How to Brand and Market Yourself Creatively [video]
Instead of waiting around for a job opening in advertising Alec Brownstein decided in a bold and impossibly creative move, to spend six dollars and came up with this idea:
Thank you Pedro for sharing.
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Personal Branding in a 2.5 world
Marty Neumier wrote a wonderful branding book that is fresh and relevant. The Brand Gap: Expanded Edition
“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organization.”
Google vs Coca Cola
Google has done very little advertising. They rely on the interactions and the positive environment created to generate the power of their brand.
Coca Cola has used advertising as a key element of brand distinction and growth.
Things have changed.
We are the Brands
Influential Individuals are not only brands anymore. Everyone is a brand! Social media has created micro-celebrity. Everyone has influence. The difference is this influence and chatter has become more organic. Many people contributing to an overall consensus of a niche network is the driving factor of WOM.
The idea of personal branding should fit everyone participating in today’s online communities.
Stop thinking of yourself as a person, you must consider yourself a brand. We have become more self aware and this awareness is the first step in branding. We spend countless hours interacting and developing these profiles and our brand, even if we’re not strategically aware.
The web is the opposite of mass media, the web thrives in niche and companies and individuals who are niche influencers have a responsibility to create a brand that is not only transparent but brings value to those it influences.
Being an influencer can help you get a job.
People are hiring individuals especially when they bring their network with them. People that have followers and friends and maintain micro-interaction with that network are valuable not only to organizations but to brands that wish to embed their messages into these micro-communities.
If you’re interested in using New Media
Be ubiquitous.
Every time you create a profile you create a story. You input content thus creating a life-stream that allows people to find and interact with you and become supportive of your brand and the stories you live, which in the age of social media, can cross over and intersect.
Many life-streams converge on a blog. Photos that are stored on Flickr and Facebook are shared through the blog. Tweets and foursquare check-ins allow for daily top of mind awareness. When these interactions converge on a blog your overall brand will flourish.
What’s amazing is how easy these accounts are created. What’s different is effectively managing these social networks. Developing a strategy that aligns with your overall brand objectives as well as your personal life values. Ask yourself, what is the goal? If you’re using Linkedin, what is the goal? Facebook, what are you trying to achieve?
Be yourself and be true to your personality and that will lead to a successful brand. This is an opportunity to create your brand the way you want it. We often Google someone’s name and even our own and it’s more so than not that we draw conclusions from what we discover. Again, new media is an opportunity to engage with the world and develop a brand that, when “Googled,” you’d be proud of.
My favorite personal brands:
Gary Vanerchuck
Guy Kawasaki
Seth Goden
Chris Brogan
Please share with me your favorite personal brands, or the steps you use to develop yours.
For more Social Media coverage, follow Peter Lang on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook
Growing your business with Social Media
A lot of what I typically talk about is directed at people whom may not know what twitter is all about. So lets set the stage. Twitter grew by 900+ something percent
just last year. (2009) But where I see trouble is in the integration of these tools for small regional businesses.
Just because something is out there as a tool doesn’t mean it’s right for you. In my opinion understanding the trends and what opportunities are available is the first step to aligning social media to your organizations objectives.
Obviously the big thing about social media is the opportunity to listen. Listening to what people are talking about will empower your business and help you figure out who your target market is and what drives them.
Why people are using social media?
- Branding
- Information Sharing and Public Relations
- Understanding Customers
The trends we see in social media are evolving and moving towards… “lead generation” with it’s low barrier to entry. Companies over 1,000 employees are using social media for internal communication; whereas 1 – 10 person organizations are using social media for lead generation and sales.
A strong social media foundation begins here:
Linked-in, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Youtube
This foundation leads most companies to start with blogs now or in the near future because it gives the company the opportunity to be authentic. Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks will be used primarily to build leads, but the point of marketing is to communicate with your audience and ultimately answer their needs.
Like I was saying with lead generation, social media makes it easier to find your target market. When you go online you can see the online communities and correspondences that exist online.
Social media makes behavioral marketing more relevant, going beyond online marketing.
Small businesses using social media for PR:
Researching new product ideas
Online focus groups
Sponsoring interactive content
Advertising
Interaction
Organic Promotion
Social media is a great way to get in front of traditional media. Using profiles to distribute press releases, many twitter media accounts will view your press releases through twitter so you don’t have to submit stories to through email. Press releases can be released instantly via twitter and viewed with twitter itself so there is no need to submit stories through email.
General Overview
One of the biggest items that I discuss with my clients is when venturing into social media ,for marketing your business, you have to start with a plan.
How much time are you willing to invest?
Where is the target market?
How are you going to reach them?
What do you have to say that’s relevant?
What do you have to say this week, next month, and beyond to keep them engaged?
What’s your end goal? Are you looking for top of mind awareness?
Ultimately it will be very difficult to measure progress without specific goals.
Which tools are most effective?
Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter
Simple answer it depends, on your target market. What are they reading? What are they buying? This requires entering the community and posting or opening a discussion.
Nobody likes anyone whose not authentic in “their” community.
