The Personal Branding Blog: William Arruda and the Reach-Certified Personal Branding Strategists

VanityVid is an exciting innovative social media tool that changes your profile pic into a video

Exude Your Brand with VanityVid

Wouldn't it be great if people could click on your Facebook, Twitter and Wordpress profile photo – wherever it appears – and make it come to life?

VanityVid is a fresh new tool for changing your profile pics into a short introductory video, allowing you to connect with your audience like never before. What makes this tool different?

When I'm evaluating a tool, my first priority is personal brand building: does it increase online visibility, enhance brand communication, have a well-designed interface; is it customizable, integrated with new media; does it offer something unique? My second list of criteria is practical: is it free – if not, does it really justify the cost; can it be installed quickly and easily; is it easy to use and supported by browsers, social media, your blog platform, etc.

VanityVid ticks most of the boxes and it's free! What's really impressive about this tool is the on-the-spot setup. All you need is a webcam, video camera or camera phone and a few minutes of your time.

The maximum length of your VanityVid is 17 secs. That's enough to make a brief introduction without irritating your visitors.

You can have up to 20 VanityVids and the list of ways they can be used will grow as VanityVid becomes more established.

Your video will be displayed on every site that partners with VanityVid. In addition, for anyone who installs the Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer add-on, your Vanityvid will also be displayed on Facebook, Twitter and Wordpress blogs comments. VanityVid intends to extend the list of partners very soon so you won't need the add-on.

It's very new but it will catch on soon, so why not be one of the first! VanityVid.com

Note: I have revised and shortened this post since I first published it for technical reasons.

Sue Brettell is the Creative Passionista, a designer, writer and online identity strategist, specializing in the Exude phase of personal brand building. http://www.suebrettell.com (site relaunch coming soon).

It Takes the Same Amount of Time to be Friendly

Standing in line, especially in long lines, you tend to re-evaluate your reason for even being there in the first place.  For me, today, the offer made by this business was too good to pass up.  So, I was here, in their forever long line.  The promotion was targeted just for people “out of town”.  And, although they provided many promotions for “locals”, too – you couldn’t tell which “line” was for whom.

Finally, I’m at the front.

Waiting in Long LinesAnd, the exchange begins.

Brand Representative:  “Oh, you’re in the wrong line”
Me:  “Where’s the right line”
Brand Rep:  “Over on the other side of the building”
Me:  “Where is that exactly?”
Brand Rep:  “Across the building – exact opposite of where we’re at. Near the tables.”
Me:   “I’m from out of town.  Where are the tables?”
Brand Rep:  “Over there (pointing into the air). You’ll find it.  I’m busy.”

Yes, this is a true exchange.  And, one I’m sure happens often at a variety of different establishments.  Often, I hear people fuss that “my advertising doesn’t work”.  However, I would vehemently disagree with them.  Advertising got them through the door , as it did in this case.  Your BRAND REPRESENTATIVE however failed to mirror your brand and the intent of your ad campaign so – you lost them.

(It was nice that another brand representative with the company overheard the exchange and came to me to say, "I don't understand why some people act so fussy - it takes the same amount of time to be friendly."  Thanks, Rick (the brand representative), for a great title to this post!)

We see this online (people click-thru and yet do nothing on the site)  and offline (people disgusted that they have too much to do and all these “darn customers” get in the way).

Make sure your BRAND REP (and for solopreneurs and executives – this could be the person answering the phone for you, responding for you or being a point of contact) knows:

1.  The expectations and brand of the company or yourself.
2.  The rules of engagement
3.  The goal (in all its specifics)
4.  Your brand core attributes
5.  Your brand communication plan

Hint:  If you don’t have these – then work on this.  This is your part and the “heavy lifting” you must do to prepare those who would be and act as extensions of you brand.

Read more at TheBuzz101 on creating positive word of mouth around your brand

Author:

Maria Elena Duron Maria Elena Duron | chief engagement officer is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss all aspects of branding.

Are You Stuck on One Note?

There are times when you come across someone who is stuck. 

Social media, because of its immediacy, has really highlighted this faster than any other communication channel. Specifically, I’m referring to when someone’s stuck on “one note”.  And, that note is “me,me,me,me”.

