Looks Matter, Even in the Blogosphere

I read an interesting post a few weeks ago but have been too busy to blog much since then; it was about how female tech bloggers are perceived differently than males. Namely, if a woman is attractive it becomes difficult to find comments that reflect on what she's trying to say rather than how she looks.

My first reaction when I read it? Duh. Welcome to the world. Show me a place in the world--online, in the workplace, in the movies, etc--where a woman isn't judged at least to some degree on her looks. It's just a fact of life as far as I'm concerned--a fortunate one if you're attractive and a not so fortunate one if you're not.

That's not to say that everyone judges women solely on looks; that's not the case at all (thankfully). But yes, there are always some people (sorry guys but I'm talking about you--and no, not all of you so don't get all defensive if you're not the kind who cares about looks) who value women mostly because of the way they look.

Here's the thing, though: don't tell me that women don't know this and don't play to it. Take the blog post, for instance: women in tech either being considered babes if they're attractive or trolls or whatever if they're not. You're telling me that Kim Komando doesn't try to play up her looks? That Marissa Mayer (aka "The Cupcake Princess"--how's that for a demeaning nickname for an executive of one of the most powerful brands in the world?) doesn't enjoy all the press she gets about her looks? That Penelope Trunk doesn't get an awful lot of mileage talking about her, well, girl parts?

I personally like think the blogosphere actually provides a pretty good respite for women as far as being judged by their looks; unless you have a big photo of yourself on your blog, nobody knows what you look like. I personally hate photos and it took me a long time to relent and put one of myself on Twitter. I like it that blogging is about what I have to say and not about what I'm wearing or what color my hair is.

Blogging For A Living...Or Not

For whatever reason, I've come across a lot of posts lately about blogging for money--either for it or against it. I already expressed my thoughts about it; namely that for me, personally, blogging is about my passion for writing. Well, that and being able to share my strong opinions about things that I find fascinating but most people I know couldn't care less about and therefore aren't interested in hearing me talk about.

But I digress. Today, in the course of just a few minutes, I came across two more articles about blogging for money--each the polar opposite of the other. The first was a Wall Street Journal article America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire. The WSJ article starts off "In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers." As you can guess, the article goes on to call blogging "America's Newest Profession."

Then I jumped to Penelope Trunk's blog post for today, Reality check: You're not going to make money from your blog. Obviously there's no guess-work involved in figuring out what her take on the blogging for profit issue is.

The bottom line is that the whole debate may soon become a much more moot point, as the Federal Trade Commission is currently evaluating whether bloggers for hire are violating advertising laws. For all anyone knows, a blogger who is making a living off "America's Newest Profession" today may be having to shell out money for a lawyer tomorrow.

As attractive an idea getting free stuff in exchange for blogging about it is, it's definitely not worth going to jail over.

You Can't Sell Your Twitter Account. Unless CNN is Buying.

Call me stupid but if a person starts a Twitter account called "CNN Breaking News" and populates it with CNN headlines, doesn't that count as "using feeds of third-party content to update and maintain accounts under the names of those third parties"? And, if it does, how is the whole thing with CNN's million-follower contest not count as a huge case of Twitter "squatting"?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me back it up. I'm quite sure you've heard about the recent Oprah/Ashton Kutcher/CNN Twitter triumverate. If not, lucky you--I just blogged about it.

Bottom line? In January of 2007, a web developer in London started a Twitter account, cnnbrk. Populates it with what looks to all the world like a feed of CNN's breaking news. Accumulates hundreds of thousands of followers. Ashton Kutcher challenges CNN: if I get to 1 million followers before you do, I'll ding-dong-ditch Ted Turner. Well, that's easy, says CNN--we'll just purchase the existing cnnbrk account with its 900,000+ followers.

But not so fast. Name squatting--selling user names--is forbidden by Twitter. CNN maintains they didn't break this rule because they didn't purchase the cnnbrk account; they "acquired" it. As in hired the guy who owned it as a consultant--oh, and as part of the deal you give us your Twitter account.

So, back to my original question: what's up with this? Turns out Twitter, with all its nonchalance about money, apparently doesn't have the balls to "permanently suspend" an account as high-profiled as CNN's.

If Twitter Wasn't Mainstream Before, It Will Be After 4pm Today

I started writing a post yesterday about Ashton Kutcher and CNN's contest to get to a million followers but didn't get to finish. My point was going to be how I know it's pathetic to get worked up over something as stupid as the commercialization of Twitter--but that it did offend my nerd sensibilities. As does reading the captions in Star Magazine lately--"Britney tweeted "my dancers were awesome last night"."

The final nail in Twitter's early-adopter elite coffin came yesterday when I was watching Oprah. (Ok, yes, I do watch Oprah and read Star magazine.) In her promo for today's show Oprah dropped the bomb: "The king of Twitter, Ashton Kutcher..."

So much for the revered Twitter Elite; are they now doomed to be replaced by Oprah, Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher? So much for the notion of Twitter as tool to build community, to engage with your followers/customers/fans; Twitter is now being hyped as a popularity contest and a bullhorn for celebrities.

The upside? Maybe celebrities will all start hiring social media assistants to manage their reputations in social cyberspace.

Tweeting for Profit

While I likened the idea of blogging for profit to making your husband pay you for sex, I might be ok with tweeting for profit.

Blogging For Profit?

This morning I was flipping through Website Magazine, intrigued by the cover story "Blog: Carving Out A Plan For Profit" (page 26). I get to the story and the first sentence stopped me in my tracks:

"Web professionals should be using blogs for one purpose--to make money."

Excuse me?

The article goes on to instruct the reader: "And throughout this article, when you see the term "readers," think "customers. Because really, they are one and the same."

