How to Use the Web to Build A Powerful Reputation In Any Industry

A reader who didn’t want to named sent in an interesting question about how the web can be used to achieve specific goals offline.

Here’s her situation: She’s an art major in college and wanted to know how she could establish herself in the field as a power player, preferably in the vocation of an artist/expert critic.

She’s completely new to the art scene and wanted to know she could build a strong reputation through the use of online marketing and personal branding strategies. Basically she wants a game plan to use online on top of what she’s already doing offline, away from the computer.

The web is incredibly powerful and it can be used to generate huge amounts of publicity. It is potent launching pad for personal careers. When you are seeking to enter and dominate an industry, the internet is your best friend. With smart online marketing, you can develop a substantial presence which will not be ignored.

Let’s recap the goal: To build a strong reputation and promote oneself within a specific industry through the use of the web. It is not about earning an income online but purely about using the internet to develop one’s individual brand and improve career prospects/perceived worth.

To achieve this goal, you need to develop visibility and industry connections. For people to talk about you, they first need to know that you exist. And so it is important to develop visibility in all the right places through an online persona.

If you want to be deeply involved in the industry and want others to recommend you, you need to use the web to forge solid relationships that matter. To achieve all this, I’ve broken down the entire process into four progressive steps.

Step One: Build a Home Base on the Web

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The first step is to establish what I call a home base, a location online which people can access to find out more information about you. This usually comes in the form of a blog, resume site or online portfolio. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article:

In the online world, the individual has no physical form or detectable personality unless he or she demonstrates it. A website that is attached to your name is your home base. It is the platform which easily fleshes out your virtual self. It allows you to develop a recognizable style, personality and form.

You can now be categorized, understood and appreciated. Blogs and profiles in social networking sites achieve this aim. They create an online identity, a home base from which you launch off in order to build relationships with others on the web.

It is absolutely essential for you to have a home base. If you do not have a blog or portfolio website, start one immediately. You can use your name as the domain name or create a brandname you want to associate with yourself. Your homebase can be a simple blog or static site which offers a bio, resume, portfolio and contact.

If you are creating a blog, use the blog to write about your niche topic, while designating a few pages for your portfolio/resume. This homebase gives you an URL to insert in blog comments, social media profile pages and all sorts of other online communities, which is part of step two.

Step Two: Identify and Participate in the Right Communities

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After you’ve created a homebase, the next step is to make a list of the potential communities you can join and participate as a member. This list should target all of the well-populated social media networks, news sites, blogs and forums.

Your list should not only be niche-specific but location-specific, because it pays to know people in the same profession in your locality. Do your research via Google and blog directories like Technorati, which will give you a good list of blogs which cover your niche topic. Remeber to include all the relevant social news websites.

After you’ve made a list of the communities to target, draw up a participation schedule whereby you’ll register profiles on social media channel and contribute to the community via commenting, story submissions, discussions with other users etc.

A few key points to note while you are participating in these communities:

1. Use the Same Avatar and Name/Brand. Consistent branding is vital to visibility and using the avatar/handle allows you to be leverage the trust you’ve built in another community. It also makes it easier for other individuals to find and befriend you, especially if you are participating in multiple websites. There is also the additional benefit of reputation mangement, if you use the same brandname consistently, you’ll easily increase your visibility on the search engine results pages.




2. Specialize in Your Niche Topics. Online personas derive their power from boundaries. Seek to always define your online persona by aligning yourself with topics or areas for which, you want to be known as an expert or authority. For instance, one way of achieving this in a social news scenario is to exclusively submit stories in a specific field (science, health, software etc.).

   In social networking platforms like Facebook, seek to identify and befriend users with interests which fit your profession or industry focus. Constant association of your brand with a specific field will develop your reputation as an enthusiast and eventually as an expert.




3. Funnel Traffic Back to Your Home Base. The basic principle to observe is to include a link to your website on all the profile pages for all the communities you’ve joined. Also make it a habit to drive traffic back to your site in a subtle manner. Instead of overtly spamming the communities with your links, engage in conversations and offer value by answering the queries of other users.

   Expand on issues discuss in your blog and only when highly relevant, should you drop a reference to your site. Even so, you should practice self-promotion sparingly. Once you’ve reached a certain level of trust within the community, people will reference you automatically.

   Links on these communities are usually permanent and you’ll be surprised to find that they will be long-term sources of steady referral traffic, particularly if the community is well populated.




4. Build Relationships Away from Communities. Each community you use serves as a means to not only build relationships with others of similar interests but influencers, people with a established reputation and a high amount of trust within the specific industry. While interaction within a community like StumbleUpon or Digg is useful, I recommend advancing into more intimate forms of contact, perhaps through Internet Messengers, phone and meetups.

