I’m honored to be part the very first Upstate Social Sessions conference Oct. 31 in Rochester, N.Y. The panel I’m on – Brand Yourself: Advancing Your Career Through Social Media – looks to be a lot of fun. My co-panelists are Alex Fitzpatrick, a Deputy Tech Editor at Time magazine, and Rachel Barnhart, a news anchor and reporter at WROC-TV in Rochester.
Since I’m assuming the focus will mostly be on more advanced techniques for using social media for personal branding I thought it might be helpful to offer a collection of blog posts on some of the basics of personal branding. Here goes:
Quality SM connections for personal branding
Making connections is what social media is all about. When it comes to personal branding however, the quality of those connections is important. For example, imagine a recruiter looking through your Twitter Followers and finding a spammy “Buy 5,000 Twitter followers” account or, worse, a porn account. What does that say about you that you didn't block such accounts? Read more …
Blogging for personal branding
Building or improving your personal brand can seem like facing a massive mountain. But some strategic use of social media can help anyone improve their personal brand – or the collective impression online search results speak about who you are. One of the best places to start? A blog. To read more …
Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance
Like it or not a personal brand is something that follows you wherever you go from your personal life to the work world and beyond. It’s the combined information (Internet postings, social media updates etc.) about you that shows up when someone searches online. Don't leave it to chance. To read more …
6 Overlooked SM Personal Branding Must-Dos
Personal branding – it’s all the rage. Working hard to make sure that everything that shows up online – social media and everything else – reflects well on you and paints an accurate picture of who you are. But there a few things that often get overlooked when considering working on a personal brand. To read more …
Personal branding – it’s all the rage. Working hard to make sure that everything that shows up online – social media and everything else – reflects well on you and paints an accurate picture of who you are. But there a few things that often go overlooked when considering working on a personal brand. 6 Personal Branding Must-Dos 1. Updating: Stay on top of your various online presences and what they say about you.
If you have a job title change, be sure to update it in all of your bios. If that profile photo more than 10 years old its time to update it – everywhere. 2. Social media and SM connections: Reevaluate all of you social media presences. Do they all still make sense to tell your story? Are there others you should be on?
Evaluate your connections for quality. Be sure that anyone looking at who you’re connected to is not going to be less than impressed. To read more on this topic, see Quality SM connections for personal branding 3. Blogging: Writing and regularly posting to a blog is viewed by some as a bit of a vanity pastime. They could not be more wrong.
To claim extra internet real estate, show off some expertise or to simply get found in Google search results – it’s hard to beat the power of a blog. To read more on this topic, see Blogging for personal branding 4. Your focus: Yes, you’re focused on things you can do to your personal brand stand out, but ultimately your success in social media is mostly about how social you are and how others perceive you.
To that end make your time on social mostly about others. Be helpful: help others connect, help others learn and most of all notice, and comment on, the hard work of others.
It’s the No. 1 commandment here: 10 Commandments for Social Media 5. Get uncomfortable: It’s easy to stick to connecting to people we know; to interact with people like us. But the real secret sauce of social media is the opportunity to meet people all over the world who have interesting stories to share. Make a point of connecting to at least one intriguing Twitter or other social network account per week and look for ways to interact with the account-holder. You’ll be surprised where this might lead in terms of connections down the road. 6. Get real: Finally, but most importantly you need to turn all this online activity in something in the real world or IRL as the kids say). Massive effort on social media is not worth a hill of beans if you don’t make new connections in the real world. How to do this? Look for opportunities to attend meetups. Suggest your own meetup. If you’re visiting a different city or even a different country let your connections know and offer to buy coffee so you can meet.
It truly is a very gratifying and fun experience to meet someone you’ve been connected to on social media for years to finally meet them in real life…. There you have it: Six often overlooked keys to stronger personal branding wit social media and other online presences. Do you have other suggestions? I’d love to hear them.
Like it or not a personal brand is something that follows you wherever you go from your personal life to the work world and beyond.
