. Basically I should stop being a self-publisher and move completely to a service that someone else will make money off of? I don't agree at all. I think a merger, hybrid or cross pollination is in order. Not abandoning of the ship at all.I quickly used twitter to feel out some opinions on the topic. (I completely recognise that I am invariably endorsing wired magazine's opinion by using Twitter to get my information for this blog post!)My tweat:nicharry is blogging dead? Is twitter taking over? Should we all jump ship?!?!Some of the responses:markmedia @nicharry no yes nowoganmay @nicharry If everyone jumps ship, who will we be leaving to captain that ship?obox @nicharry I don't think so. There is still space for both, with lifestreams entering the world you can have all the cakes on one page.fromtheold @nicharry Blogging will last long after twitter :)Jonin60seconds @nicharry Slow down there profit of doom!RichMulholland @nicharry No we should simply re-prioritize our weighting on both.It's incredible actually, how many people felt they could respond to something I had said so quickly and easily. This definitely beats responses on blogs hands down.I firmly agree with RichMulholland's comments that we should not be throwing in the towel for either service. We should simply re-evaluate our goals and re-prioritize our focus on the services that are available to us.Blogging isn't dead, blogging is just becoming a force that we need to seriously consider as a profession. Just as reporting back in the day was done by a random one or two people within a town or village and is now down by conglomerates. Things change, let's change with them not fight against the change.I did enjoy the closing line of the Wired article though: "@WiredReader: Kill yr blog. 2004 over. Google won't find you. Too much cruft from HuffPo, NYT. Commenters are tards. C u on Facebook?"

Does elitism stifle growth?

Recently there have been waves of anger, lashing out, disdain and open disrepute online amongst a very, very small percentage of Internet users in SA.The main focus of this disdain has revolved around the concept of elitism. One blogger today wrote that there are less than 200 active social media users in SA. Huh?Anyways, that's not my point. I want to ask the question: "Does elitism actually stifle growth and development?"My immediate answer is no and I think it's one that I am going to stick to forever. Why? Simple. It's because the "elitism" that "everyone" is talking about is simply providing a driving force for so many to push themselves harder, faster, futher and aid in their growth and development.I don't know about anyone else but when someone excluded me, told me I couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, I did, evertime. And not only did I do what they told me I couldn't or shouldn't but I made sure that I creamed them at it. I made a point of standing up and having people notice me.Now if something as silly as a perceived elitism is going to get under your skin, knock you down and make you go home and give up then maybe you should just become an employee at someone else's company. There's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be evangelists, leaders, gurus, geniuses, experts and the like... or can they?

How many posts do you have on your blog?

I've just surpassed (with this very blog post) my 1000th article on this blog.I am very interested to know how many blog posts people have on their blogs.Bloggers seem to have been around for ages and ages and I think I'd be surprised how many of them have actually written a boat load of posts. I'd love to know how many the likes of Mike, Matt, Vince, Cherryflava, coda, Justin, Keo, Paul, Charl, Rafiq, Elan, Gino, Tyler, Vinny, Quirk, Ideate, Tertia, Ray, Chris and Mark have written.If you have a count, pop it in the comments.

