I was talking with a friend of mine from way back in the day when we both went to The New York Film Academy. We had kept in touch over the years, but it was not until recently where we decided to have a video chat. I was so happy to see my friends face, brought back memories from having many adventures in New York. Back in the day, we learned filmmaking using actual film! How times have changed. We also talked about how distribution in the film industry has changed and how now everybody is trying to build their platform for streaming.

This leads of course to the inevitable discussion on how everybody is their own media channel and how difficult is to build your media platform. Also, know as your personal brand. I want to share with you how I am approaching building my own personal brand. Remember that everybody has a unique story to tell. All my clients are different and they stand out in their unique ways. I'm proof of this. Here in Austin where I live I joke that there are 5,000 other videographers. Many of them are way better than me. My friend Andrew Baird is one of the best cinematographers I know. He is just that good. We are friends and peers. Excited to see him work in more feature films. My strength, however, is as a documentarian. I get to know my clients. Sometimes I even live with them for a few days because I'm documenting their lives, their story. That is what makes me different from the rest of the videographers.

I'm very excited to continue to share my unique point of you while building my personal brand. The best way I can do it is by publishing stories on this blog and Youtube. I want to help demystify what building a personal brand actually entails. The best way I can do it at the moment is to share my journey on how I'm building my own as I help my clients doing personal branding videos for them. It's so meta my head is exploding.

The thing is that this is fun for me. I'm having fun doing this daily. I have figured out a way to show my personality with my brand. So every day is a new adventure. What kills joy and fun is not enjoying the process of building what you're trying to build. I mentioned this on a previous blog post where I went more on detail.

Building a personal brand takes time. People need to hear your story. It takes time to build trust. The things I did years ago that seemingly went nowhere are now paying out. I had a company reach out to me recently. I tried to work with them years ago. I sent them an email and I got no reply. I was a rookie doing commercial videos at the time my portfolio was more focused on weddings, so I don't blame them. Then they found me on Linkedin recently and saw my body of work regarding I have been building and they reached out to me! Ironically I turned them down since I'm no longer interested in doing the kind of video work they needed.

One more thing for you guys. It's no enough at the beginning to just publish a blog post or Youtube videos or posting on or other social media platforms. You have to make collaborations with people around your niche. Show up on other people's platforms, get invited to a podcast and/or other Youtube channels. That is what I will do. Just watch or better yet don't wait to believe me. Start doing it yourself!