Chris Brogan: popular with jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, and teachers too

I'm fascinated by online popularity. Why does one YouTube video have 100,000 views and another seemingly similar video only 100 views? I believe that popularity is something that you can help to influence and I wrote about it in World Wide Rave.

But what about extreme popularity?

My friend Chris Brogan has a blog at chrisbrogan.com that's ranked by Technorati as one of the top 100 blogs in the world. He regularly gets 50 or 100 comments on his posts. And @chrisbrogan has 69,000 followers on Twitter as I write this.

WTF? How does one achieve this extreme popularity?

Bottom line is that Chris is helpful and friendly and funny and smart. People like to be around him. And he's prolific.

I'm reminded of High School. Remember those people who could move within any group and be friends with all of them (even the teachers)? That's Chris. I have no doubt that in High School he was tight with guys on the football team, had friends who played Dungeons & Dragons in dank rec rooms, and could sit with the cheerleaders at lunch. And he likely hung out with teachers after class.

And that's true for him online today.

BTW – Chris writes VERY FAST. I sat with him at the MarketingNow conference in Wellington New Zealand a few weeks ago and watched him bang out a blog post in about the time it took me to write a tweet. Get this: Chris has updated twitter over 40,000 times. That’s forty thousand tweets. Yikes. Photo credit @SiobhanBulfin

I asked Chris about extreme popularity and in this video he shares some thoughts.

Watch the video to learn about online popularity. Direct link here.

Comments

[Alan L. Hammond]

Loved it. Great advice for new bloggers, or old. In my case, I need to ask questions in order to get blog comments. I don't try to come across as the definitive authority, rather I try to be engaging, but I haven't directly asked many questions of my readers.

Taking, as Chris does, every opportunity write is essential. After the kids go to bed, early in the morning, on a plane, wherever. Most of us (I suppose) aren't able to bang out a great post in a few minutes, so it becomes even more imperative to write when we can in order to post regularly.

Again, excellent post. I learned new things and good practices were reinforced. It's always great to see how the great one's do it.

Alan

[Maggie McGary]

You are psychic because I swear I was JUST thinking about blogging about this same thing--and specifically about Chris Brogan, too. How freaky is that?

A few days ago I blogged about a review Chris did on his blog--a video review of a leather messenger bag. I had strong feelings about the post and the fact that I think it's necessary to provide disclosure when you get something for free in exchange for blogging about it. ?What I wrote, while not really slamming him, wasn't exactly complimentary.

Today I saw he'd commented on the post, thanking me for writing it and telling me he'd since gone back and added a disclosure to the post. He was very friendly and seemed downright appreciative of the criticism.

You are totally right about him, though--he knows how to make people like him. He walks a pretty fine line, too, especially with the sponsored posting stuff, because lots of people have strong negative feelinsgs about it, but if anyone is able to pull it off and mitigate much of the criticism, seems like he's a decent bet.

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks Alan and Maggie for the comments.

Yes Maggie, I agree. There is a fine line when you are posting about something for which there is a relationship. Disclosure is always best.

In fact, I should disclose that Chris and I are partners in the Inbound Marketing Summit. And I count him as a friend.

Thanks - David

[SpiritintheVillage]

Chris has an openness that doesn't have a lot of ego attached. This is good and it makes him very approachable, fun and enjoyable.

Although we've never had a direct discussion Chris has connected to me both on Linkedin and Twitter which as a newby makes me feel important.

His blog is one of the most valuable resources for people looking to navigate social media and blogging.

Kevin

[Scott Million]

Thanks for the heads up, I am optimizing my search engine marketing campaign, and I always get some fresh ideas with Chris blogs. I like his wit, and openness to talk about anything that comes his mind.

[EH]

I have been a follower of Chris's blog for a little while now and I have not ceased to be impressed with the quality of his posts. If we want to be close successful as him we need to have that same willingness to help people, to add value, and really just be friendly and be genuine.

[Annette Taylor]

I found this post very helpful. I'm pretty new to blogging for my company and I think there were some great tips in this post!

[Chris Plamann]

Chris's idea of telling people how they can do something rather than merely sharing an observation or experience is an important one - the difference between promotion and actionable content. Think it goes to the bigger idea of providing real value online - something David comments on frequently.

Illustrating once again that the real thought leaders are typically the ones putting valuable material out there for free.