Let's all blog about blogging about blogging

Bored. That is what us bloggers must be. Why? Because we seem to be so preoccupied recently (a phenomenon that has coincided with some interesting arrivals of late) with who is who and doing what and how often in our wondrously massive local blogging community.Those who are mentioned "seem to not care" but care enough to blog about themselves being blogged about. I have been mentioned a fair amount and I am now partaking in my own condemnation (oh the irony). I am blogging about blogs by bloggers on blogging and bloggers and who's the bestest of the best and whose daddy is bigger than whose mommy and who has the nicest fanciest shmanciest housiest home or rather, blog, and who is more influential than who and how often they influence those that influence others.Can I just chime in here and say that I actually think it's a load of rubbish. In spite of my participation in Mandy's "Top Ten bloggers" post over at MoneyWeb I honestly think it's irrelevant. Mandy asked on twitter yesterday: "Who has more influece?" and listed three bloggers for others to compare. Link. Bait. It's link baiting. Not journalism. It's irrelevant in my opinion (and only in my opinion). What does matter is that its time we refocus our energy on relevant content for the every day reader. Not the bloggers who blog about blogging.Has content become so drab and non existent that we have turned to each other, looked one another in the blog and decided that we are the only content relevant enough to blog about? Are you kidding me?I reiterate that I grasp the fact that I am doing the same thing right now that I am condemning, do not point it out in the comments, I get it, I know that I am doing it but occasionally it is unavoidable.What I am getting at is that people like to stir the pot, we like to back rub, we like to have our backs rubbed, we all do and we all know it, we just can't help ourselves. It's the old adage that people like to see themselves on TV, look at America's Funniest Home Videos. That show has never gone away and it's because there are regular people focusing on people like themselves. That doesn't make it good content though. It just makes it long-lasting.Maybe it's time I shift my focus to writing for readers, not bloggers. Writing for people and writing about things that people like to read. In my opinion readers don't like to read about bloggers blogging about blogs and other bloggers egos and ranks and pages and pageranks and technorati and lists and links... see I'm bored already.

Facebook's "Note Bloggers" must outnumber us "Real Bloggers"

Facebook's "notes" feature has possibly created an entirely new faction of bloggers who have no idea that they are self publishers and by default, bloggers.I can only imagine that by the sheer number of South Africans that are using Facebook (over 700 000) and are actually writing innocent "notes", well outnumber us "real bloggers".Furthermore, if on average let's guestimate that these "note bloggers" have +-250 friends and that each note is being read, or at least viewed by half of these people. Imagine if every article you wrote on your blog was read by between 100 and 300 people. You'd have a thriving "real blog"."Note blogger" vs "Real blogger" - what's your poison?

My list of Ten Influential Bloggers

As published in Mandy's MoneyWeb article:1. Michael Trapido - www.thoughtleader.co.za/traps - Traps is a voice worth hearing. His opinion and relentless 4th estate approach to his writing is much needed in a dumbed-down political sphere.
2. Rob Stokes - http://www.gottaquirk.com/ - Rob is an important blogger to read because he has true insight and genuine experience that makes his writing worth the read.
3. Ndumiso Ngcobo - http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/silwane - Genuine and honest opinion is hard to come by. The Silwane Files is a blog filled with simple truisms and introspective outwardly-appealing opinions.
4. Fred Roed - ideate.co.za - Entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of SA at the moment, Fred and his Ideate partners provide integral insight in to their business experiences.
5. Khaya Dlanga - http://www.youtube.com/user/khayav - Khaya is actually a Vlogger. His insight and no-holds-barred opinion about SA is invaluable.
6 & 7. Glen and Wanda of Urban Sprout - www.urbansprout.co.za - Green is the future and I respect and value anyone talking green in SA.
8. Vincent Maher - wwww.vincentmaher.com - He doesn't blog often but still remains an essential figure to follow in the online industry.
9. Jarred Cinman - http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/burningpaper - Open, honest and not scared to blog about the "no-no's" such as religion.
10. Fred Khumalo - http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/khumalo/ - Mainstream media taking up blogging is always interesting. Fred has done a brilliant job of involving himself and his opinion in the blogosphere.And I'd just like to thank all the bloggers and people who mentioned me in their lists in the same article.

Young bloggers in South Africa

A while back I read a few blog posts that spoke of young bloggers abroad making waves and finding great success.I am relatively young but I think that these posts are referring to bloggers younger than I am.Where are the young bloggers under the age of 21 in SA? Are there any and if not, why not?I can't think of any and don't read any but that doesn't mean they don't exist. But is there really value for this sort of market in SA? Should we be looking for the next big thing now and getting them online and benefiting from their potential success? Is this exploitation?I am also extremely interested to discuss what the next generation of bloggers will look like.Should there be a batch of teenagers coming to the fore? Surely if blogging was taking off as much as bloggers think it would be reaching the younger generation and adopting the practice of blogging?Could this be a sign that blogging is not all that it's cracked up to be and it isn't growing at the rate we all think it is? With so many teenagers on Facebook and using Mxit in SA in my mind it makes sense that some of them should be, could be and would be publishing their own content on blogs. But they just aren't. Why?