10 Secrets to a Personal Brand Upgrade – Part 1

January 5, 2013 by 1 Comment
seo-secrets

Happy New Year for Brand YOU in 2013! Many of us like to use the first days of the year to create our 'resolutions' - lose weight, exercise more, read a book every week, etc. To be honest, how many of us actually stick to these resolutions? I know I almost never do! So, here is my challenge: 'Resolve' to give up making empty resolutions and take immediate, practical actions to upgrade your personal brand for 2013! In this two-part post, I will give you 10 secrets to get you started on refreshing your personal brand. Here are the first five. 1. Refresh Your Head-shot Start off with the New Year with a new 'look'. Keep it professional and stay 'on-brand', but change it up a bit. For example, if your head-shot in 2012 was more formal with a tie and jacket, think about being a bit more casual for 2013. Simply changing the color of your shirt, your hair style, even the glasses you wear helps to refresh your brand. Just make sure to upload this new head-shot to Gravatar and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Social Media, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , ,

Why Do Entrepreneurs Need LinkedIn?

September 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
LinkedIn

Linkedln is a popular business social media platform that every budding business owner, entrepreneur, solopreneur or anyone else seeking to gain awareness of their business should consider joining. Through Linkedln, you can hire new employees, network with other companies and address issues related to your industry from the comfort of your couch. It is currently the only place where more than 65 million people (professionals, entrepreneurs, and corporate organizations, etc.) engage in personal word of mouth marketing despite being in different parts of the world. Get recognized by creating an online profile In order to use Linkedln, you have to sign up for a free account and set-up your company profile. This profile is an important avenue through which people searching for you can easily locate you. Your Linkedln profile should contain all necessary details including your contact information. Remember—in personal word of mouth marketing you have to provide genuine information … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Expressing Your Brand, Personal Branding Trends, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Taking Time Out to Create New Habits

August 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment
meditation-6

I recently returned from a 5-day meditation retreat outside of Kyoto, Japan. Meditation used to be a regular part of my life a few years ago, but has unfortunately taken a back-seat. Other things have occupied my time and meditating even for just 15 minutes simply became a chore. However, I have felt an urge, almost a calling, to bring meditation back into my daily routine. My life used to be less stressful and much more balanced when I disconnected myself for 25 minutes every morning and evening. I wanted this back. I needed this back. Off the Social Media Grid In the past year I have been grateful for the role social media has played in my life. It has helped me to launch my business, connect with amazing thought leaders, and express my personal brand. It has become part and parcel of daily life - but perhaps too much. Time I could have spent meditating or even just enjoying the present moment has been replaced with tweets, likes, comments, +1s, pins, etc. I can't even … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Discovering Your Brand, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Who’s LinkedIn is it anyway?

June 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
_DSC2145_2

I have had two interesting conversations recently with respect to the right balance between personal and organizational content in a LinkedIn profile.  The first conversation was with a client who was under pressure from his employer to add corporate content into his profile summary.  The employer wanted to convince my client that this would be good to show his alignment to the organizational brand and values.  My client was uncomfortable with this idea and, while not anti-company, was protective of his personal brand. My second conversation was with a person considering a Personal Branding Program.  In preparation for meeting this person I checked his LinkedIn site.  To my surprise I found that his LinkedIn profile contained only one line about him!  The rest of the profile was about the organisation he worked for and included a number of corporate blogs and presentations.  This person had lost almost all of his own professional identity.  When I told him what I had … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Executive Branding, Expressing Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding Trends Tagged With: ,

5 Tips for Your Personal Brand to Blossom!

April 16, 2012 by 2 Comments
cherry blossom viewing

Spring has finally arrived in Japan and with it comes cherry blossoms. The cherry blossom tree is a symbol of the change in seasons. With the explosion of pink blossoms we all know that the winter weather has finally passed. Japanese are drawn to these trees and are compelled to sit under them to enjoy the blossoms while they last. Unfortunately, the extraordinary pink color is short-lived as the blossoms disappear after a week or so. The cherry blossom tree becomes ordinary, indistinguishable from any other tree. The cherry blossom  reminds me of our personal brands. Our personal brand is what makes us extraordinary. It separates us from all others who offer something similar. Like a cherry blossom our personal brand allows us to stand out and attract people to our promise of value. But unlike the cherry blossom we do not want our personal brands to be short-lived. Strong brands deliver on their authenticity all of the time.  If our brand is present for just 1 week and then … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Strong Personal Brands Tagged With: , , , , ,

Resume = 6 seconds reading time. STOP sending your resume.