Walking before we can run

We all do it when we begin into the social universe simply because we don’t know what to chat about, write in our status update or tweet about. So, of course, we write about the one subject that we know best – ourselves.

I tell clients that it takes about 30 updates for you to find your voice online.  Voice meaning your focus, what you’ll chat about, and how you’ll engage people.  If you’re socially savvy, you’ll being bringing “the power of the ask” into your conversations. Instead of saying, I’m waiting for my coffee and watching silly people.  You transform that statement into an ask, you might say “when I’m waiting I’m a people watcher – what do you do?”

In fact, I teach my clients to write their status updates out before hand.  Why?  Because these updates are defining their first impression and we know how lasting those can be.  It doesn’t mean that they don’t do some spontaneous updating or tweeting, too.  I know I do.  What I’m showing them is how to use the social world for their focused marketing and branding – which is what they come to me to do in the first place.

Knowing why you’re online – will help you develop your role in the conversation symphony.  Miss the beat and go in with no focus, no sheet music, no direction – and you could drive your brand wagon into a ditch that will take a lot of effort, time and money to get back on the road.

Here’s how to start:
1.  Know why you’re going online
2.  Pick 3 networks to be active on where you can connect with people you want to connect with
3.  Specifically describe what success would look like, sound like and feel like in each of these three networks
4. Write out your first 30 status updates (use the 5 W’s to help you get started: who, what, why, where and when).
5. Convert those now to questions you are asking the people of that communication channel (wording it like you would if you were face to face with someone at a networking event)
6. Place and time them into HootSuite – my absolutely favorite online communication management tool. 

What did I leave out?  What would you recommend?

Cross-posted on TheBuzz101

Author:

Maria Elena Duron | chief engagement officer is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss all aspects of branding.

Confirmation in Brand Engagement

What is brand engagement?  It is when you can engage others in a way that they can verbalize what makes you unique.

I believe that the branding process is not complete until you engage someone with your brand.  That phrase, “they’re an expert in their own mind”, is just that – in your mind.  True brand success comes when you can engage others with your brand by successfully expressing and exuding to them what your brand is that they, in turn, can speak of and communicate your brand through the credibility of their own voice to the people who know, like and trust them. 

Every Wednesday I moderate a chat on Twitter known as #brandchat.  We discuss all things about “branding”.  In the month, we designate a certain focus or theme for our chats to keep all the chatters basically ‘rowing in the same direction’ although the span and depth of a topic provides a vast array of conversations that can happen.  On week one, we focus on “general questions, topics, ideas” centered on branding.  Week two we focus small business brands.  For week three our theme focuses on big business brands and non-profit brands.  And, on week four we focus on personal brands.

What I’ve found in moderating #brandchat is this, the people that complain the most about “personal branding” and it’s existence (because many of the complainers are those who say it doesn’t exists – that it lives in some blogger’s fantasy) are the ones who use the facets of personal branding the most.  Interesting, isn’t it?

Do they deliberately try to throw others ‘off the scent’ so they won’t have any competition or is it because ‘branding has become rote’ to them?

So, what is the definition of personal branding? (the most commonly asked question in our chat and the most diversely answered.)  I’ve said (and so have many others), ‘it is the space you (or a product) takes up in someone’s mind.”

The facets of personal branding

1.  It is discovering what makes you unique.
I’ve never met anyone online who says, “yup, that’s me – I’m just like everyone else”.  In fact, those who are extremely active in the online space are unique and leaders in their field.  These “non-personal branders” are so good a communicating what makes them unique – they can do it in 140 characters or less!  How about that for great personal brand dexterity?

2.  It is finding the best communication tools and avenues that express that uniqueness
Some prefer blogging while others eNewsletters.  Others like writing on the wall while still others tweet. And, some are strictly face to face people.

3.  It is exuding that uniqueness in everything verbal and non-verbal (confirming that it is true and genuine)
So, you say you’re easily accessible and yet you only check voice messages once a day.  And, email maybe once every other day.  And, maybe you don’t have an office or store front – in fact, you may be very difficult to find.  No matter what you say – it’s what they experience that is the true brand communication.  If a disconnect exists between what you say and what you do, your credibility is shot.

4.  It is engaging that uniqueness in a way that others can verbalize what makes you unique
So, if you say and express you brand in the woods and nobody hears it, is it still your brand?  Or, does brand, by the very definition mean that there’s others involved?

