Online Branding « Shoestring Branding

Online Branding

Rediscovering Your Personal Brand Assets

I was browsing through my advance copy of the next issue of Personal Branding Magazine, and found an interesting interview with MC Hammer. Hammer, as you probably know, is a hip hop artist who had his fifteen minutes of fame back in the 1980’s, and after many years under the media radar has now resurfaced as a social media celebrity. He has been blogging since 2006 and now boasts more than 1.6 million Twitter followers.

The lesson MC Hammer’s story teaches us is that we can start with whatever assets we have today, and leverage them to take us closer to our goals. In his case, he took what was left of an old and fading asset (his 1980’s fame) and found a catalyst (social media) to breath new life into it. Instead of complaining and dwelling on fame and fortune gone by, Hammer reinvented himself.

All of us have legacy assets of which we are not taking full advantage, like a passion we’ve been supressing, an old acquaintance we haven’t contacted in a long time, or a skill we haven’t practiced in years.

Like Hammer, you can bring those neglected assets back to life.

For example: That book that you always wanted to publish but couldn’t move it through traditional publishing houses? You now have many self publishing options at your disposal. That long lost high school buddie that you found through LinkedIn? Contacting him may lead not only to a rekindled friendship, but also to a promising new business opportunity. The presentation skills you learned at your teaching job? You can leverage them in a new career in sales.

This process is called re-branding, and it is not that hard. Start by taking inventory of all your skills, passions, relationships, values, points of view and personal preferences. Then, take a look at your environment. Most likely it has changed in your favor since the last time you were paying attention. Social media is just one example of that change, but it’s a good place to start, as an old school rapper already knows.

Leveraging your content online

social media landscape
Chart Credits: Fred Cavazza

These days you can’t build a strong personal brand without a web presence. As professionals and small business owners, whatever our field, we need to become publishers, and use tools like blogs and social media profiles to publish and share information.

The most important element of our web presence is a blog, followed by our profiles in the main social media networks (for me, those are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook).

We can also set up an account with a simple blogging platform like Posterous to share shorter and lighter posts. Finally, we can put it all together by creating a simple personal page where we can introduce ourselves and link to our blog and social media profiles.

All the different elements of your web presence feed from each other, which means that you can leverage your content in many different ways. For example, you could:

Craft your elevator pitch and use it in your About Us page, or as your LinkedIn summary.
Take a Twitter post and expand the idea into a full blown blog post.
Take the pictures you use on your blog posts, and use them in presentations you can then load to Slideshare.
Bundle several blog posts into a PDF eBook that you can offer for download on your site or publish it on Scribd or Slideshare.
Take a good picture of yourself and crop it in several different sizes to create avatars for your different social media profiles.
Slightly modify blog posts to turn them into articles you can upload to article clearinghouses (you can then use your elevator pitch as your bio at the bottom of your article, adding a link to your website).
Set your Facebook profile so that you can autopost content from your blog or other social media sites.
Summarize the main takeaways of your blog posts in less than 140 characters and publish them as Twitter posts. Then, use those tweets as slide titles or takeaways in your presentations.
Film yourself reading your blog posts aloud to turn them into video clips and upload them in YouTube.
Gather all your Twitter posts for a week and bundle them to create blog posts.
Write book reviews on Amazon and use them as blog posts.
Aggregate your content from different social media sites by auto-posting it on platforms like FriendFeed or Tumblr.
Etc.

The possibilities are endless and limited only by our imagination. By leveraging our content and establishing a strong personal presence online, our chances of having our sites and social media profiles appear in the first page when somebody Google’s our name will be greatly increased.

(This post was inspired by the Fast Company series 30-Second MBA. By harvesting 30 second clips from their archive of interviews with top business leaders and organizing them around relevant topics, Fast Company has created an exciting new product, generating buzz and expanding their online footprint).

