Post Your Personal Video on YouTube.com

Previously we discussed the power of the a 30 second “elevator pitch” video to quickly convey the essence of your personal brand to your desired targets. Of course, the distribution of a personal video can take many forms, everything from a dvd to uploading on any of the major video hosting sites such as – YouTube, Blip.tv, Vimeo, MegaVideo, Twiddeo and more.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Dan Schawbel:

“There are thousands of different websites that you can leverage to build your own personal brand, but only a few that will give you both the reach and credibility to make a major impact. Here at Mashable , we’ve provided you with a detailed look at how you can build your personal brand on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Today, we’ll focus in on the largest video sharing site on the planet, more commonly referred to as YouTube.

With over 120 million U.S. viewers, YouTube is used by President Obama for his weekly State of the Union Address, by universities who share lectures from star academics, and by celebrities such as Miley Cyrus who use it as a lifestream. Aside from the popularity of YouTube, the site exploits the most powerful branding medium of them all, video.

The reason why video is so effective in communicating your personal brand is because your audience will already feel like they’ve met you by the time the video is over.  With video, you get a sense of who someone really is based on their voice, their face and their body motions.  Video can support your branding efforts like no other medium on the web.”

###

Slide Show – Red Ladder/Blue Ladder

As a follow up to our feature article “Red Ladder/Blue Ladder” we have created a non-narrated slide show that highlights the main points in the article.

SlideShare.com

or click below for Scribd version

Career Branding

Five Hallmark Characteristics of Leader’s Personal Branding

There may be such a thing as born leaders, but any leader must earn his or her following by words and actions. The hallmark characteristics of strong leaders include; taking risks, accepting tough challenges, speaking out when in disagreement, focusing on being respected verses just being “liked”, being open to honest feedback, and avoiding the use of destructive language.

The following is an excerpt from Brenda Bence’s article that expands on the leader’s personal branding traits:

How Leaders Earn Brand-Loyalty for Life

“All you have to do is look around you to know that brands are powerful. In fact, most people are so loyal to certain brands that they stick with them for life. If brand-name products can evoke that kind of loyalty, why can’t people? Well, they can!

The truth is that we all have a personal brand whether we like it or not. Simply by being ourselves in the work place, others perceive, think, and feel about us in a certain way. The question is whether we have created the personal brand we want. This is especially important for those who hold leadership positions. If you lead others, the way they perceive, think, and feel about you as a leader, in relation to other leaders, can make or break your short-term and long-term success. These “others” might consist of your subordinates, colleagues, superiors, or even entire divisions or corporations.

Your leadership personal brand impacts your image, your reputation, your relationships, and your performance. As a result, it will also impact your overall career and your finances. So, unless you create your desired leadership personal brand consciously, negative perceptions can undermine your best efforts.”

###

“elevid” is an “elevator video” pitch

The new elevator pitch is actual and “elevator video” or “elevid” [el-uh-vid] for short.

Traditionally, a “personal branding statement” is the fodder or basis for an elevator pitch as an introductory summation of an individual’s brand.

The “elevator” part reflects the fact that the pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (thirty seconds and 100-150 words).

The “elevid” is an “elevator video” pitch that is typically thirty or less seconds in length.

Rumors are flying about Twitter’s upcoming micro-vlog or short form video technology, which will dramatically change the way we all communicate in short form about daily events. Of course, these rumors are also fueled by the release of the iPhone 3G S, and it’s video taking and uploading “directly to the web” capabilities.

It doesn’t take Nostradamus to recognize a sea change from text to short video is on its way in a hurry. What will this mean for the varies segments of social networking? Well for the HR world it might mean the ability to preview hundreds of select job candidates in a very short period of time. Of course, getting the right person to view your personal brand elevid is just the beginning. What happens when a viewer wants to see more?

A complete program would allow HR managers to simply click a link to view an expanded version of a personal branding video along with resume and other relevant documentation.

It’s the brave new world of career development and personal branding. The elevid represents just the tip of the iceberg for new forms of social media that are on the way.

Urban Dictionary: Elevid

###

Steve Byrne is Chief Branding Officer for CareerBranding.com, Costa Mesa, CA

Your Face: In Regular Google Search Result

How to get “your photo” in the results of a regular google search. This seems pretty cool, you can create a free google profile account and add your photo. When anybody googles you by your name, hello, they will see your photo right in the regular web search results. No more confusing you with somebody else by the same name. And what a great way to “place a face with a name” for anyone interested enough in you to google you. The following is an excerpt from Daulton West, Jr.’s article
—
“There are many social media applications that have been around for a while and have been given much press of late, and have gained in popularity.  Be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or some other media, these can be powerful tools for building a personal brand.  When taken together, they begin to form a “composite” view of an individual for telling their unique story that becomes part of a personal brand.

Around April 25, Google enhanced its search results to include a personal picture on a listing that points to an individual’s Google profile.  This innovation highlights a person’s name with an attention-grabbing photo that builds brand recognition by connecting online brand presence with a brand image. “A picture is worth a thousand words” seems applicable here.  People with popular names can now be found more easily in search results.  A personal photo or avatar provides instant recognition that enables the correct “John Smith”, for example, to be located.”

###

Blogging Your Way to Personal Branding

Why you should begin blogging right away. Everybody knows about blogging to help build a personal brand. But many are resistant to blog because of the seemingly onerous nature of writing something meaningful every day. Of course, this is exactly why it’s an important opportunity to write about what you know about targeting your personal brand’s segmented audience. You will stand out from competing personal brands by producing consistent relevant information.

