Rob Gokee and I met through twitter awhile ago…we then connected through my “free” post and finally met in person about 2 months ago. Rob has done a brilliant job combining his multiple personalities into one website, and one good business. So I asked him to share his story…Take it away Rob!
Multiple Personality Disorder
I’ve got it. But not in the way that you think.
I’m a composer for film, television & webseries. It’s been my job for the last 5 years. It’s kind of a niche marketplace, I’ve got it down to a science: who I market to, where I find them, how I get my foot in the door. Twitter became a big part of that over the last few years, so much so that I wrote a book about the experience.
Being a writer takes a different set of muscles than being a composer. And when you’re writing about yourself… that’s a whole other animal. It was an amazing and cathartic experience, but it opened up a can of worms. When the book was finished, published and in my hands, I realized I had to market myself as an author in order to sell it. Personality Number Two.
Then, because of my experience on Twitter and the book I wrote about it, people started asking me to speak about social media, which then turned into helping people (and small businesses) with their social media. And a third personality was born.
The problem came in the separation. It was important to promote only the parts of me that were related to the work I was soliciting. A director or producer doesn’t care that I wrote a book about social media. And an independent bookstore doesn’t care that I’m a composer. I already had a website for music, and created one for the book, and I was suddenly faced with a dilemma: I needed one for social media work. Keeping up with one blog was hard enough, now I was looking at three blogs that all needed to be maintained, and three sites that needed to be updated, on top of the work itself they were generating. I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.
I met Kirsten for lunch one afternoon, and asked for her opinion. She presented a solution that I myself had entertained a few weeks prior: Create a static page that has three buttons, each leading to a different site so that people had one place to go. It was a great idea, but with one flaw. I still had to build and maintain three different sites. That’s when it hit me: I didn’t need to.
I’m a composer. If I wasn’t a composer, I wouldn’t have written the book, which is about my job. I’m also adept at social media marketing, which I wouldn’t have been without being a composer and writing the book. I’m not three personalities: I’m one. What was wrong with combining the three things into one place? So I created one site, with three different sections. I took all three sites and “merged” them over to robgokee.com, and created one blog with 3 different categories. That way, I could separate the posts by job, but only manage one blog. I had a logo created that also became my new business card. On the landing page, I created buttons in Illustrator that took visitors to the section that most fit what they were looking for. And you know what? It worked.
It comes down to what you’re branding. I consider myself a brand; I’m selling myself. It makes sense that I should keep everything in one place where it’s easy to find. If you’re your own brand, you need to build everything else around that, and not the other way around. It’s OK that you do more than one thing, but it’s important that your “brand” isn’t scattered; it needs to be focused. Otherwise, you’ll always be battling with the other personalities, and then no one wins.
