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The Benefits of a Personal Brand

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Do you know the benefits of a personal brand? Here are my top three. I’m fascinated by personal branding. It excites me when I work with my clients in partnership to define it because so many people don’t know even what a personal brand is. You are a product. You are sending that product to the market, and you have to define your personal brand.

1. Your Personal Brand Makes You Memorable

You need to resonate with the audience in the career world where you’re going to apply for a job. Make yourself stand out.

2. Your Brand Sets You Apart

Your personal brand sets you apart and it fortifies your competitive edge. We’re all a product. You are a product. I am a product. Personal branding also sets you apart as an authority or an expert in your field. Spend a lot of time thinking about what is your personal brand that is going to resonate with an audience and sets you apart from the other people in the competitive market?

3. Branding Makes You More Money

We all want more money.  The statistics tell us that if you have a personal brand, more people are going to collaborate with you. More people are going to be intrigued by you, and the larger audience you get, the more people will tag on to you, and the more opportunities will come your way, and therefore the more interviews and offers will come your way. I love working with my clients to define their personal brand. We go through a set process. It can be somewhat lengthy, but you will learn a lot about yourself just as I learned a lot about myself when I went through the same exercise when I took a certification in personal branding. So what is so special about you? Think about what is so special about you?

Why should I, if I was in a hiring position, choose you over Mary, Mark or Paul. Your personal brand is your differentiator, your value add.

I’d love to help you. Please email your resume on LinkedIn.

AVOID THESE MISTAKES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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AVOID THESE MISTAKES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Every day, I browse through the three main platforms I use, and you should use, for career management:  LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. There isn’t a day that goes by without me finding someone who harms their personal brand, insults someone, or shares inaccurate information. Do they do it just to make me chuckle?

Social media is for communicating your brand and for sharing and relaying positive and educational messages, not for posting your personal feelings about religion, politics or other issues. Yes, you can have fun on social media, but be careful with your posts and presence. Remember, your social media accounts will be viewed, evaluated and scrutinized prior to all interviews today. Don’t cause yourself to be counted out of potential opportunities where you might be the perfect candidate simply because you posted something foolish or you don’t want to be present on the platforms. Here are three mistakes to avoid:

#1. Being non-existent

Several years ago, during my presentations, there was a time when I posed the question, “Who is not on LinkedIn?” Hands went up in masses. Today, I ask the same question and very few hands go up, which is good for all of us. If you are not on LinkedIn, as an expert in career management, I will tell you that you are committing career suicide. LinkedIn can bring you massive value. You have the opportunity to network with 600 million other users on this platform. It is the first stop an executive recruiter or HR professional makes in learning about you. I would very much encourage you to also be on Twitter and Facebook which are becoming increasingly important for viewing by career decision makers as they process your application or are looking for talent.

It is great to have a profile on all three of these platforms, but are you active on all three of these platforms? A big difference.

#2. Not being consistent

Again, a cause of joviality for me when I cruise through peoples’ profiles is seeing contradicting information listed on one of their profiles vs another with yet something completely different on their resume. What does this tell me if I was your career hiring influencer? It demonstrates a lack of attention to detail and indifference or sloppiness in the way you construct your communications throughout the platforms. Keep everything consistent while remaining positive.

#3. Sharing inappropriate content, comments and pictures

Don’t shy away from expressing your personality and opinions on various topics, but don’t focus solely on your beliefs as far as religion, ethics, politics or gender differences are concerned. Keep your posts to what a future employer or executive recruiter could warm up to and stay away from opportunities for employers to misinterpret your social media dialogue. Never give the impression that you could damage a potential employer’s reputation through online conversations. Be active. Be professional. Inject fun. Inject humour. Show that you are an expert and committed to keeping your career and your personal life in a positive light.