If you choose the commentary form of blogging, you will be able to google for specific content and then introduce it with your own comments or review. The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Mitchell’s article that provides many valuable tips and insights for successful blogging.

—

“The obvious benefit is a chance to build your personal brand and be known as an expert in your chosen field. Your blog updates will help you with Search Engine Optimization, and also assist with the credibility of your business. When you place a link to your blog in your resume, employers will have an in depth understanding of the type of person they are hiring and the expertise you bring. Recruiters will check this information to verify what they think they already know about you.

Blogging is a very personal social media tool; no other tool can provide the same type of value as a regularly maintained blog. The benefits are largely intangible, and there still is exact science to being a successful blogger or even a standard definition of what success means when blogging. Traditionally metrics such as page views are tracked and comments are tracked. These do not always tell the whole story.  Personally, if just one person is helped by the advice articles I write is able to land their dream job, then I have been successful. How you measure your success is entirely up to you. Don’t expect to make a lot of money with your blog unless you promote aggressively! If your motivation is money, there are several other opportunities which are far more lucrative than a blog. Even when being paid for your writing, the amount is so small it would take a massive amount of page views to earn a modest living.”

###

Content Marketing Strategy

In her content marketing strategy article, Jessica empathizes the need for creating pithy relevant content to drive social media networking campaigns. Relevancy is the key and the process is to ask the prospective site viewers “what’s important to you?”. Then use active listening skills to hone in on the most significant content for the career branders audience. Of course, to be a thought leader in a career branders field or employment segment, he or she must take the next step with innovative approaches or a distinctly different point-of-view from the generic overly communicated messages that everybody else is writing about. Here is an excerpt from Jessica’s article.

“When developing a social media content strategy, start by asking questions like: “What does my network find valuable?”.

A little listening can go a long way to get to the heart of a community’s needs. By understanding the pain points of those your company wishes to connect with, the better you’ll be able to provide the resources needed to make better decisions and improve their business.”

Five Primary Areas of Personal Branding

In her recent Marketfusions post, Shivonne Byrne lists five primary areas of personal branding development. Shivonne reminds us that it is ongoing hard work and proactivity that builds a living brand because personal branding is “a process and not an event”.
The Art of You, and Your Personal Brand

[excerpt from post]
“Your choice is simple: own your brand, or let external audiences own it for you.

So, treat your brand like you would any other brand. See yourself as the asset you must nourish, the legacy you must protect. Your personal brand is your current and future value.

Like any other brand management initiative, a well-managed personal brand follows a strategy process that completes a brand framework like the following:

1. Brand Attributes: Your brand attributes are the qualities that embody your personal brand, and should always be associated with it. To get there, distill down your core professional and personal values and the values of the key audiences you interact with, and in this intersection you’ll find your most important brand attributes.

2. Brand Promise: In its most fundamental form, your personal brand promise is what you guarantee your key audiences will experience because of their relationship with you. So, as with any other commitment, promise only what you will deliver.

3. Brand Positioning: Your personal brand positioning statement will (1) define your key audiences (the most important audiences you interact with, are influencing, or trying to influence); (2) pinpoint what they care most about; and (3) synthesize the value your brand delivers to them.

4. Brand Driver: Your brand driver is the outcome your personal brand is dedicated to seeing achieved with the audiences you interact with. It is the essential idea the captures and integrates all brand actions.

5. Brand Personality: Your brand personality is comprised of the human elements connected to your personal brand, and are the characteristics that inspire (or not) specific feelings in your key audiences.”

###

Positioning: Happy 40th Anniversary

Positioning, both products and people, has come a long way since the term was coined in 1969 by Al Ries and Jack Trout in the paper “Positioning” is a game people play in today’s me-too market place” in the publication Industrial Marketing. It was then expanded into their ground-breaking first book, “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind” which included the self-branding, self-positioning “Chapter 23, Positioning Yourself and Your Career”. In this chapter Ries and Trout discussed how self branders could benefit by using positioning strategy to advance your own careers.

Click here for more …
The Marketing Strategy Gurus on Positioning

True Origins of Personal Branding are …

First, I would like to clear up a false notion about the “origins of personal branding” that continues to be requoted by the media and branding experts. Tom Peters is not the originator of this concept. In fact, Mr. Peters, and thousands of other branding people including myself, first read about personal branding in the 1980 book: “Positioning: The Battle for your Mind”, by Al Ries and Jack Trout.  More specifically in “Chapter 23. Positioning Yourself and Your Career – You can benefit by using positioning strategy to advance your own career. Key principle: Don’t try to do everything yourself. Find a horse to ride”.

I like Tom Peters. I have read much of what he has written over the decades. In his writings, he has referred to The Positioning book by Ries and Trout many times. I believe he would be the first to say he read Chapter 23, and he is in fact not the true originator of self-positioning, self-branding or anything of the kind.

Below is an excerpt from If You Can Only Go to One: SHRM’s annual conference. The brief article provides some valuable information on the role of personal branding in the corporate workplace:

—

“MARVA: The term “personal brand” is believed to have first appeared in the August 1997 issue of Fast Company magazine, in an article written by Tom Peters. He wrote, “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

Personal branding is a way to clarify and communicate what differentiates you from others in your field in order to leverage those differences to achieve a specific goal. Personal branding is used by anyone, including HR professionals, who want to establish their reputation and credibility by consistently delivering on a brand promise. Personal branding answers the questions: What value do you provide? What can you always be counted on to deliver (brand promise)? How do I strategically market myself as a valuable product in the career or business marketplace?”

Posted by Mary Ellen Slayter on June 18, 2009

###