Super Bowl XLV has come and gone, the Packers won, and all we have left is the discussion from the Super Bowl Ads. I wasn’t blown away by most of the Super Bowl ads but there was one ad that totally captured by attention.

That ad was, ‘Imported from Detroit’ it was produced by Wieden + Kennedy one of the coolest ad agencies in the world. They are known for the work they have done historically with Nike and heir most recent success with the Old Spice commercials.

The two-minute Super Bowl commercial, ‘Imported from Detroit’ with local rapper Eminem captured the essence of Detroit and connected with viewers worldwide with over 4M views in YouTube.

Stats from the Ad

• Brand Bowl Recap: The people voted with their tweets and selected Chrysler, ‘Imported from Detroit’ as the overall winner. (Score: 90, Tweets: 32,514, Sentiment: +16.5%)

• YouTube Views: 4,514,346 (as of 02/09/11)

According to the Wall Street Journal Chrysler and the Chrysler 200 spiked on auto-shopping web sites. Edmunds.com reports that research on Chrysler models on its web site jumped 328% after the ad appeared.

Does this mean that Detroit is back? Does this mean that Chrysler is back? I don’t think any one commercial alone saves a city, state or company. But I will say the commercial did exactly what it was suppose to do. Create buzz (mostly positive), engage potentials customers, get people sharing content, and driving traffic to their site.

I don’t know how many 200’s Chrysler will sell but I do know but the tagline, ‘Imported from Detroit’ is still ringing in my head.

Where will the real Super Bowl XLV be played? Online or on the field? Or both? The game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers will be played at Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas, but how much of the Super Bowl is about the teams on the field?

Globally people can interact and engage with each other and their favorite brands in real-time. The Super Bowl is the most watched event on the planet year in and year. Last year over 106.5 Million people watched the Super Bowl in 2010 according to Nielsen. This years numbers should surpass last years numbers making it the most watched single day event in history.

This creates a very unique opportunity for brands to reach and engage with customers and to know how they feel about their ads:

Social Media Engagement During the Super Bowl

• Official Hashtag: #sb45

• Facebook likes/fans
• Twitter followers
• YouTube subscribers, video views and channel views
• YouTube Re- Marketing: YouTube ads that you watch will start to follow you as you surf online.
• Website traffic
• Tweet volume
• Twitter mentions
• Twitter sentiment: Positive, Negative, or Neutral
• Google results for videos, news, blogs and discussions
• Social Mention in relation to strength, sentiment, passion and reach
• Engagement during the Super Bowl

Two Ways to Follow Your Favorite Super Bowl Ads Online

• Brand Bowl 2011: Social Media monitoring of Super Bowl XLV is back this year with Radian 6 and Mullen and Brand Bowl 2011. Join the conversation online with hash tag: #brandbowl. You can post comments in Twitter or on the Brand Bowl website and include hash tag: #brandbowl and your comments will be aggregated to identity the most popular Super Bowl ads. They will be measuring positive, negative, and neutral sentiment on Twitter and total number of tweets for all brands.

• YouTube Ad Blitz – Rewatch favorite Super Bowl ads and post comments in YouTube.

As a digital nerd I enjoy the engagement online (conversation about the game and the super bowl ads) as much as the game that is played on the field. Why? The game that is played online is shared with my online friends/network and the new people that I meet. It also provides an opportunity for me to engage with the big brands and provide my feedback about the millions of dollars that they just spent.

Here are the Stats for the Online Game

• 22% of People planning to view the Super Bowl will be on Facebook.
• 15 Million Americans post on a social media afterwards
• 43% of the 15 Million Americans plan to rewatch their favorite ad
• 31% of the 15 Million Americans plan to share their favorite ad via email or social network.
• 9% of YouTube Ad Blitz videos were viewed on cell phones in 2010

Young Demographic Stats

• 44% will multi-task texting while the game is on.
• 40% will use Facebook
• 12% will Tweet

[Reference to Yahoo Blog]

Super Bowl Ads: The Cost is $3million for a 30-second commercial spot.

