personal branding

This month’s topic over on Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists is an interesting one and one that I voted for in our very democratic way of deciding December’s topic. What have you done to build your brand online?

See where you are online

The first thing I did was go and see what is out there about me on the internet. A quick Google of my name ‘ed walker’ made me realise first of all: a) I have a really common name b) There’s a ‘Sir Edward Walker’ - not me. Having a common name is the first hurdle in building a brand online, because if you’re called Japhael Jiminez - chances are you’re pretty unique.

Start a blog

Starting a blog is a must. This should be the core of your brand online. This is where you live and breath online. If possible try and buy your own domain and a bit of hosting, as having your name as a yourname.com/.co.uk/.net will help massively when it comes to boosting yourself up those all important Google rankings. After starting your blog and making it look pretty, get posting. Post about stuff that matters to you, it’ll probably matter to other people. Your blog should be your living CV, blog about stuff you’re working on, your success’ and even some of your failures. Make sure you’ve got an ace ‘About’ page, so that if people want to know more about you they can find out.

Link to people

You’re not going to build this brand alone. When posting on your blog, link out and link far and wide. If you link to people, they will probably come and look at your blog and see who you are. They might even link back if they like your stuff!

Have a good presence on LinkedIn

Forget Facebook, Bebo, MySpace etc, LinkedIn is the professional networking site and it can be used by potential employers to find you and see who you are and what you do. Ensure your profile is fully filled out, keep it updated reguarly and you’ll be surprised how much traffic it can bring to your blog and also how highly LinkedIn profiles rank in Google and other search engines.

Claim your blog on Technorati

Technorati is the bloggers website. It’s important to claim your blog as this will tell you who is linking to you and give you an authority ranking. As more people link to you, your authority grows.

Listen to those who know

I suggest people like Chris Brogan and Adam Singer, who aren’t journalists, but have built up highly successful blogs and follows online. They have built a brand around themselves online, and as a result have benefitted financially but also in building up a big and useful network of contacts.

Network offline and transfer online

Face to face is still and always will be the most powerful communication tool in the world. Make use of it, at a networking event? At a party? Social media is reasonably in right now and while it may not be the best conversation starter it’s a great conversation finisher. Make sure you leave people you’ve been speaking to with your blog address, or if you’re a guest speaker make sure it’s on your slides.

Twitter and other social media

Make sure you’re using social media such as Twitter to join in the conversation, find and follow relevant people. Give people a reason to follow you by posting regularly and by posting interesting links to Twitter. Don’t tell us what you had for breakfast, that’s what Facebook status updates are for. Make sure all your social media presences link to your blog and that your blog links to all your social media presences. Think of your blog as the continent with lots of little islands around it.

Join relevant networks (like TNTJ!) and get networked

If there’s a network for your industry, join it and meet people. You’ll be surprised how interested they’ll be in what you do and what you may be blogging about.

Image in this post is used under creative commons from flickr user See-Ming Lee

The above was the question posed for the November debate on Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists and I gave my answer as ‘I’d invest it in people’.

The post is here, or you can read it below:

First off, I’d rather have a million pounds (British Sterling) than dollars to save journalism with. But exchange rates aside, let’s get down to business.

My strategy would be to invest in people. Invest in getting journalists to do that saving. You can’t do things alone, you need a good team with good people. I’d probably shed some dead wood from the news room, maybe coax a few people to leave early and get some fresh blood in.

I’d keep the subs, but expand their role to include a lot of backroom stuff - like picture uploading, digital media production, video editing. I’d keep the print edition but I’d make it follow online’s lead. Maybe just have one good strong print edition per day, and throw everything into online.

I’d develop strong supplements based around local issues, and not be afraid of trying something new. I’d link these supplements with mini-sites online built around that issue.

I’d invest in training for my staff, I’d employ the Google technique of 10% time for my reporters. i.e. 10% to go off and cover what YOU want and what YOU think needs covering.

