This past Sunday, I spent some time on a Twitter chat hosted by Mack Collier and Brian Clark.

This one goes by the #blogchat hashtag handle, happens every Sunday night at 5 pm Pacific and brings in some of the best bloggers and social media mentors on a common platform.

Twitter chats can be one of the most invaluable tools in your social media success arsenal – but given their ephemeral nature, the wisdom often gets overlooked and/or lost.

There are a special set of tools that make Twitter chats easy. Flokks is a Twitter client dedicated to Twitter chats, and is pretty much the defacto standard. What The Hashtag is another one of these must have tools, this one archives the tweets by hashtag for later reference.

There were a bunch of great ideas that came out on the blog chat this past Sunday, and I did want to recap the key ones here.

Check them out, take what applies to your social media world and leave the rest. Okay?

Nuggets of Wisdom From Brian Clark of Copyblogger:

1. Titles are the most important thing. Not the only thing by a long shot, but attention lives and dies there.

2. No, we have really well-planned editorial calendars. I can’t imagine posting the wrong content.

3. Is strong voice and personality a mandatory part of compelling content? @MarkDykeman Depends on how you define strong. Overbearing, no. Distinct and compelling, yes.

4. The headline and the image are the two initial parts of the story you’re telling. They’re a congruent promise.

5. You plan in the sense that every post furthers your near-term and/or long-term goals.

6. How does Seth Godin get away with such poor headlines? A huge amount of trust and authority. Remember, he wrote the bible – Permission Marketing – in 1999.

7. Strong opening, scannable organized structure, compelling close, call to action.

8. Quality matter most. Do one exception post a week rather than 5 mediocre ones.

9. Look at old David Ogilvy ads for examples of image + headlines that tell a story. He was a master at it.

10. Here are the components of a compelling article, post, etc. One tweet for each.

11. But first, you need to be clear of your primary objectives for blogging.

12. First, what are you trying to accomplish ultimately? What business are you trying to build, who are you trying to influence?

13. Never lose site of your ultimate goals.

14. From there, focus on 3 things relentlessly – 1. Links. 2. Subscribers. 3. Action (what do you want people to do?)

15. Then, what remarkable benefit does your blog offer? Why would people subscribe? What problems do you solve?

16. Who are you trying to reach? What are they like? It helps if you are in your own target market.

17. It doesn’t have to be a new problem, it needs to be a unique solution. Sometimes the unique part is you.

18. Headlines are promises with hooks. A compelling benefit to the reader with an interesting angle.

19. If the headline is not remarkable, nobody will click inside regardless of intended action.  That’s right. That’s why it’s the most important thing. Old rule of copywriting, still true.

20. Always deliver on the promise in the headline. Always.

21. Guest posting is the best way to attract an audience and get links that get now traffic & then SEO traffic.

22. Important, but if your best headline for people doesn’t focus on keywords, use an alternate title tage for search.

23. Spontaneity is fantastic. But does the post forward your goals? If not, don’t do it.

Brian was talking about blogging, and creating compelling, sticky content. But a whole lot of these strategies apply equally well to other social media channels too.

A lot of ideas also came out during this week’s #blogchat – and keep coming out every week.

If you are into social media, and are looking to make a difference, this is one place you should be! For starters, you might want to check out the complete chat transcript from this weeks chat, courtesy of What The Hashtag.

What do you think?

And are you ready to make Twitter chats a part of your social media roadmaps? I’d love to hear what you think.

(Image Credit: Wahig http://www.flickr.com/photos/wahig/)

Social media is all about channels. You get to pick them, you get to mix and match. And with a wide array and assortment of available channels, it’s impossible to focus on all of them.

I am a great proponent of the base camp concept in social media. Your social media basecamp should be your (ideally self-hosted) blog, with the About Me page being the main door. (Did you read: Where’s Your Social Media Base Camp?)

Then there are the primary channels – the social media platforms where you spend the most of your time on. Most of us don’t look beyond these primary platforms – but there is gold to be mined beyond these obvious platforms. I call these the secondary and tertiary channels.