Post your thoughts in the comments.  I’m anxious to hear them!

Cross-posted on TheBuzz101

Author:

Maria Elena Duron | chief engagement officer is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss all aspects of branding.

Define and Refine Your Brand Communication

I’m enjoying the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.  It focuses on how social media transforms the way we live and do business.  And, I agree.  Social media is just another form of communication and those formats are ever changing - as we see with the extinction of the pay phone.

One particular excerpt I enjoyed was the topic of “Assessing You Life Every Minute”.   Addressing that age-old question of “What am I doing with my life’, Qualman quotes Bill Tily, from a personal interview. Tily at the age of 83 shares,

I actually made a habit of physically printing out my social media updates from the previous month and going through them one by one and highlighting updates that were necessarily contributing to a “full” life.  Over time, I reduced the amount of “waste” and actually became so cognizant of it during the actually act of updating my stats that I’d recognized in that specific moment in time what I would deem an “unfruitful activity” and cease engaging in it immediately.  I wish these social media tools were around a long time ago!”

How many of us have ever printed out our updates in Facebook , Twitter or LinkedIn; or our blog posts and comments we’ve made regarding blog posts?

Would our communication be something that we would be ‘proud’ of?

Take the challenge and look at just this last week’s updates and leave feedback in the comment section below on how you fared.

A recent survey by Hubpages, found that people find that 84% of status updates are negative.

Define

Use your updates to DEFINE your brand and share what makes you unique.  Focus on those things and look that every Facebook status update, every Twitter tweet, every linked in news update – does each one support the definition of who you are?   Do they exude your brand attributes or excrete something different?

Refine

Next, REFINE your updates.  No doubt there will be negative stuff that happens in our lives.  The key question to ask before you post about these events (and it’s actually the same question to ask yourself in real life – even if it has nothing to do with posting to anywhere), is this:  What can I learn from what I’m experiencing?

Now, share what you’ve learned in your update.

This will refine your communication to be genuine and yet more valuable because there’s a problem and solution (or solution mindset) that you are communicating.  That will refine your communication to being on brand and ultimately make your updates and brand attributes more visible and viral as people “like” your update or retweet it.

Do let me know how you do on reviewing your last week’s updates!

Cross-posted on TheBuzz101

Author:

Maria Elena Duron | chief engagement officer is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss company and personal brands!

Face to Face Networking with Care

Last week, we covered how to do this online yet it’s not sensible to think that all of our interactions can and will occur online alone.

So, how do you show people that you care in your offline or “face-to-face” interactions?

Provide them an opportunity to be heard

Most people don’t have an audience applauding and giving them support.  How can you do that for someone?  Give them time to be heard.  Listen to them – either set up telephone time or coffee time but give them your undivided attention.

Listen to how you can help
It’s called active listening and it’s not parroting back what someone said to you – it is paraphrasing and making sure you understood.  Listen, first for content and meaning, and then listen even more intently for feeling and emotion.  Then, check in to see if you’ve gotten it right and listen to the feedback.  Did you get it right?  Where did you miss?

Never network alone
Keith Ferrazi’s book, Never Eat Alone, talks about never having a lunch alone and populating your lunch time with people you want to connect with and learn from.
Following that same premise, never network alone – if you’re attending a networking function, take someone with you.  It could be a client, a co-worker or a connection, go with this in mind:

Who do they need to connect with?
It could be a provider (maybe they need a dentist for their children?  Or a vet for their pet?).  It could be they need a mentor for a problem they are encountering (time management, speaking skills, leadership tips).   Maybe they need a contact for their business – prospect or supplier? Or, perhaps they need a link, a connector, to a service, product, mentor, client or prospective employer that they would like to connect with.

Go to an event with that in mind.  It won’t be about who you can meet you will work the room and connect with people to help who you brought.  In the process, you will grow and develop your networking, listening skill and your own contact base.

Know them
What is of interest to them? What is their greatest challenge?  Often times, sometimes the most caring thing you can ask someone is what’s on your mind and concerning you/or troubling you and then listen. 

One of the best questions a mentor taught me to ask someone, especially when they seem aloof or distracted is, “before we saw each other something was on your mind and after we part it will be the first thing on your mind – is there something I can do to help you with that thought , challenge or concern.”

