When I first started this blog just under two years ago, I had one clear goal – fostering thought connections.
Sure, I’d be using it to offer my views on the still-emerging (at the time) social media platform, as well as ideas and solutions on how you could get the most out of the new networks and tools that seemed to be popping up all over the place.
But the overriding factor would be to have my blog as a focal point where ideas could be shared; viewpoints could be discussed; friendships and connections made; and a community built that wasn’t afraid to challenge thinking to help each other grow.
What I didn’t expect was how the blog would grow in that timescale.
Today I found out that this blog was one of the recipients of Young Entrepreneur’s Top 10 Marketing Blogs Award. While I was uber-happy to be recognized by such an organization to start with, my jaw literally dropped on the floor when I saw the company I was keeping – Seth Godin, Andy Beal, John Jantsch and Valeria Maltoni among others.
These are marketers and bloggers that I look up to immensely, so to be sitting alongside them is pretty mind-blowing. What’s even more mind-blowing is how the Young Entrepreneur award is part of what’s been an incredible first half of the year for this blog.
- In January, it was voted PostRank’s Top Marketing and Social Media Blog.
- In February, it came in at number three as one of the Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blogs.
- In March, it received the Hive Award for Best Social Media Blog at South by Southwest.
- In April, it came in at number six as one of Cision’s Top 100 Social Media and Internet Marketing Blogs.
Couple that with its syndication across the Social Media Today, WebProNews and Newstex business networks as well as its inclusion on the AdAge Power 150 list, and this blog has taken on a life that I could never have foreseen back in September 2008.
Now, while I could lay claim to having done it all myself and how the content has spoken, blah-de-blah-de-blah, even it if were true it’d only tell half the story.
As I mentioned at the start, the aim of this blog has always been to foster a community that would not only question and offer views, but would help the blog grow because of that questioning and view sharing. And these awards and recognition are proof that’s exactly what has happened.
If you didn’t come here and read my thoughts; if you didn’t come here and offer yours; if you didn’t question my viewpoint and make me think differently and strive to be the best I can every time, none of the recognition or award-winning would have happened. I’m not that dumb.
So.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for giving me the time from your life to make me think better. To make me question my thoughts. To make me learn and improve daily.
And thank you even more for helping foster what is, without question, one of the best resources of knowledge, expertise, thought leadership and more – our community.
Your community.
Here’s to you.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Grant Griffiths, Vinoth Chandar, AllThingsM, Doktor Social, Santi Chacon and others. Santi Chacon said: Blog Awards, Recognition, And Your Part in It: When I first started this blog just under two years ago, I had one … http://bit.ly/9T1RfS [...]