As brands scramble to engage customers the integration of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter become powerful platforms to connect with the people they are targeting to purchase their products. Let me know your thoughts about the Super Bowl Ads and the online engagement with the big brands.

Just finished reading an interesting article in Fast Company Magazine about YouTube’s CEO Salar Kamangar and YouTube’s business model. According to the article YouTube has grown from $100 million-to-$250 million in 2008 to just shy of $1 billion in 2010. They are stating that profitability is nigh. The Business model includes a suite of services: Home page ads, promoted videos, click-to-buy, brand channels and displays (Digital Billboards - on YouTube)

“YouTube is emerging as the first global TV station. The living room for the world.” Salar Kamangar - CEO of YouTube.

YouTube Stats

• More people view TV online (72% of people 34-years and younger.)
• People are watching 2 billion hours of videos per day on YouTube
• YouTube accounts for 28% of Google’s search (December 2009)

Ways To Use YouTube to Impact Your Brand

The data shows the growing trend of videos in consumer consumption: 89 million people will watch 1.2 Billion Videos watched today. Online video consumption is up 600% from 2006-2010. There is an old cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is true what is a video worth?

As a Human Brand, personal brands or business brands that are focused on humanizing themselves can YouTube provide a platform to help them grow? Videos have away of connecting people and ideas: videos transmit emotion, and passion in a way that words cannot. Videos can simply bring ideas to life!

• Create How to video content: There are people who are using video content creativity, for example, Michelle Phan (Make-up Artist)
• Click to Buy: YouTube’s e-commerce platform that enables videos to transform viewers into consumers by providing links to iTunes, Amazon.com, or other e-commerce sites.
• Branded Channels: YouTube gives you the ability to develop a branded channel for your brand (whether it is a personal or business brand. A great example of a branded channel is Justin Bieber.

How are you using YouTube to expand your Brand? I would love to hear some of your creative ideas.

Infographic Credit: Flowtown

The Future is in Our Classrooms from TakePart on Vimeo.

The Future is in Our Classrooms from TakePart on Vimeo.

Michigan it is time to Re-Educate Our Workforce.

The Detroit Region economy has been impacted greater than any other region in the nation. There are many drivers that have gotten us to this point. One of the most glaring was our dependence on the automotive industry. We are transitioning to a more diversify economy in Michigan: Film industry impact was approximately $648million and $1.3 billion in federal stimulus funds for battery production. At the same time it is an interesting time to discuss opportunities to transform our workforce and to prepare them with the skills to have sustainable careers in Michigan.

Stats

• Michigan Unemployment Rate: 11.7% (December 2010)
• National Unemployment Rate: 9.1% (December 2010)
• Today, 48 million of the 137 million U.S. workers are knowledge workers, making them the fastest growing talent pool in most organizations.

Opportunities

• New Industries coming to Michigan
• Employers reducing spending on employee training
• Moving towards a Knowledge-Based Economy

Re-Educating Our Workforce Workshop

On Tuesday, February 1st come and listen to some of the top industry minds discuss how to ‘Re-Educate Our Workforce including:

Speakers/Panelist

• Dr. Ann Marie Sastry – CEO of Sakti3
• Dr. Terry J. Woychowski – GM VP of Vehicle Programs
• David B. O’Ryan – Recruiting Consultant at Linkedin.com
• Lauren Rosen – Michigan Works, Business consultant Automotive Career Transition Center
• Hajj Flemings - Tech MBA Online Program Ambassador

This event is FREE! (RSVP Required)

Registration Starts: 5:00pm
Event Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Date: Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Location: Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD)
20700 Civic Center Drive Suite 450
Southfield, MI 48076

Link: http://careerretool.eventbrite.com

It is that time of year again to identify my personal branding predictions and trends for 2011. I believe it is going to be a breakout year for personal branding. In 2010 we saw some trends that paved the way for what we will see this year. My predictions center around a few basic ideas: scaling, character, business models, disruption and co-working.