Last month, I wrote a guest on Danny Brown’s blog, Social Media Roadmaps, where I spoke about spending time on secondary and tertiary channels.

So why would you want to spend time on the secondary and tertiary channels?

Here are 8 compelling reasons why should:

1. Be A Big Fish In A Small Pond: The secondary and tertiary platforms in social media are grossly underused opportunities waiting to be mined. Almost everyone thinks of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn when they think of social media. Truth is, there is life beyond the big three.

You might not have a hundred thousand followers on Twitter – but you can make an indelible impression in your non-primary platforms.

2. Reap Larger Payoffs: This ties back into being a big fish in a small pond. The larger you get in a smaller pond, the larger payoffs you will reap in your social world. Payoffs that make a difference – real, authentic, genuine connections and interactions.

3. Get Sticky: As the number of platforms you use increases, your interactions tend to get sticky. Sticky not in a bad sense – sticky from a longevity perspective. Your audience will just connect better with you because there will be some channel resonance for everyone.

4. Expand Your Universe: A while ago, I wrote about Creating Experiences, Ecosystems and Ubiquitoids in your world. This expanding the universe metaphor ties back beautifully well into those original concepts.

5. Make Your Content Memorable: Single tweets get monotonous. Messages on the wall head the same way. Multiple channels bring in diversity – and break the monotone in your content. Secondary and tertiary channels enable you to make your content rich (both in tone and quality). You will then be able to blend these platforms into a mix that is uniquely yours.

6. Access Multiple Dominant Learning Channels: We all have dominant learning channels. A few of us learn visually, some others learn aurally. There are also those who learn better kinesthetically.

Same analogy applies to social media. A few of us are comfortable with conventional interactions on Twitter (or Facebook, LinkedIn). But there are others who would connect way better with you through video, images, presentations, documents or live streaming.

7. Convert Brand Loyalty Into Raving Fans/Tribes: Brand loyalty is one thing – we all would love to convert our audiences into raving fans. You’ll head that way faster riding your secondary and tertiary platforms.

8. Gain Added Leverage For Your Base Camp And Primary Channels: Every interaction you have, every connection you make, every content piece that you publish ties back into your base camp and your primary platforms. Look at it wholistically, and you’ll get tremendous leverage in your social media world.

I did a visual depiction of how my base camp interacts with the different platforms I use (or plan to) – and here’s what I came up with:

What’s your version of a similar visual depiction? Now would be a good time to get one done – if you haven’t already.

Social media success calls for an element of creativity and innovation – which also means you need to look beyond the obvious. It really is simple – without being simplistic. And roping in secondary and tertiary platforms into your social media roadmaps is one baby step you can take almost immediately.

Thinking video? How about YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler?

In a mood to stream live? Ever thought about Vokle, UStream, JustIn?

Want to say it better? Say it with a million words using Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa and Photobucket.

Thinking linear with documents? How about Scribd, Slideshare, Issuu, Prezi or Sliderocket?

Want to explore and express your thoughts using radiant thinking? Try MindMeister for starters.

Bottom line is – your base camp and primary channels bring in the peaks – the secondary and tertiary channels provide the long tail. What do you think?

How does your social media strategy look like?

What else are you doing to blend your social media base camp and primary channels into the secondary and tertiary?

(Image Credit: EraPhernalia Vintage http://www.flickr.com/photos/eraphernalia_vintage/)

There’s this teenager on the streets of Mumbai, India. His name is Ravi – and he makes a living by selling peacock feather fans.

This is his story – and one that all of us should watch at least once:

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A picture is worth a thousand words. A video with 24 frames per second is worth millions.

