Trend #10: Video – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

April 8, 2013 by 1 Comment
picture of a movie set clapboard

I have been touting the importance of video as a personal branding tool non-stop for the last three years, and its time has come. Creating, posting, sharing, and promoting your videos has become extremely easy. For example, until just a few weeks ago, it was a challenge getting video into your LinkedIn profile using SlideShare (owned by LinkedIN) or Behance. Now, you can just click on the video symbol while editing your profile, provide the web address of your video and presto: embedded video. Every aspect of creating and using video has become much easier! Whether real-time, ad-hoc, or studio produced, there was always some roadblock to using video. That’s no longer the case. Virtually every computer and tablet comes with a video camera. Google+ Hangouts make real-time group video conferences a snap. Services from videoBIO allow you to quickly create, edit and post professional videos from your home or office. They also offer a service that enables you to produce videos and embed … [Read more...]

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Trend #9: Endorsements – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

April 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Endorsements

Unless you have completely gone off the grid, you have likely noticed a new feature of Linked In: Endorsements. In fact, you may have received or been asked to provide them. LinkedIn augmented their recommendations feature to allow others to identify the skills at which we excel. LinkedIn knows that external feedback comes with credibility that is hard to build when you are talking about yourself. This recent change is part of a larger trend that helps us validate and reinforce what we say about ourselves supported by the feedback from others. If you have used Yelp or TripAdvisor or other similar services, you understand the power of crowdsourcing, and likely make decisions based on the collective feedback of others. Crowdsourcing, once the domain of products, hotels and restaurants, is quickly coming to careerists. Delivering on your brand promise every day helps others understand who you are and what makes you exceptional. It makes it easier for them to provide consistent, … [Read more...]

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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: , , , , , ,

Trend #8: Teams – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

March 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
teamwork

Personal branding has come a long way from when there were only five of us working in this field - but team branding is relatively new. And it’s hot. I am working with a number of leaders who are interested in knowing how their team is perceived among their constituencies, and how each team member contributes to the overall perception. These leaders are using branding tools to find out where their organizations stand. Thanks to advertising genius David Ogilvy, companies have been using branding to stand out and attract the attention of their ideal clients since the 1940s. Over the past decade, companies have been applying similar branding principles to their people, helping them unearth what makes them exceptional, and applying the knowledge to the company strategy. In the world of branding, the team has been the missing link; it is the connective tissue between the personal brand and the company brand. Many of the Reach-certified Personal Branding Strategists are implementing … [Read more...]

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Trend #7: Timelines – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

March 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
personal branding trends timelines

When Facebook launched Timeline about a year ago, it sparked a fury. There were those who loved it, and those who thought it would mark the end Facebook’s rule over the realm of social networking. Facebook Timeline changed the default profile from a list of your most recent updates to a complete summary of your entire life since birth. Now it seems that we have grown accustomed to Timeline because there are a number of resources that use a similar technique to help you express your brand. ResumUp for example, takes your education and work experience, puts them in a timeline format, and adds other relevant information to create a compelling visual history of your work. Re.Vu allows you to import your LinkedIn profile and create an attractive timeline by incorporating images and infographics, augmenting the text-based content. Thinking of your career in this way allows you to better communicate the value you delivered and growth you achieved. To build the ideal timeline, maintain a … [Read more...]

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Trend #6: QR Codes – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

March 8, 2013 by 1 Comment
william arruda qr code

I was in a neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Palermo SoHo recently and noticed that every storefront had a QR code on it. QR codes are popping up all over, and it’s not just in the hip neighborhoods of major cities. You can see them on billboards, print ads, coffee mugs, and most recently making appearances on resumes, business cards, and in all kinds of correspondence (see the back of my business card to the left). You can even get a custom QR code printed on a T-shirt or wristband to help direct people you meet to your personal website. According James Alexander and the cool folks at Vizibility.com, personal QR codes and Microsoft Tag barcodes are essential. These codes let you instantly share your mobile business card, and they send real-time text or email alerts whenever someone scans your code, including the organization name, type and location. Soon there will be QR codes on our name badges at networking functions, allowing people we meet to instantly add us to their … [Read more...]

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Trend #5: Pictures – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

March 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
picture personal branding trends 2013

The expression “A picture is worth a thousand words,” dates back to a 1911 newspaper editor, and Wikipedia nicely describes it as “The notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image.” Graphic designers, architects and artists have always used portfolios of images to showcase their work. Now, career-minded professionals will increasingly use infographics to show the value they added to their workplace. Kinzaa is a site that allows you to build an infographic resume. Pinterest pinboards enable you to express your brand and your passions through images. Prezi lets you use pictures on an interactive whiteboard to convey your point of view and share thought-leadership with others. The traditional word-based resume or CV will be quickly replaced with pictures. In the ‘About Us’ section of visualize.me’s website they say: “We believe that the traditional text resume is boring, lengthy and long overdue for a makeover.” I agree. The movement … [Read more...]

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Trend #4: People – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

February 15, 2013 by 3 Comments
people

When I started my personal branding business 11 years ago, HR execs would tell me that companies would never want their employees to build their brands. In fact, one HR leader laughed me out of her office, saying “We don’t want our people to be known outside the company.” Personal branding is now integrated into many companies’ talent and leadership development programs. Savvy, people-centric organizations understand that they need to get the best from their people, not the most, and they realize that each employee is an authentic part of the face of the company. Well before Mitt Romney’s much maligned “Corporations are people” comment, organizations began promoting the human aspect of their businesses: Chevron’s ‘Human Energy’, Cisco’s ‘The Human Network Effect’. Increasingly, external communications campaigns are featuring actual employees (GE’s ‘Pass the Wrench’ and IBM’s ‘I’m an IBMer’ for example). Expressing the corporate brand is … [Read more...]

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Focus on Your Connection and Conversation

February 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
business talk

The number one networking strategy I recommend?  It’s the conversation.  After all, most of the influence you will have on your connections is not just what you say it is how you say it and how well you listen. Be prepared If you’re going to have something good to talk about, you’re going to need to be prepared for the event. Questions and answers aren’t simply going to fall into your lap, so arrive with them beforehand. What are you going to talk about? What do you want to talk about? How will you encourage others to speak? What will others talk about? I recommend that you have a set of questions you feel comfortable asking new contacts in a way that’s conversational (not at all like an interrogation).  I also recommend that you have some “set” answers or responses on your own.  Answers to questions like, “what do you do” or “what’s new” or “what’s been happening in your life lately”?  I encourage you to have those answers prepared,  not … [Read more...]

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

Trend #3: Mobile – Personal Branding Trends for 2013

February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
png;base64351bf5e838fe3d4

According to JIBE, over 80% of Smartphone users would use their phone to search for jobs. Beyond.com says 77% of job seekers use mobile job search apps, and of those who use them, nearly half would apply to a job right from a Smartphone. There are thousands of job search apps: some to find jobs, others to manage the process, and yet others to help you make the connections that are critical to finding a job. Most of the apps have some type of personal branding component. Here are a few of the coolest ones I’ve found to help you build your brand: Lunchmeet helps you find geographically appropriate contacts so you can expand your network over lunch. Pocketresume allows you to get the most updated information from your LinkedIn profile and export your resume to a PDF. It also lets you tailor your resume for specific positions. Sparkhire is a video interviewing platform. Job seekers create video responses to employers’ text-based questions, letting them showcase their brand. … [Read more...]

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