How to Create a Brand that Stands Out For Both You and Your Company with Nick Thompson, The Atlantic

Nick Thompson shares his experience and insights as the CEO of The Atlantic. He joins Katie in this episode to talk about his experience building a brand for three different publications and himself. Nick also shares his fulfilling journey in the field of journalism and the many projects he has worked on over the years.

Get Mic’d is all about teaching individuals and company leaders how to make your brand notable. Here today to share his experience and insights is the CEO of The Atlantic, Nick Thompson. He’s joining Katie in this episode to talk about his experience building a brand for three different publications and himself. Nick also shares his fulfilling journey in the field of journalism and the many projects he has worked on over the years.

Join us for the first episode of Get Mic’d and learn some valuable lessons about building a notable company and personal brand from Nick today.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

1. Hear Nick’s personal story about how he went from an unprepared college graduate to one of the biggest editors in the field of journalism.
2. Learn about the different factors you need to consider to build a brand that stands out and cuts through all the noise.
3. Gain insight from Nick’s wildly successful personal branding and daily video series.

Resources

• Wired
• Atavist
• The New Yorker
• Speakeasy.ai
• Tracksmith
• Scaling People by Claire Hugh Johnson
• Read Nick’s first-ever published story, Continental Drift
• The Atlantic
• Find Nick’s video series, The Most Interesting Thing In Tech on LinkedIn
• Connect with Nicholas Thompson: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Listen to more Get Mic’d episodes

Episode Highlights

[02:18] How Nick Manages Both the Company and His Personal Brand

• Nick focuses more on the company brand and his personal brand follows.
• His personal brand has always aligned with his job.
• They support each other in a way that allows Nick to create linked content and talk to potential readers and partners.

[03:16] Nicholas Thompson: “And in all three places, having a good social media presence is useful for you and it’s useful for the company because it draws in readers and it draws people who can work with you. So the way I balance it is I spend my time on the company and then the personal brand kind of follows and supports.”

• He first started building his brand on Twitter sharing stories. On LinkedIn, he made daily videos about tech that started taking off.
• Nick found what he was doing as something fun and uniquely interesting. It was directly connected to the message of what he was working on at Wired at that time.

[04:57] Nick’s First Story Entry Into Journalism

• When Nick graduated college, he didn’t have a plan for his career. He was initially invited to apply to be an assistant producer, got the job, and was immediately fired.
• After that shaking experience, he and his friend traveled to Africa. There, he had many crazy and exciting experiences including getting kidnapped in Morocco.
• Nick reached out to the Washington Post to send the story of his travels in Africa. This became his very first published piece and his first step into journalism.

[09:49] Words of Wisdom For Aspiring Journalists

• First, find the right person who makes the decisions.
• Next, identify what publication, section, and person you’re pitching your story for.
• Make sure that your story is unique and distinct, especially as an unknown. Write a story that only you can write. Additionally, writing style matters.
• Remember, even when you have the perfect story for the perfect person, it still might not work. However, you have to keep trying and not be afraid to fail.
• Journalism is a very accessible field. You don’t need certifications or high qualifications. What you do need are certain skills and the ability to write.

[13:20] Nicholas Thompson: “Every profession has sort of different barriers to entry, journalism’s are very low. You have to learn certain skills, you have to write but it is a great, great profession for energetic, ambitious young people.”

[14:29] The Many Projects of Nick Thompson 

• He has always loved technology and wrote about it in the past. This led him to his work at Wired.
• At Wired, he worked with Evan Ratliff on an interesting story about faking a person’s identity and starting a new life. This inspired them to start a company that told stories in a new and engaging way and ended up with them creating a software company.
• Another project of Nick’s is the media platform, Speakeasy.AI. He had the idea of creating a way for people to communicate better online and encourage discourse.
• With Raffi Krikorian, the CTO of the Emerson Collective, they built a platform that encourages positive communication.
• Listen to the full episode to hear more about the stories behind Nick’s many projects from technology and storytelling to finding peaceful solutions to disagreements.

