Building Your Personal Brand Without A Blog – 3 of 3

I hope you’ve enjoyed this short series… day 1 was writing articles, day two was writing a book (no kidding!), and today’s is…

Have a radio show!

HUH?? Who, really, can have a radio show? This is more ludicrous than writing a book, right? Not really, it’s actually quite simple.

My only real experience with accessible “radio” programming is through BlogTalkRadio. I’ve listened to the Recruiting Animal’s radio show a couple of times, and been on it once. I have also been on Darlene McDaniel’s radio show twice. And Thom Singer just started a radio show there. It’s obvious to me how this can play into your personal branding strategy, but HOW do you actually do it? Here are some thoughts:

1. Go to BlogTalkRadio and click on Become a Host. Of course you might want to read through the How It Works page before you commit. It’s that simple!
2. You can choose from a bunch of time slots… I think the only limits are on prime time slots (thanks Thom, for that tidbit)… Darlene’s show is on Saturday morning at 7am my time (9am her time). Thom’s is Sunday afternoon. Both of these times are not convenient for me… but there’s an added bonus (see #3)
3. The shows are … recorded!! This means that it doesn’t really matter when you do your show, as you can post it on a blog or website quite easily.
4. This means that you can also call yourself a podcaster, if you want. Wondered how to put together a podcast, so that all of those smart people that commute to work can have something from you to listen to during their commute? All you need is an account and a phone line (cell, skype, landline, whatever). Do your “radio show” and then post it on your free blog… you don’t need to think about the technology at all!
5. Since you are a podcaster you can also post your show on some of the podcast sites (Podango.com, PodcastPickle.com, PodcastAlley.com Odeo.com), to reach that audience! (thanks to podcast veteran Daniel Johnson, Jr. for letting me know about these resources)

It seems to me that you will be able to kill a few birds with one stone here (“I host the xyz radio show,” “I have a podcast,” and no hassle with technology, all for free!). One thing I like about blogtalkradio is that you can have up to five people call in… which means a discussion. As a blogger I really dig that, and think it will be way more interesting than just one or two people talking (although 2 people dialoging can be quite interesting).

I’m not doing it yet because right now I’m pretty busy with my blog, my blog marketing strategy, other marketing and branding things, as well as running a business (hey, I can only do so much in twelve hours, then I need to go home!). But if you aren’t doing any of the other things for your personal brand, and you can commit to an hour a week (or 15 minutes, or 30 minutes – it’s up to you!!) for this, I think it’s an excellent idea.

Ok, so let’s wrap this up. Do you buy any of this jazz? Is it important to build your personal brand? Are you proactively managing yours? I google people all the time and am amazed at how few really have an established brand that comes up. But really:

• blogging requires commitment (hence, the purpose of this series)
• articles require a few hours of concentrated intellect (since it’s final, you can’t edit it after you’ve submitted)
• the book can be a gargantuan project, which probably stops tons of people from trying it,
• and radio was probably only for the lucky people :p

…so it’s all hard, right? But you can do it – the technology is there, and it’s all free! Does any of this make sense for YOU to do?

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