Personal Branding and Social Media

Welcome to episode 137 of the Testing Peers podcast!

This time, join  Callum Akehurst-Ryan, Russell Craxford, Chris Armstrong and David Maynard as we discuss Personal Branding and Social Media.

In this episode, the Peers discuss the importance of personal branding and the role social media plays in shaping professional identity within the testing community.

The conversation explores how each of the hosts approaches their own personal brand, the motivations behind building one, and the ways in which visibility and authenticity can influence employability, reputation and connection. The group also considers the evolution of social media platforms, how algorithms influence engagement, and how to use these platforms effectively while staying true to personal values.

Key discussion points include:

• The link between personal branding and professional opportunities
• Developing an identifiable and consistent online presence
• Balancing authenticity, tone of voice and self-promotion
• The impact of algorithms and how to navigate them
• Choosing the right platforms for your goals, from LinkedIn and YouTube to community spaces such as the Ministry of Testing Club [https://club.ministryoftesting.com/]
• The idea of defining your brand through a single theme or “word” [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-your-word-finding-perfectly-describes-you-career-dan-ashby-1sv2e/?trackingId=xoBbDkUiRfmqX6GsXR2U7g%3D%3D]

The hosts share their experiences of what has worked for them, the challenges of maintaining consistency, and the benefits of intentionality in developing a recognisable and trustworthy online identity.

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Transcript

0:00: Welcome to another exciting episode of Testing Piers, sponsored by NFocus. 
 0:06: EFocus is a UK based software testing company. 
 0:10: They've been supporting businesses for 24 years by providing services that include first resource, accelerated test automation, performance testing, and fully managed testing services. 
 0:21: In 20. 
 0:22: 21, they launched the Test Automation Academy to create amazing testers, and they've now created jobs for 48 people in our industry in just under 3 years, which is amazing. 
 0:33: Please head to www.endfocus.co.uk and info at endfocus.co.uk for anyone wanting to get in touch. 
 0:43: In this episode, we will be talking about personal branding and social media. 
 0:49: I and Callum Akehurst Ryan, and I'm joined by the amazing Christopher Iandy Armstrong. 
 0:58: And Russell Cracksford. 
 1:01: Hello, as well as David Maynard. 
 1:04: Hello. 
 1:05: This is where I will hand over to Russell for the pre-prepared banter section. 
 1:09: Well, pre-prepared as in 30 seconds ago, yeah. 
 1:12: Today's interesting question is one that I'm sure everyone's gonna be keen to hear, which is asking the crew tonight what is or was your favourite cuddly toy. 
 1:21: You could name the type of animal it was if it was an animal, character it was, or even an actual name that you called it. 
 1:27: Well, I, I've actually had two. 
 1:29: Two favourites, 2 favourites, yeah, I slept. 
 1:32: 2 priority number 1. 
 1:33: Yeah, so they were both teddy bears. 
 1:35: I had, and the really inventive names of Big Ted and Little Ted, and Little Ted, I think I might have loved a little more cos I chewed his ear. 
 1:44: Yeah, so I had 2. 
 1:45: Being a child of the 80s, mine was very much an IP property. 
 1:50: So my favourite cuddly toy growing up was Roger Rabbit from the acclaimed movie. 
 1:56: Did you frame Roger Rabbit? 
 1:58: I don't think You Me was, was good enough at puns for such things. 
 2:03: shame. 
 2:03: I had. 
 2:04: A, my grandfather bought us all a teddy bear from the same place in the Northwest, and we all, so it was all the same bear, but in a different colour and named after him. 
 2:15: Interestingly enough, so we all had different ones. 
 2:18: So, mine was named after his surname because I was the 4th child, which is a bit unfortunate for me. 
 2:24: And I Unfortunately left it on the floor on our holiday apartment in Tenerife when I was but 11. 
 2:34: I remember when we got home, writing a letter to my dad and putting it under the door to tell him that he'd been left and, there was nothing we could do to get him back. 
 2:43: And that's quite sad. 
 2:46: Oh, that is sad. 
