I wrote an article for Mashable today entitled, “5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded.” In the piece I sought to interview people who listened to the advice of social media experts, ignored it, and then succeeded doing their own thing. Here are some of the highlights:
- Becky Blanton ignored direct advice from social media experts, including Seth Godin, yet still won throngs of fans, and through it an all expense trip to Oxford, England and the TED Conference.
- Mark Horvath is on the verge of being homeless again, but that doesn’t stop him from Twittering homeless issues he sees first hand, even though the homeless agency he works for wants him to stop.
- Pinny Gniwisch was told he couldn’t make money on YouTube or get celebrities to appear in his videos without spending big bucks. He ignored them all and invested $1,295 on a YouTube campaign which has already made him $20,000.
- J.T. O’Donnell wanted to offer meaningful career advice through Twitter. Well respected Twitterers said it couldn’t be done. She ignored those naysayers, enticed other experts to join, and got 700 followers in just three days.
Read the article and let me know what you think. I’m going to be writing a lot more about rule breakers in the future. If you feel that you fall in that category, please ping me at daspark AT gmail DOT com.
