Personal Branding « Shoestring Branding

Personal Branding

Personal Branding — 11 Comments
19
Nov 08

Personal Branding Works Like Insurance

When I was growing up in Peru back in the day, there was a very popular radio commercial that I would hear every day on my way to school. It was from an insurance company, and it went something like this: “It is better to have insurance and not need it, than to need insurance and not have it”. It must have really worked, because they aired it for years.

I can’t help to remember that commercial when I see how some people approach personal branding and networking. When they suddenly find themselves looking for a job, a project or a customer, they rush to update their résumé, put together a half-baked LinkedIn profile and call everybody they know, even if they haven’t kept in touch in years.

Photo Credits: MarkHillary

That’s not the way things work. Just like insurance, the best time to prepare for bad times is during good times (and times can go from good to bad very quickly). The Dow went from 13,000 to close to 8,000 in a matter of days and 240,000 people lost their jobs in October alone. Many of these were good, high paying jobs held by highly educated and well qualified individuals.

The right approach is to manage your personal brand as if you were an independent contractor. You work for a company called Me, Inc. independently of who pays your salary. If you’re still gainfully employed or still have work in the pipeline, by all means work hard and bring your “A” game to the office every day. Just don’t make the mistake of putting all your eggs in that basket.

Personal branding is like insurance. Don’t develop a pre-existing condition by neglecting your personal brand.

Here are a few links to get you started:

A personal branding strategy to stand out from the crowd
The new rules for finding a job (from WebInkNow)
Building career security, not job security (from The Future Buzz)
Stop searching for the perfect job and start finding your life’s work (from Escape from Cubicle Nation)

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.

Personal Branding — 12 Comments
13
Nov 08

My Definition of Personal Branding

Photo Credits: pshutterbug

Personal branding expert Dan Schawbel asked his Twitter followers for their definition of Personal Branding. Here is my take, in 140 characters or less:

The art of articulating and communicating your skills, personality and values so that others seek you to help them solve a problem.

While these are very few words, each of them is there for a reason, so let’s dissect the phrase and understand what each word means in the context of personal branding:

Personal Branding is an art: it takes practice, creativity and patience to do it right. There is really no checklist or sure recipe for success, and building your brand is a long term, ongoing process.
Personal Branding involves your skills, personality and values: while skills are important, it’s not only what you know that counts. After all, business requires you to interact with people, so personality is also important. However, there’s a third, crucial element: your values. Without being true to your values you will never achieve a strong personal brand. You need passion, and for that you have to do something you believe in.
You must be able to articulate and communicate what your brand is all about: you may have a potentially strong brand, but if you’re not able to define it and share it in a simple way that resonates with your audience, your brand will never reach its true potential.
A strong personal brand makes others seek you instead of you seeking them. A sound personal branding strategy will help you build your reputation and your network so that interesting opportunities come to you.
For a personal branding strategy to be successful, you must be able to solve a problem. You must provide real value and exceed your customers’ expectations.

So there you have it, my take on what personal branding means in a few simple words.

What is your definition of personal branding?

Personal Branding — No Comments
13
Jun 08

First Things First

Who hasn’t heard the cliché: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. Knowing people is important. After all, if people don’t know you it doesn’t matter how much you know.

However, there is an even more important ingredient for success than knowing people. It is called: standing for something. Without a clear positioning and a relevant brand promise what you know or who you know won’t take you very far.

Standing for something comes first. Everything else follows. Maybe it’s too long to print on a bumper sticker, but it fits nicely on a T-Shirt:

It’s not what you know
It’s not who you know
It’s what you stand for

Personal Branding — 6 Comments
4
Jun 08

The Go-To Guy

After defining your positioning and brand strategy, developing the skills to become the go-to guy (or gal) in your chosen niche should be your next priority. You can achieve go-to guy status by getting familiar with topics and disciplines outside your field of expertise that are somehow related to what you do.

A Sports Analogy

Photo Credits: compujeramey

Like a sports star who always gets the ball when it’s time to make that crucial play, a go-to guy in business is someone who co-workers and customers can always turn to for the best advice on how to solve their problems.

Fortunately, becoming a go-to guy in business is much easier than in competitive sports. You don’t need super natural skills, just focus, discipline and an open mind.

Some Examples

Let’s suppose you are a Realtor and you have chosen your brand strategy and your niche: To become the foremost expert in luxury condos in South Beach.

If you want to become the go-to guy in that niche, you also need to get familiar with the mortgage market, the tax law, the city’s road construction plans, the major retailers’ expansion plans in the area, etc.

If you do so, you will have an edge over other Realtors who think their job is just to show houses.

By the same token, a web designer who is familiar with search engine optimization, usability and web copy writing techniques will be miles ahead of web designers who just know how to make a web page look pretty.

You can also be a better marketing person if you spend some time in sales working directly with customers, and if you understand how areas like forecasting and logistics play a vital role in any successful product launch.

This greater knowledge will become your competitive advantage and a large barrier to entry against those who may want to take a stab at your niche.