It’s the combined information (Internet postings, social media updates etc.) about you that shows up when someone searches online.
So it probably makes sense to figure out how to make your brand the best it can be. 5 steps to take this weekend to boost your personal brand: 1. Define your tactics: Ask yourself: What do you want people to find when they search for you online? Someone they’d like to …
Hire: Then focus on optimizing your Linkedin profile (and not just to get it to Linkedin’s 100 percent complete status, but adding images, videos, examples of your work etc.) Consider using other channels too: A blog to demonstrate your knowledge, Pinterest boards to demonstrate any visual work and interests, and Twitter to share your work and to network without the barriers of Linkedin.
Get to know: Start by picking three platforms to focus on that will allow you to tell your story. For example, if your interests are sports, travel and reading consider creating boards on Pinterest for each of you specific interests.
2. Define yourself: Develop a short description of who you are, what you believe in and what you do best. In other words: How would you tell your online audience why you’re the right person to work with or connect with? This two- or three-sentence statement is for you, but should guide how you describe yourself - everywhere.
Be sure to describe what makes you different from other people with the same or similar expertise. If you’re not sure what that is, do some research on well-known people in your field. Observe what they do and adapt it to your own way of doing things. 3. Define your expertise: What particular skills and knowledge do you want to be known for? Who do you hope to connect with? Determining what makes you unique helps you understand what sets you apart from crowd on the Internet. Your areas of expertise define who you are and what you do. They should be included in your social media profile descriptions and should include your main keywords. 4. Define your approach: How will you use various social media platforms to advance your brand? For example, will ...
You only use Linkedin to post things relevant to your career or will you also post a few things that show some of your personality?
Facebook be strictly for people you’ve met in real life or consider personal friends?
Twitter be a place to share industry news and find new connections?
You use a scheduling tool such as Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts to maintain a regular social presence or will you post organically as you find interesting material?
You use tools such as Empire Avenue, Kred and Klout to monitor your efforts and guide your progress?
5. Define your success: What will success look like to you?
Making lots of online connections that become in real life (IRL) connections?
Enhancing your current job/career?
Getting a better job?
Whatever you settle on set some future calendar reminders to look back at what you’ve done. Then decide which efforts are worth continuing and which should be dropped. Remember your personal brand is an evolving, living thing. The only thing you can do "wrong" is to ignore it and let it change, or worse: stagnate, while you remain blissfully unaware… Does this help? Will you use social media and a plan to boost your personal brand? I’d love to hear back from you. Related posts: Quality SM connections for personal branding Blogging for personal branding
Making connections is what social media is all about. When it comes to personal branding however, the quality of those connections is important. For example, imagine a recruiter looking through your Twitter Followers and finding a spammy “Buy 5,000 Twitter followers” account or, worse, a porn account. What does that say about you that didn't block such accounts?
And, if you’re still using the number of followers to measure your social media success, it’s time to rethink your strategy.
Do an audit of your audience and determine which users are the right ones, and cull your lists accordingly. Once you’ve completed the audit what can you do in the future to ensure you have quality connections that will enhance your online personal brand? Start by having a thoughtful approach to who you’ll follow. How to decide who to follow on social media for personal branding success Linkedin When someone asks to connect with you, ask yourself:
Are they in your industry or a related industry? (Related question: Are they in any Linkedin groups you belong to?)
Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?
If you are seeking new connections, first ask yourself:
Who do you want to connect to? Why?
How will you find these people? Using advanced search in Twitter and Linkedin, and Facebook’s graph search are good places to start – search for people mentioning the terms relevant to your interests.
Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?
Twitter In some respects Twitter is a better starting place to find industry-relevant people. It is a place where you can connect with anyone (unlike Linkedin where you need to be connected or pay a premium to contact people you aren’t connected to). Basic tips to assess whether to follow someone on Twitter include:
Does their bio indicate relevance to your purposes on social media?
What kind of content have they shared in the past few days?
