Branding | The Personal Branding Blog

Is Your Personal Brand LINtastic?

February 22, 2012 By Paul Copcutt 2 Comments

My trip last weekend to keynote at Ball State University took me in to the heart of basketball country. Everywhere you looked there was connection to the game.

Coupled with this has been the meteoric rise of Jeremy Lin over the past two weeks. A social media personal branding sensation.

It was a case of basketball, basketball, basketball! It truly has been LINsanity (he has just applied to trademark that phrase!).

There are a number of lessons from Jeremy’s LINtastic recent success that you can take and apply to your own personal brand;

1. Continue to play to your strengths.
Even though he was not picked up originally by an NBA team, dropped and relegated to minor leagues he still continued to play to his own set of strengths.

Personal Brand Lesson
It is important to understand your weaknesses and how they might impact on your brand. But if you spend all your time on them you draw attention to them and you will never get a weakness to a point of strength. Take the extra time and effort to leverage your strengths.

2. Be ready for the opportunity.
A number of injuries and poor results gave him another chance, just when the team were considering releasing him. His persistence paid off and now he has helped the team to win 8 of the last 10 games.

Personal Brand Lesson
In the new reality that is work today the next opportunity might come when you least expect it. You have to be ready. Once you have been given the chance make the most of it and be sure to give 110%. People will remember you for your hard work and results.

3. Be authentic, remember where you came from.
There have been his detractors, but Lin has remained humble and appreciative of the chance to play. Even crass (or just thoughtless) sports reporting he recognised as a mistake and accepted apologies.

Personal Brand Lesson
Your personal brand is who you are. It should not be some false image or manufactured personna. The temptation once you have found more success might be to conveniently forget the past. Remain true to who you are and recognise what got you where you are now.

What other lessons can you see and apply to your career and personal brand from the recent LINsanity?

Paul Copcutt first aligned with personal branding after reading Tom Peters ‘Brand You 50’ in 1997. Now a sought after speaker and media resource he has been featured by Forbes, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and Elle. He helps employees in leading Fortune 500 corporations realise they can be more successful and productive at work by NOT checking their personalities at the door.

Filed Under: Everything is a Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Personal Branding Trends, Sports Tagged With: Brand Story, branding, Personal Brand, social media

Is your career facing a Kodak moment?

January 20, 2012 By Paul Copcutt 1 Comment

No doubt the business school case studies in years to come about the sad demise of Kodak and it’s brand will raise many questions about the effectiveness of it’s leaders. The filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Kodak this week has many lessons for all businesses, but what can you learn from this and be sure that you are not facing the same in your career?

1. Don’t underestimate the impact your ideas have.
It was the mid-70′s when Kodak actually developed for the first digital camera. Can you imagine how far ahead they may have been in the market place and for how long had they moved on this revolutionary idea.

Personal Brand Lesson - just because your industry or vocation has done it the same way for a long time and everyone is comfortable with that way does not mean an idea out of left field is not a better one. Be willing to challenge the status quo.

2. Don’t be complacent or greedy.
Kodak leaders decided to shelve the digital camera because they felt it was going to do too much damage to their highly lucrative and profitable film business.

Personal Brand Lesson – it makes sense to maximise your value with the core strengths you have. But know that you need to continually develop yourself and add new skills. Demands and markets change, so your brand has to evolve over time. Anticipate demands and start adding to your skill set now.

3. Be Prepared to Re-brand
The plan for Kodak is to sell it’s $2 billion worth of patents and emerge as a more agile company in the printer business. They see revenue and profit in ink (HP generates $9 billion a year in ink cartridges). But does the tagline of the “Kodak Moment” still apply? Likely not, as they become less and less synonymous with photos a re-brand of the company would almost seem inevitable.

Personal Brand Lesson - the experts tell us that the workforce of the future might well be in many different vocation, not just jobs, in their lifetime. The foundation and core of your brand might remain the same, but sometimes the message and your target audience will change and a re-branding is necessary.

How do you see business the lessons from the likes of RIM and Kodak apply to your career and personal brand?

