A few weeks ago, I had the honor of appearing on David Garland’s awesome web video show for entrepreneurs, The Rise To The Top. We chatted about my background, the power of online community and how to pick a niche and be successful. We also talked about how I built my brand and how I market my sites without a marketing budget.

I thought I would share it here as we definitely talked about some subjects related to this website. You can watch the video below and he also has an audio only version available on his website. A big thank you to David for having me.

You do not have any right to fans of a Facebook page that is dedicated to you or your product, that was created by someone who is not you or acting on your behalf.

There have been cases where companies have tried to seize control of unofficial fan pages and take them over, as if they were somehow entitled to the community that was built by someone else. It’s so wrong.

Some are trying to use trademark or copyright law as a means of bullying their way into these pages and, in doing so, they risk damaging those fan relationships. In fact, the bullying itself is rather hard to understand because in many cases, they are essentially treating their customers like thieves. Completely the wrong move.

I am definitely excited about what is about to take place at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Not just about what I am doing individually, but what I am doing in collaboration with others, as part of a team.

Not only my fellow panelists, but also The A Team (Brandon Eley, Wayne Sutton and me – we’re featured on 5 panels in all, with 2 book signings) and the SitePoint Podcast crew (Brad Williams, Kevin Yank, Stephan Segraves and me). This will mark the first time that the entire podcast team has been in one place at the same time, with Kevin coming all the way from Australia.

Jackie Rousseau-Anderson of Forrester has a run down of the 2010 update of their Social Technographics data. In short, they poll U.S. consumers based on their online social activity and then place them into categories. These categories are:

• Creators: Publish a blog, publish your own web pages, upload video you created, upload audio/music you created and/or write articles or stories and post them.
• Conversationalists: Update a status on a social networking site and/or post updates on Twitter.

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photo credit: Brandon Eley

I was sitting at dinner tonight with Chris Moody and Damond Nollan at Ruby Tuesday in Durham, North Carolina. It was a late dinner, following a panel at North Carolina State University that I was featured on, alongside Chris, Damond, Ginny Skalski and Dan London.

We had a great conversation covering social media, professional speaking, higher education, career advancement, the importance of family and who knows how many other things. It was great to chat with them.

This is community and it is one of the reasons I love to speak at events. It may not be a huge community, it may not be forums, it may just be a conversation, but it is community and I love building my face to face community with good, strong, reliable people – one by one.

I’m happy to announce that I have booked my first keynote presentation. It’ll be at Podcamp Topeka in Topeka, Kansas on November 6. The event will be held at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. It’s an “unconference” where everyone is welcome to lead a breakout session – in essence, a discussion on a particular topic. I’ll be leading at least one myself, following the keynote.

The event is being organized by a team led by David Lee King, an acquaintance of mine, that also includes Brandon Sheley, Alissa Sheley, Lisa Coble-Krings, Bill Ludwig and Joe Cheray. I have been so impressed by the organization of the event and David’s leadership. I believe it will be a great unconference and it is a tremendous value, as well. For the day, including lunch and perhaps even a small breakfast, the cost is only $6.11. You can register online.

BuySellAds.com (BSA) is an online advertising marketplace. Their publicly searchable database of publishers includes over 2,300 manually approved websites of a generally high quality. The sites primarily fall somewhere in the technology and design categories, but they do have some sites that fall into other categories, such as music, gaming and more.

Some might consider them a smaller, more exclusive AdBrite. I played around with AdBrite, a long time ago, but never had any luck. But, I have had luck with BSA.

photo credit: dichohecho

Banning gets a bad rap. Yes, I just said that.

Most people have never seriously managed a structured online community (e.g. forums) and so, most people don’t understand the importance of banning to a well moderated online community. Any type of control exerted by anyone in authority is often criticized unfairly by the general public, many of whom are not aware of the context or the responsibility of the position that one is placed in.

Some people will criticize banning, talk about how it is ineffective (“they can just come back”), talk about how you should find another way. I always shake my head (privately) when someone says “I manage a community and I’ve never banned anyone!” Really? No disrespect, but are you sure that you’re managing a structured online community? Or is it a free-for-all? Or is it just you on there?

photo credit: tompagenet

One thing that some forum members often assume is that when a post or contribution they made to an online community or forum is removed, it is because someone complained to the staff about it or someone reported it.

Of course, that is often not the case. Especially on my sites, where the vast majority of removed posts were reported by no one. Generally speaking, I have to believe that most content that is removed on proactively managed communities is removed without being reported.

There are good reasons for this. Among them:

BlogWorld & New Media Expo is less than a month away. For the third consecutive year (read my 2008 and 2009 recaps), I’ll be speaking at the event, but I will have more going on at the conference than ever before.

I’ll be speaking on three panels, two of which I developed and will moderate (note: it’s not the typical moderator format, I will contribute equally). So, that’s pretty crazy.