Your personal brand is probably the most important and powerful member of your team. It can jump-start your career or take your existing career to new heights! But, ignoring your personal brand and not giving it the time it is worth can potential harm your career, or at the very least leave it a bit stagnant. By focusing on it and having a clear personal branding strategy your it will always have your back. Continue reading
You could easily spend hours upon hours a day working to grow and manage your personal brand online and offline. But you won’t have to spend such a large amount of time if you are use the right tools. I commonly receive the question about what tools I use to more efficiently manage my personal brand. Below is a list of some of my favorite apps, websites, and tools that I use to build my personal brand and managing market efforts in general. However, while these are my favorites, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is important to try out different tools to figure out what works best for you and your goals; whether that is to grow your community, land your dream job, increase your client base, establish yourself as a thought leader, etc. Continue reading
A brand is not only a company, logo, or trademark; it is anything that identifies or differentiates one thing from another. That could be one company from another, such as Coca-cola and Pepsi, or one person from another. As marketers in the digital space it has become more critical than ever to develop and grow our personal brands. A strong personal brand shows that you know how to successfully market yourself, your skills, and your brand, giving you the credibility needed to land your first job, first client, dream job, or dream client. Continue reading
You may remember Erik Qualman’s very popular video The Social Media Revolution, that was originally published in 2009 in conjunction with his #1 best selling book (and one of my personal favorite social media books) Socialnomics. His original video from 2009 brought us some eye-opening statistics, including: Continue reading
Blogs have become the life force behind a brand’s online identity. Blog posts fuel social media efforts, give search engines content to crawl and index, provide companies the opportunity to showcase themselves as thought leaders in their industry, and much more. As such, diving into creating a blog should not be taken lightly, but you also should not be scared of developing your own great blog. It can be a fun, exciting, and very educational journey (for those of you who love to learn as much as I do). Continue reading
We all know that content is king, and its empire is growing by the minute. This is more true now more than ever since Google’s Hummingbird algorithm update. One of the best ways to add content to your website is to create and maintain a blog focused around topics relevant to your company’s industry. A blog is also a great way for professionals to build their personal brand by writing about industry topics and trends. Continue reading
Social media is not just an excellent tool to grow your brand identity and connect with customers, it is also one of the best tools for customer service. Followers of brands on social media expect a two-way and more from companies than ever before. Followers are not only looking for the newest coupon or information on the “Spring Line”, they want to be heard! When they are upset and shout it out to the social media world, they are also putting their relationship with the company on the line…”respond and respond well, or we are never ever getting back together.” Continue reading
2012 was a very eventful year for the social media world. (understatement, I know!) Between acquisitions, introductions of new platforms, and grand site design changes, social media was an ever changing environment. Each time things seemed to calmed down, and marketers could catch their breath for a moment, things got flipped upside-down again. But, even though social media last year was a constantly changing arena, it is important for businesses to understand where each of the social media leaders stood at the end of the year; in addition to the opportunities and threats that face each platform during 2013. Continue reading
LinkedIn profiles are one of the best tools available for professionals to start developing their personal brand. Think of it as your online resume for both future employers and industry leaders to learn more about you. However, to grow your professional network, you need to optimize your profile so that industry professionals can find you. The following are five steps to increasing the visibility of your LinkedIn profile and highlighting your personal brand. Continue reading
With hundreds of applicants applying for every job right now, how do you make your resume stand out from the rest? One way is by creating an infographic resume.
My favorite tool for building a visual, dynamic, and interactive resume is Re.Vu. Re.Vu calls its self the “Cure for the Common Resume”. They not only offer free tools for creating your dynamic resume, they also let you select a custom Re.Vu url to direct people to. Continue reading