I rub shoulders with giants.
It’s been about a month since I committed to daily Monday to Friday posts here. I’ve done regular posting gigs on other sites I’ve run in the past, but I was a bit out of practice so it took a bit to get back in gear. Not so much with the writing, but the reading.
As I mentioned yesterday, I use Flipboard for most of my blog reading, which has really helped me save time while feeling that I’m staying on top of things. I also subscribe to this blog, not so much to review what I’ve been writing, but to make sure the RSS is working (I’ve had problems in the past.)
A weird evolution has occurred inside me over the past while. In the past, especially when I blogged sporadically, I’d have a moment of panic when I saw my own headline appear in my RSS feed. I wouldn’t recognize it immediately as mine, since I wasn’t used to seeing it, and I’d think someone else had the same idea, and (check out the confidence here) probably expressed it better and/or I’d subconsciously “stolen” the concept that I hadn’t even seen yet when I wrote my piece.
None of that is the work of a rational mind, by the way.
As of late, I’ve gotten used to seeing my name “in print,” as it were, but that’s where something cool is happening. The other day, in Flipboard, I got to see an article of mine next to a post by Seth Godin.
This was from my personal RSS feed, my own collection of blogs that I’ve tuned to match my interests. It’s quite possible that I’m the only person in the world who saw that particular layout, but here’s the thing: I have a new post coming up at 6AM every day. Anyone who subscribes to my RSS feed and reads it in an aggregator like Flipboard, Google Reader, or any of the other ones will see my writings alongside whoever else is in their subscription list who posts around that time. I didn’t give a lot of scientific thought to my time of day selection, but I’m starting to…
Now the cool brain wiring thing: having my thoughts published next to bigger names elevates me to some degree in the mind of the reader (hopefully it doesn’t bring Seth down.) It’s borrowed credibility, like the “as seen on…” logos in product ads. I’m seen next to some really cool authors.
And to be clear, when you get one of those “product placement” deals it’s because someone took the time to subscribe to your RSS feed, so you already have a vote, and there’s work to be done to get that vote, but once you’re in, the impact of your words is stronger than it would have been if they were just read on your website.
In other words, social aggregation apps aren’t just sources of new traffic, they’re instant authority builders. Dude, I just got published in the same “magazine” as Seth Godin!
And for the non-bloggers, what about Twitter? I think there’s some side effect to showing up in a stream around the tweets of key influencers, but since it’s generally a fast moving stream I think the impact is lower and on a much more subconscious level than the subconscious borrowed credibility I’m seeing in Flipboard. Worth more thought though.
And in closing, let’s get some of the work out of the way – please subscribe to my RSS feed and get me published in your magazine of choice!
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