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Everything is a Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Recession-Proof Your Career Tagged With: branding, Business, career, Career Management, Personal Brand

Personal Branding Resources

December 1, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

These resources are brought to you by William Arruda as part of the Reach 10th Anniversary Celebration …

10 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Reach Personal Branding
Top 10 Videos from Personal Branding TV
Top 10 Social Media Dos for A Successful Job Search
10 Ways to Give to Your Network

10 Days to Establishing and Achieving Your Goals
Top 10 Ways to Unearth The Brand Called YOU
Top 10 Most Viewed Commercial Breaks
10 Days to Understanding Your Professional Reputation
10 Ways to Build and Maintain Your Professional Network

10 Days to Writing a Compelling Branded Bio
10 Steps to Recession-Proof Your Career
Ten Most-Read Blog Posts from The Personal Branding Blog
10 Days to a Perfect Linkedin Profile
10 Tools For Creating a Website That Exudes Your Personal Brand

Ten Days to Creating Your Personal Brand Identity System
The Ten Most Re-Tweeted Tweets
Ten Tips Towards Career Reinvention
Ten Days to Positioning You and Your Brand
How Not to Build Your Personal Brand

Ten Most Listened-to Audios from the Reach Personal Branding Interview Series
Ten Reasons to Make 2012 The Year of Your Brand
Top Ten Willisms – William Arruda’s thoughts on Personal Branding

Filed Under: Discovering Your Brand, Employee Brand Activation, Employees Are The Brand, Everything is a Brand, Executive Branding, Expressing Your Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs Tagged With: branding, job search, LinkedIn, online identity, personal branding trends, social networking, Twitter, William Arruda

The Value of Google+ and Your Personal Brand

August 11, 2011 By Maria Elena Duron 3 Comments

Google+ is the newest and latest offering by Google in social networking. And though previously, Google’s attempts at social networking have pretty much been flops, it seems that finally, Google has created a site that most of its earliest users are raving about. Just three weeks after its launch, Google+ already has 20 million users under its belt. And they haven’t officially opened the doors to everyone yet, since you can’t make an account there without an invitation.

So what does this mean for your personal brand? Though you may already have accounts in established social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you simply can’t ignore the value that Google+ can give you. It offers features that have integrated the best of what social media are offering, and it’s even given a new meaning to online relationships and sharing with Circles and Sparks.

So let’s take a look at how each feature can help you in your personal branding campaign.

Circles

Unlike with Facebook and Twitter, where every post or tweet you put up is basically shared with all of your friends and followers, and your newsfeed is filled with every single entry that your friends have shared, Google+ Circles gives you the ability to include and exclude the people you want to share and exchange information with. It’s a way to separate your personal and professional from each other, a very helpful feature in your personal branding campaign.

After all, if you skipped work because of a major hangover, you don’t necessarily want to share that information with your colleagues or your boss, which may get you fired, or if not, reprimanded. With Circles, you can simply choose a group to share this information with (such as the people you were drinking with that night), so you don’t have to worry about your personal brand suffering.

What Circles offers is intuitive, encouraging a more meaningful information and content sharing with specific groups to form closer connections and relationships. This is really helpful for your personal brand, as you can have much more meaningful interactions with potential clients or employers, and highlight your skills and expertise to a more targeted audience.

Sparks

Sparks is another excellent feature of Google+. It lets you select your interests and find relevant news and information online that you can share with your groups. It’s an excellent way to keep up to date with the latest trends, as well as always have a stimulating conversation going on with each of your Circles.

In your personal brand, it’s all about selling your skills and expertise, and one way to do this is to keep updated on what’s happening with your particular niche, and showing this to interested people. With Google+, you don’t have to share this information with your five hundred friends who couldn’t care less about marketing trends or the latest gadgets; you can simply choose a group whom you know will be enthusiastic about the news you share.

Perhaps the best thing about Sparks is the fact that you don’t have to leave the page so you can find something to share with your group. You basically have a search engine built right into the site that highlights your interests, so you can easily build your personal brand by sharing content that’s targeted toward your niche.

