Paul Chaney has a good post on ‘Mavens’ – a term used in Malcolm Gladwell’s book – Get the Latest Price on the The Tipping Point (an absolute must read):
‘The Maven is a person who knows everything about something. Ask them a question about that topic and they’ll give you more information that you care to know. They are, according to Gladwell, information brokers who have the knowledge and social skills to start epidemics.’
Paul points out a few Maven bloggers and how being one (or becoming one) is a great blogging strategy and an excellent way to build blogging traffic. He’s spot on the money with this observation.
The great thing is that because blogging is so global you don’t necessarily have to be a maven of some mega popular topic in order to be successful. Recently I’ve had contact with a number of bloggers that have come to dominate (in a nice way) the tiny niches that they write in and in doing so have become quite prominent.
A number of them are readers of this blog so I thought it might be interesting to open up the comments in this post for people to talk about either:
1. Blogging Mavens that we know of (ie people who are becoming or who have become experts in a niche through their blogging on it)
2. The Niches that we are trying to become mavens in – tell us about your journey to become an expert in your field. How are you doing it, how’s it going, what has worked and what hasn’t? What have been the benefits of this approach? Don’t be shy or modest – feel free to just share it like it is….