 2:47: I'm sorry for taking you down sad memories, Chris. 
 2:50: Mine was one called Panda because it was a panda. 
 2:53: Quite simple, really. 
 2:54: , it was a fairly big panda, as in, well, actually I was really small, so it wasn't that big. 
 3:00: Do you mean big for a panda? 
 3:02: No, it was tiny for a panda. 
 3:04: But it, it would be the size of, I don't know, A foot and a half tie, sort of thing, so when I was tiny it was big, but I wasn't tiny for very long. 
 3:14: I've been 6 ft since I was about 6 days old. 
 3:17: No, not quite. 
 3:20: Anyway, shall we move on to away from our teddy bears and talk a little bit more about the topic of today. 
 3:27: Who wants to lead us off a little bit on personal branding and the social media side of it? 
 3:32: Go on, Callum. 
 3:33: I am somewhat known for potentially doing a smidgen of personal branding and in what I do. 
 3:41: And it's, it's something that I've actually been speaking to other testers about. 
 3:45: I wouldn't say consulting on. 
 3:47: That's giving it far too much. 
 3:49: Of a, of a, of a good thing, but I definitely speak to other people about it. 
 3:53: And I started off doing it as a way of pushing myself into the industry and making myself employable. 
 4:03: When I've spoken about it before, the idea of having a personal brand, I talk about it in terms of weaponizing your content that you're putting out there to make you look good, to potential employers. 
 4:16: So it's something that I've done to definitely make people notice what I'm doing in the industry and see that, hey, this is someone that we can hire. 
 4:27: 6 or so years ago, I was probably just a, I would say just a, but I was, predominantly a manual tester. 
 4:34: I didn't have a lot of, like, engineering skills under my belt. 
 4:36: I certainly didn't have any automation skills under my belt. 
 4:39: So I had to find ways to showcase what I could bring to the table in an organisation. 
 4:45: And really, Push that people would want to hire me. 
 4:48: So that's where I got into the whole idea of social media and branding. 
 4:53: I don't know if, if either of the rest of you have sort of done something similar. 
 4:58: I've gone through pockets, moments. 
 5:01: It took a very long time for me to realise that it's useful to. 
 5:07: Be known for something if you want to be able to achieve getting to do that for a living. 
 5:14: I started blogging just because I thought it was useful for the people that I was working with to be able to sort of pull together lots of things that I knew from other places to do that. 
 5:25: And so for a while I was more just a vessel for other people's information. 
 5:30: To display it to those things. 
 5:32: Although by the time I met Russell, he learned that I had a blog because that was the thing at that point that people who met me knew Chris has a blog. 
 5:40: It wasn't a very good blog, but it was a blog and I had one. 
 5:43: It wasn't till a while later that I started thinking more about it in terms of intentionality. 
 5:48: I remember having a conversation with you, Caroline, about this, about where I sort of said, I don't actually know what people would know me for. 
 5:58: And that troubled me. 
 5:59: I thought, at the very worst, people might say, well, he's a nice guy. 
 6:03: And then, you know, I've tried to sort of lean into some things. 
 6:05: I made a hashtag. 
 6:07: I think it's, it's important. 
 6:09: I, I think I still struggle to land on one or two things, but I hope by this point, I'm at least known for something more than just being nice. 
 6:18: Although that's a nice place to start. 
 6:20: Yeah. 
 6:21: You are more than just nice, Chris, it has to be said. 
 6:23: I have to admit. 
 6:25: Knowing you and knowing to start with, the one challenge I had was I could never remember how to pronounce or say your blog name. 
 6:31: Was it Christoia? 
 6:33: Something of that ilk. 
 6:34: Christosa, yes, there you go. 
 6:37: It's a brand no one else wanted, so it's useful. 
 6:40: Well, to be fair, if you called it Chris's blog, it would be quite lost within the noise, I would have think, so you have to do something, don't you? 
 6:46: I think it's interesting cos you both talk about it there, which is. 
 6:50: I think brands are really important about trying to create an identity. 
 6:53: I think they help you feel like you have a place within the group, within the community as itself. 
