Marketing Extraordinaire-Chris Brogan

When it comes to blogging about marketing, Chris Brogan’s self-titled blog [chrisbrogan.com] is a very entertaining and interesting one to read. With eleven years of experience in the social media and marketing industry under his belt, he is a consultant to fortune 500 companies, a co-author, and a columnist in at Entrepreneur Magazine, my favorite! He blogs about several different topics ranging from tips and tools to reviews of different companies and their strategies.

In his blog titled Dream a Disney Dream , Chris Brogan shares his experience of the launching of Disney Dream cruise line. It is interesting how he incorporates links into his post and the text “Disney Dream” leads straight to the cruise line homepage. A lot of the landing pages of the links posted on his blog lead to informational homepages and help the reader learn more about what he is talking about.

When adults talk about Disney and cruise ships, many probably think they are infested with hyperactive, annoying children running around uncontrollably. Surprisingly, Brogan shares:

This ship wasn’t just for the young and the young at heart. It was also a pretty exciting place for a grown-up, too.

I like that he used the turn “grown-up” instead of adult. It makes his writing informal and inviting. I feel grown-up is usually a term used by children or adults when they are trying to teach kids a lesson. Since it comes off as informal language, it really matches the topic and goes with the Disney theme! It is also awesome how he manages to write about an academic subject and makes it interesting and fun to read. I did not want to stop reading his post but unfortunately, the cruise had to end sometime.

Although you can tell a lot about a bloggers persona through their writing, I must admit my favorite part about his Disney Cruise review post was the video of him on the water slide. It shows he really wants to relate to his followers and connect with them on another level. He seems cordial and it is almost as if he wishes we were there with him along for the ride. After reading his descriptive post, I hope I end up having a phenomenal vivid dream of me on the glorious ship sliding down the wicked water slide!

In another post of his, titled Managing Social Presence, Chris Brogan talks about the Hootsuite application and its different functions and tools. He says:

If you look at the graphic to the left, it lets you post messages and read messages from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare and elsewhere. It also lets you cook up searches in Twitter search, plus a few other things.

I love the informality of his writing and how he incorporates the phrase “lets you cook up searches.” He makes it sound like searching is an art or witchcraft. He surprisingly manages to write as though he is having a cool conversation about a simple online social media application!

When writing about social presence management needs, he uses lists and adds side comments in closed parenthesis. The lists also compliment his informal writing style and are an effective way for him to quickly share his opinions and suggestions. Usually when I think of a list, a never ending boring grocery list comes in mind but when I was reading his list I wished it never ended! One of the bullet points were:

A blog editor. (They’ve dabbled with linking Hootsuite to WordPress.com, but this shouldn’t be that hard.)

Every time I come across his comments in the closed parenthesis I think of casual conversations I have with my friends and how I do the same when I talk. He also uses italicized words. When he uses the word that…it is almost as though he is reassuring his followers it should not be hard and after watching the video part of the Dream a Disney Dream post I can totally imagine him emphasizing that word.

Another thing I admire about his posts is his voice does not change very much. Whether he is talking about his marvelous adventure on the Disney cruise line or simply writing about social media applications, he still comes off as relatable and cordial. I think when he adds his side comments; it helps make his writing sounds more like a conversation rather than a tedious lecture. Hopefully I come off the same way and you can relate to me.


Stay tuned for more goodness...

TTFN, ta ta for now!

P.S.  Chris Brogan: …I think you’re awesome!