Triangle AMA’s August luncheon: ‘Building Your Personal Brand Through Social Media
Identity
We're talking about personal branding, but where does personal branding start?
It starts with your online identity.
Everyone has an online identity rather you realize it or not, you have a community, you engage with people online in various social networks with your friends, coworkers ect.
Photo via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiiit/3488566883/
It's up to you to manage your own online identity.
You need manage your presence, what the search engines results deliver about you.
You need to decide if your presence online is going to be you the person who works for company xyz or just you the person.
As a company you need to decide if it's going to be an person representing the company or the company
You want your social profiles to be current
http://www.flickr.com/photos/day_c/5745658/
While controlling your voice, its still is and always will be about content
I've said this before at previous talks but by now you should have your own domain name, even if it's just a place holder linking to your company profile.
People will search for you, and when they do, will they find your facebook profile, twitter name, blog, or your company work bio?
All that is up to you and for you to manage your content. You want to create and control the content online.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7855449@N02/2781252970/
Design matters, A lot of people don't talk about design when it comes to social media or personal branding but it matters.
Would you buy something from a site that looked like it was created in 1999 or 2009?
First impression counts in personal branding, Online and offline.
You want your content to look clean and professional, even if it's your twitter background, blog etc
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcoescobedo/2806417207/
Speaking of twitter and design, here's two before and after avatars . The 1st one is Jeff Cohen @dgtlpapercuts , he has the mean mug, beard in the 1st photo and at a tweetup someone saw him in person and tweeted, @dgtlpapercuts is not as badass in person as he looks like in his avatar.
The second one is Chris Owens, @Ocell on twitter, he's a NCSU grad doing a product design internship at Dell in Austin, TX for 6mths. Just 2 days ago he went from the OC sign to his face and was asking what did we think on twitter. Now Ocell is in a new city, possibly looking for a job, attending various meetups, active on twitter, foursquare, brightkite etc and what would be a better "avatar for him? The face! Online personal branding matters in offline networking.
http://twitter.com/dgtlpapercuts
&
http://twitter.com/ocell
Even myself, I’ve had the avatar wayne created back in 2005 or 2006 and used it for my social networking profiles until 2009. Then I wanted something different. So I switched to business/serious Wayne as I saw the landscape changing. I have people walking up to me saying “are you wayne sutton, in various cities at tech events “ etc, why because of my personal brand, the content I created online, the use of tools and the voice I’ve establish as someone who’s understand social media, video, etc
To the point I’m standing in-front of you today.
http://twitter.com/waynesutton
http://twitter.com/triangleama/statuses/3166756329
So you have your identity, your social media profiles are all setup, your sites, your brand is clear, nice design, what’s next?
You need to manage your personal brand as if you’re running a social media campaign for a client.
Use the free tools, google alerts; decide your voice, your message and be consistent.
IT was reported yesterday that 45% of employers look up social profiles, facebook, twitter, etc before they hire someone & 11% are going to start soon. My question is why doesn’t every company look up social profiles already?
Also you need setup your privacy filters, when you decide how are you going to use certain social networks.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredcavazza/2564571564/
As we talk about personal branding using social media whether it’s a person, company etc. At the end of the day you want to get noticed. You’re online, you’re tweeting, blogging, you have a new book coming out, etc. sending press releases, You want to get noticed. How do you do that?
You establish, your identity, create content, have a nice design, use the tools, measure the success and failures and do something Awesome!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewbu/3748259394/
Wayne Sutton
http://wayne-sutton.com
http://socialwayne.com
@WayneSuttoninfo@socialwayne.com
Triangle AMA’s August luncheon: ‘Building Your Personal Brand Through Social Media