 7:00: And as you both sort of pointed out as well, it's that employability is a big factor to it as well. 
 7:05: But it's great. 
 7:05: that if an employer goes and Googles you, searches for you, they can find something that you did or do talking publicly, blogging, podcasting, companies you've created, you know, you name it, but they actually have a positive kind of visibility on the internet. 
 7:21: In this day and age is quite a good thing. 
 7:23: So I think it helps you get in front of an audience. 
 7:26: It helps you if people who want to kind of validate what you say, for want of a better word, see whether you're someone that's worth listening to. 
 7:33: Be that an employer, be that just other testers in the community. 
 7:36: So I think it is quite an important thing to do. 
 7:38: I think it's also can be challenging. 
 7:41: Like for Chris's sake, Chris Armstrong, where I live, northeast of England, is quite a common name, and that makes it harder. 
 7:49: To make yourself visible at times I think, whereas me and Callum have probably got quite unique names. 
 7:54: But that's really interesting cos it's, it's something that I've been, I think I spoke to David about this earlier today, in fact. 
 8:01: I think my brand is less my unique name and more the black and pink infographics and or Otter. 
 8:09: Kind of thing. 
 8:10: If, if you, if people think of, can I make this? 
 8:13: In fact, I chat GPT'd myself. 
 8:15: What came out of it was something along the lines of like, oh, he's focused on high contrast neon like colour palettes with black pink and electric yellow and bold blocky typography. 
 8:25: I'm known for what it looks like and then it's associated to Callum, rather than the name Can I make her Ryan been associated to something. 
 8:34: So you don't necessarily have to rely just on your name, being the thing that travels forward, you can attribute something like visual to it. 
 8:41: I use Ramone the testing otter, which is a mascot, which I haven't done for a little bit. 
 8:46: That's something that I've put out there that really helps. 
 8:49: Again, the infographics and and the specific colour and typography that started life as a peers composter and then I continued on. 
 8:58: But again, that's very related to myself. 
 9:01: So there are definitely ways that you can push yourself into things. 
 9:06: You think like, we've also got other testers in the community who are just synonymous with certain types of testing. 
 9:12: You think of like Ali Addi, who like focuses on like accessibility. 
 9:17: we've got people that like really like it's not their name that carries it's like the type of thing they do that's some of us. 
 9:23: Is that something that press, like, you, you've got the the most generic name of us all unfortunately. 
 9:28: Is that something that you strove to do? 
 9:31: The thing is, I'm not a particular type of tester, and I don't think I really wanted to be either. 
 9:37: That probably made things hard. 
 9:39: It was probably only once I spoke in August with Dan Ashby that I was sort of challenged to think about. 
 9:47: A thing and that was what he ended up blogging about, which was what's your word. 
 9:53: And he said he'd been challenged about what's your one word, by his CTO and he came back several times on a loop. 
 10:00: This one, no, come again, think again, think about it, and. 
 10:04: And landed on him what his word was. 
 10:06: And it sort of challenges you to sort of think, what, what might your one word be? 
 10:10: That one thing that sort of permeates through what you do, how you are, what you're trying to be to represent as your brand. 
 10:18: And while it isn't a word that I necessarily use, the theme I think I'm using that would be my word would be connected. 
 10:31: That's interesting because I was thinking of a word for you and connectivity was the word I came up with. 
 10:35: It's working. 
 10:38: As Callum mentioned, we had a chat today. 
 10:41: I'm at the beginning of my journey of personal branding. 
 10:44: I realise that I'm, people are aware of me as part of the testing peers, and I feel that I want to have my own identity as well as the great identity that is the collective. 
 10:55: I see how I pulled that back there. 
 10:57: Good save, David, good save. 
 10:59: And my stability, my job has been a part of that, but also I think my ability to have a voice, you know, you are putting yourself out there as a personal brand and I haven't always had the confidence in being able to have that voice. 
 11:13: And I struggle a bit with. 
 11:16: Communication, especially in the written way, and so therefore that has always been a sort of held me back, and from what I've known about the testing peers is we always try things new, we do things different, so I feel that now is the time to, to start that particular, particular journey and, So yeah, so, so for me, I'm, I'm starting that journey, I'm trying to find out what my key skills are. 
