Amanda Mullahey

Infographic by- GO-Gulf.com Dubai Web Design Company

I have been thinking a lot lately about having an online voice and opinion on social networks.  Between working on a new social project at work and re-branding my own personal fashion blog, a lot of thoughts have been formulating on what it means to have your own voice online and contributing that voice in the form of content.  So many people are constantly just re-tweeting, re-pinning and mimicking everything else that is already out there.  But why?  Why do we feel the need to just repeat instead of forge our own path?

A lot of this has come with the new wave of popularity surrounding Pinterest.  My initial thoughts were, this seems amazing to drive traffic to my blog.  After spending the better part of last year using it sparingly due to lack of users, I have seen it explode over the past two months.  The problem that now exists is a re-pinning nightmare.  Will Pinterest soon reach a point where adding new content is non-existent and all people are really doing is re-pinning?  Another problem: users trying to cover every single topic available and being the expert on it.  I have seen this on blogs and now I am seeing it even more on Pinterest.  People can't seem to help themselves by making a new board for every topic possible, when in fact, they would gain more users by simply having a handful of carefully executed and curated boards that users could rely on.

I am not saying that I’m not guilty of this as well.  My first attempt (or two) on Pinterest included 30 boards in which I had maybe three things pinned to each.  Fail.  I am also the one who used to call my blog “lifestyle” because I couldn’t seem to make up my mind what I was blogging about. Fail.  And I am in fact someone who used to re-tweet more times in a month then anything else. Fail.  All of these social rules that I preach to brands and clients, fell out the window when it came to my personal social voice and they shouldn’t!

The lesson to be learned is this:  Don’t be afraid to have an opinion on your blog, your Pinterest, your Twitter, etc.  Don’t try and cover things that you don’t love and that you aren’t passionate about because no one will respect you for this.  No one will trust the words you write or the pictures you take unless they see the voice, they see the content and they sense the opinion underneath.  Always have something to say.

Just a few thoughts rolling around…opinions, as always, are my own. 

Infographic via kiss metrics.  View the entire thing larger here.

I came across Ogilvy Notes today.  A brilliant SXSW idea to help calm the anxiety of attending too many panels in 5 days.  They take the biggest and most popular SXSW panels and take notes for you as a visual summary.  This way, all the information you consume won't overwhelm the hell out of you.  Also, if you weren't able to attend a panel, these are an excellent way to play catch-up.  Check out a few of my favorites below and you can find the rest from SXSW 2012 here.

Click picture to enlarge // Found here.