I don’t want to ruin the message and the impressions that this video leaves on you – but here’s a quick summary of what I am thinking:

1. There’s power in simplicity. The most powerful impressions are formed not by the most jazzy, most elegant, most gimmicky social media ventures, but by messages that connect and resonate.
2. You can meaningfully connect with your audience even when maintaining your own unique traits and identity. You don’t have have to emulate, duplicate or copy anyone. You don’t have to be ashamed of what you don’t have. True success in social media is a function of being authentic and genuine – and sharing stories that resonate.
3. Connections with your audience is the only real thing. All other metrics, statistics and dollar values are only a mirage. They come, and go – and come back again. Not so with connections. Very rarely will you get second changes for making up with broken connections.

What else are you thinking about? I would love to hear your impressions.

P.S.: There are a couple of related posts that go well with these thoughts that this video unmistakably leaves behind:

1. Stories and metaphors are a wonderful way to make your social media meaningful and relevant. Johnny B. Truant has an awesome new course, Story Selling 101 out on the market right now that teaches just this. You might want to check it out. (No affiliate links)

2. My friend, Robert Bravery wrote about Blogging With Intent last week. What he talks about also applies to the broader social media space -

Why do you blog? Why do you care? This might sound like a very stupid question, but what is your intention when you blog?

Your blog should have a purpose, it should have a goal. Your job as a blogger should be to meet those goals.

(Image Credit: Adam Foster http://www.flickr.com/photos/paperpariah/)

You’ve probably heard about Johannes Gutenberg – and his rise to fame during the Renaissance period. It’s been a while since I learned this a couple of decades ago in school – and a quick refresher isn’t out of place.

Here’s what Wikipedia had to report on him:

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. 1398 – February 3, 1468) was a German goldsmith and printer who introduced modern book printing.

His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period.

It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.

With the advent of the printing press, 3600 pages could be printed per press in day. Up until then, the number was a bleak 40 pages per day by hand printing – or a few pages by hand. Very impressive – and definitely the beginning of printing and publishing we know it today. Somewhere in the 18th century, newspapers and newsletters also started claiming their share in the print world – and they’re continued ever since.

What Gutenberg didn’t know when he invented the printing process – and the press – was how ubiquitous newspapers and newsletters would become in the human lives. We’ve seen waves of technology come and go – mature and stabilize. Each of these waves has left an indelible impression on our histories. From the first printed book, the Gutenberg Bible to the Kindle, the Nook and the iPad – we’ve seen it all.

Newspapers, magazines, newsletters and periodicals are barely surviving as stalwarts from the print media – and getting beaten up by the new generation, the social media. And yet, there are secrets that we can borrow in our social media worlds from the other side. These secrets are metaphors that we identify with so well – and have become an indispensable part of our lives.

Think newspapers. I don’t subscribe to a print newspaper any longer – relying solely on social media to get my staple of news. Yet, I stop by and glance over a print newspaper when someone drops a gratis copy by my doorstep.

Same applies to newsletters, magazines and periodicals. I read them, complements of my odd-lot frequent flier miles.

Point is, there’s something unique – and different – associated with the likes of newspapers that demands our attention. Could you use this in your social media? Sure you could.

Problogger Darren Rowse had a tweet a few days ago. He spoke about readership – and how newsletters can double (or more) the readership of your blog.

All the standard auto responder platforms (AWeber, GetResponse, Mail Chimp) come with inbuilt newsletter functions that allow you to accelerate the process of creating and publishing them. The challenge with newsletters though is that you need a list to make them effective – else you would be expending your efforts in vacuum.

Do I do newsletters (yet)? No – because my list is too small yet. There seems to be a consensus that about 100 is the magic number when you could (or should) start doing newsletters.

Thankfully, there are two alternatives that you can leverage in your social media even today. And these are the secrets that Gutenberg probably didn’t think of when he invented the printing press four centuries ago.

1. Paper.li:

Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.

A great way to stay on top of all that is shared by the people you follow – even if you are not connected 24/7 !

The SmallRivers team has done a great job in creating a product that works – and is seeing increasing adoption in problogger circles. This is one trend you should get on, to make a difference in your social media.