Be consistent across the profiles. When I talk about branding, I start with a personal branding statement or positioning statement. Classic example; Volvo = safety. They have built all of their marketing campaigns around safety. You need to have a similar specific emphasis. Social media can help you discover what need you’re filling thus allowing you to grasp or define your positioning statement, so don’t be afraid to explore.
Please leave your personal branding statement or positioning statement in the comments below.
Three words of advice
After reading a myriad of advice, I felt like dishing out my own. Plus, I’ve been wanting to use this photo from Yosemite falls, and finally wrote a post worthy. 
For some reason, after reading Dharmesh Shah’s three-word snippets of advice for startups, I started coming up with both startup and life “snippets.”
I guarantee this isn’t the only advice you’ll need – but it’s a fun way to start. I welcome your own ideas in the comments.
My Own Advice In Exactly Three Words
- Keep good friends [tweet]
- Pick great people [tweet]
- Start out general [tweet]
- Invest in attitude [tweet]
- Keep it clean [tweet]
- Improve yourself daily [tweet]
- Eat well daily [tweet]
- Sleep is needed [tweet]
- Always recognize revenue [tweet]
- Evolve by teaching [tweet]
- Accept all critics [tweet]
- Prove critics wrong [tweet]
- Write with passion [tweet]
- Post with care [tweet]
- Care about followers [tweet]
- Friend your Mom [tweet]
- Focus on positives [tweet]
- See entire picture [tweet]
- Keep it simple [tweet]
- Be happy always [tweet]
- Mind affects body [tweet]
- Body affects mind [tweet]
- Treat clients kindly [tweet]
- Celebrate little victories [tweet]
- Decide with logic [tweet]
- Network with energy [tweet]
- Share your brand [tweet]
- Cancel the unnecessary [tweet]
- Keep on learning [tweet]
- Protect your time [tweet]
- Value your time [tweet]
- Learn from failure [tweet]
- Become an expert [tweet]
- Don’t give up [tweet]
- Be lawful always [tweet]
- Live with passion [tweet]
- Social media motivation [tweet]
Here are 12 from Dharmesh Shah’s three-word snippets of advice that I liked the best.
1. Watch your cash. [tweet]
6. Avoid tempting distractions. [tweet]
8. Avoid business plans. [tweet]
9. Write a blog. [tweet]
21. Reward early adopters. [tweet]
23. Say “NO” often. [tweet]
24. Accept imperfect data. [tweet]
28. Believe in yourself. [tweet]
29. Respect your competitors. [tweet]
31. Build a brand. [tweet]
32. Focus, focus, focus. [tweet]
47. Keep it fun. [tweet]
Blue pill, or Red Pill of Social Media
"You take the blue pill, the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
The majority of people are just batteries for the social media environment just feeding it so it can exist.
The question of which pill, red or blue, is asking us if we should head into the social media direction, where the truth will change our business and our lives and ultimately decide this direction is worth pursuing or choose ignorance and bliss. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, transactional requirements, and a business environment we believe we know. In this state we are comfortable; we do not need truth to live and to be successful. The blue pill symbolizes reading tweets, posting a FB photos and sharing information.
Once you take the red pill and accept that you can control the environment, you can be “The One.” The one symbolizes the exception to the rule. The red pill is an unknown direction. We are told that it can help us to find success. We don’t know what that success is, or even that the pill (choice) will help us to find it. The red pill symbolizes risk, exploration, doubt, and questioning. To answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and business on a reality you have never experienced.
Guy Kawasaki wrote in "The art of the start: the time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone," in which the red pill is an analog to leaders of new organizations, in that they face the same choice to either live in reality or fantasy. Guy stresses that if they want to be successful; they have taken the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Whether you’re ready or not the reality is coming. Get ready…
Changing the “Meaning” of Social Media
(Targeted at baby boomers and technophobes)
The people who develop a “meaning” in social media are those who’ve changed the meaning of using it to pleasure. We believe such pain when we have to give up time to use this media. The goal is to change how we link up this Web 2.0 world.
Let us change the meaning of Social Media.
For many people social media means “I have to give up something,” in which they could be focusing elsewhere. People may also be involved in social media because someone else wants them to be (usually bosses). So I ask -What is your commitment to social media? Where are you in your level of change? Some people jump into social media right away, while, other people, really need to be pushed. Finally, it seems as if change is not an option. People pay to attend workshops, but never change. Do they honestly want to change?
What are your associations with computers, Internet, social media, and the technological progress of our lives?
Metaphor- Recently I had this guy come and tune our Piano. This great grand Piano; and so the guy comes in, and he adjusts the piano and the way he tunes it is by changing the amount of tension on the wires. There is literally tons of tension on the wires. In his doing this, I thought well great, that’s it. He said “No I have to come back next week.”
I said “what do you mean; I thought you just tuned it?”
He said “yea, it’s been stretched in this way for so long that what I have to do is retune it. I need to keep stretching the new patterns in. I need to condition the wires so they stay that way.”
So I said “why can’t you just do it once and have it last?”
He goes “well, it’s been pulling in that other way for so long now, that you just need to condition it.”
