Personal Brand Strategy

Editor's Notes

• #3 Look at what comes up on top of Google search – LinkedIn and twitter, as well as Google+ on the side The goal is to create your own online footprint. You don’t want your high school track stories or photos of you and your friends appearing at the top of a google search. So, how do you change that? Content creation and/or social media What we’re talking about today: LinkedIn and Twitter. (plus whatever else we can fit in if we have time) At a glance, LinkedIn and Twitter are about as different as two social networks can be. Twitter is microblogging, LinkedIn has serious publishing power for longer form content. Twitter can be laid back and more conversational, whereas LinkedIn is typically more professional and even formal. So how can we use these two seemingly different platforms in a synergistic way?
• #4 Why LinkedIn? LinkedIn has over 300 million users and most of them login monthly. That's a lot of potential contacts. People come to the platform with the intention of spending time on it – approx. 17 min/day Has been established over the years as “the network for professionals” so you can expect that people will sharing professional, business-related topics and that it’s a place to initiate professional conversations. LinkedIn can be exceptionally powerful, especially when you’re aware of all the little hidden features. Headshot and cover photo Professional headshot and cover image that conveys something about what you do. Adding a profile photo could result in 14x more views than without. Use a professional looking one or something that represents your industry. Seeing your face is important! Crop from your shoulders to no higher than the top of your head Catchy headline (max 120 characters) Industry you work in – can result in up to 15x more profile views Custom URL – looks more professional and easier to share
• #5 Summary Make your first line irresistible. Include keywords to increase search relevance. Job seekers will want to put in keywords that match those of the jobs they are looking for, and business owners will want to use terms that their clients might be looking for. Use 40+ words to increase likeliness of turning up in search, max of 2000 characters. Show your personality! The summary, rather than the experience section, is the perfect place for you to let people know what you have to offer. In fact, you don’t necessarily need to go into your experience too much since it's right below the summary. Instead, dive further into your beliefs, motivations, or values — the intangibles that are generally harder to convey in your experience. Explain why you got into the industry, what you love about it, and what kind of professional you are. Quantify with percentages & numbers to show results ADD MEDIA 90% of what we process is visual and we process visual 60K times more quickly than text. Plus most people are visual learners examples of media you can add: links to websites for projects you worked on, press releases about the projects, any articles you’ve written or that were written about you
• #6 Do more than just paste your resume! Add a summary & experiences with related results. Add work examples to experience sections. Links to articles written about the work you did, awards, publications. Also include these in the various sections on your profile. Ok to use details – think of this as your expanded resume that can be longer than 1 page. Show results, add media to show examples.
• #7 Skills - According to LinkedIn, those who use the Skills & Endorsements section get 13x more profile views. Join and interact in relevant groups – can increase profile views up to 5x if you’re active in groups Be specific about your education – members with education receive up to 10x more views than those who don’t Add relevant volunteer experience – 42% of hiring managers surveyed said they view this as equivalent to formal work experience
• #8 Publishing posts Anyone can publish You can share to your other social networks Both sharing updates & publishing posts will help grow and engage your network The platform will match your blog’s topic with users interested in that particular subject Many use it to republish content they’ve shared elsewhere because the views are so high Tips on Publishing Keep your voice authentic. Weave in examples from your personal experience. Write about specific areas in which you have experience and/or expertise. Share your observations, impressions, and firsthand experience with your job, company, or industry. Write about your successes or failures and how you’ve learned from them. Or write about what inspires you to do what you do. Keep your writing focused. Avoid covering too many topics in the same long-form post. Don't shy away from expressing your opinion. However, keep your long-form posts appropriate for the LinkedIn audience. Help people understand trends in your industry or the larger economy. Give context, advice or news that helps people get jobs, promotions, or build a stronger personal brand. Remember that content should enhance your reputation as an expert in your field. Publish whenever you have something valuable to share with LinkedIn members. In general, the more long-form posts you publish, the more credibility you will build, and the stronger your professional profile will become. There are no limits on word count, but the long-form posts that are best received are more than 3 paragraphs. Upload pictures, videos, presentations, and documents to add to your content. It helps bring your insights to life and is a good way to showcase concrete examples of your experience. Draw readers in with a catchy headline. Start conversations with your readers by replying to comments and questions
• #9 Statuses Status updates appear on the homepage, similar to the Facebook newsfeed or Twitter timeline. Post statuses related to breaking news, industry trends and ask questions. Limit length to 50 characters to increase engagement up to 28% Target post by industry, city, etc. when necessary Aim for more than 1% engagement per update
• #10 DO connect with people immediately after meeting them. – meetings, networking events, etc – and make a point of telling people that you’re going to connect with them on LinkedIn so they expect it. Once they accept, add a note for yourself as to when and where you met them as well as what you talked about so that you can go back and see that in the future. Don’t blindly connect to people you don’t know. After many of these attempts, LinkedIn will warn you, and then shut you down if too many people don’t respond to your connection request. DO Personalize your connection requests – you have to be on the person’s profile and request to connect in order to customize the invitation DON’T send connection requests more than once. Many people have backlogged inboxes and don’t login to LinkedIn all the time or for long periods. If they want to accept, they will. DO connect with people at your dream company – when you’re not applying for a job. DON’T connect with hiring managers until after you get a job offer. DO give endorsements and recommendations. And don’t be afraid to ask for them in return. DON’T ask a bunch of people for recommendations at once. It’s obvious when all your recommendations are around the same date that you asked for them at the same time Opt to receive emails from LinkedIn so you’re reminded to sign in periodically. LinkedIn will also prompt you with those to interact with your existing connections and suggest new ones.