 11:39: I'm trying to find my own voice so I'm being able to, to speak to people through my personal branding and what I, what I actually post. 
 11:47: I am totally aware. 
 11:48: That by putting ourselves out there, we are open to criticism. 
 11:53: We are open to people actually challenging what we're saying, but as long as, for me, as long as I stay true to myself and I don't get drawn into. 
 12:04: The potential details or, you know, for it to explode, things can be constrained a little bit, and so being aware that that people can criticise and it's OK to criticise, but, and not to take it personally, is really, really important, and I'm, I'm aware of that totally. 
 12:22: So we did discuss sort of colouring and and things like that, because I think that the other thing for me is. 
 12:27: consistency of message and if you want to create a brand, it's consistency of message and beliefs and ethos and as Chris was saying, connectivity, you know, he brought the testing peers together, so even, even that is part of that, that sort of thing. 
 12:43: I'm still trying to think about my word and I'm sure Russell has probably come up with. 
 12:47: May well have come up, I always think. 
 12:48: Yeah, I hadn't even thought about. 
 12:52: That, that's where I'm coming from, and I'm keen about personal branding, so therefore it's quite a poignant conversation for me today. 
 12:59: I must admit, the side of branding of like true to message and all the rest of it, reputational, like true to yourself, find that identity. 
 13:07: I think it's really quite an important one. 
 13:09: I hadn't personally thought of it. 
 13:11: In the side of the style of communication, the branding in the sense of kind of like corporate branding, if I've always seen it, which is a typography, the, the visual side of it, because quite frankly, I do whatever LinkedIn does or what Twitter does most of the time. 
 13:27: It's only through testing peers and through doing the conferences and things that we're doing that actually, that side of branding's come into my head at all. 
 13:34: Interesting because you're right, Callum. 
 13:36: I'm familiar with seeing any pictures and posts that you put up there and out there sort of thing. 
 13:41: And it's the pink and it's the so on and it's the style of it becomes quite apparent. 
 13:46: And same with Chris's blogs, there's a style to those blogs. 
 13:49: There's a way in which he speaks that you do get to sort of familiarise yourself with. 
 13:53: And ours has become a podcast really, hasn't it? 
 13:54: It's become banter at the start, almost. 
 13:57: And these sorts of things we do, but it's interesting. 
 13:59: It's a part of it I hadn't really thought much about cos I just put stuff out. 
 14:03: I was saying this morning to Callum actually is that there are certain people who are in in the way that they write, because they are honest. 
 14:12: You imagine them actually hearing their voice speaking it, and I think that makes it more authentic if you know the person. 
 14:19: And you can hear their voice doing it, then it feels like they are talking almost personally to you and you're resonating with their message. 
 14:27: Key to a lot of what we're hearing in this and, and what, what seems to have worked. 
 14:31: David, you talked about consistency and then Russell, you talked about being able to associate that typography and styling to somebody. 
 14:39: But it's something I learned from Richard Bradshaw was rules of advertising. 
 14:44: The rules of advertising are basically, you need to put something in front of people's faces 6 times for it to really land as a message and to get into their heads. 
 14:53: Now, content, if you're just talking, or even like a tone of voice, content flexes, it changes, it's ephemeral. 
 15:01: So that's not putting the same thing in front of someone 6 times and getting it into their head. 
 15:06: That's where your branding, your colour scheme, your vibes of things will actually. 
 15:12: Help open the doors, get people to associate something with you, because that's where you're advertising is. 
 15:18: Like adverts you see on TV or even on the radio, have unique things that are unique to an advert, but also consistent to an advert, a jingle or a logo, or, you know, the brand. 
 15:30: That's the thing that persists and gets in your head that you think about. 
 15:34: And that really helps with getting people to associate you with a brand or giving you that brand. 
 15:40: So if you sort of say, oh, my tone of voice is my brand, that, that forms part of it, but that's quite hard because what you'll be talking about is quite ephemeral, effectively. 
