Good Works Grapevine

I’m not a narcissist, but I tend to get on my soapbox about personal branding because I think its so darn important. I run into a lot of folks that are literally “scared” to be themselves online and I think its a shame. I recently spoke to a woman that was surprised that I always write under my own name online. And I was surprised that she was surprised.

I understand the notion of the internet being a scary place. There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there doing unspeakable things. But, in terms of having an online presence, I think its important to get ahead of the game.

Just like in Talladega Nights - when the team branded Ricky Bobby’s car “ME” because he had no sponsors? He didn’t need sponsors because he (or at least the people around him) realized that HE was his brand. You are your brand whether you are a freelancer or work for someone else.

A few things to remember (and I apologize in advance if I’ve said this before…):

• Be yourself. It’s OK.
• Keep private information private. I probably put more information out there than I should, but I keep a careful eye on what’s being said about me.
• Set-up a Google alert on your own name or your user name. I have Google alerts for my name, my user name that I tend to use and my company names. Each day I get a little email from Google advising me of what’s being said about me. If I need to address something, I know where to look.
• Talk about your strengths, loves, dislikes - be a real person. At the end of the day, businesses want to do business with people. Show the world that you are a real person and engage in the online activity that you love. Don’t be afraid to talk about what you’re doing offline - online.
• Engage, engage, engage. Get a Twitter account and tweet about your interests. Get a Facebook page and talk about the things that are important to you. Check out NING communities that are pertinent to your interests. And remember, most social tools and communities have privacy controls, so if you want to limit who can see your info, use them.

Here are a few good resources to help you better understand personal branding.

• ChrisBrogan.com - Personal Branding eBook (just out today!)
• The Brand Called You - FastCompany.com
• Reach Branding Club - I used this service and really got a lot out of it.
• Personal Branding Blog

Twitter Tuesday tomorrow!!!

I am in the process of writing a social marketing plan for GoodDogz.org. We launched our new website about 2 weeks ago and, without any type of promotion, started immediately receiving blog comments, new NING community members, new LinkedIn group members, etc. It was truly amazing to see how quickly the new social aspects of the site snowballed. Adding these tools to a non-profit site was easy, cheap and effective. Here’s what we added:

• 2 Wordpress blogs - one for volunteers and one general blog
• NING Online Commuity
• LinkedIn Group
• Yahoo Group ListServ (which we had on the old site, just not particularly obvious)

That’s it. By adding those 4 tools, we were able to quickly gain more interaction with our audience, more interest and ultimately better resources for our users.

The next step is to create a strategy for promoting and using these tools. Although we were lucky enough to have “built it and they came”, a strategic plan is important to not only establish engagement but maintain an audience of loyal users who will come back often and participate in the conversation. More to come on that and I would love to hear the ideas of others on getting the word out.