Tag Archives: Social network

Hot Conference Networking Tips From the Gurus

Scott Allen, who writes about entrepreneuring and has just come from SXSW Interactive and picked up some tips from networking expert and author Thom Singernger on how to network a big multi-day conference.

In Top 10 Conference Networking Tips, Scot says “one of the main reasons that people site for attending a conference is the networking opportunities. Yet they often leave the event feeling they made few or no connections. Here are 10 Tips to help you get the most out of connecting with others at a conference:

1. Have a plan. Know in advance whom you want to meet (directly or the type of people), which speakers you want to hear, and what tradeshow booths you want to visit.

2. Set appointments in advance. If you know that there will be people in attendance whom you know that you would like to see, call or email a few weeks in advance to schedule a time to meet for coffee, a meal, or a drink. Do not hope to “run into them”, as your paths might not cross at a time when you can spend quality time together.

3. Do not focus on meeting the celebrity speakers. While meeting famous authors, speakers, and other gurus is fun, you are one of hundreds who will come up to them and shove a card in their hands. Instead, place you focus on meeting other people in attendance at the event. It is the other attendees who you are most likely to bond with and create real long lasting mutually beneficial friendships.

4. Talk to the people sitting next to you. When you walk into a seminar, take the time before the presentation begins to say hello to the people seated around you. I call this the “power of hello”. Once you have said something as simple as “hello”, it will be easier to talk with them later in the week if you see them again.

5. Ask questions of people you meet. Never lead with your “elevator pitch“. People are more interested in themselves than they are in you, so ask them questions to help them get to talking.

6. Put your technology away. Do not run to your phone, BlackBerry, or laptop at every break. When you are working on electronics you send the message that you are unapproachable because you are busy. Utilize the time on breaks to converse with others.

7. Do not automatically send a LinkedIn or Facebook request. So often people immediately send social networking link requests to people they just met. However, different people have different policies about whom they link with. If they believe in only connecting with those whom they have established relationships, you make it awkward if you send them a link too early (which they then ignore). Best is to ask people if they would welcome such a link at this time. Be respectful of the fact that they might use social networking differently than you do.

Immediately following them on Twitter is okay, as Twitter does not require a mutual connection acceptance.

8. Read their stuff. Many people are active bloggers, twitterers, authors, etc… If people create the written word, seek out their work and read it. It is a great way to get to know people by reading their stuff, but they will also be honored when you tell them that you read their blog or follow them on Twitter.

9. Introduce others. When you meet cool people, be the conduit who connects them with others who might be beneficial to them. This includes others at the conference, as well as other people you might know back home. If you ask the right types of questions, you will easily spot connections that can help others. Don’t ever worry about “what’s in it for me”, but instead just be the person who helps others. You will over time that others will help you too.

10. Follow up. If you meet interesting people and you never follow up, it makes no difference. Own the follow up after you meet people and send them an email (or better yet, a handwritten note) telling them how much you enjoyed talking with them, and plan for future discussions.
___________________________________

A few of the attendees at Thom’s session had some great additional tips:

  • When attending evening parties, get there early. That way a cluster of conversation builds up around you and you don’t face the challenge of working your way into other clusters like you do if you arrive late.
  • Another great way to meet people at parties is to play the role of informal host. For example, know where the host or celebrity guests are, where the bathroom is, the name of the waitress/bartender, etc. Stand near the entrance and be of service to people.
  • When you get business cards, jot a brief note on the back – where you met them, what you talked about, etc. That will make it much easier to follow up with them.
  • A great way to follow up with them is not only to follow them on Twitter, but also to make a brief post about your conversation with them. Promoting other people is a great way to create value for them and build the relationship. (If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, see Twitter for Entrepreneurs. If you’re already on Twitter, you can follow @ThomSinger as well as me, @ScottAllen.)

I invite you to follow me as well, @gretchenglas,thanks.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Guide To Using Twitter For Business

Twitter's Update Page
Image via Wikipedia

Whether you’re a big business or a small business, you need to get the word out, particularly in this tough economic time.

