Robert Scoble's tips for getting started in social media today

Who am I speaking with?

I'm Robert Scovel and I'm a tech.

Evangelist at Rackspace, and I go around the world and I interview executives about the bleeding edge of the Internet. What's going on now?

This is kind of a funny thing. You're actually interviewing me while I'm actually interviewing you. There is a camera. There is.

Well, and we're on Chris Pirillo's video live video streaming channel here at gnomedex.

Yeah, yeah. So there it is, streaming right there. And so I'm interviewing you. But you know what? You're probably the best example of someone who sort of made his name through blogging. And so. So one of the trends is obviously using social media. Improve getting jobs out there. So what advice would you give to people who are trying to improve their chances of getting a job in tech through using social media?

That's a tough one.

If I was starting today and I wanted to build a name, I would own a niche. I would find a very specific niche that doesn't have a lot of competitors, and I would own that. In other words, like, there was this Seattle wine girl here. Instead of trying to compete with her, I would. Get off the camera. Yeah, be quiet. I would try to be. I would try to be the expert on Seattle Bordeaux or Seattle Merlot or Seattle something specific that you could own and really cover well. And once you own that space and become known as the Seattle Merlot person. No, get out of here. Then I would. Once you become the Seattle Merlot person, then I would build off of that and build a network of. Of things that I would be able to be passionate and authoritative and credible about.

Well, that's. I mean, I'm a big fan of becoming, you know, owning a niche. But to go that specific, I'm like. I'm always like, well, if you want to be. Don't be just a security guy, be like the Linux security guy. You know what I'm saying? But that's actually really good advice. Can you point to any examples of people who have owned niches that you're.

Really impressed by, Nick, at all? Facebook started out just owning Facebook. Right. He didn't try to compete with TechCrunch because TechCrunch covers everything or I cover everything. So he just covered Facebook. That's all he did. And now he's built a big brand that he gets invited to. Nick o' Neill is his name, and he gets invited to all the Facebook stuff. And he has. Because that company has grown in importance and the audience that cares about Facebook has grown in size. He's now a major brand. That's interesting. And now he's branching off of Facebook and doing other kinds of all brands off of that.