Keep up the great work!

However, I do use Capcha to keep machines out of the commenting loop.

(Yes, I know, Typepad’s capcha is particularly hard to read. They claim they are looking for a more readable version. We’ll see.)

Kent

And great commentary here in your comments as well. Excellent conversation!

@ Jane May – love your blog! Thanks for dropping by!

@ Francie – you are right, the comment quoted is about blogging (because last time I had people say you can’t blog without blogging – so why try, my point is I agree, but this baby-step primer is for the rest that aren’t ready yet :p). One thought on the “you are 4 months old” thing… you have to realize that even the biggest of the big boys/girls have only been around for a couple of years, if that.

@ Pete – I just started leaving my link like you did and so far haven’t found any problems with it at all. In fact, my traffic has increased because its more intuitive for someone to click on a link that is in my signature than to click on my name… I guess it looks more natural?

@ Kent – you are an awesome advocate of personal branding with a blog and this advice is excellent. I tend to be more of a “go set it up” guy but I am sure you are more effective encouraging people to just start simple. As a matter of fact, we talked about this a couple of months ago and I think this has been stewing in my mind ever since!

@ Mario – I tend to keep my personal, personal stuff off of this blog but I want to put my professional personality here. I’m not two different people but some things don’t belong in a personal branding statement (imho). I would recommend that you figure out what your “message” is and then stay within that. My first attempt to mix “my message” with a personal experience was when I cut my hand open and talked about a job seeker without insurance – and getting sick to my stomach about how to pay for it.

@ Phil – I got a TypeKey account last summer when I started commenting on TypePad blogs because I found that if I had that account the comments was more likely to be posted immediately, and not have to go to moderation all the time. I have now changed my signature when I comment on blogs so it should be a little easier, but I agree – its lame – but the question is do I risk the moderator eyeballing me closely (and perhaps flagging as spam) or do I get my comment up quickly. I chose the quickly route :p

@ Tony – you have one of the most excellent blog formats and styles I’ve ever seen. Its not fair because you are artistically talented and it comes across big time – untalented people like me get a look like… well, this :p And your content matches the formatting – excellent, enjoyable and informational.

I firmly believe comments are critical to the process. One of the best ways to promote your blog is by providing insightful comments on other blogs. Like I say in my comment policy, I look at blogs as a conversation. I think, that’s how a lot of folks see them.

And a conversation is two-way – a lecture is one-way.

Perhaps OT, and if so, I apologize: I’m curious your thoughts on why to use a TypeKey page as your personal commenting method on TypePad blogs? To me, that’s an unnecessary step that people must take in order to see who the smart person was that left an insightful comment, not to mention it hides your e-mail address, making it much more difficult (not impossible) to send a thank you for a comment well done.

Thanks!

Good evening. Very important subject indeed.

I want to try to contribute with a question about blogs and personal brands: being myself a “rookie” in this area, before creating a blog intended to introduce myself and interact with other financial professionals, I got some previous references as to the possibility not only to discuss concrete professional issues but to promote our professional profiles in terms of our job search.

If those references could make sense, for the benefit of the discussion (hopefully), being myself also a job seeker I’d like to ask you as well as other readers if a blog could leverage two possible uses:

* Discussing concrete professional issues and
* Getting information and informational references about my job search.

Keeping in mind the recent discussion that you led about a resume experiment, if you agree, I’d also like to “volunteer” in order to introduce the blog I created; if I can be granted with other reader’s feedback, it would be an extremely useful tool for me in order to take a break, pay close attention and correct what it needs to be corrected and promote properly my profile: http://investmentbankingindustry.blogspot.com

Thank you very much.

I look forward to receive your feedback.

- Mario P. Lopez, CPA

When I talk to people about their on-line brand, many are reluctant to begin blogging. When I then explain about commenting, more warm up to the idea. My hope is that posting a few comments gets them interested and comfortable, after which they’ll be ready to begin initiating their own conversations rather than just commenting on others’ blogs.

Kent

Still, I sometimes wonder if I’m irritating more people than I’m getting by leaving it in a signature (as I did on this reply).

—Pete
http://nerdguru.net