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I recently spoke with one of the marketing reps at a large brand company that I might be talking about more in the coming months.  During our conversation, she said something like, “This feels so strange. I know so much about you because I’ve been reading your blog for a month.”

I laughed, because I know the feeling; I find myself a little thrown off when talking to more popular bloggers.  It’s hard to have an introductory conversation or meeting with someone when I know what kind of sneakers they wear and they barely know my name.  Then that midwest southern Illinois charm kicks in, and the urge to make small talk nearly gets the better of me.  “Hi, nice to meet you.  How’s the weight loss resolution going?  I read about your daughter, are things getting better?  And how in the world do you run a popular blog with twelve kids?”

Ah, the dawn of the microcelebrity.  Clive Thompson of Wired Magazine describes a microcelebrity as “the phenomenon of being extremely well known not to millions but to a small group — a thousand people, or maybe only a few dozen.”  Becoming a microcelebrity is inherently good for you and your career, because people start gravitating towards you.  It’s a pull rather than a push to grow your network, and that means you can work on strengthening your network rather than extending it.

Consider it the second layer of an onion, reversed.  There’s the innermost layer of the onion, which consists of you passing out your business cards rather aimlessly and trying to contact CEOs you don’t have any connection to (for the most part, a complete waste of time).  Then there’s the second layer where people find you: through your blog, through your LinkedIn profile, through your friends.  That’s where you want to be, and that’s why you need to become a microcelebrity.

There are three things that will help you become a microcelebrity:

Put yourself out there.  Talk about your successes and your mistakes.  Talk about how you’ve grown and changed over the last year.  Talk about your opinions and the reasoning behind them.  Talk about sex and love and politics and religion and other things that are supposedly too personal.  Be authentic.  Be eccentric.

Tell people about what you do.  I can’t keep track of how many times I tell people I’m a software engineer and they reply, “Do you want to work for my company?”  Sure, if I’m ever in need of a job, I’ll give you a call.  Perfect.  Effortless.

Get others to put themselves out there when around you.  Be a great listener.  Be the person who makes the shy guy in the corner feel at ease.  Be the person who reaches out to the girl on the fringe of the group.

If you can’t do these things, you’re going to come across as dull.  And dull people don’t have large networks or draw people to them.  Dull people are still networking in the first onion layer.

There is a reason blogs get popular - because the people behind them talk about themselves in a way that creates tension.  There’s a reason magazines sell - because people love drama and fascinating lives.

Case in point: I met a few bloggers last night at Tech Cocktail in Chicago, including the founders of Brazen Careerist, and guest what?  They were each exactly how they sound on their respective blogs.  No wonder they’ve gotten so popular.  No wonder they draw people to them.  No wonder they have no need for traditional networking tactics.

So just be yourself already.  It’s that simple.

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Categories: Blogger, Careerist, Socialite
Tags: Finding Yourself, Networking

Monica O'Brien is the founder of Twenty Set, a website about personal and professional growth and development for the Millennial generation. She has been a blogger since 1998 when blogging was still in its “Dear Diary” form and in May 2007 began blogging for personal branding and profit.
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