BlogWorld 2008 was an absolute blast. I met some of the greatest social media minds around, but I was able to chat up folks of all ages, all backgrounds and with all different levels of new and social media experience.
Anyway, Gary Vaynerchuk summed up my biggest takeaway in one sentence: “Content is king, but marketing is queen, and the queen runs the household.”
It doesn’t matter how good your content is; if you don’t market it, it won’t make a difference. Good bloggers have a great sense of who their audience is. They keep track of their friends, fans and followers in lists, social networks — any way they possibly can.
At the end of the day, people buy who you are, not who you sell.
Question: What was your big takeaway?
Anyway, my panel with Jason Falls and Jeremy Pepper went quite well — thanks for the support on Twitter, guys! — met OJ Simpson and I just had a great time, so I plan to attend next year’s BlogWorld Expo.
(ADDENDUM: My panel was featured in WebProNews, and yours truly was quoted. Awesome!)
Here are some of the awesome people I met:
Ricardo Bueno, Scott Duehlmeier, Tris Hussey, Lynn Terry, Marc Baumann, Jon Ostrower, Shannon Lane, Beth Blair, Ellen Marden, Jeremy Pepper, Eve Lopez, Deborah Micek, Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Samer Forzley, Richard Lee, Becky McCray, Ezra Butler, Michelle Evans, Lee LeFever, Steve Pavlina, Annie Lynsen, Lionel Menchaca, Andrew Israel, Scott Lockhart, David Hinz, Rob Lloyd, Michael Paige, Kathy Jacobs, Wendy Piersall, Byron Go, Lorelle VanFossen, Jason Yan, Adam Ostrow, Paul Kim, Steve Radick, Doyle Albee, Barbara Rozgonyi, David Almacy, Dave Taylor, Rob Vaules…
…and so on. (Sorry if I missed you.)
___
On a personal note, I have two bits of advice:
1. If you’re going to Vegas, pack some chapstick and some good lotion. My lips are cracked and my elbows are all dry from the heat.
2. Don’t try to walk from one hotel to another. Just cab it. While Vegas is small and the buildings are large, it seems that if you try walking from place to place, you’ll never get there. Period.