Branding Basics / Online Branding / Social Media — 10 Comments
23
Aug 09

Social media, branding and control

Photo Credits: Damien Basile

Simple enough: social media is all about giving up control and letting users be creative. But how much control should social media brands give up to their own users? This interesting question ignited a lively debate in Tom Anderson’s blog. Tom had uploaded a caricature of himself on his LinkedIn profile, after which LinkedIn contacted him and asked him to replace it with a real picture (caricatures, logos, and group pictures, among other things, are against LinkedIn’s user guidelines).

Needless to say, Tom wasn’t happy and asked his readers for their opinion: was LinkedIn justified in making this request? Should social media brands impose restrictions and constraints that limit their users’ creative expression?

Here is my take: absolutely, yes. Social networks are brands too, after all. Good brands must create the conditions for a powerful, relevant and consistent user experience.

Allowing the use of caricatures instead of actual pictures would erode the brand experience LinkedIn is trying to create. Most people view LinkedIn as THE professional social network, and there is no doubt that its strict user guidelines have played an important role in strengthening that brand position (the fact that LinkedIn is the only major social network that makes money seems to validate this even further).

The same reasoning applies to other social networks:

For example, is Twitter justified in limiting our creative expression to 140 characters? Absolutely, yes. The 140-character limit is pivotal to Twitter’s brand experience. Take that limit away and Twitter would become just another blog platform, and it would not be the strong brand it is today. We could also make the point that constraints actually increase creativity: by imposing the 140 character limit, Twitter is in fact forcing us to get more creative, by finding ways to be more clear and concise.

Similarly, is Facebook justified in deciding that only official representatives of a brand should be allowed to create a fan page, and not extend the same privilege to brand enthusiasts? Absolutely, yes. By enforcing that rule Facebook keeps spammers at bay and reduces the possibility of getting hit with copyright infringement lawsuits, while at the same time enhancing the user experience and increasing the value of the Facebook community.

Social media are revolutionizing marketing, and the fact that customers are more empowered by them every day should be celebrated and encouraged. But first and foremost, social media properties are brands too, and as such, the universal rules of branding apply to them as well. As brands, they must design a user experience that best serves its most valuable customers.

Online Branding — 3 Comments
19
May 09

Name Changes, Re-Branding and Grasshoppers

Name changes for re-branding purposes are usually risky and costly propositions. In some cases they are inevitable and the right thing to do: for example, Arthur Andersen turned into Accenture after the Enron scandal, and now GMAC bank is changing its name to a more upbeat Ally Bank to distance itself from troubled General Motors.

In other cases the name change is a calculated gamble: replacing a familiar but boring name with a new, more memorable and brandable one. Sometimes this gamble pays off handsomely: just read the success story of the Big Ass Fan Company (formerly known as the HVLS Fan Company).

If your new brand name is a catchy word, but completely unrelated to your line of business (like Apple or Yahoo!) effective branding (or re-branding) usually takes time and money…or a lot of creativity.

An example of creativity in action is how a company called GotVMail (a small business voice mail service provider) is going about changing its name to Grasshopper:

To spread the word fast and accelerate the name recognition of their new brand, they decided to mail FedEx packages to “5,000 of the most influential people in America” (there must be a typo somewhere since I received one containing a handsomely designed bag full of chocolate-covered grasshoppers (they are a popular snack in Thailand).

Written on one side of the bag is this dare: “You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper.”

Attached to the bag is a tag with an individual serial number (mine is 3248 of 5000) that says: “Entrepreneurs can change the world. Join the movement now! grasshopper.com/idea.”

While it’s still too early to quantify the results of this campaign, it is undeniable that it has already generated a significant amount of buzz: one excellent example of how the right combination of creativity and social media savvy can make a message go viral. (Update 08.20.09: the campaign was a complete success. Jonathan Kay, Ambassador of Buzz at Grasshoper has let us know that they have now published a comprehensive case study with the quantitative results of the campaign).