This is Derek Halpern’s one-stop source for all Twitter resources that relate specifically to business. You will learn how people acquire customers and grow their business using Twitter. Additionally, you will see a few examples of large companies who use Twitter effectively.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

The Ultimate Resource To Use Twitter Effectively.

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Hopefully, like me, you are learning to use Twitter to enhance and increase your business.  Here’s some help getting there:

How to Attract and Influence People on Twitter — The Ultimate Twitter Resource , Derek Halpern great collection, broken into targeted pieces.

Zemanta Pixie

Linked In Is For Entrepreneurs As Well

Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

Scott Allen runs a blog on entrepreneurs at About.com . I always find he has something valuable to say or an interesting and enlightening store to tell about entrepreneurs.  In this instance, Scott has some thoughts on LinkedIn. Scott is a self described “huge advocate of social networking and social media for entrepreneurs”, so he should know a thing or two about that subject.

Many people describe LinkedIn as the defacto resume on the Net for job seekers, which I think it probably is for higher level job seekers. Others describe it has the way to raise your profile in the corporate world, enhance your credibility, build your and put yourself out there should other opportunities come looking for you.  But Scott has a slightly different take.  In Why Entrepreneurs Should Use LinkedIn, Scot says:

“Among the hundreds of people I’ve worked with on how to use LinkedIn more effectively, I’ve found that the most common problem people have with understanding how to use LinkedIn effectively is when they try to use it like other social networking sites, or try to use it like a contact management system or other tool they’re familiar with. While it has similarities to these other tools, LinkedIn is unique in the value it provides.

I could write a book on the many different ways you can use LinkedIn to grow and enhance your business (for a sampling, see 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn). But for now, I want to answer the question, “What, fundamentally, is the unique capability of LinkedIn?” What makes it different from your contact management software? Or from other social networking sites?

Its users have adapted LinkedIn for all kinds of uses, but fundamentally, LinkedIn addresses three basic issues significantly differently than other solutions:

  1. People search. Web search engines are lousy at searching for people. Sure, there are automated biography tools like ZoomInfo which are useful, but they have challenges with people like me who have a common name, and there’s often a lot of “noise” there compared to “signal” – not nearly as concise and organized as a properly done LinkedIn profile. And in your own contact database, you only have the limited amount of data obtained (and recorded) through your interaction with them. Sure, if I know your e-mail address, I can contact you. But what most people can’t do with their contact database is answer a question like: “Who do I know who used to work for one of the big accounting firms?” Or maybe: “Do any of my friends have a background in musical theater that maybe I don’t know about?” No matter how well you think you know people, you don’t know them as well as they know themselves. I don’t know of any other solution that does this as well as LinkedIn.
  2. Keeping in touch. People change jobs these days like some people change clothes, and it becomes hard to keep track of people who are genuinely friends or business associates, but that you’re not in contact with on a regular basis. Every time you change jobs or e-mail addresses, do you contact every single person you know and tell them? And even if you do, do you think they all update it in their contact database? Once you’re connected on LinkedIn, you no longer have to keep track of that data – the person whose data it is now keeps it up-to-date, and you’ll always know how to reach them. For the millions of LinkedIn users, that’s also a huge collective savings in data maintenance. Rather than trying to keep track of several hundred people’s contact information, current employer, etc., now they all keep it up-to-date for you, and all you have to keep up-to-date is your own information.
  3. Your extended network. LinkedIn’s core value proposition is simply this: the ability to answer the question, “Who do I know who knows and can recommend somebody that.” .works at XYZ company? .is an expert in widgets? .is a good lawyer specializing in whatever my problem is? Without LinkedIn, how do you do this? You either a) pick the most likely people in your network to know that kind of person, but you may still miss them because so often those connections aren’t necessarily obvious; or b) you contact everybody you know, which starts wearing thin if you do it a lot, since 99% of the people you ask won’t be able to help. LinkedIn makes it so that you only ask the people who are likely to be able to help. It’s like being able to search not only your own contact database, but those of your friends, and their friends, and then ask for the introduction when you find the right person.I hope that helps, and I’m happy to answer any further questions anyone may have about LinkedIn.”
Scott mentions some of the other ways you can use LinkedIn… and there are many, ” but if you want to truly understand what makes LinkedIn uniquely powerful, focus on the three core capabilities above.”
And we entrereneurs need to be using these tools as much or more than those with steady….. or maybe not so steady now….. nine to five jobs.