April 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Your Résumé Thrown Away in the Garbage

According to recent Ladders.com research, the average time spent by a recruiter reading your resume is now just 6 seconds! Hopefully if the recruiting person is internal or a hiring manager the time is longer, but realistically it still might only be a few more seconds. The article shows images of two different resumes and the heat spots where eyes were tending to focus on in the short time they spent scanning the documents. Having information properly formatted and well laid out and clear is obvious. BUT isn't the more pressing point why are even we still bothering with a resume? If you are in mid-career with at least 10 years of professional experience you are easily capable of supplying enough information to write a 3-6 page resume - not the accepted format - rather than a 1-2 page targeted resume. The trouble is that if a company is hiring for a number of positions and is accepting referrals, or the position is internal, you, based on your experience might be suitable for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Expressing Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Personal Branding Trends Tagged With: , , , , , ,

LinkedIn: More Effective Personal Meetings?

April 5, 2012 by 2 Comments
Two businesspeople holding briefcases outdoors

It is essential to a personal brand’s success to be active in the social media world. Social media has transformed the way people communicate with each other. People are now spending more and more of their time in different social networking sites, interacting and engaging with other users and brands. Though you may be able to connect with someone meaningfully through social media, nothing beats connecting with someone in person. Face-to-face meetings continue to be invaluable in helping you form strong personal connections. Instead of viewing social media as a platform that can take the place of personal meetings, you should start looking at social media as a way to connect with people prior to meeting them in person. It’s a way to interact and engage with them and to help you overcome that first hurdle when you finally meet them face to face. Now you ask, what is the best social networking site out there that can help you do this? The answer is LinkedIn, of course. Here … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Is Your Brand LinkedIn?

January 29, 2012 by 3 Comments
lovelinkedin

LinkedIn operates the world's largest professional network on the Internet with a current membership of over 135 million.  Close to 60% of these members are located outside the US. The latest data shows that professionals are signing up to join at a rate that is faster than two members per second! Clearly LinkedIn has become an essential tool for professionals all over the world to network, share business expertise, find jobs, advance professional knowledge, and build personal brands. 5 Quick Tips to Brand Yourself on LinkedIn Here are 5 tips to effectively use LinkedIn to build and promote your brand. 1) Have a headline that sells an experience When people visit your profile the first thing they will see is your name and headline at the top of your "profile box".  This is the most visible part of your page and you want people to continue exploring your profile.  People often fall into the trap of identifying themselves in their headline by a job title … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Expressing Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding Quick Tips Tagged With: , , ,

Are You Really Linking On LinkedIn?

December 29, 2011 by 3 Comments

Setting up a LinkedIn group offers great advantages to any business person, if done right. Some of the advantages of starting a group include building thought leadership, connecting to a community, driving traffic to own website, the ability to send personalized messages to the group and subgroup, and helping others. If groups are managed right, member count can grow up to hundreds of thousands. Having this many members in a group already gives you a place where you can market a product or service, depending on your goals. Once you have created a group and you are gaining members, you want to have continuous interaction happening inside the community you just built. A lot of groups on LinkedIn start off strong then slowly die because of inactivity. You do not want this to happen to your group. Every leader should find ways to keep a group active. Here are some ways to stimulate interaction in your LinkedIn group: Interesting articles – create and post interesting articles … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs Tagged With: , ,

Personal Branding Resources

December 1, 2011 by 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 … [Read more...]

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: , , , , , , ,
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