Every year, a social media conference called the Blogworld Expo takes place at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It’s the largest blogging conference in the world and includes more than 50 panels, seminars and keynotes featuring social media’s brightest personalities. Topics range from how to sell more advertising on your blog to taking smart risks with your online personality.

Last weekend, I attended the expo on behalf of Nemo Design and absorbed tons of valuable information. Below, I’ll detail everything you need to know about the convention and why you should consider going next year!

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND A CONFERENCE DEDICATED TO SOCIAL MEDIA?

Blogging has grown into much more than an idle hobby. It’s a way of life and a viable way to make a living. According to Blogworld’s stats:

* Over 12 million American adults maintain blogs (and more than 57 million read them).

* 22 of the world’s 100 most popular websites are blogs.

* There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.

* 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.

* Over 120,000 new blogs are created every day.

MY THREE FAVORITE CLASSES AT THE CONFERENCE: WHAT I LEARNED

1. Beyond Blogging

With social media, marketing is essential. Unfortunately, everyone thinks they can perform marketing tasks well with no training.

Transparency can be difficult for corporations dabbling in social media because as they get larger, they don’t necessarily know who they are any longer. The overall vision (and truthfulness) can get lost in a sea of PR and marketing teams trying to craft a visibly perfect image. Successful bloggers within corporations are authentic, passionate and know what they’re talking about.

2. Taking Smart Risks with Your Online Personality

There’s a difference between pure risk and smart risk online. Smart risk is about having a plan. There are many great things that can come out of showcasing your personality and letting people know who you are. Think about how you want your intentions to play out in the long run and develop a corresponding plan.

A very finite number of negative outcomes can arise when you put yourself out there (on the internet) and most of them can be controlled. In contrast, there’s an infinite number of great possibilities that can happen and they usually outweigh the bad. Examples include job leads, networking and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Remember, it’s up to us as our own personal brand managers to control our image. Be aware, consider the persona you’re projecting and your reactions / responses. The residue can last forever. Figure out what your boundaries are and give some consideration to your personal image before you step out publicly.

3. Opening Keynote

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek and Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park had some really inspiring, basic advice during the keynote.

First of all, it’s important to give fans a brand that’s consistent with what you’ve promised them.

Secondly, you don’t want to fight the battle of competing with everyone else. Don’t be an asshole. You’ll meet everyone on the way down that you met on the way up. Being nice isn’t the same thing as being passive. Being cordial and direct and assertive doesn’t cost you any extra time and pays off.

Timothy advised us to “talk to your readers the way you’d talk to your friends after two drinks.” Cut out the nonsense and show them what they want to hear. Don’t avoid offending people; it comes across as fake.

He also related that It doesn’t matter how many times you’re rejected or how many people don’t get what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s about how many do.

IS THE BLOGWORLD EXPO RIGHT FOR YOU?

If you’re serious about blogging, either as an individual or for the company you’re employed by, Blogworld is for you. With up to seven seminars to choose from a few times each day, there’s a huge variety of topics on varying levels ranging from introductory to professional.

Meeting Steve Pavlina!

Beyond receiving the opportunity to learn everything there is to know about blogging, Blogworld is a fantastic place to network! I was able to meet Timothy Ferriss (totally approachable), Steve Pavlina (he’s hugely inspiring and even showed his raw food stash of snacks to us!), Darren Rowse and I came very close to meeting Guy Kawasaki on a few occasions (next year, perhaps?!)

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

1. The convention hours are early (9 a.m. on average), so unless you’re a ‘morning person,’ staying out all night and partying on convention days is not recommended!

2. The cost ($400.00 for an all-access pass) is only worth it if you stick to a pre-planned, class-packed schedule. If you plan on taking extended breaks to nurse your hangover, don’t bother attending.

3. The food options at the convention center are exorbitant and not very tasty. Plan ahead and bring tons of snacks!

4. Sign up for a Twitter account in advance. It’s the preferred way of communicating at the convention. (See the live Blogworld 08 Twitter feed here).

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Are any of you planning on attending the Blogworld Expo next year?

I have a friend who is studying journalism at a decent university. Before she started the course and took on the financial burden it would entail she had asked me for my opinion about the value of having a journalism degree versus just diving in and finding a job as a writer. Tricky question.