As personal brand strategist or whatever title my colleagues coin to identify themselves, we as an industry have communicated to people that they need to have an online presence. A lot of this advice centered around hanging a shingle in one or more of big three social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin). Anyone who has followed this advice should know by now, they have the equivalent of a modern day hardcopy resume. It is like saying if you put on a blue suit, shirt and tie you will standout at a job interview. In other words you are going to need to work harder to matter: to standout, and to create value.

5-Personal Branding Predictions

• Develop your Disruptive Talent – Me too technology and ideas are overrated. Disruption is the new normal. Disruptive technology is a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that unexpectedly displaces an established technology. In his 1997 best-selling book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Christensen separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Understanding disruption and it’s positive impact on technology serves as a starting point for understanding disruptive talent.

How do you translate the skills/talent you have into value? You will be forced to recognize not what makes you fit in but what makes you stand out. This will require some soul-searching and a very introspective view of who you are. Without identifying and developing your disruptive talent you will be unemployed, underemployed, or unfulfilled working at something you are not passionate about. Instead of ‘living the dream’ you will be ‘dreaming the dream.’ Key: Identify your disruptive talents.

Scale – Developing a personal brand isn’t the challenge. Scaling a personal brand is an even bigger challenge? Creating something that people want to connect with, that has value in your passion is a different story. The biggest challenge and growth area for personal brands is how to scale. As a person you can only be in one place at a time so scaling you is impossible. The foundation is that personal brands have to ask this critical question.

What is the difference between an idea and a business?

Business Models for Personal Brands – With the onset of the social web everybody has been running to try and figure out how to make money with it especially those with strong personal brands. The focus will need to be on business model development will be the key. What made the iPod so successful was not the fact that it was just a cooler device. The difference was the business model; Apple hit a home run when it developed iTunes. The business model for personal brands is still being defined. (1) Pure entrepreneurs, (2) Grustler or (3) somewhere in-between. The link between job creation and business creation was validated in a report by Kauffman Foundation.

Examples:

• Gary Vaynerchuk – Vaynder Media and Books (Crush It and The Thank You Economy)
• Chris Brogan – New Marketing Labs and Books

Character 3.0: Drives Profit – Tiger Woods in 2010 shows the cost of poor character, diminishing values and the impact that social media has on the personal brand. The Tiger Woods situation cost sponsors between $5B-$12B. We clearly saw the connection between character and revenue generation. With the increasing emphasize of company recruiters using social networks as a character validate will be come increasingly important to populate the correct the content online. According to Careerbuilder.com 45% of recruiters validate potential job applicants in Facebook and Linkedin. After those employers checked their profiles online 35% changed their decision based on the information they found. More importantly, lifestyle will impact revenue generation and business opportunities.
Anywhere Economy (Mobile Powered) – Use of mobile devices like iPhones, iPads and Galaxy tablets to share your experiences and increase brand awareness and share ideas in a creative and meaningful way. Mobile technology will be the engine that drives personal branding movement. The use of web enabled mobile devices will allow people to work creating the anywhere.

• Ball of Clay – The disruptive talent will identify ways to utilize mobile tools to scale ideas-to-businesses.

Co-Working Growth – The need for space to house the free agent workforce will continue to grow. In Michigan one of the premier spots is Urbane Space in Birmingham, MI. According to the Kauffman Foundation there were 558K businesses started in 2009. This was the highest entrepreneurial activity in 14-years. Some of this activity is driven by the economy. In the end we have more people how are working from themselves. I expect to see a substantial increase in co-working spaces to accommodate this engaged workforce.

List of Co-Working Spaces

• Urbane Space (Co-Working Space: Birmingham, MI)10 International Co-Working Spots

• 53 Co-Working Centers in the Top Cities for Entrepreneurs

• Loose Cubes: Global network of shared workspaces

I look forward to seeing you dominate in 2011.

Photo Credit: Troy Johnson - Covenant Digital Photography

The phenomenal story about Ted Williams has swept the country, making the hardest of hearts soften. Ted a homeless man and once a broadcast hopeful was discovered by a Ohio videographer from the Columbus Dispatch. Ted found on the side of a road got his big break through a viral storm after the videographer posted a video he shot of Ted on YouTube, which has over 8 million views.