How to Become the Go-To Guy in Business

Here are five tips to get you started:

Erase the words “it’s not my job” from your vocabulary: Go to great lengths to understand what other people do and how can they help you achieve your goals. Treat every opportunity to learn something new as a chance to become a better professional.
Get organized and develop a system to easily store and retrieve useful information: Use social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us to bookmark important articles and resources, and tag them with descriptive names so that you can retrieve them easily in the future.
Set up web alerts for your topics of interest: You can use a system like Google Alerts to have articles and blog posts that match your chosen keywords delivered directly to your email inbox on a daily basis.
Start a blog: Like a buddy that helps you stay motivated for that early morning jog, a blog is a great way to force you to be up to date with the issues that affect your business. The feedback you receive from readers will also help you understand those issues better and to analyze them from different perspectives. A blog is also one of the best ways to build your reputation as an expert.
Build a network of trusted, reliable contacts: Take time and effort to build a contact list of people that you like and trust, who you can turn to when you don’t have all the answers. Use tools like LinkedIn to keep track of your contacts, and sites like Twitter to interact with them frequently and for many different purposes.

Branding / Personal Branding — 5 Comments
28
May 08

Authenticity, Disclaimers and a Radio Commercial

Paris Las Vegas
Photo Credits: http2007

On my way back from work these last few days I’ve repeatedly heard a radio commercial for comedian Roseanne Barr’s Las Vegas show that really ticks me off. Nothing against Roseanne, though. It’s more against the commercial itself.

The commercial is staged as an interview, where Roseanne answers several questions about her show. But the interview is not real. The original recording has silent pauses engineered into it, so that local DJ’s can fill in with their voice and “ask” the questions.

Clever, but fake. At the end, we hear the disclaimer: “the preceding segment has been a paid advertisement”.

The worse part is that the “interviewers” are well known local radio DJ’s who we’ve learned to like and trust. They are, nevertheless, lending themselves to a charade designed to fool their most loyal listeners as if to say: Ha! made you listen…..

Maybe I’m overreacting to a simple commercial. But again, maybe not. Maybe us, the consumers, are really getting tired of artificial, top down messages and the usual tricks and gimmicks of traditional advertising.

Maybe we are increasingly putting a heavy premium on authenticity and transparency. That would explain why people revolt when large corporations sponsor fake blogs or when they take over niche cult brands .

As we build our small business and personal brands, it would be wise to remember not to make the same mistakes that traditional media and large corporations sometimes make, and to communicate with our audience with authenticity and respect.

Just remember this rule of thumb: if you need a disclaimer, you’re probably not being authentic.

Personal Branding / Social Media — 29 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?

Personal Branding / Social Media — 5 Comments
22
Apr 08

Sustainable SEO: What Is It and Why Should You Care?

Photo Credits: tedkerwin

You Can’t Ignore Search Engine Traffic

With all the hype around social media it is easy to overlook the potential of search engines to deliver targeted traffic. Search engines are probably the best source of targeted traffic and, as such, they should not be ignored.

While social media sites like Stumbleupon or Digg can be very effective in delivering strong bursts of traffic almost instantly, that traffic dwindles over time and generally doesn’t convert very well.

Search engine traffic, on the other hand, has a longer term effect. Also, since search engine users are specifically looking for what you have to offer, search engine traffic has a better conversion rate.

Search Engine Traffic: Shoestring Branding’s Case

Six months ago, when we launched this site, we relied heavily on social media traffic. Stumbleupon was especially good to us, generating more than 70% of the traffic during our first two months. Search engines represented only 5%.

Today, six months later, our site has accumulated visibility and trust. Stumbleupon has decreased in relative importance, while search engine traffic has grown. In the last two months, search engines were responsible for 40% of our traffic (versus just 17% for Stumbleupon).

At the same time, we have seen our subscriber numbers grow, giving weght to the theory that search engine traffic converts better.

The Old Days of SEO

Since the early days, search engine quality engineers have offered this simple suggestion: if you want to rank well, just create a useful site with lots of great content. However, manipulating search engine rankings was so easy that webmasters usually chose to focus more on learning the latest SEO tricks than trying to grow organically.

These are some of the things you could do in the past:

Increase keyword density by repeating your keywords of choice in your page copy.
Use the same keywords in the link text of every link pointing to your site.
Get a keyword rich domain, like “keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com”.
Exchange links with other people (chances are you’re still receiving spammy email from clueless webmasters offering you to exchange links to “increase Pagerank”).
Spam blogs by leaving meaningless comments as an excuse to include a link back to your site.

Most of these tricks don’t work any more, and are nothing but a waste of time .

Mechanical SEO Is Out. Sustainable SEO Is In

Search engines have been busy lately working to close all these loopholes. Search engines can now identify and penalize pages that use keywords excessively or develop too many links too fast. Blog comment spam has been out since blog platforms started supporting the no-follow tag.

