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Blog Marketing Skill #1: Master the Ego

Imb_alltopegos Blogs are all about ego.  Anyone who disagrees is just kidding themselves.  Of course, ego is a word that comes with all sorts of connotations.  Many people assume it is bad.  To a degree, marketing has always been about ego, because it is a necessary element of each of your personalities.  However, here is the biggest flawed assumption about ego: having an ego is not the same thing as being egotistical.  Ego, in itself, is not bad – it’s natural.  The reason I am reminded of this fact now is that Guy Kawasaki recently launched a site called Alltop.com that has been generating some great (and heated) conversation online.  The site is essentially a simplified aggregation of blogs categorized in a several different categories including fashion, green, celebrities, and "ego" among many others. 

The conversation basically breaks into three points of view:

  1. This is nothing new and is available through other tools like Netvibes or PopUrls
  2. This fosters the kind of A-lister vs. other bloggers rhetoric that Guy himself has railed against
  3. Offense at being included in the group provocatively titled "Egos"

Personally, I think the site offers one of the simplest UI models that you can have, whether is just took a day to build or is more complicated than that.  I wish our Blogfeeds https://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com (a similar concept to Alltop) were built on an interface like this.  But obviously there are probably other solutions out there to accomplish this as well.  Which really brings me to the title of this post … blog marketing skill #1.  Whether you are a blogger or do outreach to bloggers, you will rapidly have to learn that ego is all important.  I would argue that many of the most commonly cited blog outreach campaigns where products were offered, such as the Microsoft Laptop Giveaway or the Nikon D80 program as two case studies were mainly criticized negatively by those who had bruised egos from not being included.

What Guy knows about blog ego is that having one of his categories for the site titled in this way is sure to stand out and get people’s reactions.  Along the way, his site (which may very well be only slightly different from other competitive sites in terms of functionality) gets a lot more attention, conversation and traffic.  Since the site’s launch, Guy has also been actively commenting on posts, and inviting bloggers to share their thoughts (full disclosure, he also sent me a note – but I had this post half written over the weekend anyway).  All of this adds up to what anyone would have to consider a successful launch into the blogosphere of a new service.  He has used his reputation to build a buzz, got some top "egos" writing about the site and created just enough controversy to make the site memorable.  Don’t let ego get in the way of letting you see the obvious marketing lesson here.

20 thoughts on “Blog Marketing Skill #1: Master the Ego”

  1. I disagree with Valeria – I love the concept of alltop and am a big Guy fan – but feel the design doesnt do the content justice – it feels thin and watered down – visually unmemorable. The icons remind me of the controversial and poorly received Adobe CS3 icons. What if the design had just a touch better typography like: https://www.gapersblock.com/ or https://www.goodmagazine.com/ (really anything by area17.com) hint hint.

    funny thing is this approach has been around for some time now: https://tech.originalsignal.com/ another example of improved readability.

    All that said – I love Alltop but it does feel cold and machine generated a human touch around the categories would be delightful – perhaps one seesmic commentator continually commenting on what they are seeing in each channel?

    Reply
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  3. it feels thin and watered down – visually unmemorable. The icons remind me of the controversial and poorly received Adobe CS3 icons.
    =================
    jack

    Put The Message Where It Matters! WideCircles aka Wide Circles represents relevant, distributed, highly targeted and efficient internet word of mouth marketing using entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion using social network mediums such as blogs, forums, wikis and so on.
    https://widecircles.com

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  4. In my view one should have ego to be successful in his/her life, because it creates the competative spirit and try to win. I think this is not a bad thing.
    ===========================
    katie
    a place to know …..about you and you family..
    freeastro

    Reply
  5. Hi,
    This about the widecircles,of which the widecircles are of the marketing in online.This is good that the widecircles which is of the marketing organisation.
    =========================================
    alexsonyss

    freeastro

    Reply
  6. Everyone in this world should try to be modest. By being modest and to lead a simple life one can be successful. The aspect of ego is agian different which each and every person in this world will have. So this is not a big thing that a person pertains ego or not but he should be successful in life.