Hangout and Huddle

These two are excellent features to help you better interact with your groups in real-time video conferencing and chats. You can easily form closer relationships with people involved in the same industry as you are without having to meet in real life – with Hangouts, it’s easy to do a team video conference where you can talk about common interests with your groups. And Huddle is an excellent group messaging tool to easily send specific information to one of your Circles.

Google+ Profile

One thing you shouldn’t forget is to make sure your Google+ profile is completely set up, as this is very useful for your personal brand. Having a complete profile can help you rank better in the Google Search Engine for your name, and it also plays a vital role in defining who you are, as well as your skills and expertise.

A key hint is if you’re known by different names or even if you want to be associated with your business or company name make sure you list it as “other names” so that they will be associated with you.

Maria Elena Duron, CEO (chief engagement officer), buzz2bucks | a word of mouth marketing firm, is skilled at making networks “work” and harnessing powerful online and offline buzz, she facilitates online visibility services and word of mouth coaching and workshops – taking companies and professionals from buzz-worthy to bucks-worthy.

Filed Under: Expressing Your Brand, Social Media Tagged With: branding, social media

Google Me Features And Benefits

June 30, 2011 By Maria Elena Duron Leave a Comment

On the internet, your personal sites and similar data can be scattered making it rather difficult for folks to find you when you need them to. Businesses and customers want to get to know you and what you have to offer them. Google has now created a feature that accumulates that data and files it together for a potential customer or employer to find your information.

Google’s growth in your online reputation

You have the ability to create your public identity now. Using the new feature makes it easy to accumulate links to your social media, blogs and any personal information on the internet. This gives you a singular access point that can be located just by Googling your name. It makes it easier for employers to see your profiles, online resumes and any available criteria when they are considering you for employment or even promotions. By letting search engines do the work for you, marketing yourself will be easier than ever. The feature will be similar to creating your own personal window into the large world of the internet, a site that keeps your name familiar to the business world.

With this feature, you can continuously manage your online profile. Selecting and removing needless or unwanted data will help you to clear up your profile and keep your online outline simple and neat. You can create links to your social media and any online web sites that you are involved in thus creating an electronic resume. People whom want to follow your blog’s or twitter can find you easily to enjoy even more of your online writing. The feature keeps up with any site that contains your name or related information so that you can choose what you want to make available on your Google Me profile. This helps others know that you are involved in the business world and what particular interests you have. It is a great tool to demonstrate your knowledge in your particular brand so that you can establish yourself as an expert in your field. Potential clients will be able to Google you to see what qualifications you have for their needs.

Your Google-ability and personal brand

Linking your profile to your personal brand site is likely going to be one of the best advantages. It will widen the range at which search engines will locate your relative sites and bring them to the eyes of the public. . Blogs and responses to blogs such as comments will even ring on the alert and can be linked to your public profile. You can also set up the feature to alert you when any of your personal information appears over the internet. Keeping up with the Google feature will be important. Consistently adding new links and information will create a more expansive resume for people to see. Keep your Google me fresh for the ever-changing world of the internet. This new tool will help to make you more available to the business world and keep your name prepared for the future.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Social Media Tagged With: branding, Personal Brand, personal branding, social media, social networking

Not Enough To Be “Just A Speaker”

June 2, 2011 By Maria Elena Duron Leave a Comment

In our highly competitive world, it is becoming harder and harder to stand out and let yourself be heard. Today, it is not enough to become a “speaker” on the particular topic or niche you’ve chosen. To make people listen and take notice, you need to be known as “The Expert” in your industry who speaks.

Real life experience

But how do you do this? First of all, what exactly is an expert? It is a person with a special skill or knowledge in a particular field. But it doesn’t stop there. In addition to having that skill or knowledge, an expert is known for having experience on that particular niche – he is able to identify problems and is known for coming up with creative solutions. And lastly, he knows how to communicate with others. He doesn’t merely keep the solutions to himself – he knows how to spread the word about it, effectively establishing himself as the true expert in his field.

It’s important to note that becoming an expert takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. But once you do become the expert in your field, you will then become the go-to person in your industry. And when you speak, people will listen. So here are some tips to help you become known as the expert who speaks.