HIRING IS HOT! – TAKE ADVANTAGE NOW

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I keep an eye on hiring trends across the world relating data from my vast network of career decision makers and senior executive clients across all continents. In my two and a half decades of business, I have never seen recruitment across all functions and industries, except oil and gas, as hot as it is right now. Statistics from country-based governments support my deep understanding of trends with unemployment reaching 50-year lows in some western countries and wage growth reaching records.

Hiring is Hot - Take Advantage Now!

Job search used to be highly competitive. The worse the economy, the more people there are competing for each job. Today, that is turned in the other direction in favour of you, the candidate. You hold the keys to steer your career laterally into another function or industry or to seek a promotion upwards. Despite the bubbling economy and robust hiring, you still need to make yourself stand out from the others in the race for the trophy. Jobs don’t fall into your lap. They must be searched out through in-person networking, online networking, building and retaining relationships with executive recruiters, and lastly, replying to adverts.

Now is the time to leap to your next challenge, but it is also a time to reflect and recession-proof your career as much as you can. This good economy, according to experts, won’t last for much longer. Look for sectors that service the economy, including government, education, food, retail and health care. It is prudent to do extensive research to uncover opportunities where you can make an impact and, of course, be happy. Do not be a procrastinator and put off a job search that can dramatically help you with spin offs to your family life.

Finding a new job is a little bit like dating. You must attract other audiences. One way is to craft, stick to, and express your personal brand, clearly communicating your value to your next employer. Understand what makes you unique. Do a self-audit to decipher your differentiator from your peers. Ask friends and colleagues what words and phrases describe you. Use this information to create a resonating personal brand statement, emphasizing the value you will bring. This statement can then be used on all your marketing collateral, resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile and networking card. To make yourself stand out further, actively engage in social media, be proactive on Facebook, Twitter and concentrate on LinkedIn. Blogging also brings deep value as you can share your expertise and thoughts.

Job search doesn’t happen overnight, and the available time horizon has been considerably reduced by the buoyant global economy. Are you ready to accept a new challenge? Are you ready to leap? If so, go for it!

The Power of Your Personal Brand

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In order to further your career, it is imperative that you take the time to build your personal brand. Without doing so, no one knows what defines you. They are not aware of your goals, accomplishments, or values. Therefore, they will create a brand for you; their own narrative of who they think you are. Unfortunately, this can result in a premature plateau in your career.

Therefore, if you have aspirations to move up or accomplish more, it is essential that you are in control of your personal narrative. Take the time to establish and remind people of your professional goals, accomplishments, and value by building your personal brand.

After all, you are the CEO of your own career, and you want to drive how your colleagues, bosses, and career influencers perceive you.

The Power of Your Personal BrandHere are some tips to keep the power of your personal brand in your favour:

Network Internally

While it is essential to establish an online personal brand that is accessible by career influencers who use online platforms to find qualified candidates, it is also crucial to network within your current role. The people in your office–your colleagues and bosses–are just as vital to your network as those online. Take the time to establish relationships with people who are on and outside of your immediate team. You never know what connection will result in your next career opportunity. Also, be sure to add these contacts to your social media platforms such as LinkedIn.

Be Vocal

In this digital age, it is easy to share your values with industry influencers. By simply sharing or commenting on articles you find fascinating, you create a personal brand that communicates your viewpoints and values. To further the influence on your personal brand, go into detail about what interests you and what you agree and/or disagree with in a particular article. Do not leave the guesswork up to your network; be explicit about your personal thoughts. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to do this, and, since you are already networking there anyways, you can quickly demonstrate your values and share your expertise with those in your online and face-to-face network.

Take Relevant Opportunities

While it is essential to work hard at the job you have, it is also necessary to dress for the job you want. One of the best ways to establish your personal brand,  is to think about where you want to be and take opportunities that will help get you to that place. You have to be your own advocate and show the powers that be your strengths that lie outside your current job description. This means stepping outside of your comfort zone and establishing yourself as someone who is willing to spearhead new projects and roles.

