Influencer: Chris Brogan

A few years ago when I really got started exploring social media I looked to the emerging thought leaders in the space to help define its value. Chris Brogan was one of the first people I followed on twitter and was one of the leaders showing us all the way. For the past several years I’ve read his tweets, newsletters, blog posts, reviews…basically any content he’s been putting online. He’s one of the few contributors in the space I feel provides value with damn near every post.

Chris is all about conversation, engagement and thinking about doing human business. He wrote a book called Trust Agents that explains some of the best ways to navigate online relationships and how to gain the trust of a community. He runs a handful of businesses, travels the world to speak and influences the way I think about online communication and social media in a major way. Our mutual friend Peter was kind enough to help connect us when we were both in Chicago for a conference and I had the chance to meet Chris and talk to him about the person behind the social media rockstar persona often attached to his name.

Spoiler alert: he’s even better in person than he is online. We talked about passions and how they drive us to be better at what we do. He saw my photography passion during a photoshoot and filmed a short video interview. Here’s what I learned about him:

Chris made a good point in our conversation about thinking about how your passion can influence what you do. For him, comic books use pictures and words to tell stories, build characters, comment on issues and turn people into heroes. Isn’t that a big part of what social media is about? Seems to be a nice parallel with how someone like Chris has been able to use the social web to build his professional and personal brands.

I am confident as Chris moves along with his new projects and businesses he will continue to share his knowledge with his community. He got in the game early and has built a business around giving us all information we can use and share. But most importantly, along the way, he still focuses on real human connections and remembering social media is another channel for connecting real people.

Find him on Twitter. Follow his travels. Connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe to his blog. And if you find yourself in the same city, buy the guy a drink. He likes dirty martinis. I guarantee you’ll be smarter by the end of a conversation.

Let’s all start thinking about what we’re passionate about and how it can drive us to be great. How it can teach us how to bring a little something extra to what we do and the way we work. Let’s continue to use social media for good, not evil.

Check out my other influencers here.

Photo: Taken with Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. Exposure 1/400 sec. Aperture f/4. Focal length 57mm. ISO Speed 400.