My friend, Robert Bravery wrote about Paper.li a while on his own blog – How to build influence and help friends with a newspaper, a recommended read to help you get started.

And while you’re exploring how to set up your own newspapers, here’s how the experts have been doing it:

Darren Rowse: The Darren Rowse Daily – http://paper.li/problogger

Darren Rowse: The Darren Rowse Tech Daily – http://paper.li/problogger/tech

Kevin Tea: The Web2 And More Daily – http://paper.li/kevincumbria

Sushant Risodkar: The Blogger’s Daily – http://paper.li/smartbloggerz/bloggers

Erica Mueller: The WordPress Daily – http://paper.li/ericamueller/wordpress

Robert Bravery: The Robert Bravery Daily – http://paper.li/robertbravery

Jimi Jones: The Jimi Jones Daily – http://paper.li/JimiJones

I’ve been creating (curating my own newspapers too – more about those to come later this week).

Isn’t it time you started cranking out your own daily newspapers?

2. Keepstream:

In their own words:

Keepstream is a social media curation tool that gathers all your favorite content in one place. We pull in content from multiple sources, including Facebook likes and Twitter retweets, and let users build “collections” of social media content. Users control the presentation of their content, add their commentary, and embed these collections on a website or blog.

I’d say this is a different take on the whole social media newspaper concept – with a similar potential. The only flip side to curating a collection is – unlike a newspaper like Paper.li, this is a manual process.

I curated a Problogging collection – and here’s how it looks:

There are two more services to watch out for – Twitter Times and Curated By. Curated By hasn’t launched yet – and I haven’t toyed around with Twitter Times to report back on it as yet. But I’m pretty sure of of these will have a trick up their sleeves

What’s your take on these social media secrets that Johannes Gutenberg didn’t know? I’d love to hear!

(Image Credit: J. Willard Marriott Library, Digital Scholarship Lab – University of Utah – http://digitalscholarship.blog.utah.edu/category/visualization/)

Is that how your social media base camp looks? Dilapidated,  run down and waiting to collapse?

Over the past few months, I have been harping on the importance of having a good base camp in social media.

I first wrote about this topic in Where’s Your Social Media Base Camp – and then in The Hidden Dangers of Not Having A Social Media Base Camp.

The deal here is pretty simple – your base camp in the social world is not LinkedIn, not Twitter and definitely not Facebook. If it is, you’re probably on a slippery slope already. Base camps are meant to be permanent – and should have the ability to withstand the elements.

Which is why my heart skipped a beat when Brian Clark of Copyblogger tweeted about Six Apart and TypePad:

Something was definitely brewing over at Six Apart headquarters ever since the announcement of shutting down Vox, their free blog platform came out a few weeks back. This is like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

Ban Parr wrote about what this means for TypePad, the premium paid blogging platform that Six Apart provided on Mashable:

SAY Media says that it will continue to support Movable Type and TypePad, but forgive us if we’re skeptical that will last. The new entity is clearly focused on building out a new-age advertising network, not on building out a blogging platform to compete with WordPress or Tumblr.

From what we’ve seen before, we bet it won’t take long for resources to be allocated towards the advertising network and away from Movable Type. It will be the beginning of the degradation of a platform that has already lost much of its relevance, despite hosting The Huffington Post and major blogs from ABC, the BBC and others.

Advertising is where the money is for this new organization. While we don’t expect Movable Type or TypePad to go anywhere for a long time, we doubt anything new or innovative will come out of them, either.

Which brings us back to the original concept yet again. You’re online – you’re interacting with your social world. Build a base camp first. One that you have control over – and will last (at least) as long as you.

While there are many blogging platforms to choose from – WordPress.com, TypePad, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous – today is one day when I am going to stick my neck out and recommend that a self-hosted WordPress blog is only way to go in social media success.

Choose anything else, and you’re gambling with success. Oh, and there are alternatives if you don’t want a self-hosted WordPress base camp. Pick Joomla. Or Drupal. Squarespace is good too.