Keep a Professional Persona

Remember your personal brand represents who you are to people who have the power to influence your career. Therefore, think before you post, speak, share pictures, or take opportunities that would not help maintain your professional persona. A general rule of thumb: If you would not be proud to show this picture, make this remark, or share this role with your grandma or boss, avoid putting it out there.

8 Great Tips for Updating Your Personal Branding

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Personal branding is important for establishing yourself as an industry expert, creating an online reputation that you manage, and a great way to begin to grow your online networking. Treat it with as much care and effort as you would if you were marketing your own small business. After all, you are the CEO of your own career.

Here are eight great tips for updating (or establishing) your personal branding!

  1. Separate personal from professional. If you use social media to stay in touch with family and friends, you may want to create a new account for your profession8 Great Tips for Updating Your Personal Brandingal profile. Another approach is keeping your platforms separate: Twitter and LinkedIn for business, Facebook and Instagram for personal. Your personal accounts or platforms can be further separated from the professional by using a nickname or alternate name. That helps them stay separate when you are searched.
  2. LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the primary professional-use social media platform, so refresh this one first. Update your Linked profile to include recent experience, skills, and job titles. Update your head shot if it’s more than 2 years old. Ensure that your LinkedIn and resume information matches; it’s much easier to do this when you are relaxed and not in the midst of a job search! Finally, make sure your key accomplishments are listed and consider asking for recommendations from your contacts.
  3. Secondary platforms. Take the bio and headshot you used for LinkedIn and update your other professional-use social media profiles to match LinkedIn. This provides a consistent visual brand as well as a consistent message.
  4. Delete unused accounts. This allows hiring influencers, network contacts, and others who search your name to get the results you want them to see: Live, active, and curated social media accounts with current contact and career information.
  5. Facebook. If you are using Facebook in a professional capacity, update your profile as you did in tips 2 and 3. Update your header image to a visual relevant to your industry. Your headshot should match your LinkedIn photo, but the header can be a photo or a graphic. My own is often an inspirational quote, someone in real estate might have landscape photography, someone in logistics might choose a photo of truck or a ship in motion, a hospitality exec might choose a photo of a busy kitchen, a wine cellar, or stacked linens. Use photos from public domain or ones you have the rights to publish, when possible.
  6. Website. Update your website with the same visuals and information as you did your social media. Consistency across platforms is smart branding and shows your attention to detail. Again, make sure your most recent accomplishments, skills, and experience are highlighted.
  7. Analytics. Connect Google analytics to your website and see what content is sparking the most interest. You can also check the analytics for your social media platforms to see what posts have generated the most visits, comments, and reactions.
  8. Calendar. Create planned content. You don’t have to use virgin content for every platform. Work smarter, not harder, and write an article for your blog, take that information you just researched and turn it into a Facebook post, a tweet, and then write an introduction and post the link to the article on LinkedIn! Once a week, or even every other week is a great start.

3 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Enhance Your Personal Brand

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LinkedIn isn’t just for job searches anymore; businesses and industry leaders are discovering this networking site now does more than simply find and fill empty positions, it can enhance your brand. By joining groups and becoming more active on the platform, you can enhance your personal branding as an industry leader and valuable resource. LinkedIn groups are an easy way for both busy executives and introverts to enhance their personal branding. Here’s 3 tips for getting started in using LinkedIn to enhance your personal brand.

  1. +): 3 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Enhance Your Personal BrandDo the research. There are plenty of groups to join. Find a few that relate to your industry, and take a look at both the activity level and the leadership and decide from that information which group is right for you and your personal brand. If activity is high and you know you’ll only post once a week, your voice will get lost in the crowd. Choose a group where you have a real chance of making an impact. If there are a few leaders in the group, and they are in your niche or share encouraging input in matters around your expertise, you’ve found a good fit.
  2. Be consistent. Make sure you post or share regularly, and on topics which interest those in your niche or industry. Concerned you won’t be able to come up with regular original content? Make a note of interesting articles and posts on other platforms and share with the group. Offer your own experience and insight on those articles, and invite others to add to your ideas or solutions. Contribute regularly to polish and expand your branding.
  3. Add value. With over a billion groups now running on the platform, you want the group you join to be visibly successful and attractive to other LinkedIn users in your industry. Invite other professionals in your industry to join and to contribute even more useful content. Improving the reputation of the group makes it more visible on LinkedIn. This success is good for the group, and allows you to promote your brand to an even wider audience as time goes by.