Choose your niche wisely This is one of the most important steps in becoming an expert. You want to focus on a niche that you’re interested in and be something that interests others as well. You don’t want to choose a topic that’s too broad – you want something more narrow and specific, something that a group of people really care about and are passionate in.
Study hard and stay committed After you’ve chosen your niche, study very hard and continuously about your topic. Learn everything about it, be a life long learner and devote time each day to learning all that you can. Have a serious commitment to your niche (this is why it is so important that you, yourself, are passionately and genuinely interested in your niche). Experts are known for their passion and enthusiasm for their fields of expertise. It’s not enough to learn all that you can and then stop once you believe you know enough. True experts know that you can never learn enough about a particular topic – as more and more methods and strategies crop up, experts continue to keep themselves updated with what’s current and what’s relevant. They are never stagnant. They know that they need to keep up with the trends to continue being an expert in their chosen field.
Be authentic Real experts are true to themselves and their topic – they practice what they preach, and they don’t try to scam anyone. They only market what they truly believe in, and they don’t make any false promises.
Share your knowledge As mentioned earlier, just having the knowledge and skills does not make you an expert. Be able to share this knowledge or skill to others; know how to communicate effectively so that people will listen. A healthy balance must be maintained in imparting your knowledge to a group of people. Show your knowledge without appearing to be a showoff. And, be able to explain in a language that most people can clearly understand. Though each field has a specific jargon, true experts stand out by being able to describe their work in simple terms.

Take time to discover your niche

Remember, becoming known as the expert who speaks takes time and a lot of hard work. But as long as you stay committed to your goal, remain authentic, and continue to communicate with others, you will soon be able to establish trust with your audience and become the expert who is heard above all others in your field.

Filed Under: Discovering Your Brand, Expressing Your Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips Tagged With: brand management, branding, Personal Brand, personal branding

Steps You Can Take to Mobilize Your Personal Brand

May 19, 2011 By Maria Elena Duron Leave a Comment

With millions of people using their mobile phones to surf the web and find information, it has become increasingly important for people involved in different professions to consider mobile media in their marketing strategy. Since it is predicted that more people will be purchasing smart phones and getting unlimited cell phone plans, you have to ask yourself: What are you doing to mobilize your personal brand?

Are you mobile?

More and more people are realizing the importance of mobile media in helping them connect with potential clients and customers. With mobile users on the rise – it’s been predicted that mobile web users will hit the billion mark by the end of this year, it has become increasingly important for you to take your personal brand to the next level and mobilize it. Here are some steps you can take:

Utilize social media sites for mobile

According to a study done by comScore, released in March 2011, there has been a significant increase of smartphone users accessing social networking sites via their mobile browsers; from 22.5 percent a year ago to 30.8 percent this year. People accessing Facebook using their mobile browser has increased by 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter also experienced a huge increase in traffic from mobile users, with a 347 percent jump.

So if you don’t have a Facebook profile or Twitter account for you and your business yet, this is the time to join the bandwagon. If you already do, you need to do a mobile review of your current profile and account to see if it is ready for making mobile connections.

Make your personal website or blog more mobile friendly

Non-mobile or “full” sites are not easily viewed using mobile devices. If you don’t provide a mobile friendly version of your blog or personal website, then you are deliberately giving your possible clients and customers a poor experience of your site through their mobile phones, leading to fewer visitors to your site.

Basically, making your blog or personal website mobile friendly will attract more visitors to your site. So if you don’t start optimizing your site for mobile users, then you may end up with fewer clients and less traffic.

Learn how to interact better via the mobile channel

Consider this: the mobile phone is truly the most interactive device a person can have, because it is basically brought wherever the person goes. Mobile web has truly surpassed Internet browsing over the laptop or PC, as it gives people the ability to access information anytime, anywhere.

So to mobilize your personal brand, you need to learn how to interact with potential clients and customers through the mobile platform. Once you’re able to interact well with people via the mobile channel, you can effectively market yourself and enjoy a better reputation as a professional.