[20:08] Building a Brand That Cuts Through the Noise and Stands Out

• The Atlantic has an incredible brand that has its foundations in its great founders and an amazing history.
• What’s important now is to sustain this wonderful brand by ensuring that people see their history more than their mistakes.
• The challenge is sharing this history with all their potential readers. One way is through social media and encouraging as many people as possible to subscribe.
• With a business model based on subscriptions, there is a trade-off between raising subscriptions and sharing their work with a wider audience.

[23:07] Nicholas Thompson: “But we have a beautiful brand with a beautiful history. It’s much more about getting people, the principal goals just to get people to understand the core of what we do.”

[23:29] The Challenges of a Paywall Business Model

• There are many factors to consider. One is how tight you want the paywall to be and how much readership you will restrict.
• One of the things Nick learned as they built their business model is the impact of reading more than one category of writing. You need to adjust your content to fit this.
• There are many more higher levels of detail you need to consider. This includes what type of readers are the people who click the article.
• It can be challenging to navigate media and how to use it, especially in modern days. You need to keep adapting to new developments.

[27:04] Nicholas Thompson: “So the way advertising works, we’ve had to adjust completely. We’ve had to adapt to a world where there are far fewer ads, but still, try to bring in as much as you can. And then you have to build out other business models.”

[27:20] The People Behind Building the Brand

• The Atlantic’s journalists are out sharing the company’s brand and advertising it. However, this is also much less controlled.

[28:44] Nicholas Thompson: “We have teams of people who think about brands, who talk about the events we need to go to, the way we need to put on our press releases, the stories we need to try to tell. But so much of our brand is just what happens every day.”

• Design, communication and all their journalists all come together as part of the brand.
• As the CEO, Nick’s job is to continue the values, history and tradition of the publication.
• He ensures that there is a connection between the amazing founders of The Atlantic and the company as it is today.

[30:54] More About Nick’s LinkedIn Video Series

• Nick tries to take his videos in one take in different places. This led him to film in different beautiful locations with various art and scenery all around the city.
• He listens to tech podcasts and reads the latest news as part of his day. It’s one of his interests and he brings them into his daily videos.
• Nick hasn’t done any granular analysis of the videos and its impact on the company. However, he can see that it has a positive effect both on Wired and The Atlantic.
• This daily video format works well on LinkedIn compared to other social media platforms. It’s a great way to build brand recognition.
• As an editor and journalist, you have to pay attention and keep learning new things every day. As a CEO, you’re not as active in that. This allows Nick to keep up with the things he loves.

[40:51] Lessons From Running

• Running is a fundamental part of Nick’s life. Lessons from running can apply to work and vice versa.
• For him, it’s a form of meditation and can teach you discipline and good habits that can be helpful at work.
• You also learn to develop your mental skills such as focus and concentration.
• Nick is currently writing a book about running. It tells the story of different people, including Nick and the impact of running on their lives.
• Despite his busy schedule, he finds the spare time to write.

[45:48] Quick Questions For Nick

• Staying authentic to yourself is important to building a notable brand.
• Nick sees winning a Pulitzer and the highest award for General excellence as some of the best moments for his brand.
• Tracksmith is a running brand Nick suggests.
• As you build your brand, you can watch the accounts of people with good brands on social media and learn from them. Other resources include various books.

About Nick

Nicholas Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic and the former Editor-in-Chief of Wired. Before becoming CEO, he was a contributing editor at CBS and CNN and a senior editor at The New Yorker. Nick is also the co-founder of The Atavist and is currently working on a project called Speakeasy.AI — truly someone who stands out in journalism and more.

Nick is a speaker known for his insights about technology. He has also written numerous articles and a book titled “The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War” in 2009. He’s particularly known for his daily video series on LinkedIn about The Most Interesting Thing in Tech. Aside from writing, Nick also enjoys running.

You can learn more about Nick and his extensive work in the field of journalism on his website. You can also connect with him on his LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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