PLA Blog

I met C.C. Chapman and Mitch Joel first thing when I walked in the door this morning. I had no idea that they would be presenting today, but really, that’s the fun of the unconference: anyone can present. I was even approached to do a presentation tomorrow, since there are still slots open. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, C.C. and Mitch spoke on the art of branding. A brand is not money, a name, a T shirt, a free mouse pad. A brand, indeed, is a story. And podcasting is about the conversation. If you have an experience, community, conversation, put it all together and you have a brand.

Who cares about a personal brand? Everyone should. It’s not just a corporate thing, it’s a small organization thing, a non-profit thing, a family thing. A brand brings you in, even if you’re not in agreement about the content. You get someone excited about something, and there’s interaction, that’s what’s bringing people in. (Especially if you’re trying to bring in money with your podcast.) However, you should never do anything that isn’t you, everything you have within you is what you should be communicating.

There are really three parts to branding, all connected to relationships.

• The Internal Conversation: Who are you, how do you get it out there. Find the real you, and tell your story. As Karen Hyman likes to say, it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the story, the humanization of your message, your goal, your desired outcome. Take all of that, and make it to your podcast. If you’re not sure what your podcast should be about, find your passion, and use that for your podcast, because somewhere you’ll find an audience. You are creating a mental tattoo on your audience, so that your show is among the 3 or 4 podcasts in the sea of over-subscribed feeds that people can’t wait to listen to.

• The One-to-One: This fits into the idea of the 15-second/elevator pitch, something that makes for an interesting *start* to a conversation. Podcasting is a broadcasting mechanism, it’s not the story. It’s “What are you listening to?” not “Do you listen to podcasts?” Spend the time and get to know your listeners, to plan how you’re going to get from your first podcast to 4 podcasts down the line. It’s all about listening, getting feedback, and improving the story, which improves the brand. It’s all very outreach oriented. It’s not about agreeing, it’s about the conversation, NOT the technology.

• The One-to-Many: Taking it to the next level, the real power is creating the communities by connecting through technology/podcasting/blogging. The community that forms from the connections, and sometimes those connections start and remain online.

A few other tidbits they shared include:

• Not all about who you know, it’s about who knows you.
• Always talk to strangers (not the dark alley ones), get to know the people next to you. Networking is key to marketing *and* improving your brand.
• Find about your podcast theme peers, your competitors, your dissidents, and listen.
• When you think about your podcast, networking, marketing, think “Would you like to sit next to you at dinner?” (quoted from The Economist)

Tags: marketing, PLA Blog, PodCamp Boston, podcasting

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 9th, 2006 at 12:11 pm and is filed under PLA Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.