Online Branding / Personal Branding / Presentations — 4 Comments
5
Apr 09

Networking Tips for Introverts

Photo Credits: seite-3

I am not a gregarious person, but at the same time I’m a strong believer in the power of networking. That’s why I’ve developed a few habits and tactics to make my networking efforts easier. I’ll share them with you here:

1. Make full use of the Internet and social networks:

The Internet offers you many opportunities to network without necessarily having to meet people face to face. If you enjoy writing, you can start a blog. Blogging is a great way to meet interesting people (some of whom can become friends) and expand your contact base.

Social networks like LinkedIn or Twitter are also great for networking. I’ve used the “people search” feature of LinkedIn to find people that I hadn’t heard of in years.

Twitter is also very helpful. You can do a Twitter search for a topic you’re interested in, and start following people who’s tweets you find interesting. You can then visit their blogs, leave comments and start conversations. If you get to know them well, you can then ask them to join your LinkedIn network.

2. Arrive early to meet ups

Whenever I go to a meeting, I make it a habit to arrive very early, usually when only a couple of people are there. It is much easier to meet people this way than to come in late and try to break into a large group where conversations have already started.

3. Volunteer to help organize events

This is a great way to meet people. One of the best tasks you can volunteer for is to work at the entrance booth of a meeting. This way you will greet everyone who comes in, and strike conversations early and easily.

4. Do something unusual

You don’t need to dye your hair purple or introduce yourself with a song to strike a conversation. Something I’ve tried successfully several times is to write my Twitter handle instead of my name on my name tag.

Those who don’t Twitter usually ask what does @mariobox mean. On the other hand, those who know Twitter say: “Oh, great, you’re on Twitter. I’m on Twitter too… let me write that down so I can follow you”.

In either case, it always works. You can also try having a cool or unusual business card.

5. Volunteer to do a presentation:

This may sound counter intuitive, since most people fear public speaking. However, introverts may feel more comfortable speaking about something that they can prepare in advance, and having an audience that is ready to listen, rather than by talking to random people from scratch.

If you do a presentation people will also come to afterward to ask you questions or give you their business card. Being a presenter also makes it easier for them to remember you when you contact them in the future.

Branding Basics / Online Branding — No Comments
15
Jan 09

Product Placement Doesn’t Need to Break the Bank

The general tightening of advertising budgets and the lack of effectiveness of traditional advertising have turned product placement, also known as brand integration, into an important component of the marketing mix.

Through product placement in films, brands get wide exposure while helping film producers absorb part of their production costs. Two well known examples are Windex in the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Pinot Noir wine in Sideways, which caused sales of both products to soar.

I came across an interesting case of product placement while reviewing the nominated films of the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. In Adam, one of the nominees, a high end Meade telescope is the star of the film.

What is more interesting is how Meade and Adam, an independent film short on budget, where able to connect and create a win-win situation. Both parties got in contact through Placevine, a new online platform that is pioneering the use of the Internet to connect brands with content producers offering brand integration opportunities.

In this case, Meade lent one of its large, high-end telescopes to the production team, filming in New York, and also covered all of the shipping costs to and from the set. In return, the Meade Telescope became the “hero” of the film, and the production team was able to shift valuable budget towards ensuring that the final cut was the best film possible.

In the past, product placement was a complicated process that relied in personal relationships and time-consuming outreach efforts to individual agencies and brand managers.

These days, however, through companies like Placevine, the Internet is once again leveling the playing field and is making it easy for small business brands to connect with content producers and find brand integration opportunities on a shoestring budget.

Online Branding — No Comments
23
Dec 08

Custom Landing Pages for Social Network Profiles

Photo Credits: Tony George

All social networks are not created equal. While we normally use different social networks, the way we use them is different. We use Facebook mostly to connect with friends, LinkedIn for our professional networking, and Twitter… well, there are hundreds of ways to use Twitter.