Related on About:

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Twitter Tools

Image representing twitterfeed as depicted in ...
Image via CrunchBase

Currently we are in the process of learning how to use Twitter so we can make new friends, broaden out sphere of influence and blow our own horn, in order to be more successful.

Since I am no authority on Twitter, I’m going to turn to stand in tech evangelist, entrepreneur and Twitter guru Guy Kawasakit to tell you which tools to use and how to use them.

In Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter, Kawasaki provides……

“Tip 8: Use the right tools. At the end of the day, you either have many followers or you don’t. A good effort doesn’t count, so you might as well use the right tools to make picking up followers as easy as possible. Here’s what I use:Here’s what I use:

  1. SocialToo. SocialToo provides a service that automatically follows everyone that you do. It also enables you to send them a nice welcome message. If you heed my advice to follow everyone who follows you, it’s indispensable. It can also inform you when someone has stopped following you too.
  2. Twitthat. This is a Firefox button that you install by dragging onto your toolbar. You click on the button, and it grabs the link of the page you’re reading and creates a tweet with from the link. By default, it quotes the existing headline, but you already know you should blow that out.You can also create custom “actions”—meaning a snippet of text to precede your tweets. I made my custom action the simplest possible: “-”. I wish that a custom action wasn’t required, that the editing area was larger, and that Twitthat displayed a character count, but how can I complain about something that’s free and indispensable?
    Update: check out a product called Adjix. It works like Twitthat plus it doesn’t require a custom action, the editing area is large, and it displays the character count. It also shows how many people clicked on each link.

  3. TweetDeck. TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application that front ends Twitter. You can open multiple panes on it with specialized purposes like displaying your direct messages and custom searches. These custom searches enable you to create a “dashboard” to Twitter.
    Picture 5.jpg

    TweetDeck is what I use for custom searches. I have a pane with this custom search (brackets not included): [Guykawasaki OR Alltop OR “Guy Kawasaki” -Alltop.com]. This finds all instances where people mention “Guykawasaki” as well as my own tweets because they are from “@guykawasaki” and “Alltop” plus it removes all tweets with “Alltop.com” (Notice that there’s a minus sign before “Alltop.com” and you must capitalize the “OR”.). I remove tweets containing “Alltop.com” because hundreds of people evangelize Alltop news posts by using this Twitterfeed (see below).

    You can also do custom searches like this at the Twitter site by clicking here, but the TweetDeck interface is much prettier.

  4. Twellow. Twellow is a site that categorizes people according to their interests by monitoring their public messages. Its categories include accounting, advertising, marketing, real estate, and science. You can use it to find people who are interested in the same topics you are. Here is an example of the people in the beer category (Courtesy of @ducttape).
  5. Twittelator Pro. This can provide the same custom search results as TweetDeck, so I use it whenever I’m not on my MacBook.
    6. photo.jpg
  6. Posterous. Don’t click on the link. Instead, send an email to post@posterous.com with a photo, video, or audio clip attached. Posterous will create a blog for you and post the photo, video, or audio. You can even include the HTML embed snippet from video sites like YouTube, and Posterous will embed the player. Your subject line becomes the headline of the posting, and the body of the email becomes the posting itself. Then set your Posterous blog to automatically post to your Twitter account, and voila!, you have pictures, video, and audio in your tweets. This is how I tweeted the showerhead picture from the Singapore Airlines lounge. The Posterous FAQ explains it all. An alternative for posting pictures is TwitPic. It is also quite easy to use to tweet pictures, and it is integrated with TweetDeck.
  7. Twitterfeed. This website enables you to automatically post RSS feeds as tweets. I use it, for example, to automatically post all Truemors posts as if they were tweets from me. When you really trust a site’s feeds, I recommend that you incorporate Twitterfeed to reduce the burden of manually finding good content.”
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

“How do I get more followers on Twitter?”

