Do you think it's important to have a profile?

Whatever ever you do as a job it's a given that you need to have some kind of profile whether it's within your company or your industry. How relevant is its presence online? How important is building it and maintaining it? 

About six years ago, when I trying to get on in my radio career I had a conversation with a boss at a London station who said to me 'Do you have a profile'? I remember, in my naivety, not really knowing what he meant. I'd been spending my time getting radio work . The twitter phenomena hadn't started, it never occurred to me to put my demos on MySpace or get myself invited to the hottest parties so I'd get snapped in London's free papers that were still lining the floor of the tubes. I was just busy juggling several jobs whilst making CD's and sending them to people. I didn't have a website my methods were calling and sending emails and asking if there was work - I didn't want to be famous, I just wanted to carry on being on the radio. 

Oh how that's changed (not the fame side mind you) I now have: 

A website www.natalieb.co.uk
Twitter @NatalieBonAir
A facebook page www.facebook.com/NATALIEBTALKSFORME 
I'm on linked in http://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliebonair 
Google plus google.com/+NatalieB 
I put snippets from my radio show on audioboo http://audioboo.fm/natalieb

It can feel like SOCIAL OVERLOAD!

I have a tumblr account but don't use it and I'm sporadic on Instagramme. Oh and not forgetting my You tube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/NatalieBonAir

So along with doing my day job, there is all of this to maintain and I do find it overwhelming at times. It's taken me a good while to get used to these outlets and enjoy using them. I'm learning about time saving tools, ways to schedule tweets and one of my tech savvy pals has been talking to me about ways in which you can consolidate all you can do.

In today's social media crazy world, if you want to work in the media you have to have an online and offline profile. There's no two ways about it.I was chatting with a younger presenter pal of mine the other day who is in her early 20's. She's a graduate, working three jobs in cool media agencies whilst presenting two radio shows. She's already got a good presence online and has been chatting to an agent - which is amazing and I've been brainstorming ideas on how she can maximise this opportunity. Her concern is that she's up against models being picked for their looks and given radio or tv presenting roles. It made me shudder to hear this. You just have to hope that real talent will be the ultimate winner but this proves you have to keep putting in the hours and chasing down these opportunities - which is where the online profile helps. 

I've been asking myself questions about what new challenges can I take on and I've decided to go back to University to study how we can operate better online. A 'techology'! There's so much that can be done in a free online space - the mind boggles and to deny the change is relevant to you is just plain stupid.

What it comes down to is working SMART NOT HARD. 

This week I got myself on National TV - on Daybreak (yes you have to look closely) 


Plus I got to give a little insight into what it's like doing a breakkie radio show for the brilliant Sound Women podcast which you can hear here
https://soundcloud.com/soundwomen/swp10?in=soundwomen/sets/soundwomenpodcast

All items of content I could tweet and blog about. Thus raising my profile. Along with my radio work there's my voiceover business and this week I've just started working with a new voiceover agent www.devinevoices.com and I'm currently on a 7 day course thanks to www.voiceovergarden.com on how to boost my business. Its non-stop which is what I expect. 

I can't help but wonder though whether life would be more straight forward if I did one job rather than several but I just don't think I was made that way. 

I guess I'm trying to highlight that if you thought working in the media was an easy ride - please don't underestimate what is involved. I do feel there are times in my working day when those around me think just because I'm leaving their office that my day then becomes leisurely. 

Oh how wrong they are. This switch is always on and I don't think it could be any other way.