 15:51: So it it it's an additive because it makes you more of a person, which is great, but it's not the thing that's gonna catch people's attention. 
 15:59: It does need to be intentional, I think, in order to be successful. 
 16:02: Now, it might be that you've achieved something naturally, but when you uncover that there's something's happened, it's, it's kind of leaning into that with a bit more intention. 
 16:13: The point you said that Rich's advice about putting it in front of people more often than once, that stuck with me for a long time because I had a real hard time reminding people that I'd written about something more than the day that I had published it. 
 16:29: I didn't like it. 
 16:30: I didn't feel like I wanted to be pushy. 
 16:31: I was like, it's there, people can find it if they want to, but you know, I, I felt kind of all. 
 16:37: Quite reserved, quite worried about being pushy and and and this that and the other and and it's, it's interesting because in the workplace, you want to be known for particular things, be invited for particular things. 
 16:50: So those common threads that you're trying to put on. 
 16:53: All of the time are ones that you're involved in and you become a bit of an earworm. 
 16:57: And yet when it came to public facing stuff, I really struggled with the whole concept of hammering that home. 
 17:05: And it did stick with me. 
 17:06: I still don't like reminding people very often that, that, that this has happened, but I have got better. 
 17:13: At it, but I do try and put a twist to things and say, oh, that's interesting, and we did about this or I think this might be useful, but I still feel more comfortable pointing it at other people than myself. 
 17:27: I would be much quicker to go, that's really interesting. 
 17:31: Have you seen so and so talked about it? 
 17:33: What about this? 
 17:35: What about that? 
 17:36: And there's definitely something to be said for being a team player and, and helping people, funnelling people to your peers and your colleagues' content. 
 17:45: If you are generating a bit of a brand, and you have a need for employability or because you, you, you've got a message that you want to put out there, I guess there is inherently a bit of egocentrism that comes into play and trying to draw people into these sorts of things. 
 18:01: Because I talk to it a lot, you're weaponizing your content to help put yourself out there. 
 18:07: Part of that can be being connected, in your case, Chris, and, and helping move people to other people as well. 
 18:15: You'll find that doing things like that. 
 18:16: Commenting on things and sharing other people's things makes the algorithm love you. 
 18:21: And that's a key thing is to learn how to manipulate the algorithms on social media to get more people to see your stuff when you do put it out there and being social and connected. 
 18:33: Do you think the algorithms have changed in the time that you've been more intentional with your social branding? 
 18:39: I, I'm very keen on this because I also hate doing the things for the algorithm in terms of my own content, and it hurts my little brain. 
 18:48: When I'm trying to do those things. 
 18:50: I tried it last year, like LinkedIn had the button to sort of, you know, beautify things with AI, add the emojis, add the hashtags that I don't really care about. 
 19:00: I sort of look back on that and cringe a little bit, but then I also realised that I learned stuff by experimenting and trying it. 
 19:06: And how do you, how do you learn the algorithms? 
 19:09: The algorithms are constantly changing. 
 19:12: It is true, and a lot of it comes from hearing what works from other people as well, just seeing what works for yourself. 
 19:20: You can easily be shadow banded. 
 19:22: Shadow banning is is a practise where your Content is not put forward onto other people's feeds, effectively. 
 19:29: The things that will stop your content being seen are posting links to outside sources. 
 19:36: LinkedIn specifically hates that. 
 19:38: They want to keep you in LinkedIn. 
 19:40: Using too many hashtags these days because it's like ugh, too diffuse, you're spamming, you're trying too hard. 
 19:47: How many's too many? 
 19:48: More than about 4. 
 19:51: Things that help you in the algorithm are to use the LinkedIn's own specific article writing. 
 20:00: It likes that because it keeps you on LinkedIn, loves that, pushes those forward. 
 20:03: Talking about trending topics, there's always at the side, there's trending topics and stuff. 
 20:08: Predominantly it'll be things like AI at the moment, that's always up there. 
 20:12: Other things, if you really become desperate, and I don't. 
 20:15: advocate for this because it makes, it sets our industry back. 