So you probably ask, how does a man that assumingly has little to no access to the Internet get 8 million views on YouTube?

He didn’t quit.

You can have all the resources, but if you are not willing to commit to your GRUSTLE, you may not tap into your golden voice. If you tell your story over and over again to enough people, someone is going to listen. I have no doubts that Ted had divine assistance, but I think there are two morals that go to his story. He seemed positive although his circumstance and he kept telling his story.

Ted has single-handedly made it impossible for anybody that has access to the Internet hence social media, to complain that they can’t find (or create) a job or they can’t get readers to their blog or site. While Ted has a unique story and talent, I truly believe this is the case for all of us.

Along with God, Ted has to thank social media, for his new found opportunities.

So as we push on branding ourselves online and being evangelist for social media, just remember, Ted did it without a computer….

Register: www.brandinsights.eventbrite.com

It is time to start working on your branding goals for 2011! Time to re-think your personal and corporate brand strategy for the new decade. We have created an experiential event in the Detroit Eastern Market on Thursday, January 20, 2011 to help you reach your goals.

Brand Insights Detroit: Personal and Corporate Branding Workshop was birthed out of my desire to provide personalized attention to entrepreneurs, business leaders, and business owners about branding. This event is designed for the business and interactive communities in the metro Detroit region.

One of the big questions I get is that people love Brand Camp but want a one-on-one experience so creating Brand Insights is a way to create that small group environment. This workshop is limited to 15 like-minded entrepreneurs, business leaders and business owners. The workshop is designed to provide personalized attention in developing and re-thinking your personal and business brands and how to integrate their missions seamlessly.

The Detroit Experience
I also wanted to do a project in Detroit and I couldn’t think of a better place than in the Detroit Eastern Market. You can experience the flavor of Detroit Eastern Market as we host our event in one of the premier Lofts in Detroit, FD Lofts on Russell Street and eat lunch catered by the famous Russell Street Deli.

Russell Street Deli

FD Lofts in Detroit Eastern Market

Learn in-depth insights on how to brand yourself and your business in an energetic 8-hour day. The workshop will be led by two branding and marketing minds (Hajj E. Flemings and Matthew Kruchko) in a unique hands on facilitated environment.

A large portion of the day will be dedicated to addressing specific personal and corporate branding challenges. The afternoon will be spent in full consulting mode we will review brand problems or ideas in front of the group so everyone can connect and collaborate in the learning process. The attendance has been limited to provide great opportunities for quality networking and building valuable relationships.

Schedule

Morning: 8:30am-12pm Personal & Corporate Branding Workshops

Lunch: 12pm-1pm Catered Lunch

Afternoon: 1pm-4:30pm Consulting on Brand Problems/Ideas

Expectations

• Each attendee will walk away with a brand brief that they have completed with the framework for their personal and corporate brands.
• Learn best practices on using social media to build brand awareness and market you and your business.
• Learn how to develop an online personal brand.
• Brand-Building 101: Basic Tools and Principles of Building a Powerful and Memorable Brand
• Understand what brands really are and how brand-building works.
• Introduces key elements of the basic brand communications toolbox and how they work together to enable you to tell your brand story with clarity, consistency and impact.
• Discussion (Q + A) and collaboration on brand challenges of attendees.

I came across an old work ID that inspired this blog post. I looked at the picture and thought how much I had changed over the past 14-years since the picture was taken. I interned with New Balance Athletic Shoe in Lawrence, MA, which is just outside of Boston. I enjoyed my days at New Balance I was the first out of state intern they had in their intern program. I owe a lot to Edith Harmon-Wiess who was the person that took a chance on me. She still works at New Balance as the VP of Advanced Products. Enough reminiscing. It is time to learn something.

Re-Brand yourself. Every brand has a life cycle and goes through the following phases: development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Over time every brand hits a plateau where the brand matures and faces the reality of decline. This forces every brand to make some hard decisions to re-think strategies, channels of communication and their end game. If a corporate brands need to create a personality and take online human characteristics to be relevant to the connected customer, then how much more do we as human brands have to evolve? (For example: Corporate brands go through re-branding phases like Dunkin’ Donuts did in 2006.)

