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Audio Conference: Amy Gahran

“No one will hire you, if Google can’t find you.”

Amy Gahran, info-provocateur and media consultant in Oakland, participated in an audio conference with online journalism students at George Mason University where she shared her career experiences and advice about web promotion and the power of Google.

She researches the kind of phones that people have in Oakland, and “strips down mobile webbing.” Gahran discussed her first experiences with her blog, contentious.com, and shared the immediate feedback she got from viewers.

“In like an hour, I got [500] responses and subscribers and two messages,” she said. And she confessed to being lucky to have to many people interested in her blog, and initially had the same interests as she did.

Her main advice was about buying a domain, having a website of your own so that people can find you. And even so, hire you.

“No one will hire you, if Google can’t find you.”

She continues with advice about being active on the internet and promoting interesting stories that draw attention to audiences and viewers. The main factor in getting the audience you want is understanding how they get their information. In other words, Gahran emphasized the immediate importance and effect of the world’s well-known and most used search engine, Google.

“Don’t let your only social presence be Facebook,” she said. “You want to make sure you are your own site that Google sees.”

“It’s really hard to get people to get to your website, but you gotta go to them. Prioritize with the peole you need to connect with – and don’t do things that you just think are interesting. Instead, think about who you need to connect with and where they are.”

Well, what if you don’t where you audience is?

Use social blogging tools like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, WordPress and other forms of social media tools to connect with audiences they want to reach.

“Re-tweet things,” she advices. “Find and connect with your audience. Develop a posse. Don’t just publish.”

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