Cross-posted on TheBuzz101

Author:

Maria Elena Duron | chief engagement officer is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss company and personal brands!

Is Your Brand Nestled In Professionalism?

This week’s #brandchat was all a flurry about Nestle and their handling of what some would call a “brandjacking” from Greenpeace then carried on by their thousands of Facebook fans.

From an article by the Wall Street Journal regarding the incident to host of comments, BRANDidos discussed what went wrong; how could it have been prevented; to how can they (or any other brand) recover from this.

First, what is a brandjacking?  During the chat, we defined it in three ways:

• Every time someone unofficial represents themselves as speaking for a company or,
• To hijack a brand to deceive or divert attention; often used in abusive or fraudulent activities devised for gain at the expense of the goodwill, brand equity and customer trust of actual brand owners or,
• A brandjacking by a consumer refers to how the consumer perceives or uses your product or service. A smart company will learn rather than fight this positive reaction. One of my favorite books covers this subject: Brand Hijack: Marketing Without Marketing

What went wrong? 

Here's some excerpts from the chat recap:

JohnAntonios: A1: first off i think it's nestle's fault (wrt facebook) - it's a mismanagement on their front - they were bickering #brandchat  [WRT = with respect to]

shotgunconcepts: Brands MUST plan for an online crisis response in the same way they’d plan for a traditional crisis. Q1 #brandchat

JohnAntonios: A1: did anyone read the replies Nestle posted on facebook - they are unacceptable in any media #brandchat

karenswim: Q1: The Nestle incident underscores why it's so important to have clear internal communication policy before going public #brandchat

techguerilla: @brandchat Without moderation risk can never be eliminated. Everyone, whether individual or big corp. is vulnerable to it #brandchat

You can read the full chat recap here.

What can your personal brand learn from this?

John Antonios said it best, “when personal branding goes wrong - they let "personal" get in the way of professional.”

Having a human voice in your online interactions does not mean that it’s not a professional human voice.  Exuding your personal brand doesn’t mean to “just let it all hang out”.  It does mean be authentic, be real and true to your brand attributes and be as professional and engaging as you would be if we were standing across from each other in conversation at a networking event.

While some want to point to social media being the problem, it isn’t.  The core of the problem is having ill equipped communication practices and neither the company culture nor system provided to effectively train the person(s) manning the keyboard.

Although not every outlet sees that, for example the Wall Street Journal’s column states that “marketers are split on whether to keep the Facebook page up or shut it down and start over again.”

My response – “Shut down the page? I don't think so. This is one marketer who is not split on this. You cannot shut down the voices and comments of a community. You can address it. Engage it. Be human about it as if they were connecting with you face-to-face. And, what a "feather in their cap" this will be to see them climb out of this hole and create an engaged and loyal community.”

To bury your head in the sand and pretend you can "just have a do over" is not real. To evolve your brand is real. 

For personal brands in the employ of companies, if you’re in the front line of public relations:

1. Have an escalation policy
2. Know how to handle a crisis and be well trained or offer suggestions on what possible scenarios can be.  An airplane never hopes for a crash landing, yet their personnel is prepared for one (one board and on the ground).
3. Prepare way in advance by putting all the tools and resources in place.
4. Pay attention to customer needs.
5. Respond to customer needs –personally AND professionally.

Not rocket science yet often forgotten in the high-speed, hyper-engaged communication of today.  Communication is faster and we have to be smarter.

And, personal brands, if you don’t have these things in place then ask for them.  It will not only protect your company’s brand – it will protect your brand.  Are reputation is still, in many respects, is built by association.

If you’re a personal brand going it alone in the social space, be sure to:

1. Have a plan as to what you hope to do, experience or gain from being involved with any social network.
2. Be able to make a daily commitment to that network (showing up once a week on Twitter or your Facebook page has more opportunity to harm your reputation than help it).
3. Have a definite "friend"ing, following or fanning policy.  Put direction in your connection.  For example, if your personal profile is your personal profile on Facebook – then keep it that way.  Know that you won’t be connecting with anyone that you meet at a conference or some random people who happen to be in your same geographic area.  Yet, how will you direct connections like that? Send them to LinkedIn?  Twitter?  Or, have a Facebook business page profile set up for an individual professional?

Know before you go.

