The value of blogging and my favourite Twitter people in the world!

By Neil Patrick

Happy birthday to US!

I am writing this at the first anniversary of starting this blog.

I thought that it would be useful to share what I've discovered so that you can see for yourself what anyone could achieve in 12 months starting from scratch. I have absolutely nothing to brag about, but strangely few bloggers seem willing to share this stuff. Many people extol the benefits of blogging, but few talk about the numbers side of it. So, I thought it might be helpful to share my data and experience for anyone who is curious about the potential that blogs and social media offer for mature professionals.

Why did I do this?

I put up my first post here on 24 September 2012. I was a total rookie and had never blogged before. My blog posts came from three sources. About one third were written by guest posters, a further third were curated from mainstream and online media and all the rest I wrote myself. Since my first post, I have followed up with 263 more. That’s quite a lot compared to most bloggers it seems, but I am in a hurry; I’m driven by two main motivations:

1. A desire to urgently inform mature professionals about how the career world has transformed without many of them really noticing and what they could do about it to protect their futures. 
2. An intense curiosity to discover for myself if and how I could harness the power of social media to assist me achieve 1. above. 

What happened?

Well it’s now one year on and I have some answers.

I’ll start by sharing some headline numbers.

Total all-time hits on this blog are around 60,000 according to Blogger. Monthly hits on this blog are currently around 10,000. However, the biggest chunk (around 70%) of these ‘hits’ are not in fact reader views, they are hits by various ‘bots’ from Google, Twitter, Kred, Klout etc. The ‘real’ figures according to Google Analytics are currently around 2,500 - 3,000 human visits a month. Big difference huh? So the first point is do not trust the numbers of hits that are recorded by Blogger or Wordpress etc. Most of these are not human reader views.

At the same time I set up the blog, I also set up a Twitter account to support it and get the message out to anyone who might be interested in what I was doing. Currently, my Twitter following is around 6,200 followers. So on average, I'm getting roughly one blog view every two months per Twitter follower.

According to Beevolve, the average Twitter following is 208. So if you have more than that, you can give yourself a pat on the back! Interestingly, less than 0.5% of Twitter users have more than 5,000 followers. 

You can see these stats and more here:

http://www.beevolve.com/twitter-statistics/

According to statisticbrain, there were 554m Twitter users in July 2013, so the top 0.5% of Twitter users ranked by following is a whopping 2.8m people! Suddenly being in the top 0.5% doesn’t sound too impressive, but given this is hardly the sexiest or most entertaining blog in the world I’m totally amazed to have got so far so fast.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/

But the numbers alone don’t really tell the whole story. I am not chasing numbers for numbers’ sake. I think engagement is much more important. What’s the point of having hundreds of thousands or even millions of social media connections if you are not interacting with them?

This is where Klout and Kred come in. These both purport to measure online influence. My Klout score has reached 61 out of 100 and my Kred score is 785 out of 1000 for influence and 8 out of 12 for outreach. Before I started this blog, these were both zero or as close as makes no difference. If you want to know more about Kred and Klout and what they mean, I have written a post about it here:

http://40pluscareerguru.blogspot.com/2013/04/klout-and-kred-are-they-relevant-to.html

And then there’s Linkedin. A year ago I had about 360 connections on Linkedin. Every single one was someone that I’d met at least once (and usually much more) face to face. People I’d worked with and done business with over the last 20 years or so. About six or seven of them had been kind enough to give me recommendations.

In all honesty, I used LinkedIn pretty much like many do…rather like a self-updating address book of all my real world business connections. And since I worked mostly inside that little bubble, my network was growing very slowly. I would receive about one invitation a month to connect if I was lucky…and most of these were from people I'd met face to face.

Fast forward to today. Every day now I get a new invitation to connect with someone new on Linkedin. Most days it’s several. And most of these are from the sort of people anyone would love to have in their network. Apart from creating lots of exciting new opportunities, this has also massively boosted my search ranking on Linkedin. Today if I search against the keywords for the type of work I do, I come out on page one of a Linkedin search within a radius of about 50 miles. This in turn means I am approached more and more frequently with great new opportunities. 

But numbers are not the most important thing…people are

But these numbers don’t reveal the reality of the situation. People and relationships are what this is all about, not statistics.

I want to share insights, information and knowledge that is relevant and that I hope will help people. I want to engage with people. I want to help them avoid the growing threats to their futures and achieve their goals.

Which brings me to what I think is the most incredible outcome of these last 12 months. It’s the sheer number and quality of people that who’ve chosen to connect with me with and who have responded positively to what I am doing.

They are as diverse as they are numerous. There are so many that I couldn’t possibly recount all the details of all the emails, DMs, tweets, phone calls, Skype and Google hangouts that have gone on. But I want here to publicly thank every single one of them that has inspired me, helped me, encouraged me, enlightened me and even just been nice to me.

Here they are. Every single one of these people is just wonderful and I have provided their Twitter handles too so if you wish, you can easily follow them on Twitter and engage with them yourself.