Is their Following-Follower ratio in balance – in other words are there either more Followers or are they about the same. If there is a much higher Following number they are either new to Twitter or desperate for followers.
Still in doubt? Use one of the free tools that assesses Twitter accounts:
Twitteraudit: It seeks to answer the question: "How many of your followers are real?" But it also evaluates the Twitter accounts of others. Anything higher than 10 percent fake followers indicates someone who indiscriminately connects or does not block spammy followers… i.e. they’re not very careful on Twitter.
Status People: It sorts any Twitter accounts followers into Fake, Inactive and Good. A high number in Fake (more than 10 percent) or Inactive (more than 20 percent) should also be a warning sign.
Facebook First, decide if Facebook is a place you want to open up to people beyond friends and family. Some people draw that line at Facebook. But if you are OK with connecting professionally on Facebook you can use FB’s own search engine to find people who may be worth connecting to. Start by using search terms such as keywords related to your industry and move on to search on relevant hashtags.
And, although its focus is marketing the tips here can be applied to personal connections too: How to Use Facebook Graph Search to Improve Your Marketing Google+ Any discussion on personal branding has to include Google+. Whether you’re a fan or not is somewhat irrelevant – it’s a Google product so you better believe being there helps in Google search results. Using the Google+ search or a regular Google search use keywords and the usual Google search operators. For more on doing better Google searches see How to Use Google Search More Effectively. Was this helpful? Wil you invest some time in social media and ensuring your connections are worthwhile? It is the only way social media can help with personal branding. Related link: Blogging for personal branding Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance
Building or improving your personal brand can seem like facing a massive mountain. But some strategic use of social media can help anyone improve their personal brand – or the collective impression online search results speak about who you are. One of the best places to start? A blog.
Now a blog doesn’t need to be a massive undertaking. Think of it as a one-step-at-a-time approach to making a name for yourself or being an expert about something. There are all kinds of theories about how to decide what your blog should be about and how to make it successful for personal branding. Here are some of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen: 15 Tips for a Successful Personal Branding Blog 1. Pick a blogging platform or a free website tool that is easy to work with. For a starter list of platforms see 5 Free Blogging Platforms to Start a New Blog in 2015. 2. Make it about something you care about so you’re more likely to keep it going. 3. Write about an aspect of your industry OR make it about something you can have a lot to say about. Which means as long as you write an informative and enthusiastic blog it will get a following and get you some attention. 4. Keep blog posts in the 250-500 word range. Shorter than that and it may not get indexed. Longer than that and it may not get read. 5. Stick with it. In other words post regularly (something I’m guilty of not doing this year) – perhaps once a week or twice a month at a minimum. 6. Plan how you will share your blog – this could mean via social media accounts and/or via email. And make sure social sharing buttons are always on your blog posts so others can share a post. 7. Join a blogging network – a place where members share each other’s posts- or find another place that welcomes blog sharers. See 15 Places You Should Be Sharing Your Blog Posts. 8. Discover sources of illustrative artwork for your blog. A blog post with at least one image is twice as likely to get attention and be shared by others. For a list of 20 sites and some good how-to-use-art tips see 20 Free Blog Graphics Sites and How To Customize Images For Your Blog. 9. Write out in a single sentence what the blog is about. Then a list of topics it will cover. Refer back to this list regularly 10. Develop a posting calendar. It can be flexible, but it takes a lot of pressure away to know what your next five to 10 posts will be about. 11. Be patient. All blogs take a little time to get established and win an audience. 12. Include two or more internal links to exterior, deeper content. 13. Be sure to include links to your previous posts – two or three per post once you have a catalog of posts. 14. Check to see how the blog displays in various browsers. 15. Interact with those who comment on your blog and, if necessary, delete spam comments. So, do you have a blog? Will you start a blog? Will it be something you’ll add to your social media activities on a regular basis? Related post: Quality SM connections for personal branding Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance The Importance of Personal Branding for College Students #infographic
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