   Don’t let communities define and regulate how you interact with another individual. Sometimes they can limit the depth of any possible conversation. For instance, instead of reaching out to a blogger through a comment form, try establishing email or IM contact because they’ll allow stronger bonds to form.

When you are participating in these communities, you should start to see recommendations by other members. Some may link to your site and others may refer potential clients or enthusiasts to your site. You’ll increasingly be regarded as a go-to person when it comes down to your profession (designer/consultant etc)

The time should you spend on these communities depends on your schedule. I would suggest spending as much time as possible because this will prepare you for the last two steps, which is a more pro-active method towards branding yourself.

Step Three: Initiate Media Outreach To Get Publicity for Your Brand

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After developing your online contacts and establishing yourself within a community, you can start to perform media outreach by seeking out and making a list of journalists who cover the topics relevant to your focus. This includes not only bloggers but also print journalists for magazines, journals and newspapers.

The media shapes perceptions of how individuals think about you and it is important to make sure that you utilize them to disseminate news about an important event. Building relationships with journalists is extremely important for your credibility/brand. If you have the means, hire a personal PR agent that’s capable.

As you are still new to a specific niche, newspaper journalists may not consider you as a quotable source. However it is still important to touch base with journalists to let them know that you have a good amount of contacts which may be useful for the journalist. Pass them some story leads whenever possible.

For online blogs and print magazines, it is possible to establishing a relationship with the media by acting as a freelance contributor/writer. This refers to guest posting on blogs and paid assignments for print magazines. It is possible to get your work or name into print publications if you know how to pitch the right story ideas.

Events and localized scenarios are usually attractive when used as a case study or base towards larger feature stories. This is an angle you can use. For instance, I once secured some great print assignments in local magazines because I offered to provide detailed on-the-ground coverage of a large music festival in another country.

Step Four: Create Online Ventures to Develop Your Net Worth

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No matter offline or online, what strangers and acquaintances notice first is your reputation via a specific entity, be it your blog content, your portfolio or your overall history of participation in a forum. When you are trying to establish a reputation offline, most individuals will assess you according to your notable achievements.

In college applications, they’ll inevitably focus on your extra-curricular activities to understand you as a person. Companies and human resource departments will look at your previous job titles and take into account your level of experience.

So bear this in mind. What you own and have achieved online is quite important in the minds of others offline. If framed effectively, your online persona can become a vital, cohesive component of your individual brand.

So what should you do to boost your profile in the industry? My personal strategy would be to build multiple websites and ventures which I can attach to my name. But you’re not just creating these sites for empty associations. Each of these ventures should be strategically developed with several purposes in mind.

For example, if I were in the art field, this is what I’ll build and why:

1. An Art forum/social network. In order to position myself as a leader in the specific field, I should create communities which will allow me to attract large amounts of interested industry participants. This pull-strategy allows you to not only keep on top of happenings in the specific field but befriend a large amount of people who will be likely to support your future initiatives. This is a social branding strategy.




2. Multiple Niche Art Sites. I’ll narrow down my art interests to build sites that focuses entirely on specific art forms (e.g. Renaissance art). My goal is to make each site a definitive resource. This will of course involve conscious targeting and ranking of multiple keywords which will spread my name throughoug a specific topic field in search engines. Search engines will provide you with organic traffic and is a means to pick up a lot of relevant contacts. This is a search-oriented strategy.




3. General Art News Blog. A news blog is a good way to develop visibility, especially if there are no real competitors in the niche. I would make it a multi-author blog and I’ll invite the friends I have (including the ones I’ve met online) to write for it. A news blog frames you in the mold of a journalist. As a member of media, you’ll usually get access to launches, exhibitions, events and networking parties. This is a network-development strategy that’ll allow you to build your contacts offline.

I’ve placed this as the last step because it allows you to leverage your established community trust and media relations to kickstart these ventures. You don’t have to struggle to get people involved if you are well-networked enough: people will naturally recommend and provide support for your initiatives, especially if they are beneficial for the end-user or industry as a whole.

Some people will find that they don’t have the capabilities or time to build/maintain several websites. I think it’s fine to simply focus on getting attention to your porfolio and personal brand via community participation and media outreach. While online ventures can radically enhance your online brand, they aren’t necessary in all circumstances, so work according to your means and interests.

The web is a magnificent means to extend your personal brand. Develop maximal visiblity, build connections and learn how to manipulate publicity for attention. Create online ventures to dominate the field and most importantly of all, make yourself extremely relevant and engaged with anything that has to do with your profession.

And this is the way to build a powerful reputation within any industry.

This advice column is published every friday. If you have any questions at all, please send me an email and indicate that it’s for ‘Ask Dosh Dosh’.

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