The Business Of News Is Changing. Enter Personal Branding.

The business of news is changing with every advance on the Web. Younger journalists are not flooding the newsroom like they used to. Many are striking out on their own and using digital marketing methods and tactics to build their own brand and empire. (You see how I related it back to digital marketing? Clever!😏)

In the latest video/podcast of Kinsey Grant's Thinking Is Cool, Kinsey, a young millennial journalist herself, talks to Brian Morrissey, the former editor of Digiday.com about how the industry is changing and even failing.

Kinsey used to work for business publications in NYC, including Morning Brew, before striking it out on her own. She uses social media and many strategies of digital marketing to push out her brand to the masses.

Kinsey is extremely active on Twitter, Tiktok, and Instagram. She also uses LinkedIn as well. All this hard work on her brand, has brought her an audience of her own. One that she can speak to, rely on, and monetize.

Recently, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times and Taylor Lorenz (formerly of the NYT) of the Washington Post, got into a very public debate on young journalists and brand building.

As expected "Media" Twitter had a field day.

Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz Maggie, the attention economy is my entire beat, it’s what I cover, and you’re certainly an expert at leveraging it yourself. I hope you can recognize why more workers at the NYT and elsewhere are seeking more ownership of their work, opportunities for career growth and fair pay. twitter.com/maggieNYT/stat… 5:10 AM • Mar 5, 2022 3.9K likes • 212 retweets

Above is a sampling of the "conversation" that was had on Twitter. To find out more just Google: Taylor Lorenz vs. Maggie Haberman.

You will get lost in the weeds of the whole story really fast.

I'm not going to take sides here, but having been a young budding journalist once, I know how hard it is to break into the old guard and make a name for yourself. I've worked for small papers in no-where Pennsylvania and in the Philadelphia suburbs. I eventually burnt out and left the profession.

This is what's happening, with the internet, young journalists can do it alone or form collectives of like-minded peers and do really well done journalism online without the Old Grey Lady and her old stuffy peers.

A good podcast episode to listen to is For Immediate Release's latest on this exact topic.

So Should Young Journalists Have Their Own Brand?

I guess, I will have an opinion. Simply put, YES. If anyone online wants to stand out they need to have an online presence, one that's not tied to another brand.

I have Goldstein Media. It's my company, but I've made a conscious effort to also build up the Seth Goldstein brand as well. Because, why not? I'm the face of Goldstein Media, but I do many more things than just the digital agency. By building up my personal brand online, I can highlight all that I do (including this newsletter).

What do you think? Should young journalists and young people in general have their own brands, separate from their work's brand? Hit reply and let me know.

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Web Finds Of The Week

The Future Of Brand Experiences In The Metaverse

Ready to become an early adopter? Here’s how you can redefine your brand in a new space.

•Jeff Snyder

• The Metaverse is coming if we like it or not. This immersive version of the Internet has been around for a bit, but now is heading into the mainstream. And when thing head into the mainstream, brand are quick to follow.

LinkedIn Adds New Tools for Creators, Including Improved Content Analytics and Updates Profile Video Options

The new tools will provide more ways for creators to build their presence on the professional social network.

Social Media Today•Andrew Hutchinson

• LinkedIn has become a much friendlier place for business-relates creators to play. With the latest additions to their creator tools, LinkedIn has gotten even better.

YouTube is Moving into Podcasts, With New Details Revealing its Podcast Platform Plans

The option will provide more capacity for creators to make YouTube the home of all of their content offerings.

Social Media Today•Andrew Hutchinson

• It was bound to happen. The second biggest search engine after Google (also an Alphabet, Inc. property), is getting into podcasting. YouTube is already a place where people consume podcasts, this will only solidify it.

Google: Nofollow Is Not A Dampening Factor

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that the

Search Engine Roundtable•Barry Schwartz

• Many website owners and SEOs use the nofollow tag to stop link equity from traveling to a particular link. There has been talk that getting a nofollow from a site still counts. John Mueller of Google's Search Quality team says absolutely not. A nofollow tells the spider to not follow that link. Thus there is no benefit to the linked site.

Google Docs can write your meta descriptions

Google Docs can automatically generate content summaries. Can it help you write a GREAT meta description? We tested it to find out.

Search Engine Land•Danny Goodwin

• Neat trick use Google Docs to write meta descriptions. This is cool. But keep in mind it's all machine learning and by no means perfect.

How to Build Trust with Customers (Why Market Trust Is Now in the Hands of Business Owners)

We knew the pandemic was going to change things… …but, wow. In 2021, 33,000+ people from 28 different countries were surveyed about trust. The groundbreaking findings that had mind-blown marketers rubbing their eyes? Business is the ONLY institution that people still see as both competent and ethica…

The Content Hacker•Julia McCoy

• An interesting take from a great content marketer, Julia McCoy, about how business owners if they work hard at it are the most trusted out of any category of institution. Shocking isn't it. Definitely read this piece.

What happened in SEO during Q1 2022 - Traffic Think Tank

Not had a chance to keep up to date with the latest SEO news this quarter because *gestures broadly at everything*?

Traffic Think Tank

• A great run down of all the craziness that went down during the first quarter of 2022.

Guest Insights

This week's Guest Insights is from a good friend of mine Brian Griffiths, who is an amazing digital marketer. He frequently shares his insights over on his LinkedIn profile. Be sure to follow him there.

A Reason Your Website Might Not Be Working for You

Your website may not be drawing in the customers like you thought it should.

Maybe you're starting to tell yourself the story that your business doesn't get customers from your website, that prospects only go there when someone is referred to your business, to check you out.

You might be spending money on paid traffic and you're not getting leads.

Your website messaging may suck. But more particularly, it might something more insidious.

You haven't worked out your customer avatar accurately enough.

And your value proposition may be misaligned with what customers want and need.

Customer avatar: A customer avatar is a representation of your ideal customer — the type of person you want to purchase your products or services. Your avatar is detailed profile of a single individual depicting your target audience.

Value proposition: "Your Value Proposition is the reason why customers turn to your company over another. It solves your customer’s problem or satisfies your customer’s need." (Thank you, Strategyzer)

If you don't really understand your customers and their needs, and you're solving the wrong problems, your website messaging won't hit.

So even if you're running traffic to your website, spending all that cash on SEO, ads, etc., your marketing could still fail.

Know your customers and organize the information into a well-put-together customer avatar.

Map out your value proposition. What value do you really deliver to your customers?

Express all this in clear messaging on your website that would attract your avatar and make them want to know more.

Simple, right?

Brian Griffiths is a digital marketing strategist and designer living in the Philadelphia Suburbs. He owns and runs BStrong Marketing LLC, a boutique digital agency that specializes in turning your marketing investment into an 8-step predictable growth engine. In his spare time he's a fine art photographer and the proud father of a rather headstrong corgi.

Podcast Of Note

Chris Hines, has a way about how he breaks down podcasting into an easy to understand fashion. His podcast, The Business of Podcasting, another great show on the Marketing Podcast Network, is a bit meta (a podcast about the business of podcasting), but extremely easy to understand and implement. Have a listen here or on your favorite podcast player.

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