Who You Like – Built by Association

March 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Facebook Like

While many brands are concerned with the number of “likes” that their own personal brand social sites gain, there is another type of “like” that is affecting you as well. Have you ever considered what topics, pages, and brands you “like” on social sites like Facebook? Those likes may be affecting your brand’s image more than you might consider. With the variety of subject material on social sites, it’s easy to get caught up liking new pages and brands without first investigating them. Even if they turn out to be un-relatable to your personal brand, we may like them at the moment, or something on them, or even simply because a friend recommended we liked them. This is one of the many reasons why it’s so important to regularly clean up your social sites. What apps are obsolete? Which pages fail to represent your brand’s values or interests effectively? Basically, your “likes” are building a profile with your social account that is ancillary to your … [Read more...]

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

Spring Clean Your Personal Brand

March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Spring clean your social networks for personal branding

With spring here, many of us are going to be doing some cleaning around the office. Perhaps we’re focused on getting rid of a little clutter or even searching for some of those important tax-receipts and documents. But, there’s another area of your business that should be focused on as well. In truth, the online world has a great deal of clutter associated with it. With all the social networks, widgets, apps, and other online tools available, it can be easy to incorporate them into your brand, and then forget about a few on occasion. And, not all of them are forgotten, since some can become obsolete or even inactive. But, the online world remembers everything, and there are undoubtedly a few things that need to be cleaned up this spring. Online devices and services One of the focus points of your cleanup process should be the tools you don’t use anymore. Your brand is still associated with them, and they could even be costing you financially as well. Check out what … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs, Social Media, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , ,

Why Did I Do MySpace and How Do I Undo It?

March 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
myspace

With the advancement of the social world, we’ve been introduced to networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. But often, we neglect the older ones that may have gone overlooked and forgotten with time. One such social network is MySpace, which was once a very prominent method of individual interaction. Users posted crazy pictures of themselves, decorated it with wild content, and weren’t as concerned with it becoming a part of their lives later on. But as a brand, a site like this can become something you don’t want hurting your image or reputation. It may be a matter of failing to provide the right image, or it could be that you no longer have access to the original email used to set up the site. Regardless of what reason, the fact that MySpace pages aren’t easy to delete without any access means you’re stuck with it on your rankings. Locate the problem This is one of the most difficult issues to confront in the online world, especially if a link carries … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Everything is a Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding Quick Tips Tagged With: , , , ,

Do You Google You?

February 28, 2013 by 2 Comments
Computer business

When was the last time you did some good market research about your personal brand? They say that “social is for ideation; search is for confirmation”.  When someone searches for you, do they find confirmation that you are who you portray you are; that you are associated with your expertise and industry? Don’t you ever wonder how easily you come up in a search? Google constantly searches for the most relevant and recent information that conforms to a certain topic. So, Googling yourself is a great way to check how easily you and your brand can be found via the internet. Search not only for your name – search for where your profile shows up in social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter are most popular), blogs, video content, and even your website. When you check your personal brand, it’s important that you achieve top ten results. This can help you gauge your use of keywords and tags, and even point out some locations that you might want to target with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Branding Quick Tips, Personal Branding Trends, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

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: , , ,

Blogs Matter to Your Personal Brand and Word of Mouth

December 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Businesswoman working on laptop.

For any online marketing campaign, there are certain tools and methods which are needed to improve visibility. These tools include the simple, yet practical blog. Perhaps, it’s a compilation of a few tidbits of information combined with some personal experiences, but the effect is far from simple. It is the gateway of communication between brand and the online audience. What happens when you don’t have a blog? There are still a few brands which do not partake in this particular strategy, but the numbers are dwindling. As more brands discover its importance and realize that it does more than just share, the network of bloggers increases in number every day. What Is a Blog?  This is the question that every brand must ask themselves before they put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard). Blogs have numerous characteristics, some broad and others more specific to their brand. For the most part, blogs share the brand so that the audience can not only relate to it but … [Read more...]

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

Social – Good to Great for Personal Brands

December 13, 2012 by 4 Comments
businessman with a laptop computer

Social networks have become one of the most powerful online marketing tools available for anyone to use. Of course, whether they’re used effectively is an entirely different matter. They’re relatively easy to sign up with, each having its own specific uses (such as LinkedIn for building business networks and Facebook for conversing with the audience). Being good at social marketing of your business isn’t like keeping up with a personal profile. There are several things that anyone recently entering the online marketing world needs to understand so that they aren’t just good at social networks; they’re great at engaging the audience on those networks. How to Engage Your Social Network Audience  1. Get things moving Starting up social awareness marketing is your first task. One of the most difficult challenges for anyone starting a new business is getting the word out that they even exist. Online, due to the high volume of content that exists, this can prove … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

5 Tips to Avoid ‘Number Porn’

October 2, 2012 by 4 Comments
ff_klout4_f

Last Spring John Falchetto blogged about something he called “number porn”: “With the online measuring tools at our disposal we now have the ability to indulge in number porn. The bigger the number, the more we get hot and bothered.” This got me thinking. Does size really matter?  Well, for some people it does and the focus on social proof is now causing many of us to be concerned with how big we are! Social media is a powerful tool to build our personal brands. When we start out actively using the different channels available, we can fall into the trap of focusing on the numbers and not the engagement. The numbers give us that immediate validation we are looking for and it is exciting to see our growth. But when our score drops or our followers stop following, we can fall into the trap of feeling inadequate and, well, small! It’s not the size that matters. It’s how you use it! This is the classic quality versus quantity conundrum. Don’t be focused so much on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Expressing Your Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Your Personal Brand is Your Promise

June 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Handshake and teamwork

In the past, “personal branding” was just a term that was first used by Tom Peters in an article he wrote in 1997. Today, every person is considered their own personal brand. Even if you don’t understand the term yet, your personal brand refers to how others perceive you, how they consider your knowledge and skills, and the things that make you unique and different from every other person out there – your unique promise of value. A part of your personal brand is the cumulative perceptions people have about you. It is your reputation, both online and off. It is what makes you one of a kind even in the midst of all the others who have the same or similar skills. This is what makes people choose you, and only you. Your personal brand is basically your promise. What does your personal brand promise? Think of some of the popular brands out there… and what their brand promise is. You come to have certain expectations of these brands – Apple, Starbucks, Toyota, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding Trends Tagged With: , ,

Your Personal Brand in Pictures

May 31, 2012 by 3 Comments
pictures

I’m fairly certain that you’ve already used a picture to convey your message a time or two. There are times that it’s a lot more effective in engaging your audience than merely using written content. But have you ever considered using SlideShare to promote your personal brand? Though you may view it as only a place where you can upload PowerPoint presentations and share them online, it can be a lot more than that. It can actually be a powerful tool in your personal branding campaign. Why use SlideShare for expressing your personal brand? Here are some reasons: 1. It has Google juice Did you know that your SlideShare presentations get indexed in Google and can help you rise to the top of the search engine results? If you’re creating a SlideShare presentation, make sure that you keyword-optimize it for the search engines, so that your presentation can come up on page one of Google search results. This can really help your personal brand, since SEO is one of the most … [Read more...]

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