“Google is every brand’s homepage now,” said Steve Rubel, a senior vice president at Edelman Digital. If you do nothing else from reading this post, follow him. He is one of the VSPs I follow (Very Smart People). The headline, the quote, is from Steve’s remarks at a pow-wow on “Social Networking 101,” sponsored by the Financial Communications Society, featuring speakers from Conde Nast, General Electric, Edelman and the New York Post.
What I take from it is a great website is now longer enough. You need to expand your “footprint” on the net. Why: because more and more, people are accessing you via Google. That means they’re accessing everything else that’s related to you; your footprint outside your site (or lack thereof) and a handy list of firms just like you. That means you need a presence outside your website to stand out.
That means: post videos on video sharing sites; make comments on blog posts; write and publish articles; and become active on a handful of social media sites.
That means, and this could be the most important part of this post, you first and foremost need to have something to say. If you’re on Twitter or Facebook and your content is heavy on “Had great Thai food for lunch,” or “At opening day of Wolverine,” not much will happen. It’s a little (or a lot) like going to a Chamber of Commerce mixer and not talking to anybody.
Your passion got you where you are today. Show that passion and you will find something interesting to say.
