Posts Tagged online
Book Outline “Crush It!” part 3, build your personal brand
Posted by eviator in For Job Seekers on December 7, 2009
Sure you can make money on the internet, but it’s infinitely more important to build your brand. Think about it this way, you can have a customer spend $1000 today, or you can have that customer spend $100 today, next week,?the week after, etc, and then tell all their friends about how awesome your company is.?If you have a strong brand that people can believe in, then the money will come eventually. When you are first starting out, you should focus on building excellent content, and most importantly on delivering that content in a way that embraces your personality. In his third chapter, Build your personal brand, Vaynerchuk discusses this in detail using his website, tv.winelibrary.com as an example. He didn’t start the website to sell wine, but instead to build a brand. While he’s excelled at both, it’s important to remember the order in which this took place:
- Build a strong brand
- Monetize the brand
No matter what type of content you create (video, text, pictures, online radio), it should be something that you are passionate about and can communicate in an honest and authentic way. This means you should be yourself. Your website shouldn’t look like mine, it should look like yours. This is what will differentiate your brand from all the others out there doing the same thing. Once you have great content up on your site, you should begin using online social networks to build strong word of mouth and create a community.
How are you currently building your personal brand (both online and off)? Let me know at edwardviator [at] evil-marketer [dot] com
Notable quotes from this chapter:
- Developing you personal brand is key to monetizing your passion online.
- Consumers want you to tell them the truth.
- Leveraging social networking platforms into effective conduits for your personal brand is all about building word of mouth.
Linked-In is the best for your professional image
Posted by Steve in Execution, For Job Seekers, Pitch on April 29, 2009
Determining where to start marketing online can be difficult. There are so many options now it can be mind-boggling. The approach is not to shotgun (unless you have a huge budget and time, which none of us really have). Instead, first identify your goal and the desired budget. Within those two parameters then consider the softer parameters of skill set, time capacity and deadline. Finally, weigh the pros and cons of being a participant on someone else’s site, being a contributor with your own presence on a community site, or authoring your own site.
Considering that I need to pick something that fits entrepreneurs, investors, and job seekers, does not require a big investment of time and money, and requires little talent, I have my short list of the following: LinkedIn and Plaxo. I do not include Facebook today, but that may change tomorrow.
My favorite is Linked-In at www.linkedin.com
The site is for professionals communicating to other professionals. You enter your professional history (essentially a resume) and then connect to others. You can endorse other people and use it to ask questions to get expert help.
The only way to have a conversation with someone is one of three ways: introduced by a mutual acquaintance (best), introduced by the computer, or to select them as a “friend” and hope they do not ignore you when they realize you are a stranger. The idea of being introduced by someone you both know is the same approach to getting the investor’s or the hiring manager’s attention. Since it matches what you are trying to achieve in the real world, I believe it is one of the best sites to have a presence.
There are different levels of membership from free to $200/month. Personal memberships are free but do not allow for introductions or membership in their OpenLink network (the ability to send messages to others). For that you have to buy a monthly membership that starts at 19.95/month…or do you? There is a “hidden” level of membership that is called a Personal Plus, and allows for a limited number of introductions and for you to be a member of the OpenLink network where you can receive messages and where you can search for other members. It is only $60 per year (or $5/month).
Why Linked-In and not some of the others? The brand is about professionals meeting other professionals to make professional connections. It is almost unique in that you cannot really talk about your hobbies, put up pictures of your pets, or make “shout-outs”. Other sites mix professional with personal so much that it seems to dilute everything to the personal slant. It is hard to take someone serious when they have the pictures of them getting drunk at a party or they show pictures of their friends getting drunk at a party.
You can also market yourself on Linked-In by answering the questions people pose (or look for people by posing questions). With it being a structured presentation of your professional self, you can use it as your personal site.
Of all the networking sites, for these reasons, Linked-In is the only site I recommend today for entrepreneurs, investors and job seekers.
The other sites really depend on what you are trying to do and your end game. Some are great for marketing in the entertainment space, or making personal connections. Others are excellent for searching for a job or leaders for your company. More on that tomorrow…