But for me – and for most of the other probloggers, WordPress works wonders. Sure, a web host could go down – or out of business. But with a good back up plan like VaultPress or BackupBuddy, getting our base camp up again is never a problem.

What do you think?

(Image Credit: myoldpostcard http://www.flickr.com/photos/myoldpostcards/)

First Things First is one those legendary books that leave an indelible impression on it’s readers. I first chanced to read this book way back in 1994 – and has kept me good company ever since.

The book begins with a sentence that comes back to haunt me time and again, especially when I am guilty of over-working at office:

How Many People on Their Deathbed Wish They’d Spent More Time at the Office?

The authors – the Merrill’s make a pretty valid point. Everything we do in our lives revolves around the ability to leave behind a legacy. Anything else is a life half lived.

The same argument can be made of social media.

How many people on their deathbed wish they’d spent more time on Twitter? Or Facebook? Or LinkedIn?

(Replace with your favorite social media platform – and you’ll pretty much get the same answer.)

So if the answer to that question is an overwhelming consensus – what we do with our time in our social worlds becomes especially important. Are we building a legacy to leave behind – or are frittering away time?

Are there role models – and case studies for us to emulate in creating our legacies? Sure there are – read on.

1. Mark Horvath: My friend Danny Brown had a wonderful story to share on his blog yesterday. A story that brings out the failures and triumphs of all that is flesh and blood.

In Danny’s own narrative,

Based out of Los Angeles, Mark is someone with an incredible story. Fifteen years ago, Mark was homeless and sleeping on the streets of Hollywood.

But he managed to get back on his feet, and then some. He was at the top of his game – working in Hollywood, bringing some of the best-known shows on television to viewers across the world, a great future – Mark was living the American dream.

Then the economy collapsed. Mark fell into a mix of drug and alcohol abuse, lost his job, became homeless, and lost his way. He fought hard to get back on his feet again, and get his life in order. And he did. But he’s always just one step away from being homeless again.

The legacy that Mark is building through his two projects Invisible People and We Are Visible is amazing.

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The collection of videos, how-tos and self help tutorials that Mark has put together is awesome. This is one site that can really make a difference in the lives of the homeless and elevate them to prosperity.

Talk about leveraging social media to make a difference!

2. Danny Brown: Danny’s 12For12K project is a legacy that he is building.

12for12k is the combination of social media awareness and fund-raising that aims to change the lives of millions worldwide.

How will we do this? By using the power and outreach of social media to spread the word. From Twitter to Facebook, blogs to social media newsrooms and more, 12for12k will be helping our supported charities connect with as wide an audience as possible.

This social media-led outreach has resulted in 12for12k raising more than $100,000 since its inception in December 2008.

3. Johnny Laird: Johnny has been featuring a rich assortment on inspirations over on his blog. One of them is the latest episode of Something Beautiful Podcast featuring Eric Bryant. The other is a wonderful interview with Matt and Juls Hollidge from the Kore team.

4. Mike Cliffe Jones: Mike’s style of connecting with his readers is contagious. It’s a all disclosed, nothing held back, down to earth style that brings out the best in me, and leaves me wanting for more. Over the months, Mike has built a legacy – including some fascinating cross references like the one to Letter To Daniel.

5. Salman Khan Academy: In what is perhaps the most grass roots venture, Salman Khan, a Harvard MBA is cranking out quality educational tutorials on YouTube. Such is the impact of what he’s doing, even Bill Gates has been all awe and praise for him.

As this Fortune article calls out,

Khan Academy, with Khan as the only teacher, appears on YouTube and elsewhere and is by any measure the most popular educational site on the web. Khan’s playlist of 1,630 tutorials (at last count) are now seen an average of 70,000 times a day — nearly double the student body at Harvard and Stanford combined. Since he began his tutorials in late 2006, Khan Academy has received 18 million page views worldwide, including from the Gates progeny.

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Sal’s example is a case in point that it does not take a lot a resources to make an impact using social media. All that is needed is creativity coupled with ingenuity.