Have you Changed?

As a personal brand you continue to change: your worldview, the online channels you use to communicate, your career goals change, your work style (the way your dress) and the way you look. Anyone who is growing is changing. Over time we are developing, learning, and growing into the person we want to be and working in the career that we have a passion for.

• How do people experience you? Is it different today than it was 3-5 years ago? When I started online about 4-years ago I connected with people via MySpace. Over time that has evolved and people experience my brand through different channels.
• Online Presence – Your online content should be updated frequently. For example your Linkedin profile should evolve as your career goals, work experience, and the content you curate changes.
• WorkStyle – Does your dress style reflect your brand? I have moved from being a company man to an entrepreneur and my work style reflects that. As you evolve as a person your style should reflect the stage you are at in life.
• Visuals – Your profile Photos should be updated every 3+ years at the latest. Think about how much you have changed over the past 3-5 years.

If you are doing the same things you did five years ago you are probably not relevant. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Food for Thought: We are constantly in a re-tweaking phase.

As the year is coming to an end it is a great time to review goals, financials and the value of our time. Which leads me to one of the most important questions how did you spend your time online in 2010.

A large portion of our lives are shared online: So between messaging, commenting, sending emails, blogging and conducting online searches, etc., as a society we spent approximately 25% of our lives online (this translates into 5.5 hours a day.) What did this mean to your personal brand? Did the time you spent online help to grow business, your career opportunities, or help you position that side project that you were working on. In the area of personal branding one of the key components is the value of your minute. According to Nielsen report in 2010 here is how we spent our time online.

The Breakdown

• 5.5 Hours Online per day
• 22.7% Spent on Social Networks (Facebook #1 destination)
• 10.3% Online Games
• 8.3% Email
• 3.9% Videos
• 3.9% Online Search

As we embark on a new year how will you plan your time management goals for 2011? Remember success is a planned activity it doesn’t happen by default. There is less than a week left in the 2010 and many people have packed it up for the year? Well the year isn’t over yet. It is the perfect time to prepare for 2011. Below are a few ways to start preparing for 2011

• Brand Insights – An experiential personal and corporate branding workshop for 15-people in FD Lofts in Detroit Eastern Market – 01/20/11 with Hajj Flemings (Founder of Brand Camp) and Matthew Kruchko (Managing Director of Applied Storytelling). http://bit.ly/brandinsights
  

• Mind Mapping – iThoughtsHD is a mindmapping iPad app that will import and export mindmaps to and from many of the most popular desktop mindmap applications such as Freemind, XMind, Novamind, MindManager, MindView, iMindmap and PDFs.

• Goal Setting – Establish measurable goals for 2011.

• Finalize Pending Projects – Many of us have projects that have been started and not completed.

• Side Project - Start working on a New Project to launch the beginning of next year.

• Re-Evaluate Resources – To increase your productivity in 2011 look to add a virtual secretary or outsource some functions to be more productive.

What did your time translate into in 2010? How does it affect your bottom line?

Let me know what you are doing to plan for 2011!!

As the Brand Man I thought it would be interesting to discuss the Branding of a Christmas card. This is the first Christmas card from the Flemings family so I went through the mental gymnastics for the first time and wanted to share my findings.

Remember your Christmas card is a great opportunity to communicate your values, style and build brand awareness so it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Here are some details to think about

• Brand Language – The language on your Christmas card should be true to your values.

• Brand Imagery – Color scheme should be consist with your brand or your theme. Background, setting and apparel should flow. You have to think about font selection as well.

• Professional Photo – You can use a professional photographer or use a low cost studio (Sears, JC Penney, etc.). Always have your photo shot with a white background so that the background can be changed out if you desire.

• Style – Think about the style of your family or company that you want to communicate. The style should be consistent with who you are authentically.

• Theme – Our theme idea was a magazine layout. You want to keep the idea simple and clean. Create an idea that is memorable that people can easily understand and grasp.