Or maybe the question is “How do I get any followers on Twitter?”

Since Twitter is a game changer, you definitely want to a.) learn to use it and b.) keep increasing your following with the result of raising your profile.

As I’ve already confessed, I’m no expert on Twitter.  I’m a novice, a newbie.  Perhaps you are too.  If you are, Guy Kawasakid knows all the rules and all the tricks of the trace.  He has a huge following on Twitter. 21,000 at last count. ( And you want a  huge following too, I presume.  I mean, that’s what blowing your own horn to succeed is all about.)  In Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter, Kawasaki lays out all the rules of the game.

Tip 1: Follow the “smores (social media whores*).” They are the folks with large number of followers and seem to be the opinion leaders (and perhaps even “heros”) of Twitter. You can get a good idea of who they are by viewing Twitterati.alltop, TwitterCounter, and Egos.alltop. There are three reasons to follow them: first, many have scripts that will auto follow you; second, you might learn something from watching what they tweet about; third, when people look at your profile to see who you follow, you want to appear that you have a clue. (*originally coined by @worleygirl who passed it to @pauladrum who passed it to me)

Tip 2: Send @ messages to the smores. They probably won’t answer you, but that’s okay. All you want to do is appear like you have a relationship with them to enhance your credibility. The theory is, “If she is tweeting with @scobleizeer, she must be worth following.” Bull shiitake logic, admittedly, but it helps. To bastardize what a famous PR person once told me, “It’s not who you know. It’s who appears to know you.”

Tip 3: Create an effective avatar. Your avatar is a window into your soul, so you need to create one that doesn’t look like you shot it with a camera phone while you were drunk. In most cases, use a simple, informal straight-up photo of just your face—not you and your dog, car, kids, or surfboard. Increase the exposure to brighter than you think it should be. Fix the red-eye. Crop the photo because Twitter is going to display it as a postage-stamp size image. If you can’t fix up your photo, send it to Fixmyphotos. Upload a large version of it (approximately 500 x 500 pixels) and let Twitter scale it down, so that when people zoom on your photo, they can see your gorgeousness and not an ugly pixelated image.

kristi_biz2.png Picture 7.jpg warhol40x40.jpg Picture 9.jpgIf you have access to cool image tools, then create an avatar that raises the question, “How did he do that?” (That’s the category I think my current avatar is in.) If you represent a company, then use its logo—but this is boring (sorry, Tony). Avatars with cleavage may help you get followers that you wouldn’t want, but that’s your call. Bottom line: When people view a stream of tweets, your avatar (and therefore your tweet) should stand out.

Tip 4: Follow everyone who follows you. When I first started on Twitter, Robert Scoble told me to follow everyone who followed me. “But why, Robert, would I follow everyone like that?” The answer is that it’s courteous to do so and because when you do, some people will respond to you and eveyone who follows them will see this—which is more exposure for you.

Having said this, when you get to more than fifty or so followers, it’s impossible to read what all your followers tweet. At that point, you have to focus on direct private messages (“Ds”) and direct public messages (“@s””).

Tip 5: Always be linking. The fact that your cat rolled over or your flight is delayed isn’t interesting, so get outside of your mundanity and link to interesting stories and pictures—you should think of yourself as a one-person StumbleUpon. The Twitter pickup artist’s mantra is ABL (“Always Be Linking”).

Fortunately, you don’t have to find these sites by yourself because there are companies and communities who are dedicated to this task. Here are my best sources.