 20:18: But hot takes that get arguments always generates things up the algorithm because the more reactions you get to something, the more comments, the more likes, the more reshares, the more views, just. 
 20:31: Success begets more success, it pushes you up, right? 
 20:35: So if you can get, if you basically say manual testing is dead, and here's why that will get loads of people fired up. 
 20:42: They'll make loads of comments on a controversial column at all, I don't know what you're talking about. 
 20:48: But I is, is that something that you really wanna be, like how would that help you get a job, for example? 
 20:55: It depends what kind of job you want at the end of the day. 
 20:57: If, if you're gonna go work for a bank to be an EA and your manager believes in that, then sure, that's fine. 
 21:03: It might not work across the industry. 
 21:07: But again, it gets your name out there doesn't it? 
 21:09: That's the thing, so it could just be any sort of publicity is good publicity type style. 
 21:13: But if your name's out there, is it worth occasionally putting something controversial in order to create traffic, as it were? 
 21:21: I literally just did that. 
 21:24: I posted, I posted a hot take. 
 21:27: My hot take was actually developers make really good testers. 
 21:30: And it got amen. 
 21:32: More views and, and more content and responses than anything that I'd posted beforehand. 
 21:37: I stand by it. 
 21:38: I think, you know, I am a solo tester. 
 21:41: organisation, I grow my own testers out of developers. 
 21:44: I stand by that, but it was a seemingly hot take. 
 21:47: So, again, you, you can really look at what other people are talking about, what they're fired up about, and then throw in another little commentary. 
 21:56: And, and that might inflame more people. 
 21:58: The other way to get up the algorithm is just to like other people's stuff, comment on their stuff, reshare it, because. 
 22:06: Then your account is seen as someone that's, you know, a positive influence. 
 22:10: The topic that you posted about doesn't sound very controversial to me, but hey, that's clearly I'm the wrong audience type. 
 22:15: It's like, yes, they do make great dusters, no brainer. 
 22:19: That's probably a whole discussion for, that's a different podcast topic that one. 
 22:24: Bring me back and I'll talk about that episode 146, that will be what we do on that one. 
 22:29: Here you go on David, try and schedule that one. 
 22:33: We've talked a lot about personal branding. 
 22:34: I was this topic is also about social media itself. 
 22:38: And, you know, since we've started testing peers, social media has in the past 5 years changed such a lot. 
 22:44: So where do people or where would people most recommend that people do post for, for testing and leadership nowadays? 
 22:52: MySpace, every time. 
 22:56: Only the real ones know. 
 22:58: He's a Bebo. 
 23:00: No, that, that's that's coming to an end. 
 23:02: AI's killed it. 
 23:04: If you're trying to use a brand, if you're, if you're trying to, to effectively put stuff out there that you're hoping other people will see, you're hoping that potential employers will see, or you're looking to. 
 23:17: Reach to other industry sort of specialists, either as other engineers or other testers. 
 23:24: I've been recommending focusing on LinkedIn. 
 23:27: That's the place where most people will coalesce and go to. 
 23:30: It's very visible, it's very be searchable. 
 23:33: That's one of the places that I've been recommending. 
 23:36: That and also YouTube. 
 23:38: People look up testing content on YouTube. 
 23:41: I do it. 
 23:42: Whenever, whenever there's a new tool or a concept I want to learn about, I look stuff up on YouTube. 
 23:47: So those are the sort of places that I tend to go for. 
 23:50: I haven't been so much looking at things like X or Blue Sky because I think they're a bit more related to interpersonal relationships and interactions. 
 24:00: So, less for content, more just for, like, hanging out with your peers and your buds. 
 24:05: LinkedIn and, and YouTube specifically. 
 24:08: There are various communities out there, but I mean, the thing with the thing with communities, whether it's ones on Discord or discourse or other things, is it depends on the, the angle you want to take, right? 
 24:20: Because if you just want to be in and around testers doing these things, going to where the testers that you want to relate with are, that's not a bad place. 
 24:30: There's some really cool communities out there that have those things. 
 24:33: But if you're trying to, I think probably. 
