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For the last five months or so, I’ve been working on a contract basis as the Community Manager of an Internet start-up company called ReputationDefender. In my work, I’m primarily responsible for writing customer-facing communications, including newsletters and daily blog posts about online reputation management, Internet privacy, and personal branding issues. In addition to my writing, I am also responsible for monitoring and managing the company’s presence on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. It is in this part of my job where I get to have some of the most fun.
For instance, take a look at this exchange I had with a guy named Jay Braymer on Twitter.
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Although Jay didn’t mention ReputationDefender by name, nor did he use an @ reply to tag us, I was still able to see his message and respond to it because I was monitoring the appropriate search terms on TweetDeck. The resulting conversation was not only comical, but it helped demonstrate a value that my company offers, namely that we can help you effectively monitor and manage your online reputation.
Now, I know it probably seems like I’m patting myself on the back too much for something that seems pretty obvious, but the truth is that some companies will only engage their customers at the mention of their brand name. If I had only been looking out for mentions of @RepDef, I would have missed Jay’s message and thus missed the opportunity to have a unique and memorable exchange. Monitoring a diverse set of keywords relative to your core competencies is a great way to start interesting conversations and move beyond the realm of mere self-promotion.
Will Jay become a customer of ReputationDefender? Maybe yes, maybe no. To me, though, that’s not really the point. At the end of the day, when I look at how I used Twitter, or other social media tools, I ask myself, “Did I have any fun or interesting conversations today and did I represent my company’s brand well?” In this case, I’m happy to say yes on both counts.
Chris Brogan, famed communications consultant, author, and President of New Marketing Labs, set the social media world a-twitter (if you’ll pardon the pun) when he non-chalantly shared his consulting day rate in a recent blog post. The number, an impressive $22,000 a day, struck many readers as extremely high, particularly when juxtaposed against another blog post in which Chris solicited an unpaid intern to be a part of a new project he has in the works.
Now, in my opinion, if someone is willing to pay him $22,000 to do what he does, then Chris deserves to earn that kind of money. This is the United States of America baby. If you’re a consultant and you want to get paid big bucks, set high rates and do awesome work. We are all the keepers of our own souls. Do what works for you and don’t sweat it if you’re not at Chris’ level of success.
Of course, I’m not here to ramble on about my thoughts on the issue (I already did that in a comment here), what I’m interested in is bringing together some of the interesting and insightful analysis that sprung up AFTER Chris dropped the bomb. So, without further ado, here are my three favorite blog posts on Brogan-gate! (Is it okay to attach “gate” to this, or am I overreaching?)
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- Does Chris Brogan’s Day Rate “Anchor” the Cost of Social Media Consulting?
In an extremely insightful post over at Incentive Intelligence, Paul Hebert explains how, due to his level of celebrity in the social media sphere, Brogan’s revelation has set an anchor for the high end costs of social media consulting. In other words, though there are those who may charge more, Brogan’s fees are a good benchmark for what the highest earners could be making. Obviously, the majority of consultants don’t make that kind of scratch, but Hebert explains that Brogan’s anchor may still help lower or mid-level consultants earn more money.
Quoting from the post:
“Assume you are a very, very good social media consultant with great references (maybe even Chris himself) but you only charge $1,000 per day. Congrats – you can probably give yourself a big raise. Not that you’re doing anything better – just that the anchor for the work you do is now known and you can point to it and say – “hey, I do similar work as Chris and I’m only $10K per day.” Your clients may now think your $10K rate looks like a bargain. That’s what anchors do. They provide context for discussion and allow for comparisons.”
- So How Do You Figure Out Your Self-Worth?
In an interesting post at Justin Kownacki’s blog, Justin expounds upon some of the same themes brought up in the Incentive Intelligence post. In essence, Justin says that the reason people were upset over Brogan’s day rate is because they never knew that money like that was a realistic goal. Rather than sulking about how much money you’re not making, however, Justin suggests that you should reconsider how valuable your own services are.
In an excellent six-step strategy, which I won’t repeat here because you really should just read it at his blog, Justin outlines some of the ways that you can accurately determine your own consulting rates.
Quoting from the post:
“Valuing yourself according to other people’s self-estimations is the easiest way to drive yourself crazy. But valuing yourself according to your own self-estimation is the easiest way to go hungry, because you never truly understand what your assets are actually worth to the people who don’t know what you know.”
- Why Do Price Discrepancies Exist and What Do They Mean For You?
In a wonderfully lengthy and deeply analytical blog post, Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer for N2Growth, explains the important role that pricing plays in all aspects of business, and why some people will pay $30,000 for a Rolex but “feel a Timex isn’t worth more than $50 dollars.”
What I like the most about Myatt’s post is that he carefully explains some of the complex issues that can impact pricing – the strength of your brand, your competition, whether there is a demand for your services – and how this complexity must be acknowledged in order to fairly assess your own value.
Quoting from the post:
“Bottom line…pricing is not a taboo subject to be avoided, but rather a key metric that needs to be well understood as well as proactively measured and managed. Pricing needs to be dealt with in the most embryonic stages of strategic planning and needs to constantly be evaluated based upon changes in market dynamics”
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Do you have any insights into Brogan-gate that you’d like to offer? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Almost one full year ago, I started a blog called They Are Coming For Us!, a humorous website dedicated to exploring the inevitable robot uprising. The purpose of the blog was two-fold: I wanted to use it as a testing ground for SEO experiments, and I wanted to have an outlet beyond my professional writing obligations to talk about some things that I really enjoyed, namely robots, science-fiction, and other nerdy delights. I even started a Twitter account for the blog, which, for a time, was even more popular than my actual Twitter account.
After a few months of steady updating, however, I found myself visiting the site less and less frequently. There were viable excuses to stop writing on the site, including some work changes and a couple of new marketing-related blogging opportunities that I didn’t want to pass up, but, honestly, it came down to the fact that I just didn’t know what to with it anymore. The project had become a burden to update, rather than something that I actually enjoyed doing, so I let it fall to the wayside.
For months, the disappointment of walking away from something in which I had invested so much mental effort weighed heavily on my mind. Eventually, I realized that I had made a mistake. What use was there in blaming the site for my lack of inspiration? After all, the reason I was uninspired is because I was creating uninspiring content, and there’s nothing worse in the world of blogging than that.
So, taking inspiration from a couple of other go-getters whom I follow on Twitter (including Matt Cheuvront, Tim Jahn, and Brandon Zeman), I decided to redesign They Are Coming For Us! from the ground-up by changing the site from a general blog to a robot-themed web comic with a blog on the side.
Over the weekend, I put in a few hours here and there tinkering with different layouts until I hit on a brilliant Wordpress theme called ComicPress. After installing ComicPress, everything else started falling into place, and I began publishing comics at the end of last week.
Is the website perfect? Far from it. I still have a lot of work to do in fully connecting the site to the vast world of social media.
Is it a good start? I think so.
The truth is, even if what I’m writing isn’t funny, at least I’m enjoying what I’m doing with the site, which is something that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Besides, like everything else, it’s going to take some time for me to figure out what does and doesn’t work. To this point, if you have any feedback on the redesigned site, feel free to leave a comment here or there (or in a message to either Twitter account).
I look forward to hearing your comments, and I hope that They Are Coming For Us! will soon become a must-visit destination during your day.
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