My name is Beth Anderson. I’m a nurse, and a social networking evangelist. I also have a strong background in graphic design and printmaking, and have been dabbling in web design since 1996.
In 2002 I started to get a little fed up with freelance web design, as it never proved lucrative enough for me to quit waiting tables. So I decided to do something completely random. I became a nurse.
It’s been an interesting and rewarding career and I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.
But in 2004 I discovered blogging, and since then my life has never been the same. It was through blogging that I fell in love with the web all over again. I started blogging under the name PixelRN in 2005, and I quickly learned that blogging can get you noticed. It can bring traffic to your site, and it can help you easily create and establish a brand identity for yourself. More importantly, it can connect you with some pretty awesome people.
Then, in 2007, the day after my first son was born, I was hand-picked to help build, launch, and lead one of the most successful nursing communities on the web, NursingLink.com. And how did they find me? Through PixelRN.com. Blogs are a great way to make things happen.
I thought being the community manager at Nursinglink would be my dream job. It certainly seemed like it on paper. Unfortunately, I wasn’t happy in my position. I wasn’t crazy about the business model, and my boss left me kind of baffled. Not to mention the fact that I had a newborn son. So I quit Nursinglink to be a stay at home mom, and a part-time nurse.
Months later, the parent company of Nursinglink was sold to Monster.com for a cool 61 million. Part of my salary had been in stock options, contingent on my staying there. This was a hard pill for me to swallow, but I emerged from this experience knowing that I did the right thing. There’s no doubt in my mind when I look in this guy’s eyes.
Since then I’ve come to find that my true passion isn’t nursing. It’s community building and social networking. As the creator of a successful nursing blog, I’ve learned so much. I can build a customized Wordpress blog/site/CMS, and I know the tricks to getting good search engine results. I’ve learned that blogging connects people in ways I never thought possible. I even created a micro-community of nurses using Twitter and Summize.
But by far the most important thing I’ve learned is the intrinsic value of online communities, and that blogging, in and of itself creates communities naturally.
Eventually I hope to make the transition from Social Media Evengelist to Social Media Expert. But for now, I’m committed to being the best blogger I can be here at PixelRN.com.
Hope you enjoy, and thanks for visiting!