I’d put a bit of money towards having trainees in. Not expecting them to pay for everything. There would be a pot of money so that kids can come in and get experience, learn about being a journalist, in a good environment, and not be skint afterwards. You never know, they might even bring a good story in with them - and that’s got to be worth the money.

I’d invest in a CRM (customer relationship management) system for my newspaper, logging user comments, offering them personalised news updates, and beginning to build an idea of who my readers really are. So I know that Joe Bloggs in the North of the city responds well to this type of news. Then I have something to sell, I’ve got proof of effectiveness, readership and grabbing people’s attention.

So to sum up, good journalists, probably better paid, more of them, getting some 10% time, with a good online setup.

Been watching the twitter voter report tick over, it’s incredible. So much data. Will we see anything like this in the UK when the next general election rolls around? You can’t beat it for that ‘being there at the polls’ feeling.

Obama. McCain. Battleground state. Sarah Palin. Early voters. Record turnout. Robocalls. Twitter vote report. It’s all going off in American politics - but spare a thought for the British local councillor.

On a chilly night, I was watching the news and cooking my dinner and the doorbell went. I thought it was my girlfriend, as usual not bothering to use her keys, but instead it was my local councillor. I’ve just moved into the Sharoe Green area of Preston, Lancashire, and been here about four weeks. So while the world was focusing on America, my local councillor wanted to ask me about street lighting and crossing the busy road next to my house.

It was nice to be asked, give my view and the councillor looked like he gave a shit about what I was saying. He asked my opinion on a few other things and asked if there was anything else I could help with. We discussed housing/home buying (all the time him looking a bit cold, but still caring) and he gave me his card.

So, while the world gets wrapped up in the American elections and the outcome, spare a thought for the local councillors who are dealing with often small problems that have a big impact on local people’s lives. It’s also a lesson to politicians and journalists alike, get out there, talk to people and you’ll find out things. You can’t sit at a desk all day and expect it to come to you on a plate, or via the web, real people and real stories and issues are always on the doorstep.

Andy Dickinson made a good post about the value of journalists getting out onto the beat, and it’s a good one. While the social web allows you to interact with communities and find out issues on discussions forums, blogs etc - nothing will ever beat going to find a person and find a story and get opinions. People make stories after all.

The same goes for politicians. While we want them to be using emails, twitter, blogging etc - we still like to think that they are around on the streets, listening and making changes happen in the local community. Let’s hope that politicians carry on doing what my local councillor did. In this crazy age of global politics, raise a glass or virtual glass to the likes of Councillor E.P.Fazackerley.

Some highlights from today:

• How to stand out in a world of infite choice

Some inspirational words from Adam Singer. He makes sense, there is a LOT out there on the web but knowing your niche is important.

• Facebook marketing strategies

Not as expensive as I thought, but are they effective? Interesting post.

• pluto-online

UCLan’s student newspaper gets a re-launch, two years after we first launched it. Good stuff, it’s going to be a great little site once it gets filled out with content.

Stumbled across this, mindyourstreet.com - which produces crime mash-ups. This is the state of Preston, Lancashire where I live (the area I’ve just moved to has a -444 difference from 2004 to 2007, whoop!).

But this is an excellent development and use of data. Be interesting to see if the local media pick-up on this and use it to provide background for crime stories. If I was a crime correspondent I’d be lapping it up - especially as it’s a Google map so can be easily embedded anywhere.

You can find out what my dream journalism job would be over on the Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists blog.

Dave Lee asked earlier today why is it that unlike other social media and web 2.0 tools RSS enjoys relatively low appreciation. It’s used by ‘early adopters’ or geek as they are otherwise known but it hasn’t tipped into the mainstream like say YouTube, Facebook or Flickr. Dave reckons it’s because of the name and that people aren’t used to ‘feeds’ and that ’subscribing’ sounds too much like paying money.

