Building Your Brand: Content is King

As an economics major in undergrad and finance concentration here at Pepperdine, I find the way technology has affected different marketplaces fascinating. Today I'm going to talk specifically about the media market. This post will be the first of a two part series on building your brand on the internet.

As MBA's, one of our primary focuses is finding our dream job that we can easily transition to immediately after graduation... Right. While it may initially seem that this would be an easy task, with the current economy, many of us are discovering we are going to have to work harder than ever before to find a home for our shiny, new Masters degree. However, the good news is through hard work we will be able to differentiate ourselves from our peers.

This idea goes back to marketing. We must realize that we are constantly selling ourselves to employers. We are in fact a brand that can be cultivated. Through building equity in your personal brand, you will be able to stand apart in a crowded field.

For example, it is very reasonable that a recruiter researching for information on me would enter the keywords "Frankie Warren Pepperdine" in Google. As of 11/21/08 this returns several results related to my personal brand. The first result is my LinkedIn Profile. This gives all the information an employer would need to know on my previous professional experience. The second result is my Twitter account. Twitter is a social networking tool that allows you to communicate via microblogging on the internet. All posts must be less that 140 characters and can be directed to your friends, or the internet in general. This near real-time information on my life can give a potential employer a glimse into my daily life. While this may seem intrusive to some, remember to keep it professional and that you need to build equity in your personal brand to get noticed! Consider Zuckerberg's law... The third result is my personal blog: http://blog.frankiewarren.com. This is my own medium to present my own content and one of the greatest opportunities to differentiate that I posses.

This illustrates the affect technology, and specifically social media, has had on our ability to touch the world around us. The internet has completely obliterated the barriers to entry of old media and now we are able to get our ideas out there for the world to consume without a television or radio deal.

However this removal of barriers to entry comes with its own set of problems. Now the key to differentiation is content. To get people to take notice in a meaningful way it is necessary to put out great material that people find interesting. Take for example this marketing blog, For the first several months of school, little to no content was published. Therefore this post will not get as many views as one will in two months from now, if we continue to work on producing great content and w0rk on promoting the site. That's just the nature of the beast. However by starting to pump out great content now, by the time the job search is in full swing you will be able to have the one up when recruiters are doing their due diligence.

For more information on building a personal brand on the internet check out:

http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com

Next week I will continue this discussion with "Building your Brand: Leveraging Social Networks." Also, I am currently in the process or reading BrandDigital and will be offering a book review in the future.

-ƒrankie