• Message – Every Christmas card needs a message. Our message was three-fold: 1. Focus for the Year: Year of Increase (Our Desire/Focus for the Year), 2. Family Focus: Building the Family Dynasty and 3. Sharepoint: We wanted to share a significant part of our life. The birth of our daughter, Kennedy Nicole Flemings. This allows your community to feel apart of your life.

• Values – We have strong Christian and moral values where family is very important to us. So we incorporated those values to communicate and reinforce to our community what we stand for and believe in.
• Tradition – Christmas cards are about tradition so when developing your Christmas cards think about the tradition or legacy of your cards.

Other Cool Christmas Cards

The Obama Card and the Kardasian Card

I hope this helps you in branding your Christmas card in the future.

The popularity of iPad apps in the app store in iTunes is increasing, there are 50,000 apps now available in iTunes in eight months.

So for Christmas I thought it would be cool to share my favorite iPad App. I am partnering with Autriv to give-a-way free downloads of my favorite iPad app Sign My Pad. The contest rules are listed below.

Contest Rules

Post a Tweet on 12/21-12/22, 2010 on how you would use Sign My Pad and include hashtag: #SignMyPad. Be as creative so that your tweet can stand out.

Five winners will be selected from the tweets that are posted. Each winners will receive a code to download one copy of the Sign My Pad app free of charge.

What is Sign My Pad

Sign my Pad is an iPad PDF signature app that allows you to download PDF files modify them with: text, a radio button or checkbox, the date and your signature. This app allows you to save time in scanning, faxing, and gives you the ability to sign important documents on the go.

This iPad App is Idea for

The iPad continues to evolve as a business tool especially with the release of IOS 4.2 software, the ability to multi-task, set-up folders and air print are great business features.

This app is idea for any business person that needs to sign documents and remain mobile. Utilizing this app allows you to close deals on the go and sign time sensitive documents.

Who Could Use this App?

• Entrepreneurs
• Consultants
• Real Estate Agents
• Insurance Agents
• Independent Contractors
• Business Owners
• Lawyers
• Tax Accounts

Be creative in your tweets and let us know how you are using Sign My Pad.

Are you living life in Default mode?

Wikipedia defines Default: “Default Values are generally intended to make a device (or control) usable “out of the box”. A common setting, or at least a usable setting, is typically assigned.”

The more time I spend in the branding space helping people and businesses transform themselves, the more I see default settings controlling the operating systems of people and businesses. Living life by Default versus design is the path of least resistance as well as least reward.

Why should someone hire you? Why should someone buy your product? Why should someone listen to you? Why should someone read your blog? Why do you matter? Do you matter? Does your work create conversation? Are you living an undervalued life?

I thought the concept of living in Default would be an interesting topic as 2010 is coming to an end and 2011 is quickly approaching.

Remember, “Success is a journey and a planned activity.” Without goals we are living life by Default. For many people 2010 was a year of change and as technology, the economy, and the world changes you can’t depend on ‘What Was’ to be ‘What Is.’

It is time to establish your goals for 2011 personally and professionally.

Food for Thought: There is a difference between ‘Out of the Box’ and ‘Thinking Outside the Box’.

LinkedIn wasn’t designed to do anything but help you advance your career and share your personal brand with current and future network contacts. In fact, I can personally testify to the power of LinkedIn in a career search, for it was LinkedIn that enabled me to make the connection that led to my current role.

Therefore, I don’t believe that LinkedIn itself could ever be guilty of holding back your job search. However, what I do believe is that you may not be leveraging LinkedIn and its many features effectively in your search efforts to find and secure your next opportunity.

Here are 15 ways you can use LinkedIn to accelerate your career search:

1. Complete your profile 100%. LinkedIn provides you a step-by-step guide to complete your profile. Not only does completing your profile 100% make you look more professional, but it also, helps optimize your placement in LinkedIn’s People Search results.