Perhaps what RSS needs it a branding exercise to make it appeal to the masses. I suggested ‘news for you’ as a cheesey brand that a newspaper could use, but it’s along those lines - RSS provides the news that you want smack into an easily digestiable format.

Dave goes a step further and says that media outlets themselves should be creating and delivering their own RSS readers and branding these up for readers. This seems like a great idea and perhaps these RSS readers could come pre-packaged with already interesting feeds built-in. For example if I subscribed to The Guardian environment news RSS feed it might already have RSS feeds to relevant charities, NGOs, and government about environment issues. A great way of making your reader more informed about a topic.

But how to let the masses know about RSS? It needs an equivalent push to what we see in newspapers these days ‘check it online, read it online, watch it online’ is what normally accompanies any story. There needs to be advertising in both the print and online editions of media saying ‘try our own reader’, or ‘be your own reader’. The personalisation of news moves a step closer.

They could also do with embedding this great video by Common Craft explaining RSS in plain English, or produce something like it (I’d like to see The Sun’s version!): (thanks to Chris Brogan for his great post about using social media as outposts for this one)

Thanks to Craig McGinty for flagging this one up. Craig posted about the Manchester Evening News’ great use of Dipity to create online timelines. They created one about the congestion charge in Manchester.

Could Dipity be the answer to the problem of trying to bring an audience up to speed on a long and complex issue? A journalist relies on the archives to remind themselves of what’s happened previously and I know from when I’ve been in newsrooms a trawl through past stories was essential. Dipity is web 2.0 completely, taking loads of information in different formats and shoving it together in an easy to follow timeline. Reminds me of those textbooks we had at school of timelines about the Tudors etc?

It’s not just journalists who could be using Dipity, charities and campaigning organisations can put an issue and its background in the spotlight and show what’s happened previously. I think the Students’ Union where I work will be hoping to use it to show the top-up fees debate, which will rear its head again in 2009 when the report is started into lifting the cap. Dipity could be fantastic at taking deep, and often political, issues and putting them into an easy to follow format. How else could it be used?

This is my first post as part of the Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists blog ring over on journalism.co.uk. August’s topic is all about the challenges facing young journalists, so here goes:

The biggest challenge is… first the sheer amount of competition there now is in the media industry. I know it’s always been competitive, but with more and more universities offering journalism/media degrees the industry is full of ‘wannabe journalists’. This means that media organisations can keep their salaries nice and low, or in some cases not pay at all, and yet people will still bite at the chance to ‘have a go’. The turnover is high, the hours long, and I’m pretty sure for a recent graduate it’s demoralising stuff. I have friends who’ve gone in with high hopes, and been left nearly broke and their dreams shattered - or been stuck doing mundane work with little freedom.

As the economic slowdown begins to bite in the UK, and circulations continue to fall, the task of getting out on the beat and doing proper journalism is fast being ditched in favour of the story that will shift more papers there and then. The quick buck is often coming first. Going ‘off-diary’ is a luxury that few media organisations feel they can afford. For a young journalist, with ideas and drive, to be sat at a desk and faced with a pile of press releases and every ‘idea’ is shot down by more experienced colleagues must be a hell of a challenge in itself. As the recent departure of the BBC’s North-West political editor shows, the trend to ‘fluffy’ and ‘politics-lite’ reporting, is forcing many to consider their futures - and I’m sure there will be plenty of fresh meat willing to do ‘politics-lite’ reporting.

The challenge for many young journalist’s is having the confidence to stand up to an editor, or more senior colleague, and say ‘No, I think this is really important and I’ve got a great idea of how we can do more with this. We could do this on the web, we could do that on the web and cross-over to the paper/radio etc…’

Faced with negativity, cynicism and a lack of opportunities in traditioinal media organisations, it’s no wonder that so many talented journalist’s are jumping ship to public relations or other communications industries - where the budgets are bigger, the pay is better and the hours are more flexible.