thoughts on online personal branding
DESCRIPTION
Slides explaining the concept of online personal branding delivered to Vlerick graduates in November 2011...TRANSCRIPT
Personal branding online
Who I am • Simon McDermott @simonmc
• Graduated from Vlerick in 2003 IMBA
• Co-Founded Attentio in 2004 – Monitoring social media for brands
• Founded New Media Cloud in 2009 – Advising companies and people on social media
• Personal branding, Reputation monitoring
• Mentor at Founder Institute, Director of Jam Publishing
What we will cover today • Why online personal branding is important?
• Definitions
• Different use cases, stories
• Tools
• Personal objectives & Go forward
Traditional definition of brand
A brand is a perception or emotion,
maintained by a buyer or prospective buyer,
describing the experience related to doing
business with an organization or consuming its
products and services.
A perception or emotion, maintained by
somebody other than you. Describes the total
experience of having a relationship with you.
A lesson in brand value
€4 €.80
Source: Hajj Fleming
Why online is so important? • Competing names
Why online is so important
• People check you out...
• And that’s a good thing!
Why online is so important
• Recruitment paradigm shift
– Recruiters live on LinkedIN, Viadeo etc.
Stories from online personal branding
• The non-existent
– Most people
• “The egg”
The over sharer
The Player
– Has own personal web site
– Uses about.me
– Thousands of followers
– May speak a lot at events
– But not illustrative of most people...
– But worth looking at how they do it and benefit of being guru at something, one thing!
Gary Vaynerchuk
My experience
• Having a social media profile is valuable – Don’t over do it
– Tempting to waste time updating or browsing • Like a party you don’t want to leave!
• Much of your network is developed offline – Events, Sport, Friends
• Recent example of a paid consulting project – Reality is cross over from social media to old
fashioned network
The tools
KARATE belts
• In steps – 1. White: Basic, minimum
• LinkedIn profile, checks online by
searching Google
– 2. Green: Developing • LinkedIn, Twitter ID, Facebook rules
– 3. Black: Personal Brand Fiend • LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Own web site (e.g.
about.me), brainstorms with people on their “brand values”, checks their reputation online
Going forward: Budget
• From 0 to $1,000
– Mostly time...
• About.me is free, so is LinkedIN, Twitter etc.
– LinkedIn premium may be interesting
• Maybe paying someone to take a good picture?
• Perhaps coaching but try and get your company to pay ;)
Going forward: Warnings
• Make sure personal life is what you want to show, you own your brand – Argentinean Rugby story
• Make it work for you and your objectives! – New job, want to share with network etc.
• Different parts of you for different social networks!
• You are always more that what you show online...People know this
Key Takeaways from today
• Check your online brand – Search your name and colleagues
• Own your name – Buy a domain name, get @Twitter, start your LinkedIn
and/or Viadeo
• Learn some social media etiquette – Twitter (RT, HT, @ versus D), Facebook Likes – LinkedIn updates tied to Twitter (not other way around)
• Decide what time you can give to it and frequently change your status – Even a few times per month! – SHARE USEFUL CONTENT, IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU...