Establishing a Personal Brand through Rich Media

Christian — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:37:13 +0000

I would like to say I think the most effective way to establish a personal brand is relative. There are things that you have to take into consideration like what industry/market are you trying to pursue and to drill it down even to a niche in said industry/market and build from there.

In today’s social media world building a personal brand means doing “all the above.” If I had to make a choice I would have to say blogging because you can always integrate podcasting and viral videos in to that. That being said blogging is more of a platform in which to distribute your content via podcasting, viral videos, etc.

More importantly than the communication platforms/channels you decide to use is the content itself. The paradigm shift that is social media has done away with the gatekeepers and turned everybody into their own CEO. No longer is the target audience necessarily a captive one. They can make the decision within seven seconds (average viewer’s attention span) if they want to continue to to read, watch, listen to what you have to say. It becomes about creating content that will extend that that seven seconds and make your target audience want more. People want one of two things and that is to learn something or be entertained and in a lot of cases they want both. It boils down to what we like to call, “added value.”

When you have that part figured out then you have to be consistent and stay relevant in keeping up with trending topics within your industry or market niche. This is the same reason Hollywood stars do rash things to extend their fifteen minutes of fame and it is because we have come to expect more from them and they fail to produce because the quality of the content is not there anymore and so we as the target audience move on. The same has to be said for online media distribution.

Whatever it is you decided to do make sure you focus on your strengths/passion and your sphere of influence, or Tribe as Seth Godin among others puts it, will grow. Keep in mind there is no immediacy in establishing a personal brand. Just like in Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come.” It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but create great content and distribute it on multiple marketing communication channels and they will come.

My last piece of advice is get involved with your local Toasmasters Club. The most successful personal brands take the online into the offline arena as presenters and public speakers.

Four book suggestions for Personal Branding:

Tribes by Seth Godin
Trust Agents by Chris Brogan
Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuck
Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel

The Social Media Marketing Resume

Christian — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:21:56 +0000

The obvious to me are the ones with links to their social networking profiles and when checking their profiles that they are consistently active in those communities while advocating in a niche market or industry. They also have to be cognizant to social media marketing trends (vanity urls, social media tools, etc.) and the implementation of those tools. If they truly know what they are doing besides existing on social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook and using social media tools like Twitter they are also writing about it in their blog and creating Slideshare presentations on a regular basis. Are they active and are they staying relevant week to week, month to month, year to year while gaining new followers and building a tribe. True social media “experts” are public speakers who are passionate about marketing in their niche industry and future trends while educating others on they why and the how.

Are they truly active and staying relevant beyond their resume? The great thing about Social Media resumes is that it is easier to go on fact finding missions. Some say personal branding is becoming more important to a company that the company brand itself and I tend to agree because it is the people who make that brand what it is. Social media has changed the way we think and act on what was traditional marketing campaigns. A good friend Nate Riggs talks about this in his blog.

Checklist for any resume whether it is for a social media resume or not is:

All that being said some of the best resumes I’ve seen are the online ones and more specifically the ones that usual VisualCV.

http://www.visualcv.com/ariherzog

http://www.visualcv.com/scobleizer

http://www.visualcv.com/guykawasaki

Here is mine, although it is in desperate need of updating it gives you an idea of some of the important elements to look for in a social media marketing resume: http://www.visualcv.com/christianadams and my blog is a mess, but I currently write on various subject matter related to the internet at http://www.mashingthenet.com

I would say the person to look for is the one making waves locally and if they are at various business and social events offline or ask if people have heard of that person. Mashable also has a good post about HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume.

Sigma Creative» Personal Brand

Establishing a Personal Brand through Rich Media

The Social Media Marketing Resume