This week has been full of surprises. After finding out about the PC Mag list a few days ago, yesterday I logged on to find out that I was on the Time 140 Best Twitter Feed list. I first saw the Time 140 Best Twitter list while doing my morning online reading in my sweats (and procrastinating from my attempt at a daily exercise routine). I was also recovering from a busy morning getting three boys to school. Then I decided to ask my peeps to click over to the Time list and pwetty please give me a thumbs up vote. Which was probably really just more procrastination from exercising.
This was “the week” that I was to move forward on monetizing my brand while finding the secret to doing it in an ethical way to keep offering my community value. I have been working with brands for years to help them understand the mom and tech category (educational) as well as doing reviews. But I turned down lots of opportunities to monetize – because I did not think they were a good fit for my brand (but turning down some of those opportunities was not easy). I separated my business side (consulting) with my brand.
The goal of my last few years on-line was to share interesting information about families and technology over social media (Twitter being my daily source). Every day, when I read something relevant or interesting to the parent tech niche – I tweeted it. I read lots on-line so there were many opportunities. I thought about my Twitter community as if I was having a conversation, “Do they care about that topic”, “Is this relevant to them” or “is this an appropriate techie shareable moment?”,”what can I add to the conversations”? There is no on-line brand without a two way conversation with an on-line community.
But as many who are feeling the economic crunch have also concluded, it is time to ramp up my business activities. Luckily, my fellow social media entrepreneurs have been a great inspiration on building up the business side. I hope to share some of their helpful hints in the coming weeks on this blog and learn more hints from my (um – totally awesome as my son would say) community.
Yes, enough of blah blah blah – taking it to the next level – blah blah blah (like my last 2 posts discuss). Now I really need to do it (yikes).
Beth, I want to congratulate you on making this list. I am pleased to say I know you through our SVMG connection and that we have emailed each other. Even if you don’t remember me! Wow!
So fabulous Beth! Way to go!!!