 24:37: Quite a few people, when they're trying to build brand, aren't just trying to build brand amongst people that maybe they consider their own people to, to be with, but we want to be a little bit less echo chamber, a little bit more, hey, look at me, look at the stuff I'm doing. 
 24:51: I certainly want to be speaking not just with testers, or at least not just with testers that I already know, sharing and projecting in that sort of angle. 
 25:01: It says you on a podcast with 3 testers, you know. 
 25:05: Yes, well, but I didn't always know you. 
 25:08: Truism. 
 25:10: True, true as as is possible and, and what has spawned as a result of just doing these regular conversations. 
 25:17: Actually, looking back to earlier moments is we've got things to point to to go, well, we talked about that. 
 25:23: That was an interesting conversation. 
 25:25: I'd love to know what you think about those sorts of things. 
 25:27: And having sort of regularly visible, lookupable content on particular topics is interesting. 
 25:35: I quite like that. 
 25:37: But also I like listening to other people's takes, hot or other. 
 25:41: I think at this point, I think we should also mention, you talked about communities, it's obviously the Ministry of tests. 
 25:46: They have their, their own infrastructure and, you know, and they can then talk to other testers. 
 25:52: So if you, if you really want to concentrate on your, your, the testing environment, then absolutely that's, that's a really good. 
 25:58: It was, I did, I I I forgot to mention theirs is on Discourse, it's called the Club. 
 26:03: I did mention Discourse, but I forgot to look. 
 26:07: I think those sorts of communities, especially where it's very testing focused, is, is can be a great place to get started with writing and articles like Ministry of Testing specifically. 
 26:17: I always love like new people, new writers coming in. 
 26:21: So it's a good place to like hone your voice and hone your style if you don't feel so confident in, David, you mentioned, like throwing things out there for like the world and sundry to critique. 
 26:32: Somewhere that is more moderated, somewhere that people are gonna back you up and it's a, a community space, can be a really great place to like start building your brand. 
 26:41: And also it's a good place because it's controlled to a certain extent to know what those trending topics are or or to find your voice, because you are in a friendly atmosphere, you can see what other people are talking to or reacting to in that safer space before you sort of launch yourself. 
 26:55: Into the wilder LinkedIn place. 
 26:58: But as we've said throughout, again, using Chris's context, what do you actually want to get out of your your personal branding? 
 27:06: You know, what is it your, your key goal for that? 
 27:09: Is it to get your voice heard? 
 27:10: Is it to get employers interested in you? 
 27:13: Is it to get followers? 
 27:14: Is it just to understand a bit more about our thing, which case a community might be better? 
 27:20: Understand where you are in your journey and and choose the best mechanism and the and the messages that will get you to that goal. 
 27:29: So I'm gonna advocate for the cult of David with obviously the mantra of culture ad not culture fit. 
 27:34: I think it's got to be it. 
 27:35: That's, that's gotta be the ambition, David. 
 27:37: That's where you've got to go with your social media presence. 
 27:40: But when we think about like what social media is useful to, to be sharing things on and, and what platforms, I mean I can ask all three of you, where do you look for content? 
 27:51: Like if you want to learn about testing, where do you go? 
 27:53: Three places I guess these days, Chat GPT or equivalents, Google and LinkedIn. 
 27:59: Yeah, I would, I would echo that. 
 28:01: Probably Chat GPT and LinkedIn are probably my first two. 
 28:05: I might look for things, as you said, it depends on whether we're looking at tools or whatever. 
 28:08: YouTube is probably another big one that we mentioned before. 
 28:13: Yeah, how to guys and things definitely would be YouTube. 
 28:15: I don't go to church EPT as a first port of call, because I find their lack of attribution. 
 28:21: Drives me absolutely just mad. 
 28:24: I would go to, some of Reddit, because you get some good hot takes on Reddit for various things. 
 28:31: I do look on YouTube. 
 28:32: I do look on LinkedIn. 
 28:34: I do look on Ministry of Testing. 
 28:36: I have a lot of connections that I have got blogs on things that I normally remember and bookmarked a long time ago and have a look back on some of the things they've written. 