Five Ways to get Followers

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So you’re aware that you need to use social media as a part of your personal branding, your LinkedIn profile is polished, but now you’re looking at your Twitter account and stalling out. If you feel like you’ve somehow missed the point or lost out on the forward wave of the twitterverse, it’s not too late. It’s not too late to pick up terms like twitterverse, either, but first concentrate on the basics that allow you to grow your following and put Twitter to work for your brand!

  1. You, on Twitter. Fill out your profile in full so that anyone seeking more information about you can find it easily. I emphasize including this because so many clients come to me with a Twitter account and a username, but haven’t done anything else. At the very least, be clear about who you are and what you’re an expert in. Include a professional head shot and your elevator pitch as your bio. Everything about Twitter is short, concise, and to-the-point, so be prepared; you may have to tweak your bio to keep the important buzz-words and lose the fillers! When you have completed your profile and you are easily found on Twitter, add your handle to your business cards, LinkedIn, Facebook, and anywhere else you offer your contact information…there’s no point in joining if you don’t tell anyone!
  2. The basics. You probably already know that Twitter is a micro-blog platform where posts are 140 characters or less (yes, including spaces and punctuation). com and Mashable.com both have a Twitter primer that’s easy to read and can help you get started. After brushing up on what a tweet is, and a little about what it can do for you…you’re ready to start.
  3. Follow before you lead. Before we talk about what or how to tweet, one of the best ways to get a feel for Twitter is to follow someone else and read their tweets and also see what they re-tweet. Choose a business leader or author you admire, a few colleagues, and even a few companies you may be interested in. Spend a week or so looking not just at the content, but the links they share, and the re-tweets from others they promote. Once you’ve begun tweeting (that’s next), scroll through your contacts and follow your network contacts. Encourage them to follow you back.
  4. Follow me Start tweeting. Perhaps the easiest first tweet is a re-tweet of content you enjoyed from someone else. Stick to business, stay away from entertainment, pop-culture, and political tweets. You’re tweeting to enhance your personal brand, remaining neutral or silent on hot topics is smart.
  5. Tweet strategically. Keep your purpose, polishing and enhancing your personal brand, in mind. Tweeting should spark an interest in you as an expert in your field, as a potential employee, and as a network connection for others. Offer commentary, encouragement, or insights about issues and topics common to your industry. Definitely tweet your successes and triumphs! Design your tweets to highlight your expertise and value. Time your tweets around the lunch hour or end-of-work-day when people are checking in on social media.

Once you’ve mastered the Twitter basics, it’s time to learn more about Twitter chats, Twitter lists, and even look into social media management software so that you can write the tweets ahead of time and have them posted automatically for you.

Why I Hired a Professional Resume Writer

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When I needed a resume written for a specific job, I went to a professional. Why? Because someone objective with professional knowledge of what HR managers and recruiters are seeking can do a better job writing about me than I can.

Why I Hired a Professional Resume WriterProfessional expertise is important. Just as I would never write my own will or divorce or fill my own dental cavity, I go to an expert when I need a new resume. Resume writing isn’t simple or easy. A resume writer needs to know about the use of modern scan technology and how it picks out key words to sort resumes before human eyes ever see them. A professional knows how to format a resume so those scanners don’t discard your resume. A pro also understands the current job market and knows what hiring influencers want to see on new resumes. They also know what those hiring influencers do not want to see on new resumes.