With these shining examples around us to inspire and recharge our social media efforts, how is it possible to get lost? All we need to do is combine this inspiration with the raw creativity that is innate in all of us to starting building a legacy in our social media worlds today.

What legacy will you build?

(Image Credit: Stuck In Customs http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/)

I was reading the book, UnMarketing by Scott Stratten.

In the chapter about Viral Marketing, Scott makes an interesting observation about social media:

Social media is really good for building relationships and can result in sales if you do it right.

Social media is not the best way to build your list.

Please let me explain before you tell me that your 5000 Twitter followers are a list. Basically on Twitter, at any one given time, all of your followers are not sitting at their computers staring at the screen waiting for your message. Only a small segment of followers are on Twitter at a time. You cannot control the distribution of the message to them. You can only tweet and put it out there.

I do not use Twitter to build my list, I use it to engage and build relationships. That’s cool. That’s what great about social media. (p. 2o8)

Last month, Darren Rowse made a similar observation over at ProBlogger:

I guess it comes down partly to the stage you’re at as an online entrepreneur and how established your network is.

If you’re well known, have a network already in some way and have the ability to pull numbers of email subscribers then it’s probably something to consider.

But if you’re starting out online – you’ll probably need some kind of site or other presence online to help get the ball rolling.

So if the social media channels – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter et. al are only useful in building relationships, what builds a list?

For starters, here are a bunch of ideas that can help:

1. A really great good away: Perhaps a manifesto, blueprint (while is surely the most abused term of 2010) or a complementary membership site subscription. (Hint: Remember to be authentic – faking it won’t work).

Upside – high quality, motivated subscribers.

Downside – Double opt in takes time, and is slow, organic in nature.

2. A freebie gift bribe: Think iPad.

Upside: Potential to go viral.

Downside: Low quality subscribers who will not be interested in what you offer once the freebie winners are declared.

3. Doing your homework: Delivering quality content. Solving real problems. Creating value.

Upside: The only time-tested formula to list building success. Can help relationship building too – with all the retweetable content that you are creating.

Downside: Takes time – and is heck of a hard work for sure. In the words of Mike Cliffe-Jones, it really is bloody hard work.

Are you using the social media channels to build your list – or are you using your base camps to build your lists? What’s working for you – and what has backfired?

I would love to hear!

(Image Credit: Cayusa http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayusa/)

There’s a huge plethora of Twitter clients available in the market today – both for tweeting horizontally and vertically.

Each one of these Twitter clients comes with its own merits and handicap – coupled with the challenges and the advantages that the different hardware platforms offer.

I wanted your feedback on how you use Twitter – are you a vertical or horizontal Tweep?

And while we are on the topic, which Twitter clients do you use in both the positions?

Can you also list down the reasons why you choose to tweet in a certain position, and what are the compelling reasons behind using the Twitter clients you currently use.

Also – what are some of the changes and/or enhancements you would like to see in the world of Twitter clients?

I’ll compile the results for all of us to review in a weeks time.

(Image Credit: webtreats http://www.flickr.com/photos/webtreatsetc/)

Last week, Mike Cliffe-Jones of Mike’s Life wrote about Exclusion Marketing and it’s increasing prevalence in the online social media world:

I’m not sure when it started, but it has become cool and trendy in on-line circles to promote on the basis of exclusion. There’s much talk about recruiting tribes of like-minded people and being as clear about who your offerings aren’t for, as you are about who they are for.

Mike’s original post is both a disturbing and eye-opening read – especially for anyone trying to use social media for marketing. The comments – and the healthy debate that followed are great too.

I got a taste of exclusion marketing myself a few days back – in an unintended manner. I use FourSquare on and off – still trying to decipher the meaning relevance it bears in social media. I checked in at a point of interest – and was directed to a special that was on offer nearby.

