Lyndi Thompson is an M&M peanut-aholic and treehugger-wannabe, but she has also taken her nerdy HTML and CSS skills into the Blogosphere with her new blog lyndit.com.I met Lyndit in Twitterville after she happened upon my article on 10 Mistakes Made by Social Media Newbies. Apparently Lyndit didn’t want to make any of them, and she even mentioned the article in her first post Listening — First Pillar of Social Media:
Whenever I am working with a new small business or even a larger company, my first advice to them is to listen. Listen to how people are currently talking about your business, products and competitors.
Listening is one of the core foundational skills that all people working within the marketing field must master. To effectively reach customers, we have to listen to them.
“Not listening enough at first to understand the workings and sentiments of a community” – 10 Mistakes Made by Social Media Newbies
I liked her personality right off and thought my readers might benefit from —
Lyndi Thompson’s Getting Started Blogging Story:
Q1: Lyndit [as she likes to be called], how did you get started in social media?
Lyndi: The precise moment that I went from a nerdy caterpillar into a social butterfly must have been when MySpace appeared on the scene. My geeky online coding skills had even the high school cheerleaders green-eyed with jealousy.
Seriously . . . over a MySpace page?
Soon after, I started helping small businesses create their own presence on MySpace.
Q2: Let’s talk about MySpace. I didn’t get techie until MySpace was on the way down . . . but, honestly, I think it’s a shame. I like the idea of being able to DESIGN your own space and not [like Facebook] have the same platform as all my “Friends.”
How do you feel about that?
Lyndit: MySpace was originally created for up&coming musicians to showcase their work. The flexibility of MySpace was appealing because you could customize your page to brand it exactly how you wanted.
But just think about it. Can you imagine that every time, you went to someone’s home, there was a different way to get in the door. Finding the bathroom might be like trying to make your way through a rowdy party.
Personal pages were littered with animated graphics, hundreds of quotes, videos, and tons of content. It became almost impossible to interact with the profile.
Facebook took the idea of interacting Front and Center with the Wall. Facebook appealed to me as a place for a different profile of a person. Gone were the spam-y friend requests and glittering distractions – just a place for me to interact with my friends and family.
Q3 Hmmm . . . I’m going to play with MySpace, but I’m happy to have the “back story.”
So Lyndit, why did you start your blog?
Lyndit: Developing a strong personal brand is definitely an asset that I wanted to invest in for the future.
What I was looking for was a place to serve as a sort of campfire – to share ideas and pass on stories that I’ve heard from marketing professionals. So my objective is to provide a place for me to share, listen, learn, engage, and be a true and genuine marketing professional.
Q4: How did you learn to start your blog, and what obstacles have you had to overcome?
Lyndit: For the past year, I had had the pleasure of getting my feet wet working with MazdasNW.com, a WordPress site on which I wrote blog posts and created banners for events. I really fell in love with the seemingly endless options that the WordPress community had created.Initially, Blogger kept me satisfied with its simplistic editor, and I still recommend it for those who want an enjoyable, easy-to-use platform.
However, WordPress raises the bar, allowing more versatility.
On an almost daily basis, WordPress’s library of plug-ins and themes are increasing exponentially. If you can’t find a particular functionality, you just haven’t looked hard enough. By a simple installation of a plug-in, you cannot do a host of ecommerce functions including very complex accounts.
Q5: What do you think is the Number One struggle for new bloggers?
Lyndit: Creating space in our often jam-packed busy lives for writing, interviewing, finding photos, design and editing is a huge challenge. Stealing attention, focus, and energy away from the normal hustle and bustle of my life was essential to work on Lyndit.com.
I applaud all writers, artists, entrepreneurs and visionaries for following their passions, and I look to experts to find inspiration and encouragement — as well as comical ways to relate to the common mud puddles that bloggers sometimes seem to step in. Comedy is found in every corner of the creative world. We laugh together because we know it’s true.
Lyndit lives out “in the sticks” in Washington State. She is the proud owner of two border collies, a cat, a guinea pig, a dwarf rabbit, a horse, and a donkey. And even though she’s never lived outside the state, you’ll find her globally on Twitter @lyndit and lyndit.com
I think this woman exemplifies the range of skills necessary for effective Social Media management. Kudos to you both.
Gregory, one of the things your comment reminds me of is how likely we all are to build our skills by (a) maintaining blogs and (b) really participating on the Social Web.
Gregory, I just noticed that you don’t have a photo Avatar by your comment. Have you set one up yet on Gravatar.com?
Cool interview Lyndi!
How do you know Lyndi, Tom?
I am blushing. Thank you for being so supportive of my blogging adventure.
Hmm, maybe I ought to add the “blushing” pic as well.
🙂
Let’s get lots more comments here . . . and along your blogging adventure.
YOU GO GIRL!