Here we are in 2008 where ‘citizen journalists‘ abound and they are here to stay as Wikipedia shows. Although getting a good degree is a worthwhile endeavor my gut tells me that my friend should be writing; every day, everywhere. A degree in journalism may no longer be the prerequisite to being gainfully employed.

As more businesses begin to embrace radical transparency (as they should) then new job positions are opening up that do not follow the old tried [tired?] and tested methods of ‘corporate communications.’ In the new world of PR/Communications I suggest that the following list of abilities/talents would be a very large part of the job description. See how you score:

01. Do you have a personal blog or website? [ Yes? - good. 10 points. No? - start one.]
02. Are you an influencer? [Do your peers look to you for advice and insight into how people are snapping up the latest gadgets and are immersing themselves in music, fashion and technology? Do they ask you what your opinion is before they make a decision themselves?] 10 points.
03. Are you a trusted source? [Do people trust your opinions on subjects in your area of expertize? For instance, if you are a devout environmentalist do you think the Toyota Prius is a boon or a bust? Explain.] 10 points.
04. Are you a thought leader? [Do you contribute articles and essays that outline your thinking on subjects that you are well versed in? Do people care?] 10 points.
05. Are you a filter? [Do you carefully distill content, media and messages into relevant posts for your readers?] 10 points.
06. You are, of course, well versed in the art of Google Alerts, right?
[No? deduct 10 points.]
07. You use Twitter, FaceBook, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Flickr, MyVidoop, LinkedIn, Twellow, Ma.gnolia and faithfully follow Daily Candy, BuzzNet, Idolater and Perez Hilton. [Good. Award yourself any number of points.]
08. You understand that a Combine Harvester is not a competitor to Yahoo! Pipes?
09. You understand the function of memes in the cultural sociosphere? [If you can understand the relationship between Richard Dawkins, his writings on natural selection, Darwin and John Gray's thoughts on The Human Animal, award yourself untold amounts of points.]
10. Finally. You understand that there is no reason whatsoever for a company to have a FaceBook Page, yes? [Good.]

Ok, so my points system is lame but hey, if you scored more than 50 points you can now apply for any position that includes the following in the job description - Social Media, PR 2.0, Web Content Editor, Blogger, Web 2.0 Communications Director, Online Evangelist, New Media Communications Director, Online Guru…etc, etc, etc…Or you could follow your heart and get that journalism degree.

Click the image and watch the action…

In today’s Brave New World, beware of those amongst the social media chattering classes advising companies and brands who throw around phrases such as “you need a Facebook page” or better yet, buzz words like viral as in “you should make a viral video,” perhaps even “are you Twitting.” Facebook is getting called out as the place for narcissists [who would ever have thought...!] meanwhile pundits are trying to get their heads around The Naked Generation [Hint: they lay their lives bare online and understand that Britney flies close to flameout but dig the fact that she's a fascinating spectacle all the same.]

I’m not certain if Nintendo has a Facebook page for its game, Wario Land but if you want an example of an online marketing campaign that is simple, effective and fun then this YouTube video is for you.

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb posts that Microsoft has hired danah boyd, who Marshall says is - “probably the most high profile academic in the world focused on the emerging web and its social consequences.”

boyd (who only uses lowercase when typing her name) is a leading expert on how the next generation is using social networks. She caused a ruffle when she concluded in a report that “The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other ‘good’ kids are now going to Facebook. …MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, ‘burnouts,’ ‘alternative kids,’ ‘art fags,’ punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm.”

She spells out her own thoughts on joining Microsoft Research New England here.

One thought re Microsoft and its compulsive obsession with the desktop…aren’t the next generation of social networkers supposed to be surfing exclusively via mobile devices?

Pic ©Losanjealous.com

We live in a world of constant updating. News moves swiftly from PDA to mobile phone to laptop to desktop in seconds. We Twitter, we text, we temper our every moment if we are not careful; we modify our immediate world-view for consumption online to passive recipients who make what they will of our digital discourse. Who owns the information that you have set free? Dwell on that a minute as I move on.

Google is your friend for research and your archenemy if you don’t own what Google’s spiders discover as they crawl every nook and cranny of the web. The information that others post about you or your company should reference content that you have delivered, written and posted yourself and preferably be content that can be verified easily from third party sites and other online sources. Own your message, if you don’t someone else will.

