Mini Case #2: Personal Branding in a Social Media

January 14, 2009
|In social marketing, Marketing 2.0, social media
|By sandraanncarter

Personal Branding and Networking with Social Media:

One of the top issues that I see as I mentor a folks is in how they network. I started thinking about how my networking as changed, blending the in person with the online. Interesting note, from IDC study, more women than men use social media and networking for work and personal but from Time, 63% of Twitter users are male!! Interesting — another blog on that later!!

I considered some examples on Networking through social meida to learn from what others do.

 Some Examples:

  • David Armano, creator of the Logic + Emotion blog, last week used Twitter to raise almost $15,000 within 24 hours for a friend in need. To me this story showed the power of his social currency through his social media connections
  • Jeremiah Owyang uses multiple tools to network with a set of social media thought leaders. This networking allowed him to use those contacts to do an inperson meeting in Silicon Valley to see what the next steps needed to be in this space with a set of vendors and brands that may never had gotten together in the past.    http://twitter.com/jowyang
  • Peter Shankman has used social media to form a network of reporters who need help, and a network of those of us who are willing to help the reporters out with questions. It is a great service that allows him to increase his network. Check it out! http://www.shankman.com
  • Jennifer Leggio posted an article about how folks are using Social Media to find jobs!   http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=374
  • Support groups done through social media!   http://collective-thoughts.com/2009/01/13/using-social-media-as-a-support-group/

      • Top 10 for your Personal Brand and Social Media!

      1. Determine what personal brand is! Make sure your avatar, blog, words reflect that personal brand.
      2. Listen first. Use a set of listening tools to understand the area of domain of your personal brand. Follow the social media leaders in those domains whether that is Tim O’Reilly on technology or Obama on politics (he is no longer active! Disappointing!) For instance, the most popular technology blog is TechCrunch as of January 2009. If you are a technologist, this would be one to keep your eye on. If you are a dog lover, perhaps it is http://www.dogster.com/
      3. Determine your personel wheel of influence. Know who will personally be your tippers in influencing your brand. I recommended in my book on Marketing 2.0 to develop your Personal Wheel of Influence.
      4. Select your Tool Of Choice! Get started online based on your interest in the tool for you. You must be active, so to be active, you need to love the interactions! There are over 150M active users on Facebook in over 170 countries. Is your tool of choice MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook or all of the above!
      5. Be interesting and relevant– open up on who you are! Always ask is what I am doing right now online consistent with what I want my personal brand to be.  To show relevance you really must keep up on the conversation.   In my last seminar, people asked how much time I spend on blogging, twittering, etc. What I do is to book time on the calendar to read and explore, and then twitter and blog throughout the day. Because I love it, I keep up even on the weekends!
      6. Be Bold. Ask people to follow your blog or your tweets. From a set of Social Media stats, the number of followers for a active twitterer is 86,000!!! Also drive your awareness by using the tools like Google reader, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Del.icio.us.
      7. Dialogue! Comment on other’s blogs, tweets, The better your comments are, the better you domain and skills will be demonstrated, opening up networking opportunities.
      8. Think about others. My grandfather always told me “do unto others what you’d have them do to you” so thank those who help you, link to others on your site, tweets, etc. It will come back to you tenfold. For instance, Mike Moran has assisted me in several areas and I have repricoated as he left IBM. (Check him out .. an incredible guy http://www.mikemoran.com/biznology/blog/ 
      9. Use multi media. Videos of course can help your network get to know you in a different way than words can. YouTube has over 70M videos uploaded because people are inherently social creatures. Buy yourself a flip and get going!
      10. Start your own network! On LinkedIn for instance, I joined an author’s group. I didn’t start it but joined it! You can increase your networking via the tools you choose!

      Let me know what works for you.  Given the response, I’d like to study this one deeper!

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