  1. StumbleUpon. People in the StumbleUpon community mark sites that they find interesting. You can install the StumbleUpon button by clicking here and go from site to site; you can visit the StumbleUpon recently popular websites list; or you can add this feed to your feed reader. Sample picture.
  2. Alltop. If you’ve ever seen me post ten tweets in a row with links to (what I consider) interesting sites, it’s because I’m parked in front of these four Alltop sites: Psychology.alltop, Science.alltop, Lifehacks.alltop, and SocialMedia.alltop. At any of these sites you can scan hundreds of stories at a time and pick off the ones that will attact followers. (Disclosure: I am co-founder of the site).
  3. CNN. CNN is hard to beat for up-to-the minute news. You’ll be competing with CNN’s own tweets which has 52,000 followers as of today, but still leaves you about five million other Twitter users to attract. Seriously, you can attract followers just by cherrypicking the best of CNN stores. To do this, you need immediate notification of breaking news, and CNN’s email alerts are as good as it gets. Click here to sign up. This is its recent stories RSS feed, but email notification is faster and therefore better for the purpose of attracting followers. Sample: “Monks Brawl Before Religious Holiday.”
  4. New York Times. Like CNN, the New York Times is a lovely source for links because it provides both up-to-the minute news as well as carefully crafted, intellectual stories. This is its home page RSS feed. You can also pick from a bunch of feeds here. You and your readers do have to register, but it’s worth it— perhaps the only site that is worth registering for on the Internet. Sample: “A Political Manners Manual.”
  5. Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is a also a community of people looking for interesting stuff. You can visit its home page to find stuff or subscribe to its RSS feed. Samples: “Lunch Bag Art” and “Young People Love Obama.”
  6. Truemors. This is the much criticized site that I started a while ago. I’ve subsequently sold the site to NowPublic. Like it or not, the stories at Truemors are carefully selected and highly edited. The woman behind Truemors, Annie Colbert, is an extremely good writer and editor. Its feed is here. Sample: “Facebook Tops BBC in UK Traffic.”
  7. Newswise. Newswise is “a trusted resource for knowledge-based news, embargoed research results, and expert contacts from the world’s leading research institutions: universities, colleges, laboratories, professional organizations, governmental agencies, and private research groups active in the fields of medicine, science, business, and the humanities.” Holy kaw! In other words, it features hardcore science. Some stories are embargoed and you have to register to prove you’re a journalist for them, but even the stuff that’s not embargoed is very good. Its RSS feed is here. Sample: “New Generator Produces AC Current by Stretching Wires.”
  8. ZDNet. If you want to push out info-tech links for nerds and geeks, it’s hard to beat ZDNet. Just about every day there’s some story that will interest the 95% of the world that uses Windows. ZDNet pushes out email notification here, and its RSS feed is here. Sample: “In Depth Look at Windows 7.”
  9. Digg. Many people think that Digg is a good place to find stuff that approximately 100 forty-year old men living with their parents find interesting. I don’t use it very often because that’s not who I’m trying to pick up, but you can find many few gems there. Its main RSS feed is here, and you can find specialized feeds here. Sample: “Gears of War 2 sells 2.1 million copies on day 1.”
  10. Kirtsy. Kirtsy on the other hand is “Digg for chicks.” It’s a social networking site where women post and rate stories. The stories here range from mommy/homey stuff to “Liz Hurley’s Boobs: They’re Real and They’re Fantastic” (I’m not making this up). Its links are particularly effective to attract female followers and sensitive men (oxymoron?). Its RSS feed is here. Sample: “5 Jobs You Wanted as a Kid (And Why They Suck).”
  11. Techmeme. Techmeme makes no bones about it: it uses technology to find the hottest tech stories. It’s a community of one: Gabe Rivera, and he’s a good guy. Where ZDNet usually contains ITish stories, Techmeme casts a bigger net for anything tech. Its feed is here. Sample: “Google CEO on Obama Tech Czar Job: No Thanks”.

    12. Bonus: Rewrite the headline. Here’s a power tip for you. The most powerful way to start a headline on Twitter is with the words such as ”How to… ” and “Why… ,” so don’t hesitate to blow out the existing headline and rewrite it to make it more interesting and relevant to the kind of followers you seek.

    Double Bonus: Scan Goodtweet.alltop. To make it easier for you to scan the best sites for interesting links, we created Goodtweet.alltop. It aggregates the the feeds mentioned above plus my favorites from the various Alltop sites to make life even easier for you.

Tip 6: Establish yourself as a subject expert. One thing is for sure about Twitter: there are some people interested in every subject and every side of every subject. By establishing yourself as a subject expert, you will make yourself interesting to some subset of people.

