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Today Ken Blanchard Followed Me: How Social Media Builds Influence

Posted on July 1, 2011. Filed under: Blogging, Business Management, Human Business, Inbound Marketing, Jazz, Leadership, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter | Tags: Bud to Boss, Ellie Becker, Inbound Marketing, Jazz, Ken Blanchard, Kevin Eikenberry, Peter Cook, Social Media, Tom Peters |

This will be a short post as I try to head out for the Fourth of July weekend at least a bit before traffic. I wasn’t going to post, but as I finished up my last task or two at the computer, I saw an email come in from Twitter. It informed me that Ken Blanchard @kenblanchard – author of 50 books, including the One Minute Manager — is following me.

I don’t follow him yet. He followed me first.     ;-D

As of the time the email arrived, Ken Blanchard had 24,594 followers and was only following 4,046 – including me.

It took me just a minute to figure out the chain of connection that led to this follow. My friend Peter Cook is an incredibly creative management consultant, rock musician and founder of the corporate training companyAcademyofRock in the UK. He’s the author of a well-regarded book, Sex, Leadership & Rock ‘n’ Roll: Lessons from the AcademyofRock. Author Tom Peters (in Search of Excellence) wrote a testimonial for the front cover. I really like how Peter thinks and have blogged about him recently.

Peter and I met in a LinkedIn group, Jazz in Business and hit it off on a number of levels – not the least of which was music. We subscribed to each others’ blogs, follow each other on Twitter and engage in a number of mutually supportive ways – re-tweeting, commenting, etc. We’ve recommended each other in Follow Friday #FF tweets.

From Peter’s recommendations of people to follow, I began following Tom Peters and author Kevin Eikenberry. Kevin has a venture with a couple of others called Bud to Boss. They began following me the other day as a group and individually. I followed back.

As I extended my community beyond the social media crowd and focused more on what the conversations are around business management, I began getting numbers of followers in that community. I’ve also stepped up my blogging and engagement in social media and have raised my visibility.

Morals of the post: Six degrees of separation is extra true online. Engage actively in social media among people with whom you share interests and values. Widen your circles. Share generously of your knowledge and support the efforts of others. The world – including famous authors and just plain great people — will find their way to your door.

I’m going to go and follow Ken Blanchard back now and send him a DM thanking him for the follow!

Please share your six degrees of separation stories in the comments. And for my fellow Americans – Happy Fourth!! See you back here after the holiday!

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