The A-List, Part 3: Fitting In And Sprouting

In the third part of the A-List series I’m going to touch on the subject of networking and getting your foot in the door.

A big part of becoming an A-List blogger is to try and get as much exposure as possible, and there’ s only one way to do so. You need to expose yourself. The kind of exposing that gets attention because of what you say and report on your blog.

I’ve written many many many posts on this blog about new web startups and the like. It got to the point where I was getting a constant emails from startups asking me to cover them. I never came close to the status that some web 2.0 reporting blogs enjoy today, mostly because I was a one man team and not in the center of it all.

I’m going to illustrate through my own demise in “web 2.0″ reporting what I should have done in order to make an impact in that arena.

Take The Leap To Be The “A”

• Subscribe to mainstream media, they’re still out there - Many times I’ve read bigger blogs quoting that “Reuters” or “AP” or some obscure publication is reporting that so and so happened or is about to take place. Very rarely was it the opposite. I did not keep up with such publications and news in that area and hence always saw myself being the last to write about those events, or sometimes not at all.
• Give your opinion, even if the topic has been beaten to death - Seldom did I react to stories that other people were heavily debating about. Imagine it to a room full of people with everyone in their own groups and talking about one collective topic. Except you were on the outside, with like one other guy who didn’t join in, for whatever reason. So now you’re outside the group and nobody gets to hear your opinion. Bad move. Jump in, make conflicting comments or try or just agree. Say something, anything! Just talk!
• Offer yourself - You need to let people know that you are here and available. People like to take, give them anything for free and they will take. Well, most anything anyway. If links are the currency of the web, guest posting is where the gold is at in the world of blogging. Personally though I think this is a great method for bloggers outside “the zone“. The zone is where everything is happening. So if you are not in Silicon Valley, you better know someone who is. If you’re in the zone where everything is happening it’s just so much easier to get attention, exclusives and host parties. Ask Arrington, he knows what I’m talking about.
• Blog fast - The trouble with having a freelance career and blogging about web 2.0 is that you can do only one thing at a time. News happened fast in this area of the web and I needed to get my opinion out before the next guy. The more opinions you have the more people get attracted to it. I should have hired someone to post on a regular basis. Face it, you can’t be everywhere.
• Use social media with a business mindset - When web 2.0 was growing so was social media. You can pretty much say that the big blogs of today have quite literally piggy backed on the growth of sites like digg and StumbleUpon. I was too busy reading other stuff. Stuff that was written by blogs in the same niche as me, but they were on the front page and I wasn’t. I wish I had known then that I should have worked more on being dugg, than digging itself.

There were many instances where I was offered exclusives as well, but I let chances slip by. I can only dream where this blog would have been if I had taken the above lessons that I’ve learned and implemented them. I’d probably be having meetups and attending web conferences all over Europe.

No reason, I still can’t

• A-List Part 1
• A-List Part 2

Recommended Reading

• Getting Your Foot In The Door - Tips For Success
• The A-List, Part 4: Challenge The Status Quo
• March 2008 Recap
• Be A Rockstar Freelancer