Scott Ginsberg is the name tag guy. For the last 10 years, he's been wearing one everyday... and it's earned him everything from smiles from hot chicks to a thriving career as an author, speaker, and consultant.

Scott's brain is NOT enslaved by Facebook. Here's why we know this to be true. During a recent interview with David Garland / A Rise to the Top, Scott revealed his definition of your "platform" (in addition to his *intense* feelings for his new and colorful book):

"Your Platform is your entire marketing engine of visibility"

He went on to speak about using that platform as a "leverageable asset". So let's dumb it down a little bit further and re-state it as:

Your platform is everything that gets attention and results for you!

When we talked about Facebook enslaving your brain, this is what we were getting at. Facebook is a platform that gets attention for you and Facebook, but mostly hoards all the results of your contributions for themselves!

Your goal should be to figure out how to turn the tables back on Facebook... a "John Doe has the upper hand now" kind of moment. Use Facebook to get attention for you, but this time make sure you leverage them and get results for YOU also.

To do that, your platform cannot be just Facebook. You need to have your own center of gravity on the Web. Scott calls his a destination (not just a website) where he plans to be really sticky (or "suck you into his vortex") when you check out his stuff.

If you use Facebook alone, you're putting all of your eggs in one sink hole - and you're probably not leveraging it effectively. Archimedes (yes, the lever dude) would be disappointed! If you're going to be putting your ideas out there, you need to get your own destination and remove the Facebook probe from your brain before it sucks out every last neuron you have left.

Setting up your own website makes you findable, askable, discoverable, and referable! Scott explores these concepts in his new book called "-Able". When you do this, he says you will "make your success more probable".

You might want to blow this off as just advice for marketing people or people trying to sell something on the Web. However, that's not a good idea. This advice is for everyone. If you're spending hours per week (or day) sharing your ideas on Facebook for free... without leveraging that experience for yourself... then the Facebook bank account and Mark Zuckerberg truly thank you!

Find a way to get your ideas onto your own platform and use Facebook to get attention for you. The result can be ad clicks, community, credibility, stronger relationships, or maybe just an ego boost. Whatever it provides for you personally, at least your time spent helps give something back to you! Don't be tricked into making other people billionaires...