This being the case, wouldn’t it make sense to create specific welcome pages on your blog, tailored to visitors from each specific social network? By linking your different social network profiles to the appropriate welcome page (instead of linking to your homepage) you have the opportunity to highlight how you can best help those visitors, and what they can expect by interacting with you.

I will soon start creating welcome pages on my blog for the four social networks I use the most: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Amazon (reviews). These are some of the things I may do with those pages:

Twitter:

Explain that I use Twitter mainly to interact with other bloggers in the marketing and branding fields, but that occasionally I also tweet about other topics, like personal finance, cars, food and travel.
Include links to posts on my blog that give tips on how to use Twitter.
Briefly explain my Twitter style and posting frequency.
Explain that I have added “Twit This” buttons to my blog posts to make them easy to share on Twitter.
Include links to useful Twitter resources on other blogs .
Link to my del.icio.us bookmarks about Twitter.

(updated 12-28-08: I’ve already created my Twitter landing page).

LinkedIn:

Offer a more detailed explanation of my skills, experience, interests and values than what can be found in LinkedIn.
Include a link to my résumé on PDF.
Include a specific paragraph for head hunters asking them to feel free to contact me if they are looking for someone in my field (even if I am not interested I may know somebody who is, and that way I can help both the head hunter and my friends).
Links to my portfolio (videos, slideshare presentations, etc.).
Links to posts on my blog that give tips on how to use LinkedIn.

Facebook:

Explain that I use Facebook to interact with friends from many different places: from school, from work, from the web, etc.
Explain that I’m originally from Peru, where many of my friends are also from, so that visitors understand why they may sometimes find content written in Spanish.
Tell visitors that they can read my latest blog posts in Facebook by clicking on the “Notes” tab.
Tell visitors that they can also read my “tweets” on my wall (Facebook imports them automatically).
Indicate what topics I’m mostly interested in, so that users that have created Groups or Pages can ask me to join or become a fan.
Ask Friends if they know any common acquaintances that are also on Facebook so that I can contact them and add them to my Friends list.

Amazon (for reviews):

List the topics that interest me to do book reviews.
Contact information and address, for publishers and authors who want to send me books for review.
My reviewing style, and the fact that I can’t guarantee a positive review.
Links to the Book Reviews section of my blog, so they can read my other reviews.
Link to an article I once wrote, about How to Write a Book Review.

You may participate in other social media sites that are not listed here, however, you can use the same approach to create landing pages for them too.

(The idea for this post came from an article by David Meerman Scott where he talks about the concept of persona-focused website marketing).

Online Branding — No Comments
16
Nov 08

Creating and Managing Your Social Media Avatars

Some time ago I mentioned that favicons and avatars (or profile pictures) are important branding elements on the web. This time I’ll talk about how to create and manage your avatars.

As we participate in different social media sites, we notice that each one requires a different size of profile picture. This means that we must either manually crop our picture, or let the site resize it (which may result in cropping your picture in the wrong place or decreasing its quality or aspect ratio).

To create profile pictures for different media sites, I use a service called mypictr.com.

The process is simple:

Upload the picture you want to use.
Select a social media site from the drop down menu. A frame with the correct size will pop up on top of your picture.
Play with the cursor at the left hand side to reduce your picture’s size, and click and drag the frame until you’re satisfied with your picture.
Click on Pictr It button and wait a few seconds.
Once your profile picture comes up, right click on it and save it on your hard drive (you can create a folder called Profile Pictures or something like that, and name your picture using the name of the social media site somewhere in the file name).
Select a different social media site repeat the procedure.

Here are a few tips to take into account before creating your profile pictures:

If you are participating in social media as an individual, try to use a picture of yourself. If you participate as a company, you can use your company logo.
A good way to get your picture noticed is to set your face diagonally in the picture frame.
Don’t change your profile picture too often, which can be confusing to your followers.
Try to use the same picture in different social media sites. Most people frequent more than one service, and using the same picture in all of them will make it easier for your followers to spot you.