Awesome Recruiters:

Axel Koster @AxelKoster

Barbara Adams @CareerProGlobal

HRIS Jobs @hrisjobs

Ibro Palic @Ibro_Palic

Intellego Jobs @intellegojobs

Randstad USA @RandstadUSPros



Career and resume experts:

Debra Wheatman @DebraWheatman

Kerry Hannon @KerryHannon

Kim Marino @CareerCoachKim

Michelle Lopez @One2OneResumes

Tony Restell @tonyrestell



World class coaches:

Donna Svei @AvidCareerist

Fernado Ratkoczy @JobSearchCenter

Jacob Share @jacobshare

Jane Anderson @jane_anderson__



Awesome HR pros:

Anne Marinis @AnneMarinis

Jeremy Scrivens @JeremyScrivens

Karalyn Brown @InterviewIQ

Lisa Orrell @GenerationsGuru

Nicole Le Maire @NicoleLeMaire



Linkedin experts:

Koka Sexton @kokasexton

Stacy Donovan Zapar @StacyZapar



Great guest post writers:

Anna Pitts @annaepitts

Anthony Juliano @ajuliano

David Hunt @davidhuntpe

Jim Langendorf @jplang43

Ron Thomas @ronald_thomas



Brilliant bloggers:

Andrew Ginsburg @GinsburgJobs

David K Waltz @davidkwaltz

Deb Briceland-Betts @DBricelandBetts

Jason Poquette @jasonpoquette

Jesse Colombo @TheBubbleBubble

John Baldino @jbalive

Karen Austin @TheGenAboveMe

Leo Woodhead @thecareersblog

Marc Miller @CareerPivot

Marcia La Reau @ForwardMotionUS

Mary Eileen Williams @FeistySideFifty



The lifetime achievement award goes to:

Everald Compton @EVERALDATLARGE



Social media and tech experts:

The one and only…Gary Hyman! @GaryHyman



Special mention for support above and beyond the call of duty:

Yittah Lawrence @ITISAGR8DAY



And last but not least all these super kind people who have supported and encouraged me:

Abby Kohut @Absolutely_Abby

Angel Torres @angeltorres

Anke Gosch @ueberfliegernet

Anne Sachs @TheatreSmart

Anthony Sider @BudgetDude

Biggleswade JCP @BiggleswadeJCP

Buzz Brindle @BrindleMedia

Caroline Fabian @fabe_recruits

Corrina Wade @wade_corrina

Dave Kushan @DavidKushan

David Nicola @Capt_Careerist

Deepak Sharma @deepakmandi

Diana Schniedman @DianaSchneidman

Diane McWade @dianemcwade

Dionne Lew @DionneLew

Dr. Heather Dix @HeatherChizz

Elzbieta Jaworska @edjaworska

Fotis Tsoumanis @fotispersisting

Getrude Sawadye @getrudesawadye

Gul Nur Bilek @GulNurBilek

Hanna Hurley @hanna_hurley

Helen Fisher @HelenJFisher

Jacqueline Ktita @JacquelineKtita

Jeanette Barrowcliffe @J_Barrowcliffe

Jerome Holland @JeromeHolland1

John Hanna @johnhannagdp

John Siracusa @john_siracusa

Karen Julius @karenjulius

Karla Crawford @kklm7

Kimberlee Lockhart @Kimba_67

Les Floyd @Lesism

Luis Carlos de Paula @lcdepaula

Margie Miklas @MargieMiklas

Mark Affleck @markaffleck

Mark Seaden @MarkSeaden

Projectme @projectmeuk

Sonja Vukadin @SONJAVUKADIN

Steve Leuck @AudibleRx

Wayne Miller @Affilipede

William Carrington @ColCarrington 

I only knew just one of these brilliant people one year ago (yes that's you John!). Today I am proud and flattered to count every one of them as a valued friend and supporter. My sincere thanks and appreciation goes out to each and every one of you. You are all awesome!

Which brings me to the most important point of all. When I started out just one year ago, I had no idea of where I’d be today. I had no clue if anyone was interested in what I thought or had to say.

The last year has shown me that social media can help anyone not only get their message out, it can connect you with people that not only share your beliefs, but also who are willing to share their valuable time, which is why I wanted to express my gratitude in this way.

And that’s the whole point, none of us knows everything. We never can and we never will. But through teamwork and helping others before ourselves, it’s possible to achieve extraordinary things. And that’s the power of social media. Finding and connecting us with the people that share our beliefs and values so we can create amazing things together.

I’m not promising that I can solve everyone’s problems, although I’ll try to help wherever I can and payback all the people who have helped me on my journey. I started out with a very simple idea. I just thought that too many mature professionals were blind to the career revolution that has swept away almost everything that we all grew up believing about work and careers. And this was a big threat to them. And I hoped that my modest insights could help make peoples’ futures a bit more secure and successful.

My work is far from done. But thanks to all of you, my commitment and belief in my mission has been cemented and will drive us forward to…who knows where?

Thank you all and I am now wondering where things will be a year from now. Personally I can’t wait to find out!

Happy birthday to US!