• #11 Most people use Twitter to read and learn – news, trending topics, etc. As of January this year, nearly 24 million of Twitter’s 284 million registered users don’t tweet Who uses twitter like this? Who interacts? To someone that doesn’t, why don’t you have a handle? Not leveraging the power and influence of Twitter at this point is a missed opportunity for all professionals. Dinner table analogy – envision you see a table of the people you would love to sit and have a casual conversation with at dinner. Who are they?... Write down a list of five people you would include. Now, think about what they’re talking about. How do you get yourself a seat at that table? Unlike in real life, on Twitter it’s OK to jump into a conversation you weren’t invited into. Find your dinner table people and start to follow them. You don’t need to immediately reply or tweet at them, but favorite or retweet something that’s relevant to what you want to talk about with them. When you’re comfortable and have something worthwhile to say, reply to one of their tweets. Do this for a period of time and you’ll be able to develop a relationship with that person, to the point that it will feel like you know them. At that point, if you send a LinkedIn request and message to meet up for coffee or an informational interview, it won’t be random and you’ll have developed credibility in their eyes through the insight you’ve provided on Twitter. Example: I spent time following #smsports. In doing that I started to build a list of digital folks that work specifically for teams or in sports in general. While I left the team side, I wanted to position myself as an expert in that space since I spent years doing it and now at Wasserman we do workshops with teams. So I built the list (which notified each person that they were being added to a list) and I spent time interacting with them. At first just by the occasional favorite, then replies, then joining in full conversations. Eventually I sent LinkedIn requests to many of them as well and made the effort to meet them in real life (IRL, in twitter speak) when I was in their cities or at conferences. Moral of the story: If you have LinkedIn requests for people pending, leveraging Twitter is a great way to remind them who you are so that when they go back and see that invite again, they have more of an idea why they should accept.
• #12 Stats 302 million monthly active users (4/28/15) 34% of active users log in more than once per day (11/21/14) Users send a total of 500 million tweets per day (4/1/15) Basics One-on-one conversations 140 characters or less Real-time Engage with content by favoriting, replying, retweeting and quote tweeting Use hashtags to insert content into relevant conversations
• #13 Optimize your bio – use hashtags and @ mentions of relevant accounts so you come up more frequently in search Visual media does best! Using an image in a tweet increases retweets by 28% and favorites by 36%. Ask questions and have conversations Do not only talk about yourself; participate in conversations that are of interest to your audience. Interact with the others to grow your followers and create an engaged community: retweet, mention, favorite, respond, and ask questions. Engage with relevant influencers and celebrities. Twitter provides the ability for anyone to be able to reach out to you via a tweet. Take advantage of that and (when relevant) engage with power users and influencers in your industry. Use hashtags and clear call to actions. Tweet throughout the day, don’t be afraid to Tweet late night. You can create a global following by ensuring relevant content is being sent out in various time zones. Optimize for mobile. 78% of users use Twitter on mobile devices. Create a digital voice that humanizes your brand and speaks to your target demographic.
• #14 Who knows how hashtags work? Do you know how to find relevant ones? Make your posts discoverable to those who don’t already follow you and will help broaden and expand your audience Integral to tracking and content analysis Help identify relevant content in search Hashtag Best Practices Informative hashtags are always better than abstract ones. (Ex: #ALSIceBucketChallenge) Proofread hashtags with the mentality of a 12-year old (Ex: #cowboysuk) Don’t be afraid to contribute to a trend Live-tweet during big events (just don’t go overboard). Great way to join a trending conversation and create reason for others to engage with you. Make sure topic is somehow relevant to your personal brand. (ex: I tweet reaction to soccer games.) Keep it short Don’t overdo it. Stick to less than three per tweet. Remember why hashtags exist – to connect a conversation. Occasional use of a hashtag to be funny or emphasize your point is OK, but don’t do it on every tweet. Use hashtags in sentences Use hashtags to monitor or join conversations
• #15 One of the more hidden, though underrated, features of Twitter are lists. Lists make it easier to consume content on Twitter because you can group similar accounts together and then consume content by topic. The number and type of lists you have says a lot about you as a Twitter user. It represents how you organize your followers, and what topics you are interested in. Group people into categories to help you sift through all the information. Ex: #smsports Follow other people’s lists of topics relevant to your personal brand.
• #16 Start by creating a list around a topic. Make sure it’s public and something that reinforces your personal brand Now take the list you wrote down earlier (or come up with a few other people you’d add to the list you just created), find them on Twitter and add them to your list. Scroll through the tweets on your list and favorite 3 tweets.
• #17 Tweetdeck - schedule content, monitor streams, in depth searches Hootsuite - schedule content, monitor streams, in-depth searches; can post to twitter and linkedin from the mobile app or website Sprout Social - schedule content, monitor streams, analytics Facebook Scheduling – use native tools on Pages to schedule posts Latergram, Take Off - schedule instagram posts from your phone Schedugram – upload images online for instagram and schedule from web Instagram Hyperlapse - Easily create time-lapse videos from your iPhone. Features built in image-stabilization technology for cinematic look, quality and feel. Playback speeds between 1x-12x. Free of cost. Available on the iTunes Store Repost – repost instagram photos, credits the user Instasave – download photos and videos from instagram Instadown – download instagram videos off desktop IFTTT - notifications/actions tool Pocket - save articles offline for reading later Feedly - help curate content Buffer - Web based tool and app that lets you schedule content on Twitter, including retweets and replies. To add one account is free, to add multiple accounts costs $100 per year. www.BufferApp.com Iconosquare - Great tool similar to Instagr.in for viewing photos and managing comments, but also offers robust analytics and insights about your fan base. Free of cost. www.iconosquare.com