Building a Brand For Yourself

I really enjoyed Terry Williams' talk today and I especially liked what he said about how journalists need to build a brand for themselves. It reminds me of what John Herman said when he came to visit us a few weeks ago. That's exactly what John was talking about and it's how he's been able to be so successful. I really like that Terry brought it up again today because I think it's important for us to be reminded of. I think right now it's hard for us to do as students but I've been trying. I always tweet my articles and I also blog about my experiences in journalism. That might be too broad though and not really enough of a brand. It's not very focused. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be overly focused though or if I'm just supposed to show my personality while doing journalism at the same time. Either way, I think building a brand as a journalist is very important. It shows that there is a face and a personality behind the people that deliver the news. It also helps to make you more reliable to your audience or reader. I'm not quite sure how to grow that readership right now though. I know Terry talked about Twitter and having a lot of followers, but I don't have that many. I have 152 at the moment and I don't know how to get more. I tweet about journalistic things and use relevant hashtags. I also include links when appropriate and I include other people's handles so that I can get the attention of bigger names and companies. I want to know what I'm doing wrong or what I can do to improve. Terry said that reporters should have a few hundred followers or more, at the least. I think that when I graduate and start writing for a paper outside of UNH then I'll be able to start building a bigger readership and my brand will be able to grow. It can't hurt to start now though. If only I knew how to do it more effectively...