This post follows on from a post that I wrote last week called Managing Your Brand in The Internet Echo Chamber and expands on part of a list post that I wrote back in June called Social Media for My Business: 16 Lessons Learnt so Far, where I talked about some of the things that I had learnt on my journey over the last few months.

Going over the rest of the lessons, I noticed that some of them naturally bunch together so today I want to talk about three of the lessons that are about the social web, content and competitiveness and what I have learnt.

The lessons that I want to expand on today is:

• Be helpful and contribute to others – be social, comment and help. If you write a blog…offer to write (guest post) for someone else
• Anyone can do it, but NOT everyone ‘does’ it – It will make sense for many businesses to have a social media presence and many businesses are talking about it. However, there is a lot of talk and your competitive advantage may come from actually doing something rather than just talking about it. Only, if it makes sense for your business.
• SEO is important but great content is more important – this is a bit of an art/science that I have not mastered. It is important but don’t spend too much time crafting SEO-optimised content. Concentrate on generating good content first and foremost

What have these meant for me?

• Guest posting has allowed me to spread my reach, opinions and overall visibility on the web, which has resulted in higher traffic for this site. It also has forced me to raise my game as writing for other people has made me concentrate on writing for other people’s readers whilst still holding true to what I want to say. Given that I have contributed a number of blog posts to a number of sites over the last few months. Here is a list for you:

• What Bloggers Can Learn From Buskers for Mike at Mike’s Life
• Forget About Finding NEW Customers- Pamper the Old! for Cori at BigGirlBranding
• Archimedes Would Have Liked Outsourcing – Seriously! for Chris at Virtual Business Lifestyle
• Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life – What Monty Python Can Teach Us About Life And Business for Chrstine at ADifferentKindofWork
• Is Your Networking Fishy Enough? for Stefan at Sme-blog
• Awareness of self and others is at the heart of better communication, personal development and effectiveness for Ben at 6Aliens

• In addition, I’ve spent time commenting and adding value to other blogs and sites out there. This has also allowed me to generate more exposure and traffic from the comments that I have left, For all you bloggers and those who comment on blogs you may have come across Disqus, a comment management system. This allows me to track my comments and see how many I have made over the last few months. Here’s my Disqus profile which shows (on the sites that have Disqus implemented) all of the comments that I have made over the last few months and on which sites.
• I believe that by posting and commenting regularly I am getting better and better at communicating my ideas, developing my brand, competitive position and relaying where I can add value to businesses.
• Many of my competitors are not doing it and in today’s world when it is becoming an essential task to ‘Google’ someone or something before meeting them then writing my blog, writing for others and commenting helps me feature well in internet searches.
• Finally, by communicating my ideas and tips it has helped me refine my approach and generate more and more ideas that I can share and use with my current and future clients. The more I do, the better I get.

Are you blogging, guest posting and commenting? Have found that it is helping you build your brand and that the more that you do it the better and more creative you get?

Thanks to bindermichi for the image.