Today I received an email from the publicists for the indie rock band, The Airborne Toxic Event [we'll leave the Don Delillo reference aside for now,] which contained an open letter to a ‘music critic,’ Ian Cohen, who works for the indie music fans’ online bible, Pitchfork. In short, in his review of the band’s new album, he eviscerated it as a work of musical plagiarism.

Cohen is of course entitled to his opinion, his purview as a critic demands it. He is a filter and an influencer and he writes for Pitchfork which in turn operates within those same modern parameters; Pitchfork has taken on the mantle of challenging the once-hallowed print journals of music criticism and therefore its responsibility does not end at the node of an ISP. Within that responsibility lies a problem - the print magazines had editors. Editors who once were the filters and influencers, soft blocking and often hard balling writers who turned in weak copy, guiding and counseling writers who had the metaphorical fish on the line and teaching them how to land the story. The internet has swept that aside and Pitchfork has happily built and attached its business to those loose moorings.

Worse still, Pitchfork does not embrace openness - you cannot comment on any of the posts - it’s a good old-fashioned web site, so communication is restricted and readers opinions will never be taken in to consideration.

And that’s why The Toxic Airborne Events’ open letter to the music blogs of the world was a very smart move. They were able to calmly and sensibly challenge Ian Cohen’s review without stooping to the same low levels that his review had reached. They took the high road. They accept his criticism but challenge the presumptions he has formed about the band - “You’re wrong about our intentions, you’re wrong about how this band came together, you don’t seem to get the storytelling or the catharsis or the humor in the songs, and you clearly have some misconceptions about who we are as a band and who we are as people.”

And they don’t hold back as they defend the music scene in Silverlake and Los Feliz that was once much lauded by writers such as Cohen - “….it also seems to have very little to do with us. Much of your piece reads less like a record review and more like a diatribe against a set of ill-considered and borderline offensive preconceptions about Los Angeles. Los Angeles has an extremely vibrant blogging community, Silver Lake is a very close-knit scene of bands. We’re one of them. We cut our teeth at Spaceland and the Echo and have nothing to do with whatever wayward ideas you have about the Sunset Strip. That’s just bad journalism.”

In the face of a negative online story The Airborne Toxic Event did exactly right thing - they responded immediately and intelligently. No Pitchfork swift-boating for them.

Over the last several years, blogging has grown from a casual hobby to a full-blown phenomenon. The Blog World Expo was created to assist and educate the increasing number of bloggers and will be hosted in Las Vegas from September 19th through the 22nd, 2008. This convention is unique in that it is the only industry-wide tradeshow, conference and media event dedicated to blogging and new media. Included in the expo are over 50 seminars and panel discussions that aid bloggers in becoming more prolific and successful within their niches.

According to Blog World’s stats:

* Over 12 million American adults maintain blogs (and more than 57 million read them).

* 22 of the world’s 100 most popular websites are blogs.

* There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.

* 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.

* Over 120,000 new blogs are created every day.

Besides providing a stable platform for individuals and companies to express their views, promote products and connect with the public, blogs are ripe with social networking opportunities. According to Synovate, though more than half of adults in 17 countries don’t know what social networking is, it’s blazing along in the U.S. with an expected participation rate of nealy 45% of internet users by the end of 2008.

Wikipedia claims that “The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers.” Early incarnations of the blog were usually integrated into personal websites and coded by hand. The popularity of blogging quickly spread in the late 90s when hosted blog tools like Open Diary, Live Journal and Blogger began offering free, user-friendly services.

Now, many bloggers use blog software that they have installed on their personal domains since they can more closely control the customization, track stats and monetary opportunities. Popular software options include Wordpress, Moveable Type, Textpattern and Drupal.

The future of blogging is bright: 89% of companies surveyed say that they think blogs will be more important in the next five years. Companies are seeing the potential in running blogs now more than ever before because they give fans and consumers a way to connect directly with the products and services they love. And, individuals are capitalizing on blogging as well. Some are now earning enough advertising and sponsorship dollars to blog full-time.

In only ten years’ time, blogging has revolutionized the way we get our news, network with like-minded individuals, gather product information and share our views. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it…

How has blogging impacted your life?