Cross-posted on TheBuzz101

Author:

Maria Elena Duron | chief engagement officer is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss company and personal brands!

Are your communication skills all about electronics or the message?

At a recent communications conference, the speaker asked how many of the attendees used BlackBerries?  Hands shot up.  “How many of you use Twitter?” came the next question.  “How about FaceBook?”  Again hands – at least every other person’s – waved in the air.

Obviously, the audience had become adept in social networking and the associated electronics. But, then came the question, “How many of you communicate effectively?”

The room became quiet and only a few hesitant hands went into the air.

Personal Branding is all about exuding your brand effectively to your brand community. If you communicate with clients, vendors, team members and/or management, it’s not about how instantaneous your communications are.  It’s all about how clearly and concisely you send your messages…and once received, if the message is clearly and concisely understood.

And even with cell phones, hand-helds of every description and the Internet . . .  management across the country continues to place poor communication at the top of their list of challenges.  Here are the results from a recent corporate survey to encourage us all to evaluate the quality of our communications:

• 85 percent said their business has lost money due to ineffective presentations, proposals or e-mail.
• 55 percent said employees could not easily find information they needed.
• 45 percent said information for business use is either inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
• 44 percent said information they use often lacked adequate detail.
• 44 percent said an average of 30 minutes to an hour was wasted each day due to ineffective written communications within the company.

Be careful.  Today’s electronic communications are far superior to anything we’ve ever known – and using these wisely can only move the level of our communications up and even beyond. But, as we employ these electronic tools to stay in touch with clients or as a resource in order to achieve a higher performance level, let us not forget the importance of language and writing skills…the basics of communications for all of us.

Valerie Sokolosky
Author and Founder of Valerie & Company
www.valerieandcompany.com

Brands of a Feather Flock Together

Recently, a blogger asked:  Can your personal brand be affected by those who follow you on Twitter?

What say you?

I say “yes”.  You might think that’s kind of harsh especially when those of us who have any presence on social networks have woke up one morning and found some spammer or sex goddess following us and thought “ugh” have they been following me through the night?  How long?  Have my contacts seen this person or worse yet, have they poached and spammed my contacts?

So, does it affect your personal brand?

It all depends how you manage it.

I tell clients and audiences “if you don’t have time to take care of your presence on a network – then don’t jump into that network.”  It’s just like if you walked into a networking event and threw out a comment and said nothing afterward.  Even as people asked you questions or expounded upon your statement, you just stood there in silence with deadpan eyes.  That’s exactly what some people are doing to their personal brands as they race to have “presence” on the big three (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn).

And, even online, who you associate with makes a difference.  So, if you make the decision to join a network, what plans do you have to maintain the network?  The next question then is, “how do you not become slave to social media?”  A question often asked by someone who doesn’t have a plan and they’ve just jumped into the online space to have “presence”.  The secret to involvement, connection or success is not “just showing up” as some will tout.  It is “showing up well.”

Here’s what I recommend:

1.  If you’re going to jump into a network, then have a plan. 
While there are many different helpful worksheets to determine your online strategy or plan, it really boils down to what is your communication plan.  So answer the basic questions of  - who; what; why; where; and when? That will assist you in deciding YOUR active networks.  For example, refrain from jumping onto YouTube if all you have is one video to post and no plans, thoughts, ideas, or ability to produce any more.  An old unattended network is creating a negative impression and quite possibly some negative word of mouth.  Better to be cautious then appear lazy.

2. When in a network, what’s your commitment to it?
If you blog, when will you blog?  How often? When will you respond to comments made on your blog? (It’s true. There are many who blog and throw their thoughts out there and then don’t engage those who comment on their post. The horror!  What is that lone act communicating about their brand?)

If you’re on Twitter, how often are you tweeting?  How often do you follow back? What’s your follow back policy? Who do you discard as followers or block? When will you do that maintenance? On Facebook, what’s your friending policy?  Do you give fans the ability to write on your wall or not?

For me, every single day I’m work, engage and “spot check”  my networks because that’s a key component in MY communication strategy.  For network maintenance and cleanliness, I do a “thorough review” of my network once a week.  It’s my quiet morning to catch up on the latest so instead of sitting down at the kitchen table with my morning paper, I check my networks and read the bios or pages of people following, fanning or connecting with me.  I block the spammers. Reciprocate to those it makes sense to stay connected with.  And, say “hello” to contacts I haven’t engaged with in a while.