SEO is not about using tricks any more. Instead, SEO should focus on getting your site firmly enmeshed in the community: SEO is now a social activity .

The time has finally come to follow the search engines’ original advice and build a great site that others will want to link to. It’s time to engage in sustainable SEO.

Sustainable SEO: Getting Back to Basics

No matter how you slice it or dice it, there are only two things you need to do to build a successful site:

1. Create and publish great content, and
2. Tell the right people about it.

Assuming that you know how to create great content (after all, you’re interested and passionate about your topic, right?) telling the right people about it should be your next priority.

Getting people to know you and link to you are the basis for sustainable SEO, since search engines use links from established, reputable sites as a proxy for value and trust.

The Number One Tip to Get Links

The best advice I can give you is this: link out liberally. If there are bloggers in your field that you admire and want to get their attention, link to their posts from your site. Use their posts to provide support and context to your posts.

Don’t be afraid to “send your readers to the competition” or “leaking Pagerank”. That is foolish and outdated thinking .

By linking out often, people will start to notice you. Some of them will read your blog, others will become subscribers, and a few of them will become your friends, link to your posts, and support you all the way through. These connections will become your most valuable asset.

Training the Search Engines

Aside from writing good content and reaching out to fellow bloggers, you must train the search engines to know what your site is about. This will help you rank for different queries related to your topic. Some of the things you can do to guide the search engines are:

Post regularly.
Link to very good sites related to your subject matter.
Make your blog posts focused: talk about only one specific subject per post.
Have a limited (10 or so) group of focused, related categories with descriptive names.
Include keywords in your page or post titles.
Link to past posts on your own blog using descriptive anchor text.
Create a sitemap and link to it from your sidebar.

Grab a Chair: Search Engine Visibility Takes Time

Search engine visibility doesn’t happen overnight. There is evidence that search engines like Google place new sites on a “probation” period before giving them weight in their rankings (in the case of Google, this probation period is known as the Google Sandbox).

During that time, it pays to be patient and to focus on building your site’s content. After a while (usually a few months) search engines will learn to trust your site and your posts will start showing up in the SERPs for a variety of search queries.

Other SEO Resources:

SEO Training Program.
SmallFuel: SEO for Small Business.
Google’s Quality Guidelines .
Matt Cutt’s SEO Tips Video.
Aaron and Giovanna Wall’s SEO for Blogs .

Personal Branding — 6 Comments
28
Feb 08

Are You a ‘Whatever’ Business Person?

Photo Credits: Mikhael747

You know the drill: it’s noon and you and your co-workers are planning lunch.

You: Where should we go?
Co-worker 1: Oh, I don’t know, where do you want to go? (turning to co-worker 2)
Co-worker 2: I don’t know, whatever, anything’s fine with me…

Suddenly, something as simple as grabbing lunch morphs into the Battle of the Clueless.

While ‘I don’t know, whatever’ is sometimes the sign of a genuine state of confusion, most of the time it is not. It’s just laziness. Coming up with ideas, studying the options and, above all, making a decision, is hard work, so most people just put the burden on somebody else: where do you want to go?

If you want to be a leader, it is your job to make decisions, and to ask the right questions so that other people can make them themselves.

To help others make decisions (and increase the odds that those decisions are the ones you want them to make) start by offering specific, but few, alternatives. People are more likely to make a decision when faced with a small, manageable number of options.

For example: ‘what do you want to eat: Chinese or Italian?”, works better than: ‘what do you want to eat?’ and certainly much better than: ‘what do you want to eat? There is a Japanese place around the corner, next to a pizza place that’s also pretty good, and then next block there’s a good Chinese place, ah, wait, but we can also try this new sandwich shop, now, if you don’t mind, there’s the mall down the road, they have a food court you know, perhaps they have something there….’

Many small businesses make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. Conventional wisdom tells us that if we limit our options or specialize we will lose business. How many times have you heard: ‘Oh, we do it all! We can design your website, print your brochures, handle your PR, print your business cards and optimize your site for the search engines, whatever. You name it, we do it!’

Bad. Being all things to all people is lousy branding and it doesn’t work.

I also see this unfortunate trend in blogs. You look at the sidebar and see 45 different unrelated categories. There is no underlying theme, and the whole thing is a big, unfocused mess. And then the blogger in question wonders why his blog is not getting any traction…

‘Whatever’ is not a positioning strategy. It is a mistake at best and a lazy cop-out at worse.

People and businesses need to find the right niche, specialize, and be the best option (or even better, the only option) for their customers. You need to brand yourself . You will not lose business. It may be a little more difficult at the beginning, but by choosing a differentiated position (and sticking to it) you’re more likely to achieve success than with an indiscriminate, shotgun approach.

In summary:

Being a leader means making decisions, and helping others make decisions (usually by giving them specific, but few alternatives). Your biggest decision is to chose your brand identity. You need to take the time and effort to assess your strengths and weaknesses, and the threats and opportunities in the marketplace, and chose only one activity where you can be the best. Then, stick with it .