3. Branding is the process of having people think of your brand when they
identify a need. For people such as white collar professionals, often the brand
revolves around their name.This includes Doctors, Lawyers, Artists,
Marketers, Accountants, and other white collar professionals.The follow slides
were to help those without Marketing/Advertising backgrounds understand a
few fundamentals of branding without being overwhelming.
8. The previous slide was just a joke. Greg Gifford is a highly accomplished SEO
who speaks at conferences all over the country, writes for Search Engine Land,
and doesWebinars on Local SEO with Moz. He’s also on a board of directors
with me for DFWSEM and is in charge of putting on a great conference this
year called State of Search. Learn more at www.StateofSearch.org
13. Linkedin Study
How to share stuff and get noticed on Linkedin via the status update box
14. In short the study appears to show that images on Linkedin do quite well.
While this did not look at the new “posts” type, it does show what content you
can post on Linkedin to gain engagement with those who connect with you.
This should help white collar professionals in the B2B space brand themselves
in the minds of their connections. For more on the study read my write up
here: http://www.joeyoungblood.com/social-media/youre-sharing-wrong-
content-linkedin/
15. • Advice / Affirmation (text only)
• ArticleWith Personal Commentary
• ArticleWithout Commentary
• BusinessCall to Action on Personal Page
• Business Related Announcement
• Business Related Announcement w/ Linked Content
• Business Related Contest on LinkedIn
• Career Achievement Announcement
• General Interest Infographic
• Job Opportunity
• New Job
• New Photo
• Non-Occupational Related Photo
• Occupation Related Annuoucement
• Occupational Fact Graphic
• Occupational Humor Graphic
• Personal Blog Post
• ProfessionalTips / Insights (text only)
• Text Advice/Affirmation Graphic
• Work Anniversary
24. KeywordTools
• Ubersuggest.org
• KeywordTool.io
• SEMRush
• Google Adwords
Using these keywords you can see what kind of content people associate
with your name.This can help you find new kinds of content to share, and
see if people are associating your name with what you want to be branded
with.
29. Occupational Searches
“Well, what am I supposed to do?You won't answer my calls, you change your
number. I mean, I'm not gonna be ignored, Dan!” – Fatal Attraction 1987
30. Frequently white collar professionals or others who’s name is part of their
business fail to rank for their name + their occupation.This can result in a loss
of traffic and conversions or sales.This is an important part of improving your
presence in search engines.
34. One of the best ways to rank in search engines for your name and things you
like to do is to develop a website with your name. If the .com is taken your can
try something likeYourNameOccupation.com. This allows a professional to
outrank aggregators and other websites that mention their name.
36. What content to add
•6 topics
•4 related to your industry target
•1 different industry
•1 personal
37. But what if you enjoy doing man things that are highly unrelated? At the
original presentation we had someone who was a Financial Advisor and a
Guitar Player and someone who makes animatronic dragon wings and is a
Computer Consultant. Right now society seems to understand a professional
having one hobby that they talk about from time to time, but to talk about it
all the time you would probably want to use a pseudonym (i.e. a stage name).
40. BeYourself (a little bit)
• Charlie Sheen meltdown = 11.2 million followers onTwitter
• Kim Kardashian sex tape = $200 million mobile video game
• Porn Hub’s comedy = write up on Moz.com (top marketing blog)
• Belle Knox ‘owning herself’ = 87.4k followers onTwitter
• LeBron James apology letter/announcement = 100’s of thousands of shares
and video views and thousands of conversations.
41. The point of the previous slide is that things that were once highly taboo are
now being more welcomed and accepted. Don’t be too afraid to be yourself,
but always be cognizantly aware that you’re a business person at the same
time. So umm maybe don’t pull a Charlie Sheen and do cocaine or a Belle Knox
and be a porn star.
45. How to Post
• Tweet a few times per day
• Join hashtags relevant to your industry
• Tweet big industry / related industry names
• Share any content you’ve created at least 3 times over the course of 2 weeks
• Avoid obvious trolls
• Use direct messaging sparingly
46. What to post
• Industry articles
• Breaking news in your industry / geography
• Your own original research
• Questions to your followers
• Occasional personal updates
51. A great way to brand yourself is to do interviews with bloggers, podcasters,
and related websites. One great way to do that is to submit yourself to
www.FindExpertsToInterview.com
This is a brand perception map example n a 2D plane.
This is a joke, Greg Gifford is actually quite an intelligent and accomplished SEO!
Use keyword tools to figure out what it is people want to know about you. These tools can tell you what and roughly how frequently the searches are made.
Screenshot of what people are associating with Gary Vaynerchuk’s name. The highlight shows that people look for quotes, a type of content he doesn’t use on his website but could to help drive traffic to his new books and blog posts.
A screenshot of KeywordTool.io showing that there are 37 different keyword results with Gary Vaynerchuk and social media.
A screenshot of KeywordTool.io showing that there are 0 different keyword results with My name and social media.
The problem here is that this doctor doesn’t have a website, but frequently a doctor’s website will rank lower than aggregators for their own name. Aggregators provide information you might not want people to see and provide other competing professionals.
Adding more than 6 categories can hurt your branding and make it more difficult for people and search engines to identify you with a topic. Think about bloggers like Marc Cuban who writes on business, patent law, the Dallas Mavericks, and his own personal life on occasion. That’s 4 related topics. But what about a Doctor that likes to do woodwork, or a lawyer with a passion for helping the needy? Often times these concepts can be married onto a blog but too many different topics and you no longer optimize the credibility you had in the ones that are your target.
On twitter engage with industry experts, sometimes they’ll engage you back. This is a recent conversation I had with Rand Fishkin, a man I’ve never met in person.