How to Build Authenticity with Marketing Pro: Julian Gamboa
The Setup:
👀 Get a fresh perspective on personal branding from a pro
👋🏼 Meet Julian Gamboa, Marketing Manager at Adweek & LinkedIn Top Voice
🛠 Learn how to develop authenticity and inclusivity in your branding
Intro:
This week I’m joined by my friend Julian Gamboa. Julian is a University of California--Berkeley graduate, currently works as the Marketing & Social Media Manager at Adweek, and is a creativity wizard on twitter (Ryan Reynolds even follows him!) He also received the LinkedIn Top Voice award in 2017.
I first met Julian when we were both LinkedIn Campus Editors and I’ve been following his stories and career ever since. He’s always ahead of the marketing curve and has a great grasp on what content resonates with an audience.
Let’s dig into his answers:
JH: How intentionally do you build your brand? When did you start?
JG: I started building my personal brand back in college with LinkedIn in 2015.
I posted an article once a week on the latest in marketing news, grabbing the attention of LinkedIn Editors and resulting in being honoured as a LinkedIn Top Voice for 2017.
Despite college coursework, I published weekly articles and daily mini case studies on the latest ads to my LinkedIn feed. My work there was as polished as I could make it, but it felt that it lacked my personality.
Around 2018, I made the switch to Twitter, a platform where I couldn’t write a 500-word article on the latest ad, instead I only had 140 characters (at the time).
It took months to go from lurker to active poster, but soon enough I found my voice: quick, curious, and witty commentary. Now my Twitter is a bit chaotic, but it truly shows who I am, and it is still able to critique the latest marketing work. And the best part is that the community that I’ve met on Twitter have become real life friends.
JH: What do you consider to be a signature element of your personal brand?
JG: Approachable. Being a student reaching out to professionals can be very intimidating.
I recall thinking “why would an industry professional reply to me, a student? They must be getting important messages all the time, my message will just get lost in their inbox.”
And now being in the industry, I’ve realized that this is truly not the case. Most of the professionals I have met are always helping out the next wave of marketers or young talent by guiding them and even meeting them for a quick zoom call .💻
Now I know that taking the first steps as a student might be the scariest, that’s why I hope my voice comes off as approachable online, so that students lose that self-inflicted fear of reaching out and get their foot-on-the-door message.
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Read the rest of Julian’s authenticity and inclusivity tips.