Every 3 months a new issue of Personal Branding Magazine is released, and since I'm a staff columnist for the publication, it's my job to relate search marketing to that issue's "theme". That, in and of itself, is an interesting exercise that I would encourage all of you to undertake now and then. It's a stretch at times to find a relationship between your niche topic and someone else's "theme du jour". Flexing that relationship muscle though can be beneficial in a number of ways, but I'm getting off-track here. I didn't mean to wander into the concepts of search topic relationships, so let me mosey on back to the road I started journeying down.
This quarter's issue of Personal Branding Magazine is entitled "Millennials: Changing The Way We Do Business". Everyone who knows what a Millennial is, quick, raise your hand! For the rest of you, a quick definition is that a Millenial is a Gen-Y youth, born basically between 1980 and 2000. Some of you are Millennials, and some of us haven't seen that young age for a long, long time.
I thought long and hard about the article I planned to write for this issue, and for a while, I was having difficulties with it. So I stopped and thought about all of you...you Millennials that I speak with on a daily basis via forums, Twitter, Plurk, etc. And it suddenly dawned on me that I'd been approaching the topic from the wrong angle (that of pure SEO). Once I flexed those theme relationship muscles a bit, (there I go wandering off the path again), it was obvious what needed to be said. So what did I write about this time? Well, the title of my article is Millennials: The Perfect Social Media Marketing Workforce. Although I'm not allowed to re-state the article here, I'm sure the title alone is enough to get you thinking in the right direction. If you want more details, you'll need to grab a subscription to the magazine, though. (Keep reading to find out how to download a free sample copy of the magazine).
Sure, that's a sales pitch for the magazine, but I don't get any money from it, so it's not a phoney-baloney endorsement. The magazine really rocks, and I think this particular edition is the best yet. It's jam packed with 25 excellent articles, from some really interesting authors. It begins with an interview with the 23-year old CEO of iContact, a talk with Millennial entrepreneur "Johnny Cupcakes" which is now a multi-million dollar brand, and a look at one Millennial who is Living the Brand: Ben Casnocha, who started an e-government software company at the age of 24.
In addition to getting a first-hand look at Millenials who have made it big, there are lots of articles that hit home with search professionals like us. Here's one I particularly enjoyed: "3 Tips on Fighting Your Google Doppelganger" by Rohit Bhargava, who will soon be releasing a book entitled Personality Not Included (a guide for companies on understanding and using their personality to better connect with customers in the social media era). Another example of a great article is one by Jay Deragon, titled "Gaining A Competitive Advantage", which delves into participating in the conversations about you and your company. Other articles include, "Social Media Exploration: Audience", "What's Old is New Again", "Bridging the Hidden Gap Between Perception and Reality", "Are You Guilty of Selling Snake Oil in Interviews?", and lots more.
Dan Schawbel is the Gen-Y publisher of the magazine and his hard work and energy really shows. Each edition of the publication seems to be even better than the last. And as always, 50% of all proceeds goes to the American Cancer Society.
You can download a free 7-page sample issue at www.personalbrandingsample.com right now, but the full issue won't be available until Friday (8/1/08). At that time, you can go to www.personalbrandingmag.com to subscribe to the magazine (if you haven't already), and grab this edition. (Notice that those two links are different). Some other links: If you want to see Dan as a YouTube star, you can check out the magazine promo video here or you can find the Facebook Fan Page here.
Historically, the magazine has only been available as a PDF download, and while that will still be the preferred publication method, Dan is offering a way to purchase it in print format for the first time, which can be shipped to you. At an extra $7, it sounds a little pricey, but since half goes to charity, it's well worth it, imo. Even if you decide not to subscribe or purchase the print version, I still encourage you to download the free sample issue. Good info to be had for free. 🙂