Step 1 is to actually be an expert—but that’s beyond the scope of this posting. Step 2 is to find tweets that you can supplement (I explain how to find these tweets below in the TweetDeck and Twellow sections in Tip 8). Example 1: you’re an expert on Macintosh. Search for “Macintosh” and answer people’s questions. Example 2: you’re an expert in public speaking. Search for “Powerpoint,” “keynote,” and “speech” to add value to tweets. People are likely to not only follow you, but also retweet your posts and therefore give you additional exposure.

And if/when you are an expert, don’t be afraid to express your opinion. It’s better that some people follow you and some people refuse to follow you than no one knows who you are at all. There are so many people on Twitter that some are likely to agree with you.

Tip 7: Incorporate pictures and other media. Who can resist a tweet such as “Picture of my new puppy”? Nobody, that’s who. And your topic doesn’t have to be anything as sweet as a puppy. I’ve tweeted pictures of shower heads from Microsoft in the Singapore Airlines lounge, the world’s longest toilet flush, and two sacred cows in Mumbai to get followers, so I know multimedia works. The key is the tweet leading to the picture. Stuff like ““If Microsoft made shower heads,” “World’s longest toilet flush,” and “two sacred kaws/cows” works. (See reference to Posterous below to see how I post pictures and video.)

Tip 8: Use the right tools. At the end of the day, you either have many followers or you don’t. A good effort doesn’t count, so you might as well use the right tools to make picking up followers as easy as possible.

(This is a such a large and important slice of managing Twitter, I’m giving it it’s own post at Twitter Tools.)  But it’s critical to know and use these, so be sure to go there.)

Tip 9: Repeat your tweets. Try this experiment: take your most interesting tweets (as measured by how many people retweet them, perhaps) and post them again three times, eight to twelve hours apart. I used to think that people would complain about repeating tweets, but I’ve never had a complaint. My theory is that the volume of tweets is so high and most people check in at about the same time every day, so people don’t notice repeat tweets.

Tip 10: Ask people to follow. That’s right just come right out and ask them to follow you. For example, I’m here if you want to follow me.

So now you’re on the road to being a Twitter celeb.  And Kawasaki’s final words of advice are:

“Always be linking.”

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

MediaOnTwitter – How To Blow Your Own Horn

Guy Kawasaki, American venture capitalist and ...
Image via Wikipedia

I’m usually an “early adopter“.  I’m pretty much at the front of the line for new technology, cool gadgets, new forms of automation and new platforms.  But I’ve been slow to get up to speed on Twitter and I see that is a big mistake. Twitter is changing the world of marketing ourselves as we know it. Twitter is where it’s at and we all better get there soon.

I’m planning a crash course for myself on how to use Twitter most effectively to leverage the task of getting  known far and wide in the blogosphere with a ripple effect into the real world.

So let’s learn a little more about Twitter, shall we?

Guy Kawasaki is a tech evangelist and way ahead of you and me, probably, in being an early adopter of effective technology. Kawasaki, as we’ve noted, is sold on Twitter and has a lot to say about it.

In Kawasaki’s blog How to Change the World: MediaOnTwitter , he says: “Came across a very useful wiki called MediaOnTwitter. This wiki contains the a list of the reporters, journalists, and bloggers on Twitter. You can use this wiki in two ways:

  1. Finding people worth following.
  2. Getting in touch with reporters, journalists, and bloggers to pitch”
If you start following people on Twitter they may start following you.
Guy Kawasaki has 21,000 followers on Twitter.  He uses it as a network/ marketing engine to feed his new company Alltop.  He gives a plug to Alltop, an “online news rack” or news aggregator of 250 topics with new topics added constantly. Kawasaki points out….

Two other useful sources of information about Twitter are:

  1. Twitter@alltop.com–aggregation of news about Twitter.
  2. Twitterati@alltop–compilation of the last five tweets of the Twitter elite.
You can watch him talk about Twitter yourself, if you want. Then let’s all go brush up on Twitter.  Write me your Twitter name and I’ll start following you and that’s a start.
Guy Kawasaki on why Twitter is key to Alltop
Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Personal Branding – Conveying The Essence Of Professional Brand “You”

When I talk about creating Brand “You”, I’m not talking about creating a fictional super hero or heroine who is larger and more perfect than life and can achieve any task. I’m talking about digging down deep to unearth the real you; to focus on what is unique about you, your personal style  and your unique talents and achievements. Use those achievements to buttress your case. Then broadcast it to the world.