Now he has to come out in another week; I guess in two weeks; then he comes out in a month; in three months, then he eventual comes out every six months. In order to keep it that way he has to come out at least twice a year.
If you wanted to be in great shape and feel healthy; you wouldn’t run out and workout one-time, and say “I’m glad that’s done, now I’ll be healthy for life.” That’s not how it works. You have to condition yourself. Day after day, and soon you love the conditioning.
Change the way you view social media – condition yourself.
I promise you will soon become addicted to social media- Start thinking about it as a lifestyle.
-Peter C Lang
Introducing Peter Lang
Update Everything You Need with Ping.fm
Those of you that are worried about the social media demand on time have nothing to fear. I realize that the thought of logging in to every social media and uploading content really puts a damper on the experience.
If this is you, then Ping.fm is a must. This is a one-stop service that will allow you to post to all your important social networks. Not only will Ping.fm update statuses and micro-blogs it can now update your Facebook Page. Their step-by-step guide will help with the setup. The first attempt at creating the connection was tricky but if you follow the steps closely you will be just fine.
To point out- Once you’ve finished the setup you will need to grant permissions to the desired pages. Your options include posting status updates, notes, and photos to pages
Once Ping.fm is setup then you will see the advantages.
A Twitter Mystery
A Twitter Mystery
I had the great opportunity of having this presentation shared with me. It’s all about Twitter and I felt the wonderful creator Meryl Evans did a great job, and knew I had to share.
The presentation gives an introduction to Twitter for buisness and strategies to take marketing and relationship building to a new level.
Enjoy and Share!
What do you think?
Social Media for Writers
I have the pleasure of working with some brilliant writers and have seen similar social media patterns. The list below has been put together from my workshops and consulting. Here’s the deal.
- Writers see social media as simply a marketing tool
- As a way of finding an agent
- Are afraid that social media will take time away from writing
- Question whether or not they can make money blogging
- Many are not sure about the idea of "friending" someone he or she does not know.
- Can see the value of participating in Social Media every day, but don’t believe they have the time.
If you’re a writer who is worried about the step to social media, don’t be. More and more people are realizing that social media (&blogging) is one of the best ways to interact and create loyal readership. These steps come overtime, which is why it is important to participate and explore- before your book is about to come out so that you can build trust with your network.
If you talk with publishers, you will find that if you post content on your blog it will become difficult to publish it in a journal or magazine. With this in mind; you might ask why a writer should be blogging. First, not all benefits are monetary.
- By writing on a regular basis you can stay disciplined and keep your creative juices flowing.
- Connecting with other writers using social media and connecting your blogs.
- If you haven’t already found your voice, a blog and the content you create can enhance your passions and led to unexpected opportunities and developing a voice.
- Controlling your personal brand is important when you want people to find you today and not that article you wrote for your high school paper.
More answers to come. What is your reason for blogging?
@peterclang
Advertise Your Profiles!
Follow me – T-Shirt
Standout and allow people to see your social media passion. Personalize, popularize, and promote your presence with a Social Media Shirt.
–Peter
Communication in 2009
Are you looking to start a conversation in todays environment? Begin here.
The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas
The “Get First” WordPress Plugins
Plugin
When beginning a blog one of the first things to come to mind are plugins. Great example- web.splesh.net.
The 10 “Get First” WordPress plugins when starting WordPress Blog.
1. All In One SEO Pack – It’s top on the list for a reason because it is essential for all bloggers!!! All In One SEO Pack allows tweaking Meta Titles, Descriptions and Tags of your blog without changing the content.
2. Comment Luv – Comment Luv enables you to show some love as soon as a comment has been posted by including a titled link to their last blog post or tweet at the end of their comment. This plugin drastically increases user interaction on your blog through increased exposure.
3. Popularity Contest – A great plugin because it shows which posts are the most popular by evaluating views, comments, impressions, etc. You will be able to create a side bar widget showing the most popular by the date style of your choosing. (year, month, week)
4. TweetMeMe – The Easy ReTweet Button. Using TweetMeMe will increase the likilyhood of your posts being tweeted. So much easier, a must.
5. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – YARPP provides a list of posts and/or pages related or similar to the current post/page introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site. This will imporove click through rates because it gives the reader more of what they like.
6. WP Super Cache – WP Super Cache makes your blog load faster. What is there to say other then that? Get it.
7. Smart Update Pinger – Plugin protects your blog from over pinging by pinging only when you publish a new post – not when editing. Great for security.
8. Redirection – Bad SEO is often caused by broken links. Redirection enables you to prevent Google Bots and Yahoo Spiders from getting stuck in a loop. Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This is particularly useful if you are migrating pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.
9. Contact Form 7 – Every major blog has a contact form. They used this plugin to create it. Visit mine on the Contact tab above.
10. Sexy Bookmarks – A great way to share in the sexiest way possible. The best looking sharing plugin you can get. Sure, there are plenty of alternatives and some of them are probably much better than Sexy Bookmarks, but unlike any other, this plugin actually makes you WANT to share.
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