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.
