Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

A lot of my friends, colleagues, ex-classmates and family wonder why I post ten times a week on this blog, in addition to filming podcasts, tweeting roughly fifty times or so per week and more. There are a lot of reason to be a content producer, not just a consumer, but today I want to go over the branding aspect that might be overlooked.

Traditional brand reminders

For a brand to be recollected, relative to a certain brand set (company, product, person), it has to be shown multiple times within a specific time period.

When you overload people’s senses, especially the ones in your target audience, they have no choice but to remember your name and what you stand for, at a minimum. For example, some celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lil Wayne and Brad Pitt, are making the covers of major magazines like US Magazine and People Magazine.

You can’t even leave a convenience store without seeing their face! Product brands like Gillette Razors and iPods are remembered because of TV commercials, subway advertising, print advertising and more. After a long history of advertising and PR, things begin to resonate quicker.

Let’s say the press stops caring about a celebrity or brands stop advertising altogether for a year. Would you remember it? I would say, depending on the strength of the brand (equity), some brands would lose a lot of mindshare.

Why you have to produce content regularly

Every single time you post on your blog, upload a YouTube video, or tweet using Twitter, you are reminding people of your existence and your promise of value. Your readers or visitors will make a mental note that you are still in the conversation, actively participating by providing them (hopefully) something useful or entertaining or both.

Over time, people start paying a lot of attention to those who contribute content regularly and consistently. These individuals, possibly yourself, reap extraordinary rewards, such as a possible job offer, speaker opportunity, consulting gig and more.

The opportunity cost for being a “light producer”

If you did a blog post once every month, and you weren’t a celebrity, I think people would forget about you. They would just move onto the next blog that could provide the same or greater value. Since there are over 133 million blogs, it’s pretty easy to unsubscribe and subscribe to a different one. When people don’t see your name after a while they forget about you, but if you choose to produce content constantly, they won’t have a choice but to remember you.