Online Branding — 3 Comments
20
Oct 08

Your Google Profile May Soon Be in the Search Engines

A few months ago Google rolled out new, consolidated Google profiles for its members. This profile replaced all the different user profiles you previously needed to create for different Google services (Blogger, Picassa, Google Groups, etc.). This not only made it easier to manage your contact information, but enabled you to show a coherent identity across all Google services (better branding).

However, the icing on the cake may be this: a few days ago, reliable Google watchers detected that Google is now letting search engines index members’ profiles. What this means is that your Google profile may soon appear in the search engines results pages, giving your personal brand yet another touchpoint.

Take a few minutes to create your profile by going here and logging in using your Google username and password. You can fill in as little or as much information as you want (you can also include links to your website, your blog, and your social media profiles).

This can be a relatively easy way to achieve search engine visibility and you should take advantage of it. As an example, you can see my Google profile here.

Online Branding / Personal Branding — 19 Comments
8
May 08

Personal Branding Tips for LinkedIn

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social network of more than 20 million professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments, pretty much like an online resume, but with important social networking elements baked into it.

Here are some personal branding and marketing tips to get the most out of your LinkedIn profile:

Add a picture

You can add your picture and display it at the top of your profile. A picture helps create a personal connection and conveys the message that you take networking seriously.

You can use the same picture you use in other social networking sites, so that those who frequent them may identify you more easily (brand recognition).

Create a personalized URL

When you join LinkedIn, your profile will be assigned a random URL such as:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/496/aa7

Not very marketable.

You have the option, however, to create a personalized URL such as:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname/

If you want an even better URL, you can always register yourname.com for less than $10/year and forward it to your LinkedIn profile page for the ultimate in URL branding.

Promote your profile with LinkedIn buttons

Like other social networking sites, LinkedIn offers a wide array of icons and buttons that you can use to promote your LinkedIn profile on your site or blog.

You can chose among many different styles, and link them to your profile.

Create a LinkedIn email signature file

A LinkedIn email signature file displays your contact information including a link to your LinkedIn profile, in a variety of layout styles. The only caveat is that LinkedIn signatures are designed using HTML, and therefore will work with Outlook but not with Gmail or Hotmail.

If you don’t like any of the default styles, you can always use an HTML editor and create your own signature file, or create one directly in Outlook (you can use one of the LinkedIn buttons discussed before to make the link to your profile stand out).

If you use Gmail or other email provider that doesn’t accept HTML, you can always create a text-based signature file, and include a link to your LinkedIn profile by writing your URL preceded by http://.

Always include a Summary

LinkedIn lets you write a few paragraphs about yourself as part of your profile. You must take advantage of this since the Summary almost always gets read. This is your chance to include your elevator pitch or any other carefully crafted statement where you put your best foot forward.

Make your summary objective, but not boring. Avoid sounding self serving and corporate: if the summary of your qualifications sounds like it came out of an automatic mission statement generator delete everything and start again.

I suggest that you read the profile summaries of several members first, to help you decide how you would like your profile to read.

Participate in Questions & Answers

LinkedIn has a Q&A section where you can pose questions and answer other people’s inquiries. By actively using this feature you can share your expertise with other members and enhance your reputation in your field.

When answering questions, pretend you’re commenting on a blog or an online forum. The idea is to help others and add something meaningful to the conversation, not to openly advertise your products and services. If you are too aggressive you will turn people off. If you honestly try to help, people will naturally come to you.

Fill up the Specialties section carefully

Some LinkedIn users search for people by keyword. For example, if somebody does a LinkedIn search for “Online PR” and the term Online PR is listed among your specialties, your profile has a better chance to pop up for that query. Make sure to include all your areas of expertise in the Specialties field.

What other tips do you use to promote yourself in LinkedIn?