If you are interested in personal branding, then you need to know about Dan Schawbel. Dan is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, publisher of Personal Branding magazine, and he runs the Personal Branding Blog. Personal branding is core to Dan’s brand, and I see a lot of interesting insights from Dan posted online. I recently ran across Dan’s interview with another social media expert, Dave Evans, co-founder of Digital Voodoo and author of Social Media Marketing; An Hour A Day. There are some interesting insights here for any of you looking to make more of your personal brand to build your career.
Social media is clearly more than a fad (just look at the numbers in the YouTube video), and Evans’ perspective on it is interesting. There were some ideas I came away with after reading this interview:
- You need to measure results. You need to approach you, the brand, as you would any other product. That means to be effective, your marketing program has to have metrics that you can use to measure your progress. Evans recommends establishing a baseline, which is a good place to start. First you need to assess your online presence, and the article lists a number of free online such as Google alerts. These tools can help you monitor your online brand (and make sure those embarrassing pictures from the last Christmas party aren’t the first thing showing up in a search). Then you need to determine how far you want to move the needle, and what metrics you want to use. Increasing exposure for your personal brand, the number of relevant places where your brand can be seen, and the number of professional contacts are all valid metrics.
- You need to pick your online forums. Your long-term objective is to get the attention of a potential employer, so you should be looking for ways to increase your online exposure to get the attention of those who can help you. Pick the forums that seem a natural extension of your life, both personal and professional. There are many to choose from – LinkedIn, Plaxo, Spoke, Facebook, etc. The key is to find the forums that resonate for you, and that will put you in touch with other professionals in your market.
- You need to participate, not just pitch. One of the things that many professionals fail to grasp about social networking is that it is primarily social. The old guard marketeers are used to coming into every conversation as though it were a sales pitch. Social networking is about sharing information and insights, not selling yourself. I like Evans three-criteria test for being genuine onlineks: you need to be invited, conversation needs to be relevant, and you have to disclose your intent.
As Evans notes, social networking may not be for everyone. He identifies the new breed of social media as Generation C, that cross-section of people who share their thoughts online, no matter what their age. However, if you are going to use the web to help you find a job, then you need to think in terms of your target audience. Are the hiring managers and CEOs hanging out online? As Evans notes, 80 percent of those under 25 consume social content and 60 percent of those over 55 are talking online. Chances are, the managers hiring in your market are going to the web first to find new talent, and you want to part of that conversation.
