Practical Wisdom from the Entrepreneurs Creative Edge by William Reed

A channel is a pathway that controls the flow of attention, a precious commodity in today’s hyper-distracted world. Broadcast networks dominate the attention of millions of people because of their power to control content on a channel. The cost of entry is high.

Chances are you cannot compete for broadcast media time with companies that have large advertising budgets. Traditionally, the only alternative to paying for air time has been to get media coverage, but only if you have something considered newsworthy. Either way, you don’t have control over your content, and it is completely out of reach for the average person.

The Internet has changed the paradigm completely by making it possible for virtually anyone to broadcast to the world with much greater control over their content. It also brings a whole new set of challenges. Although the price of entry is quite low, the landscape of new channels competing for everyone’s attention is vast and constantly changing.

Human attention breaks down when it becomes divided. It is almost impossible to be effective or have impact if you are distracted, and the proliferation of channels and choices has caused many people to live in a state of constant distraction. Ironically, the solution to regaining attention and focus might actually be to get your own channel.

This gives you both an advantage and an opportunity. Having your own channel, you need to be focussed to create a stream of relevant content and consistent themes. If this content is useful, entertaining, or engaging, then it will attract a following. You can even have different channels for different types of content, and link them all together for easy cross-reference.

Technology provides an easy path for finding interesting content and for subscribing to it. You can also choose how you wish to receive the content, by e-mail or syndicated reader, or simply by bookmarking it on your list of favorite sites.

For better and for worse, traditional media filters content depending on policy, relevance, and editorial decisions. More signal, less noise. Some effort is made to maintain quality standards, because the content reflects on the brand of the media. On the Internet for the most part there are no filters, other than the ones that you impose yourself. Here there is much more signal, and much more noise.

Create your own content and communicate it on your channel. This will give you a platform and a presence that says more than you could ever fit on a resume or short job interview. You can be almost certain that before you even get to a job interview, the company has already done a Google search to see what they can find out about you online. Of course, you should be Googling the company and yourself too!

The problem is that if you don’t have a channel, a Google search may provide a slanted view, based on photos, videos, or text that was never intended to be for a job search. Aggregate your posts and uploads to a channel that you control. Common sense also dictates that you don’t want photos of the last beer bash floating around on Facebook!

If you approach content creation as a strategic part of your personal branding, then you will gain more clarity for yourself and create less confusion for others.

With a blog as your hub, a YouTube channel for video, and a Twitter account to regularly point people to your channel, you have a powerful combination. But like a garden, you’ve got to attend to it every day. If people visit your channel and find that nobody is home, they are not likely to return.

YouTube has grown to become not only a popular site for entertainment and music videos, but also for learning, sharing ideas, and a powerful tool for marketing and promotion. It is currently one of the top sites for Internet searches on almost any topic. YouTube allows you to create and customize your own channel, as well as to post any video on YouTube directly on your own website.

If I post a short URL on Twitter, it can point people to a particular video on YouTube, which features a link to my YouTube Channel as well as my blog, a scrollable list of all of the videos I have uploaded, links to related videos, and the ability to share or comment on the video, or even download or post it to your own site! And all of this is practically free. It all starts with a simple URL like http://budurl.com/cv59

Compared to that, a traditional media company won’t even lift a finger on your behalf. If you do the heavy lifting yourself, you also get all of the benefits.

For the real deal on personal branding, get to know Dan Schwabel, author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, a must read for today’s job seekers. Visit his blog at: http://www.personalbrandingblog.com, where you can also find dozens of channels that Dan has set up in Social Media.

William Reed

BLOG: http://www.EntrepreneursCreativeEdge.com

YOUTUBE Channel: http://www.YouTube.com/taproot55

PODCASTS: http://www.creativecareerpath.com

VIDEO BLOG (Japanese): http://www.reedcom.jp