How do you do that?

Remember, everything about you becomes part of your personal brand.  How you walk and talk. How you dress. How you interact with others.  All of these hundreds of different pieces out there become transformed into “Brand You”.

Let’s start with the pieces.

Develop your own style. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlitt Packard and one of the most visible women in business, knew style was critical.  When asked by a young girl how to dress, she declared, “expensive and decisively.” Fiorina dressed, looked, talked, and acted like a leader. She developed reputational power by tackling critical issues and getting results, moving boldly and quickly.

Edit what you write  to achieve a lean, powerful, professional “Brand You”.  Yes, it’s great if you’re a good mother, father, aunt, windsurfer, rock hound, won your high school debating contest, have a white picket fence, two dogs and a cat, but it’s not relevant to your professional brand.  Leave it out. Trim it down.  Put in only your marketable attributes, then condense for impact.

Posting To Social Networks. Take a deep breath and consider what your  boss might think before hitting the submit button.

Don’t you think talented, incoming Obama administration director of speechwriting, Jon Favreau, would like to take back that one split second when he or a friend hit the submit button and sent to Facebook those photos of himself  at  a party where, evidently, the booze flowed freely? One was a photo of Favreau dancing with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of secretary of state-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Another where he’s placed his hand on the cardboard former first lady’s chest ( groping her) while a friend (appears to be nibbling on her cardboard ear and ) is offering her lips a beer?  Oops!

That’s the kind of mistake that can kill your career quicker than you can say “John Edwards”.  Even though many women are howling for his scalp, Favreau is young enough that he may get a pass on this one. (Although Obama surely can’t be too pleased. Did we mention the word “distraction” while he’s trying to put together an administration?)  But you don’t need to make this kind of mistake. Aside from the other obvious implications, it makes you look stupid.   I mean what could the response be? “Gee I thought you never went on the Internet.”  “I thought only my friends would see it.” “I wasn’t thinking”.  No kidding.  Just don’t put up anything you wouldn’t want your boss or anyone else on the  planet to see and you won’t have to worry about it.

Visibility And Alliances

Polishing your story, condensing it and getting it out there in both the real and the virtual world are the beginning.  Networking to form alliances will help you take it to the next level.  But at it’s core, what sums you up for the world, is the professional brand you’ve created and conveyed.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Fish Where The Fish Are – Use LinkedIn To Job Search

I’ve already talked to you about LinkedIn being the number one resource where employers go to identify a great job candidate.  In the spirit of “fish where the fish are”, if you find yourself searching for a job, the first thing you need to do is to update your LinkedIn profile. Bait for the big fish.

Your LinkedIn Profile should be as fresh and up to date as fresh squeezed organge juice

And packed with Vitamin C.  Give it that oomph, that sparkle. Take a cue from Guy Kawasaki’s LinkedIn profile and make it personal, engaging, conversational.  In fact, Guy has admitted he had some help from an exec at LinkedIn writing one of his best known blogs on how to use Linked in (Guy explains he didn’t know how to use it that well at the time.)  If Guy needs a little help sometimes, perhaps you do too.  If you are not the world’s best writer, hire one to help you.  By that I mean hire a college student or put out an ad on Craig’s list or eLance to find a good writer.  There are a lot of writers out there and a lot more of them than usual are probably looking for some extra cash about this time, with the recession and Christmas double whammy. It wont’ require a lot of cash either.

Point them in the direction of Guy Kawasaki’s LinkedIn profile and tell them, ok, you haven’t been a venture capitalist-entrepreneur-mover and shaker with Apple -founder of tech companies like Guy but you do have a solid profile of professional accomplishments and you’d like to put the best face on it. You want to exude power, confidence, experience and expertise.  And you want to be engaging, not dry as a pile of dust, while doing it.  A good writer can achieve that for you.

