I Want to be Like Chris Brogan, Oh Yea

Chris Brogan asks this morning in his latest blog entry if numbers really matter? Let's start by pointing out that Chris was writing the blog entry because he just crossed the 10,000 subscriber milestone. Think about that for a second. Ten thousand freaking people subscribe to Chris Brogan's blog. Chris also as an unearthly 16,000 plus followers on Twitter. By contrast this blog has about 200 subscribers and fewer than 150 people follow me on Twitter. Do numbers matter, Chris? Hell yea! They matter.

Now Chris makes his living helping people understand social networking concepts so it certainly helps that he walks the walk and just doesn't talk the talk. He goes to all kinds of shows. He talks to people in real life. He forges relationships and he totally gets it.

I don't think we all should necessarily measure our social computing success against the likes of Chris Brogan because he is in my favorite sports parlance, the MVP of social computing. Not everyone can play at an elite level, but we can aspire and we can hope and we can dream. Congratulations Chris, that's just outstanding, and yes numbers matter.

Comments

[Chris Brogan...]

First, thanks for all the kind words. I'm grateful for your thoughts.

When I say that numbers don't matter directly, I guess what I'm saying relates to the fact that a blog like yours, with 200 subscribers (today, but check in a few months, right?) has great points, covers important information, and is just as important as anything I'll say to 10,000 folks.

Is that making sense? The CONTENT is every bit as important, and the number shouldn't make us discount anything, or inflate anything, etc.

[Ron Miller]

Hey Chris:
Thanks for chiming in. I agree content is more important than pure numbers in a vacuum. I would like to think that content drives an audience, but it has to do with a lot of factors. You may note if you took a look around that my blog covers a lot of different areas. If I concentrated on one thing I might be able to build a larger audience.

Thanks again for you comment.