So looks like RadioShack was offering a 10% discount to anyone who unlocked the offer by checking in there – and then flashing the offer screen at checkout. There’s also a fine print – and I really don’t know what purchases don’t qualify for the discount. By this time, I have already made up my mind that the offer is worth passing over.

But wait – there’s also the bait of a 20% discount for the mayor of this RadioShack. Come on – what’s the probability that the mayor will see the offer – and act on it? Close to zero, I’d say. Unless the mayor is RadioShack regular and keeps checking in everyday!

That’s also where I start to feel excluded from the whole thing. I, some how, am not special, in the eyes of this business. Why spend my time (and money) there?

Exclusion marketing is always bad – and unless you are careful in your own social media marketing – you could well get branded as one, albeit unintentionally.

At the outset, staying on right side of ethical (and relevant) social media marketing calls for clarity of thoughts and purity of intentions. Or call it common sense, and sticking through with your convictions.

As the number of channels you embrace in your social world increase, you need to be even more assertive and proactive to ensure that your messages are being interpreted correctly. Anything less carries the stigma of promoting and/or participating in unethical marketing.

And exclusion marketing is a strict no-no in the world of authentic social media.

What do you think?

(Image Credit: Darren Hester http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrenhester/)

I am strong believer in the social media base camp concept. Social media success needs a base camp – else everything we do is at the mercy of the elements.

Case in point is the shutting down of Vox.

Vox is (soon will be was) a free blogging platform launched by Six Apart, the same folks behind Movable Type and TypePad in 2006. Along the way, it also ate up Pownce, another free social networking and micro-blogging platform.

One of the reasons Vox found some following was it’s ability to bring in social networking features to the blog – similar to what BuddyPress et.al. do today.

I was reading through a hot off the press review of Vox from 2006, just before it was opened to the public:

Vox is a new approach to blogging and social networking, and I think it could potentially bring the two phenomena to a whole new audience. I can see myself using Vox as a largely private blog, with only friends and family able to view the vast majority of posts, taking advantage of the permissions features and photo uploading.

By making blogging central to what is essentially a social networking product, and using a tasteful, highly usable design, Six Apart have made Vox interesting as a way to keep in touch, rather than meet new people as with Myspace, Bebo etc. This is likely to appeal to far more people as a concept. Coupled with attempts to create a great community through This is Good posts promoted across the service, and suggested questions to answer in blog posts, I can see Vox creating a real buzz.

Fast forward 4 years, and you come to this announcement from Six Apart about the fate of Vox:

Vox has been a fun place to explore, create and connect with your friends. But Vox is closing its doors on September 30, 2010.

This doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to your blog. We want you to make sure you can keep the great content you’ve shared on Vox, and continue to have a home for your blog. To help you make the transition off of Vox, we’ve added new export features that make it easy to move your blog to a free TypePad account, and your photos & videos to Flickr.

The migrations, exit routes and alternative options are all good. But the folks who were using Vox as their primary blog platforms will soon find that the cheese has moved. One fine morning next month, their *.vox.com blog links will not longer work.

Worse still, for all we know, the same user/blog names might not even be available on the proposed alternatives. Which literally means that some of the users will just fall off the map – their readers not knowing where they have moved to.

And we haven’t even started taking about what the search engines are going to think about the change – and the traffic.

And while the dust from the Vox announcement is still settling down, I am hearing rumors that something else might also be changing on the TypePad side of the world.

In the fast changing world of social media, it’s very easy for today leaders to become obsolete tomorrow. What’s working today might not see the light of the day a few years from now.

Which brings us back to my base camp concept.

Your social media base camps should always be a blog – that you own and run – and (ideally) host too. That’s one definite way to ensure longevity of your own social media – and the ability to build and leave behind a legacy.

Why run the risk of making your own social media efforts and investments obsolete and irrelevant? It’s just not worth it!

You don’t want to be locked out of our own base camp one day – you need to own all the keys to your base camp.

Do you agree? What else are you doing to keep your social media base camps strong and fortified?

(Image Credit: maistora http://www.flickr.com/photos/maistora/)