Am I the only one who finds this absolutely distasteful? As in, disgusting? Depressing? Crazy? Or am I the stupid one because I am losing out because I'm not properly monetizing my blog?

In the past I did actually try some of the things the article suggests: Google AdSense and Amazon Associates. The problem is that, in order to make money with those things, you actually have to have more than 2 digits worth of readers. I don't. You also have to see blogging as one big advertisement cleverly disguised as prose. I don't.

The article highlights a "successful" blogger: Shreve Stockton, author of DailyCoyote.net. She doesn't say how much income she earns from the blog, but I'm assuming it has to be some relatively decent amount or they wouldn't be featuring her as the poster child for making money blogging. No offense to Shreve Stockton, but I have a hard time referring to DailyCoyote as a blog; it's actually a photo gallery updated daily...but a "five month lag behind real-time." If you want to receive the photos in real-time, you can pay $5 a month to have current and "never-before-seen" photographs delivered to your inbox daily. You can also buy prints, calendars and T-shirts.

Oh, and she also has a book deal. I will grant you that I'm jealous of the book deal part--book deal is, in my mind, the holy grail of accidental success. Granted, when I hear the words "book deal" I take it to mean a six-figure advance to just do what you're already doing for free. My romanticized book deal concept looks like Diane Keaton's house and life in Something's Go to Give. Namely, being rich and being able to spend your days writing what you want to write about.

But I digress...back to my original point. The idea of blogging just for the sake of making money is kind of like charging your husband to have sex with you. As in, if you're just in it for the money that's kind of depressing--not to mention just weird. Not to be a hater or anything, of course--if that's your thing that's your business. I guess the reason I use that particular analogy is because to me, blogging is about pleasure--I blog because I love writing. If people read it, fine; if not, whatever--I'm still doing it.

Social Media Salaries

About 6 months ago I posed the question "Social Media Manager: What's It Worth To Your Association?" At that point, I wasn't able to find any data about social media salaries at associations; at this point, I still am not really able to. More on that in a minute, though.

In addition to what I included in my previous post, I've recently found a few new sources of salary data for social media/community manager/specialist positions. Connie Bensen, goddess of social media job description and salary information, updated her information on March 1: $50,000-$85,000 for an entry-level online community manager (depending on location). Tom Humbarger--awesome blogger who I just discovered--participated in an online community compensation survey last summer and recently blogged about the results: 27% of respondents were in the $50,000-$75,000 category and 21% were in the $75,000-$100,000 category. There were also a decent amount of respondents in the <$50,000 category and a significant number in the $100,000-$150,000 category.

$150,000 to play on Facebook and Twitter, you say? Sign me up! Not so fast, though, especially if you work for an association.

The underlying problem with pinning down the worth of social media positions is that there is so much latitude when it comes to the job description for social media roles. Social media manager? Community manager? Strategist? Specialist? Intern? Pick one. Then, depending on what you pick, benchmark it against similar existing jobs in the association world. Oh, wait--there aren't any? Bingo!

I just had some first-hand experience with the issue when my job title was changed and the position "re-benchmarked" against comparable DC area association positions. The new title is Social Media & Community Specialist; the positions considered comparable in terms of re-benchmarking were "PR Representative," "PR/Communications," and "Web Content Coordinator/Manager." Kind of random and, I thought, not the most accurate points of comparison. If I had to pick the most comparable existing position against which to benchmark it I would have chosen Communications/Public Relations/Public Affairs Specialist. But I am not a numbers person or an HR person, so I digress. And frankly it really doesn't matter all that much to me. I guess that's one of the benefits of getting older; in my younger days title mattered a lot to me; now I just want to like what I do.

Anyone want to take one for the team and tell me and the rest of the world what you make in your social media job? Or what your company pays for social media jobs? No? Then how about just your thoughts about the matter--what do you think social media jobs should pay and why?

Death Knell for Associations?

Back at ASAE's Great Ideas conference in February, there was a lot of talk about social media--and a lot of talk about how social media could eventually spell the death of associations. Since I work for an association and don't relish the idea of being out of a job, I didn't give it much thought at the time.

Fast forward about a month. I get an email telling me that radRounds is following me on Twitter. Never having heard of radRounds, I clicked the link to their website. And there it was--what could well be the future of associations.

I preface this by saying that I could absolutely be wrong about radRounds--it could very well be a product of one or more of the many radiology associations out there. But as far as I can tell, it appears that the radRounds is not affiliated with an association; this is from the "About Us" section of the site:

radRounds was founded on the eve of January 2008 by a group of radiologists who saw the need for a collaborative, open, and easy-to-use web tool for networking, learning, and collaborating. We are completely managed and created by both informatics experts and physicians who specialize in the wonderful field of radiology and medical imaging.

Networking, learning and collaborating? That's pretty much what associations are for, right? Think about it. Compare your association's website to radRounds: Industry news? Check. Forums? Check. Career center? Check. CME course listings? Check. Groups, case reviews, file sharing, podcasts? Check, check, check...you get the point.

RadRounds seems to offer a LOT of what traditional associations offer. Granted, a lot of what they offer--guidelines, for example--may be created by associations--but really, is an association truly a necessary middleman for stuff like guidelines? With social networks like RadRounds, where professionals can connect and collaborate--what's to stop them from eventually creating their own guidelines?

Again, I am NOT an association executive and I know there are MANY aspects of associations that, conceivably, at least, independent groups couldn't easily re-create on their own. That said, exactly how many functions is that? Enough so that associations have nothing to fear? Or few enough that a dedicated bunch of members could pretty much replicate most functions of an association, thereby eliminating the need to pay dues and support staff and overhead?