Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)  When it comes to blogging he is the ultimate source; his blog ProBlogger.net is a must read blog to learn all aspects about the craft of blogging.  He has also created ProBlogger.com, an exclusive blogging community forum that launched in September of 2009.

Chris Brogan Hundreds of people on Twitter say they are social media guru’s, but Chris is truly the real deal.  He is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency. You should also read his blog at chrisbrogan.com, where you will find outstanding content on social media and the emerging web.

Brian Clark (CopyBlogger) Brian was ranked #3 on a list of the most influential online marketers of 2009. His blog CopyBlogger is the premier blog on one of the core components of blogging:  the subject of writing copy.

Matt Mullenweg Some refer to him as our leader; he is a voice and inspiration to the open source community, but he is also just a regular guy. Matt is the founder of  one of the most widely used blogging platforms on the web, WordPress. He goes by the name @photomatt on Twitter and has one of the coolest domains for his blog ma.tt.

Heather Armstrong (Dooce) Where does she fit in with this list of male marketing and blogging gurus?  Well, basically she tells it like it is and it’s refreshing! Heather’s blog Dooce.com is, for the most part, about her life as a mom, along with some really funny stuff that goes on with her dog, Chuck.  She has taken the craft of blogging from a hobby to an income that supports her family.

There are few trends that have taken the web by storm as quickly as Twitter. According to Compete.com Twitter received more than 8 million page views in February 2009 and this was up from less than 5 million in December of 2008. If you or your company does not have a Twitter account, get one right now.  There are thousands of web professionals, marketers and bloggers who have already jumped on the Twitter train, including large media outlets.  Jetblue airlines has over 325,000 followers and the New York Times has over 500,000.

Don’t pass this up Twitter is like having a blog, it just happens to have a 140 character limit to each post.  With many of the same guidelines that regular blogs have, they apply to this medium as well.  It may not be the best platform to earn an income on although it can be very powerful,  Just keep your pitches to a minimum. I think the better way to use it is building brand awareness along with product updates and news.  A great tool for using Twitter on your desktop that has url stortening built in is TweetDeck.com and it’s FREE.  One of the great things is that TweetDeck takes advantage of is theoutstanding  search properties of Twitter. You can have multiple searches running at the same time monitoring the buzz on what ever you are interested in.

Do you use Twitter?  If so how has it help you or your brand?

Let us know with a comment.

Admittedly, Linked In isn’t like Twitter and facebook. It’s more prosaic, tends to make you feel like you just sauntered unexpectedly into a boardroom full of suited executives. That’s because of it’s sober, business focus. However,that should good for us bloggers since It could be used for the following:

• 2 Minutes Daily Leads to Thought Leadership: Each day, hop onto the Linked In site and share your thoughts on one thing you are good at (presumably, that’s what you will usually blog about). Contribute at the “Question and Answer” section of Linked In and make a name for yourself. Establish your reputation by earning points for your answers there.
• Visit blogs and leave your mark there: While talking on these forums and visiting other Linked In profiles, you are likely to visit their personal or business blogs. It is now your opportunity to extend your thought leadership on their blogs. Leave your foot-print there and leave comments that make an impact.
• Make your profile a live, breathing, web document: There isn’t a rule that insists on your profile to be updated only when you feel like it. In fact, it helps if you make your profile a breathing document. Link to posts from your blog, other articles you have written, some interesting videos you must have watched or link to great podcasts you subscribe to. Your profile must be a live journal. Go pour life!
• Connect With your Readers; ask them: It’s easy to put up your Linked In badge and wait for your readers to connect with you. I was just thinking about another approach( more close to me since I have been a sales person all my life) — why not follow your readers, hunt down their linked In profiles and then send out a request to connect to them?

The rich become rich because they make their money work hard for them. Bloggers might just get rich if they can make social media behemoths like Linked In and Twitter work hard for them. What do you think?

Darren Rowse- One of the top bloggers who blogs about blogging, he is from Australia. A must follow for anyone into blogging.

Brian Clark- Runs a blog that focuses on the ultimate skill of copy writing. Excellent person to follow for bloggers and online marketers.

Sherman Hu- New media blogger & gadget guy.  One of the first people to do an Internet Marketing live streaming show.

Yaro Starak- A blogger and Internet business entrepreneur from Australia, creator of Blog Mastermind.

Maria Reyes-McDavis- A entrepreneur who has a marvelous handle on social media. She describes herself as a social media geek.

Liz Strauss- Exceptional blogger and blog coach.  Puts on an annual conference called SOBCon – biz School for Bloggers. Also co-hosts a podcast with Lorelle VanFossen, expert web strategists and blogger.

Who are some favorite people you are following on Twitter?

Follow Me

Facebook has a lot of people on it and it really makes sense to start linking to friends and aquaintances on facebook. However, for this purpose, you must build a facebook page for your blog. Bloggers can really take advantage of all that traffic and networking potential facebook has by putting up a Facebook page.