 28:45: I ask friends on other social medias like Slacks and WhatsApps and things and said, hey, does anyone know any good stuff here? 
 28:53: I still take personal recommendations quite seriously. 
 28:57: On some things as well, because I think the credibility that I infer from the author is quite important to me because sometimes what can appear to be some good stuff perhaps doesn't come from the good place, and I quite care about where it's coming from. 
 29:13: I think people is a good one actually, which I didn't really include, but yeah, I think that's right. 
 29:17: So personal recommendations, the slack channels that we're in, those sorts of things in general, how to get the people you know. 
 29:23: And that could be a text message, slack message, it could be anything, but yeah. 
 29:27: Yeah, but some sometimes people are a bit isolated in companies where and might not necessarily have a big circle of friends. 
 29:32: Yeah, so, so it's getting started in commu that that's where communities also start coming in. 
 29:38: I was gonna throw it back to you, Callum, what, where do you get your inspiration from? 
 29:42: When I'm looking for for content, it predominantly is either LinkedIn, YouTube, or, or I do Google for it. 
 29:49: I haven't tended to use chat GPT so much. 
 29:53: My reasoning around that has been it can't scrape a lot of information. 
 29:59: Also, AI's and AI tools tend to flatten information to present you with really like the basics of things. 
 30:06: they don't tend to go for outliers. 
 30:08: So if you're working sort of. 
 30:10: In like a an extreme industry, if you're, if you're working in a startup, if you're trying to have to create things, it doesn't necessarily give you a lot of that information out there. 
 30:20: And the same for like personal branding and the, the stuff that it tells you about a person as well, it really aggregates and flattens the types of things you say. 
 30:29: So you have to be careful about what you're posting these days for how it will impact your chat GPT profile as well. 
 30:36: Once it's out there, it's never come back, is it? 
 30:39: Even just the case of, let's say like if you talk a few times about, if you do a hot take with the manual testing is dead kind of thing, because that's a really prevailing content trend. 
 30:51: It may latch onto that and put that front and centre as the thing that you're known for talking about. 
 30:56: So you have to be careful with the types of content you put out there and the amount of where you talk so that it can start to learn about you in the right way, how you want to be presented going forward. 
 31:08: A lot of social media stuff at the moment is very fleeting. 
 31:12: A lot of posts are are of the moment. 
 31:14: And what I wanted to do was to just say, there might be some things that you want to persist a little bit more. 
 31:21: So were you to check GPT yourself or other sorts of things. 
 31:25: To reinforce some of your, your stuff rather than just a another post, to have something of a more persistent catalogue or portfolio of items to sort of back those up. 
 31:36: Chao mentioned earlier LinkedIn articles as a really kind of good way of hitting LinkedIn on things. 
 31:43: But I started exploring earlier, I think it's last year, and I cross posted, so I posted articles on LinkedIn and then posted on my own personal article, personal blog site as well. 
 31:55: So that I had a bit more of a persistent thing that was outside of the control of the social media. 
 32:01: Folks, as well, so I could still hit that algorithmic stuff, but I had an own, own hosted thing of my own to persist that particular stuff that I was interested in persisting upon persistence. 
 32:16: Like you are very persistent. 
 32:18: thank you, Chris. 
 32:20: so now is the time to wrap up, a perfect time to end. 
 32:23: Thank you so much for listening. 
 32:25: Thank you so much, Callum, Chris, and Russell. 
 32:28: Thank you so much for our sponsor sponsors and focus and not forgetting the Pearsecon, which is happening in Nottingham on March 12th next year, we have now. 
 32:41: Finish the call for papers when this comes out. 
 32:43: Therefore, you've missed the chance of that, but you can still get tickets. 
 32:46: So please go to testing peerscon.com for all the details of how to get there, and, we'll look forward to seeing you and we will be announcing the, the speakers and the programme at the beginning of next year. 
 33:01: So thank you so much for listening and please tune in next time for another exciting episode. 
 33:08: See you soon. 
 33:10: For now, It's goodbye from the testing peers. 
 33:13: Goodbye.