Awesome video by Robert Scoble on his approach to content curation and building a following.

Originally shared by Mari Smith

Awesome video by Robert Scoble on his approach to content curation and building a following. (Props to Beth Kanter for the find). I love this section Robert says at minute 16:45:

"If you want more followers, you have to follow better people. Because your inbound will inform your outbound. If your inbound is crappy and jumbled, and you don't understand what you're reading and who's writing it.. then you're not going to be a very good person on pushing stuff outbound... and therefore you wont gather an audience that's interesting to you, because you won't be informing them very well. I look at it as a funnel: who do I put in my funnel? People I trust."

The interview is well worth the 26 minute watch! Kudos Howard Rheingold!

Several years ago, I created this four-part formula that I adhere to and that really works: Quality Network + Quality Content + Consistency + Genuine, Passionate Caring = Profitable Relationships. ;)

Anyone can pick a niche (ideally, one about which they have knowledge!), and become a terrific content curator. With the excessive amount of information and noise flying at us daily, you become a breath of fresh air by being a trusted go-to source for specific content.

Regards growing your networks, Guy Kawasaki has a theory about Twitter (which could equally apply to all social networks): he says There are two types of people on Twitter: those who say they want more followers and liars. Lol, humorous yes. But, my guess is there's a lot of truth to what Guy says. It's not about playing the "numbers game" and striving to get the biggest audience in the shortest amount of time; that's mostly ego driving that desire. To me, it's also not about attributing importance: people who have 10M fans/followers are not "better people" than those who have 10 fans/followers. We all have importance, or we wouldn't be on the planet. I love to treat everyone as equals; I don't put people on pedestals and don't like to be put on a pedestal myself.

Yet, here's my approach: If you have a gift, a talent, specific experience, niche knowledge, helpful opinions, and useful resources to share, why not share all of that with a larger audience and touch more people's lives and make a bigger difference on the planet?

It's also not about speed, per se. I recommend focusing on proactively building your networks over time. And, not just on one platform, but on several - likely those platforms that resonate with you the most. If you focus on the quality, the quantity comes.

Right now, my networks are my Facebook personal profile, Facebook fan page, one main Twitter account, and now G+. In addition, I have my blog subscribers, my email list, and my own member network. I'm on LinkedIn with a fully optimized profile and decent number of contacts; but I have just never managed to muster up any real passion to use the platform regularly... so I don't. I ought to be focusing on building up my own blog subscribers - that's growing, over time. It always feels so much easier to me to write on my social networks, than to write blog posts. But, essentially, that's what G+ is now allowing us to do - blog faster and get instant feedback. Now, to take some of these ideas and turn them into blog posts on my own site. :)

Meantime, just saying: I have no plans to leave any of my well-established networks in favor of a new one. It's taken me many years to build up each of these communities and I will do my level best to continue nurturing each one.

Your thoughts?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMn-cJHzF8A