I don’t know if it’s because I have decided to start commenting more on blogs (I can be a bit of a passive reader and you know how the saying goes “what goes around comes around!”) but in the last 6 weeks or so I have found some really amazing blogs that I will be following in 2010.
Conversation Agent written by Valeria Maltoni : A blog with definite expert status and class! I was on Valeria’s Twitter page and her bio says Valeria
“Helps businesses understand how customers and communities have changed marketing, PR & communications – and how to build value in this new environment”
You can visit Valeria’s blog at : http://www.conversationagent.com/
Chris Garrett (oh my goodness I love this man!)
Chris mixes social media, internet marketing and personal development together so is very much my type of man! The grand pappy of Authority Blogging Chris just entertains and educations in one post. I really want to take part in his Authority Blogging course and will see what happens for me in the New Year to make that happen.
You can visit Chris’s blog at http://www.chrisg.com/
Online Reptuation Management expert Andy beal is another great person to listen to and I came across his book in January and have been reading it on and off all year, implementing some of the things I have learnt. I read his blog and he reminds me to be careful about what I say online because it can come back to haunt me LOL
You can visit Andy’s blog at http://www.andybeal.com/blog
Chris Brogan
When you leave a comment on a blog written by Chris Brogan expect to receive a FLOOD of emails for the next week if you subscribe to the comments notification! Everytime Chris writes something the comments are free flowing and on a grand scale. Gives me something to live up to that’s for sure. 
You can visit Chris’s blog at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
Two people that I found today and spent hours (way, way too much time) reading their blog posts are :
Danny Brown : (seems like a really authentic guy) Social media and non profits. Danny is all about community, connection and conversation (love it!)
You can visit Danny’s blog at http://dannybrown.me/
I have a blog called Sustainable Virtual Communities that I want to focus on non profit in the UK and virtual communities (having built a community that has reunited people from one Caribbean island who are spread around the world – 8,000 members in 19 months) and reading Danny’s blog will remind me that I really need to focus more on it, but I also have to remember if it is meant to be it will be! Right now it doesn’t fit into my model of where I am going online but I can see there is potential.
John Haydon focuses on strategies for bloggers, small businesses and non profit. He has a great video on how to add a retweet link to your email campaign so your subscribers can retweet your opt in page via Twitter (Great idea – watch it here)
You can visit John’s blog at : http://johnhaydon.com/
These are the people who will inspire me to become the Authority Blogger that I want to be. They have set a high standard and I will expect nothing less from myself than to match it as time goes by. I am a little sad there isn’t a black role model for me but maybe I haven’t found her or him yet
I also believe it is important to think about the management of a blog and making sure it never dies on you – unless you are fortunate enough to have “people” doing that for you. But if you are not that lucky just yet and have to self manage like the rest of us then check out
David Olsen – WordPress Consulting Services – And my WordPress techy hero – http://www.d-olsen.com/
Dave always has some great stuff about backing up your hosting/blogs, plugins, resources to use and other stuff – not sexy I know – but essential
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