Important Point

If you’re currently unemployed, The LinkedIn Blog »  Getting Back-to-Business Checklist for Job Hunters suggests listing your current position as “open to opportunities.” Good idea.

Now: Edit your LinkedIn Profile.

The LinkedIn Blog also suggests, “if you just recently lost your job, make sure you update your status field in your profile so your network know that you’re looking for a job. It’s a quick and easy way to let folks you’re connected to know that you could use their help. David Stevens, one of LinkedIn’s users, updated his status upon being laid off. Within seven business days someone in his network knew of an open position, which Dave landed shortly thereafter.

Network, Network, Network

You should also put out the word on Facebook and any other social networks you belong to.  Then get on the phone and tell all your friends:”Open to opportunities.”  Then go to all the professional networking events you can squeeze in.

Networking is crucial. I just heard from one of the leading business consultants in the country that one of his biggest mistakes, when starting out, was sending out all these printed brochures to strangers when he had just come from a major company with hundreds of close associates who knew and respected his work already.  When he started working the phones with them, he starting pulling in consulting engagements.

Like this old pro, most of the work you get will come, one way or another, from people you already know.  Start calling or emailing them.  Then point them to your LinkedIn profile.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Surviving The Recession: Conserve Cash And Network Like Your Life Depended On It

Now that recession is upon us, let’s put our heads together and figure out how to survive it.

I’ve already mentioned Surviving The Recession: Morph Your Expertise, which is about figuring out how to pivot your business model to “roll with the punches” in the new, black economy.

Generally speaking, we all must keep our eye on the ball. Keeping up with local, national and international news and thinking through how they impact your field and your particular business and profit relationships will help. Staying on top of news from your professional journals and organizations is a must.  You can’t roll with the punches if you don’t know when the punches are coming and where they will land.

The two most important tips

Bill Roth gives them in Going Green

  • Conserve Cash: If you’re running your business or household right now on credit, you know exactly what I mean by conserving cash. During a recession, debt is an expense most can’t afford. Businesses should try to operate within their cash flows, despite the fact that their cash flows will probably fall during a recession. So do what you have to do now to create cash. Sell assets, cut costs and access the best path for creating cash: become more efficient.
  • Reach Out: You’re not in this boat alone. I speak at churches that host career planning for those in transition. Unfortunately, the attendance is growing along with individual pain. But the key point is that these people are not failures–but rather very talented people who’ve been caught up by this economy. Reach out and find meetings like these to network with talented people who can lend their first-hand experience and advice to you.”

    • I think networking may be the most efficient way to really understand the impact of events happening in business because you receive and share the distilled expertise of someone knowledgeable in her field. Your networking should include not only your own field, but related fields which have an impact on yours: buyers, suppliers, advertisers, bankers.

    And , if you are a proficient networker you will have sufficient information, resources and contacts to constantly re-invent yourself and your company according to what the world needs today.

    John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing, in 7 Recession-Busting Marketing Basics has several thoughts, that reinforce the prove tactic of networking to re-energize your marketing and get out of any hole the recession may be putting you into:

    1) Get out from behind the computer – Building personal relationships is always in style. It’s very tempting to sit and write blog posts and participate on social networking sites. And while these aren’t always bad things, sometimes you need to go out and shake some hands. Make it a point to go to several industry conferences every year. Join an industry or chamber type group and go to events where you can make connections with prospects and partners. Join a referral group such as BNI and participate. Go visit your customers and ask for referrals.

    2) Speak at events, hold workshops – Marketing is essentially a trust-building game. Few things build trust more efficiently than getting in front of a group of potential customers and sharing your expertise in an educational setting. Go propose to conduct a hot sounding workshop for your bank, accounting firm, law firm and insurance firm. Check local libraries, chambers, and associations for opportunities. Look in your local business papers and see what groups have speakers listed in calendars of events. Get two of your best customers to help conduct peer2peer webinars to discuss best practices and issues with peers you invite.

    When this recession ends, anywhere from 18 to 36 months from now, you will have survived and have a much sounder, stronger business emerging from the steps you’ve taken now.


    Related articles by Zemanta
    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]