Truly, you cannot let yourself get left behind in the dust while your competition utilizes this incredibly effective marketing medium. So take the steps now to mobilize your personal brand so you can effectively reach a wider audience in your profession.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Personal Branding Trends, Social Media Tagged With: branding, buzzworthy, Personal Brand, personal branding

5 Easy Ways To Take Control Of Your Personal Brand

May 12, 2011 By Maria Elena Duron 2 Comments

With a struggling economy, overwhelming competition, and more work pressures, investing in your own self and your future is becoming crucial. There are plenty of trends and strategies that you utilize today to optimize your personal brand. Here are five easy tips on how you can control your online identity, centralize digital assets, protect your future and safeguard your personal brand from threats.

Start claiming your Google profile.

Google just recently launched Google Profiles, a feature that lets users claim their very own profiles that can be displayed at the search results when their names are Googled. All you need to do is register for a Google account with your full name. Put a check on the box that says “display full name so I can be found on search.” Include links to your site, blog and other social media profiles.

Reserve your profile in social networking sites.

Aside from having the Google profile and a blog or site, you would want to see your brand name on various social networking websites. Go to Namechk.com to see if your name is claimed on these social networks. Make sure you have made a decent profile on social media leaders like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, etc. By securing your name, you are also protecting your brand against the competition. Locking down your name will secure your future, whether you opt to leverage these profiles to promote your brand or leave it as it is.

Create a personal hub.

You need to secure a place where people can go if they want to learn more about you and your services. If you can host a website with your domain name on it, that would be great! Choose the digital assets that you are most proud of and then include them in your marketing materials. Select only a single website that will serve as a personal hub page because most recruiters don’t want to search the entire online database looking for your profile information.

Implement a reputation management strategy.

There are companies having a hard time getting into the social media realm while protecting their brands at the same time. Anyone can destroy your personal brand. That is why it is vital that you have your own reputation management strategy. Know how to respond to comments and negative feedback regarding your brand. Don’t forget to say “thank you” to people who complement your brand.

Promote your very own expertise.

Today, there are thousands of channels for you promote your professional brand such as Twtjobs and LinkedIn. You would still probably need a hard copy of your resume during the interview, but you can also convince recruiters that you are the best person for the job based on what they have seen online. Try to build and enhance your social resume and develop a blog roll regarding your expertise.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers Tagged With: branding, Personal Brand, personal branding, Reach Personal Branding

Career Advice: Many Heads are Better than One

January 13, 2010 By William Arruda 2 Comments

A couple of months ago, Chris Perry of Career Rocketeer asked me to contribute to Launchpad – a career search strategy guide – he was putting together featuring experts in many areas related to successful job search. I am a fan of these types of books that bring together experts on many topics all focused on one objective – in the case: finding a job.

Here’s what Chris Perry says about Launchpad: “There are so many outstanding career resources, blogs and experts out there online to use in one's job search and personal branding efforts, but as many job seekers come to find, there is never as much time as one would ideally want to take advantage of all of them. I found this to be true in my own career search this past year and realized that bringing the industry's top career experts together, each sharing their unique niche expertise, advice, experience and tips, through short, actionable articles in one career resource guide would be invaluable to a job seeker or professional pressed for career success, but also pressed for time. This is where the idea for Launchpad was born, and I am so excited to have now gathered these experts together to share the first issue of this Launchpad: Your Career Search Strategy Guide with you today.” You can learn more here: http://launchpad.careerrocketeer.com/

DISCLOSURE: I do not make any money from the sale of this book. I recommend it because I think it has value to job seekers who want to stand out and find their next gig. If you are currently in job search mode, I wish you all the best!

Filed Under: Books, Expressing Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers Tagged With: branding, career resource guide, Career Rocketeer, career search, careers, Chris Perry, finding a job, job search, Launchpad, personal branding, William Arruda

Is your career facing a Kodak moment?

Not Enough To Be “Just A Speaker”

5 Easy Ways To Take Control Of Your Personal Brand

Career Advice: Many Heads are Better than One

Top Ten Personal Branding Articles of 2009 By Robin Coley

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“The Bible of Personal Branding”

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