3. Specifically, for each network you have presence on you must have some sort of maintenance plan for that network.
For LinkedIn: I disconnect from anyone whose asked me for a referral and I don’t even know them; whose asked for a recommendation and I don’t know them.  And, I do not respond and delete connection requests from anyone whose used the phrase “because you’re someone I trust I would like to add you to my professional network” –when we haven’t even met.

For Facebook: On my personal profile, I connect with friends and acquaintances.  Because my personal brand is about inspiration and positive word of mouth, I delete those who are so negative in their updates and comments; for others I block their ability to write on my wall if I still want to stay connected but know they can be negative at times; I hide those crazy new applications that keep popping up, or delete those who keep spamming about their product or service.  Then, I go to my Facebook Fan Page (which I do monitor several times a day since my wall is open for comments) and see who of my friends and acquaintances are fans and invite them to become fans (sometimes those closest to you have no idea what you do).

 
For Twitter:  I manually use Twitn by buzzom to help me manage my followers (I’m still not a fan on anything on ‘auto-pilot’ because they lack the human connection that is a core of my personal brand).  I use it because of the volume of Twitter followers I receive from my personal tweets to the connections I garner from moderating #brandchat ,the weekly chat about branding. There I can see all the new followers in one place, see whose reciprocated, and then who I followed back and then unfollowed me immediately (meaning their just building their follower number).  I can also “flush and block” those who are just spamming.

“Guilt by Association” is used when you’re reputation is assumed to be like someone else you associate with really stemming from the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.”  “Built by Association” is a term I use with clients to explain to that the opposite is true.  Whomever you associate with, you can learn from, grow, brainstorm, mastermind with and lift each other up. 

I’m curious to know how do you manage your flock?

Cross-posted on TheBuzz101

Author:

Maria Elena Duron | chief buzz officer, speaker and coach is co-founder of #brandchat, a weekly conversation on Twitter.  Join us weekly as we discuss company and personal brands!

The Public Life of Your Personal Brand

Most people would readily agree they have a personal life, but few would describe themselves as having a “public life.” Sure, we have our work life and our home life. Yet, we don’t usually think about having a “public” dimension to our lives. Politicians and celebrities have public lives. We do not. We are apt to believe our careers are part of a daily blur of activities and don’t really stand out.

Yet, to a large degree, professional success has always been driven by the positive regard of others. It shapes our reputation. And although we might not consciously make the connection, reputation exists by virtue of a public life. Sure, many of us have tended to be conscious of making the right “career moves.” Still, we’ve not usually thought of proactively managing our success in a “public life” context. The advent, and virtual explosion of social media, has changed that. Forever. 

Today, if you want to be successful, you need to respond to the incessant demand to have a public life, especially as defined by the strength of your web presence. In fact, with 79% of US hiring managers and recruiters reviewing online information about job applicants, it means if you are not digitally visible, you don’t exist. So, the link between career success and showing up online is becoming stronger. 

Fortunately, people are recognizing the need to anchor their careers (and lives) on the web. Just witness the explosive growth of professional networking site, LinkedIn, which has grown to over 50 million business users worldwide. Further evidence of the explosive growth of social media is reflected in Facebook’s average daily growth of 600 thousand new users, and Twitter’s 1,382% year-over-year growth rate as of February 2010.

Of course, today, web presence requires more than the static or passive web page. Sure, you’ll need to post profiles in online communities you join; and ideally, these will capture you in terms of unique attributes, motivated skills, and even proof of performance to demonstrate your value. But that’s just for starters. Especially since your personal brand truly comes alive in the way you engage others – both online and in face-to-face situations. So, you also need to think about your brand as conversation and not as pre-scripted messages! 

Fortunately, the key to managing your public life is relatively simple. First, you need to show up in a way that is authentic; in other words, be yourself.  Second, you need to take a genuine interest in others. After all, that’s what drives conversation! Yet, while the formula is simple, it helps to find and integrate the good advice and perspectives or others. And while there is lots of advice out there, I think you’d do well to take a look a terrific Chris Brogan post, Be Sexier in Person. It’s a great read, with great comments, and lessons you can apply across your entire public life! 

Cross-posted at Threshold Consulting.