    ———————————————-

    Vincy

    freeastro

    Reply
  7. Hi, This site launched alltop.com it includes fashion, green,celebrities and also ego, mainly this blog discussion
    into ego,is natural for human being, but most of them not accepted, but it is necessary for everyone for personality development.In marketing field every one shows ego, its not bad,its showing itself.
    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

    jaky
    a place to know …..about you and you family..
    freeastro

    Reply
  8. Every person will have Ego. The person who satisfies by himself is great. some people having Ego will show angry and will negative attitude on others.
    ============================================
    alesian

    Reply
  9. Personally, I think the site offers one of the simplest UI models that you can have, whether is just took a day to build or is more complicated than that. I wish our Blogfeeds https://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com (a similar concept to Alltop) were built on an interface like this. But obviously there are probably other solutions out there to accomplish this as well. Which really brings me to the title of this post … blog marketing skill #1. Whether you are a blogger or do outreach to bloggers, you will rapidly have to learn that ego is all important. I would argue that many of the most commonly cited blog outreach campaigns where products were offered, such as the Microsoft Laptop Giveaway or the Nikon D80 program as two case studies were mainly criticized negatively by those who had bruised egos from not being included.
    ===========================================================

    jackdawson

    [url=”https://www.astro4all.com”]freeastro[/url]

    Reply
  10. Personally, I think the site offers one of the simplest UI models that you can have, whether is just took a day to build or is more complicated than that. I wish our Blogfeeds https://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com (a similar concept to Alltop) were built on an interface like this. But obviously there are probably other solutions out there to accomplish this as well. Which really brings me to the title of this post … blog marketing skill #1. Whether you are a blogger or do outreach to bloggers, you will rapidly have to learn that ego is all important. I would argue that many of the most commonly cited blog outreach campaigns where products were offered, such as the Microsoft Laptop Giveaway or the Nikon D80 program as two case studies were mainly criticized negatively by those who had bruised egos from not being included.
    ===========================================================

    jackdawson

    [url=”https://www.astro4all.com”]freeastro[/url]

    Reply
  11. Ego is a word that comes with all sorts of connotations.Many people assume it is bad.But we can not say it is bad all times. Some times we should show ego. also the site Alltop.com consists of several discussions and also blogs
    ==========================
    Michel

    freeastro

    Reply
  12. disagree with Valeria – I love the concept of alltop and am a big Guy fan – but feel the design doesnt do the content justice – it feels thin and watered down – visually unmemorable. The icons remind me of the controversial and poorly received Adobe CS3 icons. What if the design had just a touch better typography like: https://www.gapersblock.com/ or https://www.goodmagazine.com/ (really anything by area17.com) hint hint.
    =========================================================
    timothy1

    {url=””https://www.astro4all.com}freeastro{/url}

    Reply
  13. Ego is common to every individual but it should not go for a illegal extent. The site http://www.alltop.com is a very good website. Guy Kawasaki has a wonderful thoughts and he has done all sorts of discussions in this website. It gives a lot of information on many topics.
    ———————————————————-
    Bruce Williams
    place to know …..about you and you family..

    freeastro

    Reply
  14. Its good to know that there is also a site which deals with ego. http://www.alltop.com provides some discussions and blogs on ego but as per me everyone has ego in them and it is a must to succeed in life because it makes oneself to feel greater than others so as to struggle to achieve something in life.
    ——————–
    jasmine
    freeastro

    Reply
  15. The aspect of ego is agian different which each and every person in this world will have. So this is not a big thing that a person pertains ego or not but he should be successful in life.
    mainly this blog discussion
    into ego,is natural for human being, but most of them not accepted, but it is necessary for everyone for personality development.In marketing field every one shows ego, its not bad,its showing itself.
    ====================================================
    jackson


    https://www.astro4all.com
    freeastro

    Reply
  16. The aspect of ego is different from each and every person. So this is not a big thing that a person has ego or not but he should be successful in life.
    ======================================

    allen

    freeastro

    Reply

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