Here’s what you need to have a 100% complete profile:

• Your Current Position
• Two Past Positions
• Education
• Profile Summary
• Profile Photo
• Your Specialties/Skills
• 3 Recommendations

2. Add a professional photo. Don’t forget to add a face to your name and to the brand you are creating on your LinkedIn profile. This helps build a stronger and more personal connection between you and your profile viewers. Also ensure that your profile picture is professional so to maximize your first impression.

3. Proofread your profile for grammar, punctuation and capitalization. Make sure to review your entire profile a number of times to avoid missing any grammatical errors. Ask someone you know to review your profile for an outside perspective and for an extra pair of eyes to catch possible mistakes or opportunities for improvement.

4. Feature your personal brand or statement in your profile. First of all, in your profile subtitle, don’t miss the opportunity to attract more profile viewers and impress potential employers and career stakeholders by listing yourself as “Finance Professional,” “College Student” or anything else generic or boring. Use this area to share your brand and unique and differentiating value with your network and future target audience. Also, don’t forget about your summary section where you can feature your personal brand and supporting pitch and really hook viewers to read the rest of your profile.

5. Customize your own LinkedIn profile URL. Many professionals forget or neglect to personalize their LinkedIn profile URL with their name and leave the default letters and numbers in place. This looks less professional, but also prevents you from using this in your networking efforts to link your contacts back to your profile.

6. Share links to your websites or other networks. Cross-promote your activities online by adding links from your LinkedIn profile to your website, a blog, your Twitter profile, your VisualCV, or any other site you want to share with your network.

7. Get recommended. LinkedIn allows you to collect short, yet informative recommendations from anyone in your network. This is a great feature that helps you come across as a credible, top professional and/or job candidate.

8. Make your profile public. While your privacy is definitely important, establishing an online presence is essential to being found by others and to advancing your career. Make sure not to make your profile private, or you may miss out on opportunities to be searched and found by potential career stakeholders.

9. Round out your profile. There are a number of ways you can enhance your profile and let your personality and brand shine a little brighter in your LinkedIn Profile. Most importantly, don’t forget to add your interests, hobbies or passions in the Interests area as an additional way to connect with new contacts.

10. Get some apps! Check out the various applications available that can do everything from stream in your tweets and feed in your blog posts to share your past presentations and your recommended reading lists.

11. Join LinkedIn Groups. There are thousands of networking groups on LinkedIn for you to join, whether they be for your college, graduate school, current or past employers, industries, associations, functions, you name it. Join any groups that you think will help you in your career networking and start getting active. Participate in discussions and start your own. Post links to articles and resources that will be helpful to the other members and always look for ways to add value.

12. Conduct informational interviews: Most job seekers forget the power of informational interviews. As you build your network and join new groups on LinkedIn, reach out to these contacts and request a few minutes to discuss their careers, their companies and any career advice they might offer to help you in your own. Many times, these conversations can lead to opportunities not posted on job boards.

13. Use the LinkedIn Jobs section. Don’t forget that LinkedIn has its own job board of both aggregated and exclusive job postings. The great thing about applying through LinkedIn is that 1) many times you can see who posted the job (which can help for follow-up purposes), 2) your profile is only a click away for the reviewers which can help link them to your brand and all of your activities and 3) you can click through to the company and see professionals in your network also employed by the company.

14. Find and follow target companies. LinkedIn’s Companies tab offers a very comprehensive directory of company listings by industry, size, geography and more. Use it to identify contacts at specific companies with whom you can conduct those informational interviews, see if they have job postings and even follow their activity to keep track of any future activity you might be able to leverage to your advantage.

15. Become an Expert on LinkedIn Answers. LinkedIn Answers not only allows you to ask questions to which all of LinkedIn’s members can provide responses, but also allows you to answer others’ questions and get rated as an expert for the information and insight that you share. This is featured on your profile as well showing off your expertise and value to profile viewers.

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing “generator,” a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer and Launchpad.

Brand Insights was birthed out my desire to provide more personalized attention to entrepreneurs, business leaders, and business owners about branding. One of the big questions I get is that people love Brand Camp but want a one-on-one experience so creating Brand Insights is a way to create that small group environment.

