If you want to create ‘strategic omnipresence’ for your brand, think like the BBC!

G’day, I’m Trevor - welcome to Reputation OnRamp, thanks for being a valued subscriber! If you know someone who’d be interested in this newsletter, please do forward it to them. They can subscribe here. Thanks in advance :)

💡 HERE’S THE BIG IDEA 💡

WARNING: This concept is for ambitious business owners who are wanting to take their owned and social media content efforts up a notch or two. It focuses on creating strategic omnipresence online, 'outdoing' your competitors by approaching things in a smarter, more expansive way 🚀

Let's do this!

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One of the biggest challenges facing solopreneurs and owners of growing businesses today is to cut through all the noise and the clutter online, and to stand out and resonate in a respectful and purposeful way with those people who are in their target audience.

One way to do this is to go bigger and create what I call ‘strategic omnipresence’ for your brand.

Now, omnipresence obviously means being everywhere, and it’s a multichannel approach.

But we don’t want to simply be everywhere generally and randomly - we want to approach things strategically. This means being everywhere your audience is, with relevant content designed to resonate with the right people.

I’ve long been a massive believer in businesses (and personal brands) becoming their own media channel. Reason being, we can now publish our own content and grow our audience, whereas years ago, it was incredibly hard to do so. Over time, we’re able to communicate directly with said audience without having to go through a ‘middle man’ (external third party).

This doesn’t mean we don’t try to leverage independent third-party channels like magazines, podcasts etc - either via earned media, or paid advertising - but this, to me, is the ‘cream on top’ of the reputational base we’ve built.

I've been banging this particular drum for more than 15 years, and I still fervently believe it to this day, albeit I acknowledge things are a lot more challenging today with the maturation (and saturation) of social media and other digital channels.

Today, we need to be more specific, strategic and intentional with how we establish our online presence, from the content we create to the audience we build and connect with.

Two ways to go

In essence, there are two main roads we can go down when it comes to publishing content - we can either go small and niche, using one or two channels only and working the heck out of them, or GO BIG and start building a ‘content machine’ to drive our efforts across multiple owned and social media channels.

This article is all about the latter.

But before we launch into it, I want to emphasise the following:

While building a ‘content machine’ sounds kinda scary, with today’s technology (including AI) and the wide availability (and accessibility) of specialist freelance resources, it’s eminently doable for smaller operators. Indeed, it’s one of the rare opportunities in which owners of small businesses can really take it right up to the big boys!

Yes, it will take a lot more work than just focusing on a couple of channels only, but equally, the potential to dominate your ‘space’ content-wise does have commercial merit.

Building out our own media network

I think that today, we now have the opportunity to create and build out our own media network.

I want to give you an example of what this might look like through the lens of the BBC, that veritable British media brand.

So what does thinking like the BBC (albeit, a micro version!) look like?

First thing to consider is that there are multiple channels under the BBC umbrella brand.

Firstly, there’s BBC One - this is BBC’s flagship channel, broadcasting mainstream entertainment, comedy, drama, documentaries, films, news, sport, and some children's programs.

Then we have …

• BBC Two - focuses on more specialist programming, including comedy, documentaries, dramas, children's programming, and minority interest programs.

• BBC Three - targets a younger audience (16-34 years old) with new comedies, dramas, and documentaries.

• BBC Four - offers niche programming for an intellectually inclined audience, featuring specialist documentaries, serious dramas, live theatre, foreign language films

And then there are the more specific niche channels, such as BBC Parliament (dedicated to covering UK parliamentary proceedings and international politics), BBC News (24-hour news channel covering UK and global news) and CBBC (programming for children aged six and above, broadcasting from 07:00 to 19:00).

Of course, the BBC is much bigger than just these seven channels, but you get the gist.

Here’s the thing: There is no reason why we can’t take a similar branded approach with our own micro-media networks, and be doing it for our own personal brand and business - on a way, way smaller scale, obviously 😆

Conceptually, this is all doable today - we have the tools, we have the technology, we have the know-how … we now just need the passion and enthusiasm and the wherewithal to do it!

Let’s workshop this …

What would be your BBC One?

Your blog perhaps? It’s got all the things. It’s your master brand, your premium content hub. This could be your BBC One.

And BBC Two? Maybe that is your podcast, aimed at a very specific audience.

BBC Three might be your YouTube channel, for example, while BBC Four could be your email newsletter; these could be sub-branded media properties in their own right, but operated under the umbrella of your ‘master’ (personal or business) brand.

Of course, there’s no reason why the content can’t be repurposed and shuffled across all of these channels at various stages. This is key to making the ‘machine’ work effectively for micro media producers (i.e. you)

For example, with my podcast (Crank The 3rd) I record it in video as well as audio.

So I have the audio that gets published as a podcast, plus the video gets cut up into snippets and distributed via my various social channels. 

But then I also publish the full interview on YouTube. N.B. In a previous incarnation of the podcast (it’s since been rebranded), every episode also went out as an issue of my newsletter.

And then we get to the more ‘specialist channels’ i.e. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook (or TikTok) – these really are your BBC Parliament, your BBC News and your CBBC, so to speak.

With Instagram, for example, you might choose to focus on just one of your content ‘pillars’; you may also want to place emphasis on just one format i.e. Reels, and ignore carousels or Stories.

Personally, I use all of these channels, but I certainly don’t come up with new content all the time.

In my case, a good chunk of content for each channel is designed for a specific channel i.e. I might put different things on TikTok than what I post on LinkedIn, for example.

So let’s recap:

Say we produce one long-form ‘destination show’. It lives on our blog as a video or an audio player (embedded podcast) along with show notes, or as a full article.

We’ve got the podcast that people can subscribe to via their podcast app of choice, we’ve got the YouTube channel, we’ve got the email newsletter – roughly the same content, just remixed and reformatted where necessary.

And then you have your ‘digital breadcrumbs’ popping up on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook etc.

WORTH NOTING: If your business really does require it (and you can make it work in terms of time and resources), there is no reason why each of your channels can’t have their own niche and truly become original standalone in terms of subject matter and designated audience, with your social media accounts acting as the distributors of your chunked down micro-content.

For example:

• your podcast might be produced specifically with one audience group in mind

• Your email newsletter might support your podcast, and extrapolate on what you cover in that medium

• your YouTube channel might tackle a different (albeit adjacent) subject matter for another audience

• Your Instagram account might support your YouTube videos via <60-second Reels

Folks, this is all doable!

People are doing this all the time.

What I’ve outlined above is just a more strategic way of approaching your content production and distribution, with a view to overwhelm and outshine your competition.

We’re all busy, so we’ve got to be smarter with how we operate, both as business owners and as content creators - yes, we have two roles today!

But if we look at an even bigger picture than what we’re doing currently - if we want to grow our business by building a greater presence and audience than our competitors, then we need to start thinking about becoming proprietors of our own media network as well.

Onwards!

Trevor

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"Don’t market more. Matter more." - Jay Acunzo

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO:

Dire Straits (self-titled) - Listen on Spotify

In case we haven’t met yet …

Hi, I’m Trevor. I help purpose-led business owners become clear and confident in how they leverage PR, content and digital communications for profit, impact and legacy.

Would you like to discuss how I can help you in a coaching capacity to build your profile and reputation as a trusted and credible expert or thought leader in your industry?  CLICK HERE TO BOOK A NO-OBLIGATION 30-MINUTE ZOOM CALL