Could I do that for myself? Of course. What other valuable quality does a professional resume writer offer?

Objectivity. While I have the expertise, I cannot maintain objectivity about my own career. Most of us are unable to be objective while writing our own resume. For those who are modest, it’s hard to sell ourselves effectively even when we truly are the experts at what we do. Others have difficulty in knowing where to just state the facts without embellishment.

When you combine expertise with objectivity, you get the perfect tools for creating a resume that scans well, catches the eye of hiring influencers, and promotes you effectively for the position you’re seeking.

Think about it: When even professional resume writers hire another professional to write their resume, it’s the obvious choice for anyone who wants an effective, powerful resume to represent them in a job search.

Top 3 Areas of Personal Branding During a Job Search

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You always want to present a positive and engaging personal brand but it’s crucial in the midst of a job search. You’re working hard to find a new position, you know you need to polish your brand, but where to start? Focus on these three areas and you’ll improve your brand across every format.

Building a personal brand is about crafting a unified and resonating message to introduce your skills, your ethics, your values, and your personality to career influencers everywhere. Here are the top three areas on which to focus when you want to present yourself as “the total package” during a job search in person, online, and in your executive resume:

Appearance. You know that being well dressed and well-groomed for an interview or networking event is key, don’t forget to put your professional look online in your profile photo, too. Exhibiting a professional appearance is just as important when presenting yourself in text. Properly formatted resumes, cover letters, and thoughtfully completed profiles also win positive first impressions.

Articulation of your brand statement. What makes you so special that someone should be compelled to choose you? This should be a concise, engaging, and confident statement about the value you bring to any organization. Think elevator pitch or tweet: create a concise statement with maximum impact using a minimum amount of words. Practice your message until you can confidently articulate the statement verbally, and use it online and in all written materials.

  Attitude. Employers are allergic to the dark side. No one wants to add anger, bitterness, or depression to the team spirit or company morale. Anger, grief, and fear are normal and appropriate feelings about being disillusioned with your job or out of work. Keep that darker side of job searching out of the public eye and share it with your spouse, friend, therapist, or coach. Remove any online digital dirt. That negativity doesn’t belong on social media, in your resume, or at interviews and networking events. In short, you never want to portray yourself as desperate for a job despite your circumstances.

The goal of personal branding is to present a unified message of how valuable you are. These top three areas of focus for building a personal brand during a job search will help you deliver the best first impression of you. Remember Appearance, Articulation and Attitude: If it’s the best look or the best line that represents you, use it everywhere!

How Promoting Your Company Promotes Your Personal Brand

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businessman-clapping-textTwenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, you carry a brand. We are all self-promoters and promoters of our business, both in person and online through comments on various social media platforms and blogs.

When you do this well, people come to view you both in your personal and your business life as a person they can rely on to articulate clear, precise and resonating messages.

As a business professional, even on weekends you represent your company, so beware of your demeanor and behaviour. You must be sensitive to how you portray yourself both verbally and in writing, as society measures you not just through your business dealings but also through your personal behaviour.

Find positive ways to promote your company online and in your community. Nominate yourself to organize events or publicize company initiatives and successes through social media. Become a brand ambassador, not just for your own personal brand, but for your employer’s brand. Excite your audience and excite the employer’s audience.

Employees who inject excitement, those who heighten company events through positive involvement and social media activity, are most likely to be chosen for career advancement and promotion.

So many today are unhappy in their careers. Sadly, they ponder too long and generate a sense of negativity to their peers and externally in their personal lives. They make negative comments about life in general, and in particular their employer or their work.

Steer clear of this type of negativity at all costs. Place yourself in a decision maker’s position, someone who can advance careers. Would you hire a person who portrays negativity?

Each and every one of us has our own persona, our own personal brand, which should be uplifting, resonating and engaging. Stick to this message in all your activities, 24/7/365, to maintain a consistent and highly regarded personal brand.