Going Solo

Hi there, Im Henriette Weber a social marketing and branding professional having my own company called Toothless Tiger, working out of Copenhagen, Denmark. I am writing here to offer you some advice on “how to include mainstream media in your PR and marketing”.

I got to write this blogpost on the Going Solo blog because Stephanie and I had a conversation in the back of a car during the shift08 conference in Lisbon, Portugal. I told her about my strategy for mainstream and so far I am working my way around it, and so far it works.

Now:

Journalists wont be knockin on your door or ringing you. You need to contact them. nothing new here. There’s one keyword to a succesful mainstream media presence: proactivity.

I have defined it in three steps

1. You figure out who you are

Or let me rephrase that – you figure out who you are towards your peers – your community. Both Micro and Macro community (meaning people who knows you very well and people who knows you less well personal and workwise). What do they think about you – is your thought about yourself the same as other people think ? or are you way off ?. Conduct a research and figure out where you’re at, or who you are to others.

2. you become who you are

Either you change the perception that people have of you, or you change – so you are real close to be in sync with the thoughts about you from your peers.

3. you find out who you want to be

Make a strategy for how you want to be in the future.

4. you market who you are

you use the two above steps to market who you are – inside out. Both who you feel you are, but also other peoples perception of you.

You do it proactively. Say no to things and interviews that is not in sync with step 3.

write letters, columns and debates. proactively within your subject – that makes your person stand out more.

that’s my first advice here – enjoy

There have been a few questions on Twitter, so here’s some information for the Big Day.

First of all, aside from Sébastien who will be filming and uploading the talks, Charbax who will be conducting video interviews, and Ernst-Jan who will be live-blogging for The Next Web blog, Swiss podcaster Thierry Weber of Culture Pod will also be present with his camera to report on the event.

And then, there are all of you, the people formerly known as the audience ;-), Going Solo attendees, bloggers, podcasters, videobloggers, photographers or reporters in your own right. You are most welcome to blog, photograph, record, sketch all the happenings of the day. We’ll do our best to keep track of everything that pops on our radar, but you can help us by:

• tagging your various productions goingsolo
• sending a tweet @goingsolo with the link or an e-mail to steph at going hyphen solo dot net

We encourage you to use a Creative Commons license, by-nc-sa for example, but of course you’re free to do what you want with your work. If you produce video material, we’d be really happy to be able to include it on the official Going Solo DailyMotion page (with a link to the original, of course), if you’ll let us.

As far as the backchannel is concerned, Twitter is of course the place to go (use @goingsolo in front of your message if you want to make sure we see it). If you don’t have an account yet, open one now!

There will be folks hanging out in channel #goingsolo on the Freenode IRC network, too. I’m already there – come on in.

Update: if you’re on Twitter, join the Going Solo community on SixGroups. Give them your Twitter name and @sixgroups will start following you. Any of your updates using the hashtag #goingsolo will appear in the SixGroups livestream.

I got some great news this week-end: Charbax will be conducting a series of video interviews (in HD format!) at Going Solo, for techvideoblog.com.

I met him at LIFT08, where he interviewed me about Going Solo. I already published the video here ages ago, but here it is again if you want to have a peek.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ud4b1RQYPtE]

I liked what he did for LIFT08 so much that I asked him if he would be available to come and do the same thing at Going Solo. He immediately accepted, but we weren’t 100% sure his schedule of work with the UEFA would allow him to be there the whole day. But it does!

So, keep an eye open for Charbax at Going Solo, and let him interview you if he asks!

I should have written this post long ago (I thought about it so much that I was actually certain I’d already written it). Although in my mind the audience for this conference is quite clear, I realise each time I talk about Going Solo to a new person that it’s actually far from obvious.

The people I have in mind can be described as “freelancers and small business owners working in somewhere in the internet industry”. I’m defining an audience through the intersection of a way of working (loosely called “freelancing”) and an area of work (the “internet industry”).

More details, on the “freelancing” part. Who do I include?

• freelancers, obviously
• small business owners/partners (people who are mostly their own boss)
• people who are thinking of going solo/freelance, or might be tempted one day (students, employees, or unemployed)
• any person who is “their own boss”

Now, for the “internet industry” part. I’m casting a wide net here:

• anybody who either “builds” the internet or uses it as a “media channel”
• designers, developers, photographers, social media people, consultants or all shapes and sizes, event organizers, PR and marketing people, independent journalists, bloggers, podcasters, startup-ers, writers, artists, thinkers, tinkerers… and I’m forgetting loads

In addition to that, I believe that anybody who works with freelancers will find this event interesting. And any freelancer, even outside this loosely defined “internet industry” will get something out of this day.

Geographically, now, who is this event intended for? People who are comfortable in English, of course (although Going Solo will be held in French-speaking Lausanne, it will be entirely in English), from all across Europe. It’s open to people from further away, of course — but I’m aware that flying over the Atlantic for a one-day event might be a bit of a stretch for some people ;-). So, let’s say Going Solo is European-centric.

As you can see, I’m describing the attendees from an “insider” point of view. I’m part of this group. But seen from the outside, what would we have? Without expecting every single person to fit the description, I think we can say that the people coming to Going Solo are an audience which is:

• internet-literate
• cutting-edge in what they do (something which pushes many towards freelancing)
• highly connected and networked
• influent
• willing to learn, find solutions, evolve
• enterprising

I hope this post helps make things clearer. Leave a comment with a question if there are murky areas left!