Facebook pages are originally intended for brands, companies and organizations but I don’t see why bloggers cannot use this feature in facebook for promoting their blogs.

It  really makes sense to populate your new facebook page with content, use the “notes” feature on facebook to import all your blog posts to ensure there is activity on yoour new facebook page. You could also form a group on facebook and start a community of your own – discuss things relevant to your niche, Interact and share with others, build your network and much more.

There was even this nice little widget that  you could display on your blog where your visitors could become your fans.If you are feeling hesitant to start your page or group or both onb facebook, you could visit some already existing pages or groups and see what’s on those pages and groups. Join some other groups first, interact and contribute and you will learn the nitty-gritty involved anyway. Having a page on facebook, Linked In, etc will boost your brand, bring some traffic and act like a net cast wide to get more readership to your blog? Do you have a page on facebook you would like us to showcase here? Let us know.

I love reading Mashable. Not because it talks about social media — which should be reason enough for reading it all by itself — but more so because of the following reasons which can make for very good lessons for bloggers. Here are some of the things I think we should religiously follow:

Top-Notch, Reader enthralling content: I absolutely love the content on the blog. I never miss a single post out there and I ensure that I tweet some of those  posts if I think they would benefit my followers. It is this kind of content that makes a blog sticky. It tears the barricades down and lets readers pour in relentlessly. Could you imagine how your blog would be if you could develop content like that?

Note: Most of the content at Mashable and even Smashing Magazine, for that matter, are of “lists” or  “how-to”. You get an idea?

Never misses the frequency: These blogs are always updated with a new post. Each time I go there, I am given something new to read and digest. The frequency, as we did talk about plenty of times, is paramount for a blog’s success.

Completely Social media optimized: Did you observe that almost everything on mashable is sharable? Everything can be bookmarked, shared, emailed, tweeted and linked to. Mashable is a beautiful example of how social media can be used to bring in tons of traffic and backlinks, while riding on trust of the web 2.0 community.

Great design: Mashable’s design is minimalistic and effective, no frills and no-nonsense. It loads quickly and you don’t have to guess to navigate. However, I mentioned this last because I don’t want you to frown on this from the word go. When you are first starting out, you don’t have to worry too much about your blog design. Choose your theme and get started — build great content and drag traffic in. When your blog starts to earn some money, you could invest on design.

My head literally buzzes — almost goes dizzy, as if I had some sort of drug overdose — when I hear about a few things online that seem to be hyped beyond normalcy. Granted that there might be some sort of value in social media, web 2.0 and all of the other junk that seems to permeate the net now, but I still don’t see why people choose spend all their valuable time “twittering” or “tweeting” people about the un-usable toilet in rural Malaysia, China or India.

I am not against social media at all; it’s just that too much time is being spent here than warranted.

Consider this:

” Making my coffee now; nothing like a hot cuppa cappuccino on a Friday evening”

” Ok Tweeple, I am off to bed right now”

Excuse me? What kind of value addition is that? If you have to say something, make it informational, save me some of my money, share what you read, even promote your new blog post, but don’t yap just because it’s free to do so.

Beginning bloggers are now being sucked into the melee. They are told a million times that web 2.0 is happening, it’s in and that there is huge potential here. Twitter itself doesn’t have a solid business model yet, but people are already building a house of cards? Here’s why web 2.0 is a load of nonsensical B.S and why you are better off with just the right amount of time and effort spent on it.

Micro-blogging is still blogging: Most of the sites have taken off after twitter and micro-blogging is cool; it’s big and it’s unavoidable. Whether it dies or not is a moot point. However, micro-blogging is still “Blogging”. You stick to a niche and you provide great value — so much that you are mentioned everywhere, people chant your name and recommend others to follow you. You will be known as an authority in that niche and that’s what you want. So, whatever you do, don’t tweet your musings, daily doings, and other irrelevant stuff.

Spend just the right amount of time on Social Media: Social media is powerful. The power of networking, coupled with like interests and much more make it a potent combination to promote your own blog or services. But then, spending inordinate amount of time on it is abortive. Set a certain amount of time each day for these efforts and then stick to that schedule. An hour or two each is more than enough and over time, you will get to build your own following. If you find you are free for some reason, you might want to spend that extra time too. However, spending too much time on social media marketing efforts is foolishness. Don’t get sucked into it. Check this friendly clipping from current TV that re-iterates my point about the fact that twitter isn’t everything.

Twitter is a Time waster

There isn’t any value until you learn to give: ” Hey, check out my new blog!”, ” Have you checked out the next big thing after fire and wheels?” are the common statements you’d see most beginners put up on social media marketing channels, forums, twitter, flutter and what-have-you. It doesn’t work that way. In that precious time you are supposed to be spending for social media marketing in an ardent effort to promote your blog, you must learn to provide value and nothing else. Don’t even expect any link love or honorable mentions — just do it.

I was just reading a great post by Mark McGuinness titled ” Get More Followers By Spending Less Time on Twitter” on twitip.com. I don’t if you are trading your time in excess for this social media thing, but if you are, think again.