Branding Yourself as a New Media Expert

Dear Lynda,

A close friend recently suggested I read Rubies in the Orchard to supplement my Communication Studies classes at Northwestern University. Needless to say, I loved it! I am currently a senior at NU and believe product branding is a thrilling field and am passionate about incorporating consumer insight to build and transform a brand across trends and time. The advice, anecdotes, and accessibility of your book made reading about business development and marketing an absolute joy. I especially enjoyed your breakdown of the unique selling proposition, the value of product placement, and how to nurture brand faith in an age of cynicism. Furthermore, I appreciated your emphasis on the importance of inspiring faith in your vision within your business team in order to build and sustain brand equity.

As a college senior, myself and many peers have studied the role of new media such as social media and mobile, and understand the importance of translating brand value onto the web through SEO, email campaigns, and blogs. Most importantly, as you underscored in your text, we have learned the importance of sustaining brand identity across platforms while capitalizing on the strengths of the specific media channel. As adults native to the digital environment with an arsenal of communication studies theories under our belts, do you have advice for how we should approach positioning our knowledge within the business development and marketing spheres? As a successful marketing professional, how do you suggest we should brand ourselves to shine in the competitive marketplace?

Any advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated by myself and my peers.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Kyla

P.S. I am a huge fan of POM Wonderful, especially the POMx Blackberry Tea!

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Dear Kyla,

Thank you so much for your kind words about my book. You’ve posed a rather insightful question: In a world where anyone can profess to be a new media expert, how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd?

You already answered your own question when you mentioned “the importance of inspiring faith in your vision within your business team in order to build and sustain brand equity.” In this case, the brand would be you – meaning the faith you inspire and equity you build is all based on your experience and expertise. How do you want to position yourself in the new media marketplace? How can you inspire faith in your knowledge?

If new media truly is your specialty, the only way to prove it is to show it. Theory is great, but for true impact, you need to put your education to the test by producing actual new media examples. These days, producing new media has become so easy that if you don’t have a physical example of your expertise, even on spec or a school project, it will be hard to compete against the numerous others who do. For example, produce a YouTube video that gets an impressive number of views, which would both show your content-creation capabilities and that you can drive traffic. Amass a large following on Twitter. Start a blog and develop content that drives page views and Alexa rankings. Having a portfolio of work is key. This is true for even offline new media, such as CD-ROMs and video games. If you can’t create the actual product, you can still prove your expertise in these areas by tweeting and blogging on your subject, thus establishing yourself as knowledgeable in the area – and most likely developing key relationships along the way. Build your brand just as you would the brand you hope to work for – by getting your name and work out there and making it visible to those you wish to attract.

Now is the time of great opportunities. Take advantage of them by starting today. There’s no need to wait until your diploma is in hand. Start building your brand as soon as you’re finished reading this letter and you’ll be a step ahead of everyone in your class who has yet to do so. I wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,