Tomorrow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists

TNTJ December: My online brand means much to do

Does anyone else remember falling under Naomi Klein‘s spell after reading No Logo and deciding that brands were bad? Well that was then, and this is now. Suddenly I’m all for branding, especially if it helps to improve my visibility and employability. I would sell my soul to Starbucks for a job.

Despite this I haven’t put too much emphasis on SEO yet, although my name’s Google results aren’t too bad. Most of the top five results relate to me, although it is annoying that my old blog is the first returned.

Now I have a personalised URL at michaelhaddon.co.uk as that address looks a lot more professional at the top of my CV. I still have to get round to setting up email services on my domain, but need to do so soon as my university account will expire eventually. Hotmail is also blocked by many newspaper groups here in the UK and it’s hard enough to pitch ideas without them ever being received at all.

On my blog I have a CV page, which is obviously a must. I have managed to get a couple of commissions just by forwarding the link. It contains basic details of my experience and is then supplemented by a comprehensive PDF. That way a quick browser can get all the important facts whilst more interested ones can also get a detailed rundown.

I have a page linking to all of my articles that were published online, but I definitely need to redesign it. At the moment it is incredibly boring and absolutely nobody is impressed by a list of links. I am thinking of using newspaper mastheads and perhaps putting a short explaination under the more impressive articles. I think I need to delete the other ones too, as I should just really be offering up my most proud achievements.

I have tried to lock down michaelhaddon as my username on as many sites as possible, not only because I am a perfectionist and crave uniformity but also for the ease of others. If you type my name after most popular URLs you should find one of my profiles. However, a recent tweet from Greg Linch demonstrated how many sites I still have to sign up to if I want to fully monopolise michaelhaddon. There are so many!

Talking of Twitter, it is probably one of the most important platforms you can use to market yourself and I have my RSS feed displayed on my blog. It does mean that sometimes my tweets are a bit formal because I’m aware they are being published in a place where potential employers are directed. I’m not sure if that is the correct way to approach the issue, do others have a really personal attitude to Twitter?

I am also trying to get more involved with online work, not just here on TNTJ, but also for the main journalism.co.uk site. I’ve now managed to get a few articles published, which is useful because it means using a different writing style than for newspapers and also helps me keep up with lots of tech issues in the industry.

Talking of which, I am going to be branching out into liveblogging and podcasting next year whilst covering the Fabian Conference for the Next Left blog. I am even hoping to use Qik to stream some interviews, but that is just an idea as yet.

The motivation for this is my belief that the best way to improve your online brand is to demonstrate an ability to use new media to its full potential. Whilst it’s good to do all the things advocated in this month’s responses, if we improve our journalism then the brand will surely follow.