I also wanted to do a project in Detroit and I couldn’t think of a better place than in Detroit Eastern Market FD Lofts.

Learn in-depth insights on how to brand yourself and your business in an energetic 8-hour day. The workshop will be led by two branding and marketing minds (Hajj E. Flemings and Matthew Kruchko) in a unique hands on facilitated environment.

This workshop is limited to 15 like-minded entrepreneurs, business leaders and business owners and will take place in the FD Lofts in the Detroit Eastern Market. The workshop is designed to provide personalized attention in developing and re-thinking your personal and business brands and how to integrate their missions seamlessly.

A large portion of the day will be dedicated to addressing specific personal and corporate branding challenges.
The afternoon will be spent in full consulting mode we will review brand problems or ideas in front of the group so everyone can connect and collaborate in the learning process.
The attendance has been limited to provide great opportunities for quality networking and building valuable relationships.

Schedule

Morning: 8:30am-12pm Personal & Corporate Branding Workshops

Lunch: 12pm-1pm Catered Lunch

Afternoon: 1pm-4:30pm Consulting on Brand Problems/Ideas

Cost: $150 per person

Brand Facilitators

Hajj Flemings – Managing Partner, Brand Camp University

Hajj is the founder of Brand Camp University which runs one of the premier personal branding conference in the Midwest. He is also the author of “The Brand YU Life: Re-thinking Who You Are Through Personal Brand Management” which was selected as one of Fast Company Magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Books of the year.

He has been featured on Fox 2 News, ESPN.com and BusinessWeek.com and travels nationally speaking as a brand strategist enabling personal and business brands to remain relevant. His clients include Walt Disney, Ford Motor Company, Skechers Footwear, U.S. Department of Defense (Telecom Division). He has spoken at Iowa State University, Davidson College, University of Michigan and numerous colleges and universities around the nation on personal branding, social media and career development.

Matthew Kruchko – Managing Director, AppliedStorytelling

Managing Director with Applied Storytelling, a leading independent brand and name firm, with offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Detroit.

With a deep brand development and marketing background, I help clients to make the most of the continually shifting terrain between customers, communications and channels. As Managing Director of Applied Storytelling, my responsibility is driving brand strategies that help
companies organize their thinking and simplify their communications. My experience in developing branding strategies and executions spans Fortune 500 brands as well as noteworthy consumer and B2B brands in many sectors, including biotech, consumer brands, education, energy, entertainment, financial services, industrials, insurance, non-profits, pharmaceuticals, technology and telecommunications.

Expectations

• Each attendee will walk away with a brand brief that they have completed with the framework for their personal and corporate brands.

• Learn best practices on using social media to build brand awareness and market you and your business.

• Discussion (Q + A) and collaboration on brand challenges of attendees.

Rita Benson LeBlanc has been recognized as one of the 10-Most Powerful Women in Sports by Forbes. She is the Owner /EVP of the New Orleans Saints and is the granddaughter of Tom Benson the Principal Owner of the New Orleans Saints. I had the honor of interviewing Rita at the Beyond Sport Conference in Chicago, September 28-30, 2010.

Rita has a great story where she has actually earned her stripes and has been instrumental in growing the team’s accumulated annual revenue to $232 million. She began interning for the Saints and in various league offices while still in high school, and went to work for the Saints after college. In 2003 she took over management of the New Orleans VooDoo, the Arena Football League team also owned by Benson, and was named the indoor league’s top executive

Her story is very inspiring as she was worked her way to the top of the NFL (as a team owner) in a male dominated industry. The Saints have also been an inspiration to the nation, Louisiana, and the Gulf Region during Hurricane Katrina and Rita. The Saints have used their team resources, players and finances to help rebuild the community.

As a side note I would like to mention that Rita was very down to earth during the interview process. If she wasn’t credentialed and on the schedule to speak at the Beyond Sport Conference I would have though she was a regular attendee. I appreciate the fact that she wasn’t lost the common touch with all the success she is having with the New Orleans Saints.

To find out more about the New Orleans Saints website I have included the website address below:

Team Website: http://www.neworleanssaints.com/