I have been singing the praises of Google for years. I have talked about the brilliance of their FREE model. When Chris Anderson’s book, ‘FREE’ came out I purchased the book the first week. Whenever I needed to search for anything on the net I would always go to Google.com. Then the unthinkable happens, all of my videos were deleted from my YouTube account which is owned by Google. (Note: All of my videos were in total compliance with their terms of service.)

In an instant my YouTube account with over 13,000 views was deleted. In my mind Google is a great company so I knew they are going to respond swiftly when I contacted them about this simple mistake they made. I have entered questions into their online forum, emailed questions to YouTube, and called the Google office only to get totally ignored. I can’t begin to explain to you the level of frustration that I felt because I have gotten ZERO response from one of my favorite Brand. Over the years I have put a great deal of trust into ‘FREE’ resources like YouTube. I now understand there is always a tradeoff to ‘FREE’ and one of the main reasons is:

• No Customer Service: Humans don’t typically service other humans that don’t pay.

The Impact to your Personal Brand and Dependence on Google

How dependent is your business on Google? I am really starting to re-think how I build my personal brand with Google and other FREE tools.

Some of the Many Google Services that I use

• YouTube Videos
• Gmail account emails
• Google Docs
• Google Calendars
• Google Checkout

If your account is temporarily or permanently compromised what is the impact to your personal brand/business? I walked away from my FREE experience saying I would rather have a paid service that I could hold someone accountable.

Tips for Managing you Personal Brand with FREE

• Own Your Hub: As a personal brand you need to own the main hub of their online activity. (i.e. www.ChrisBrogan.com)
• Back-up Everything: Anything in FREE services needs to be backed up: videos, documents, important emails, etc.
• Re-Evaluate your Dependence on FREE: Re-Evaluate everything that you have in FREE social networking sites or other FREE services you use.
• Carefully Select Account Managers: If you have a third party managing any of your social network accounts be very careful. Your reputation can be compromised and your account suspended or deleted because of inappropriate activity (anything that violates their Terms of Service)

Blog Post on FREE Services and Frustrations

• When Free Cost a Fortune - Mitch Joel
• When Google Owns You – A New Chapter - Chris Brogan

I write this blog post to get you thinking and planning so that you can be proactive in managing your online personal brand. It is also validates to me that nothing in life is FREE there is always a cost. It is just a matter of who is paying, when they pay and how much. Does this mean to stop using Google or other FREE services like YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter? The answer is no but you have to manage your dependence.

Would you be willing to pay for a services that are currently FREE (i.e. YouTube) for customer service and the ability to hold someone accountable?

(Photo Credit: Google Logo Render by mark knol)

If you haven’t heard of PR Sarah Evans you probably live under a rock, have no Internet access or use a rotary dial phone. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to interview her recently and we discussed the topic of women in social media.

She is the President of Chicago based public relations and new media consultancy Sevans Strategy and runs #journchat. She is an influencer in the new media/pr communities and is a great personal branding case study. She has emerged as a leader in the social space but she isn’t an overnight success she has earned her stripes and put in the time.

I really wanted to share Sarah Evans story to inspire other women who believe they have a message that the world needs to hear. One of the great things that I like about Sarah’s story is that she has turned her passion into a career/profit.

Earlier this year she was featured in Vanity Fair with a list of other influential women in social media, which obviously has tremendously impacted her business. The flip side of this story is that Sarah received some negative feedback from some of her peers about the article since it didn’t appropriately reflect women in tech or show a diverse perspective. After talking with Sarah it showed me her depth as a person as she tackled the situation head on when confronted with those facts and addressed the valid concerns with some of those same peers.

#journchat

Sarah Evans is the originator of Twitter Chats. She launched #journchat in December 2008 which has hosted CNN and will host NBC News later this year

How to Follow Sarah Evans

There are a million ways to follow Sarah online I have listed some of the main ways below.

Twitter: @PRSarahEvans
Blog: www.PRSarahEvans.com
Twitter Chat: #journchat (Monday’s 7:30pm-10:00pm CST)

For Other Influential Women in Social Media

Check out my Twitter List of Influential Women in Social Media:

We are on verge of one of the greatest free agent periods in the history of sports. With NBA stars LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the host of other NBA players who will make decisions on where they will play.

The free agent period starts July 1st with an official signing date of July 8th. Careers, sports franchises and the lives of GMs, team presidents, coaches and their families hang in the balance. A wrong decision could handicap a team for many years to come.

Let’s first start with a quick history lesson on free agency. Do the names Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally ring a bell? Probably not. Well they ushered in modern day free agency in 1975 when they challenged Major League Baseball in arbitration and won.

As personal brands we are all professional business athletes but instead of playing on a field we work in a field. Let’s contrast NBA free agents vs personal branding free agents.

Free Agent Definitions

NBA: There are two types of NBA free agents restricted and unrestricted. For the purpose of this article we will focus on an unrestricted free agent, which is a player who can sign with any team he wants.

Personal Brands: According to Daniel Pink (Author of Free Agent Nation): A free agent is someone who works untethered from a large organization—a free-lancer, a sole proprietor, the operator of a very small business.
Should Daniel Pink’s definition of free agents extend beyond soloprenurs to include intrapreneurs as well who have positioned themselves for new opportunities?

Market Value

As I watch the story of Powered a full-service social media agency unfold it is a great business story on personal branding free agents.

How do you develop a team? In sports, teams can build through the draft getting young players and building around them. In the business world this would be the evaluate of hiring millennial and developing them. The other option is signing free agents or trading (acquiring). Recently Powered has acquired talent through the free agent route acquiring: Crayon (Joseph Jaffe), Step Change, Drill Team, and Conversation Agent (Valarie Maltoni). For more details on this story read Jeremiah Owyang, article, FirstTake: Powered, A Social Marketing Suite, Acquires Crayon and Social Media Agencies

Q: Performance impact in NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Stats and how you perform under pressure
• Personal Brands: Popularity of your blog (Adage 150, page views) and engagement online (Klout Metrics), book sales, and speaking gigs to name a few.

Q: Reputation impact in NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Background checks, family history, off the court history and run ins with the law
• Personal Brands: Online Brand Reputation, valid your activity in social networks, and listen to your data stream in your social networks

Total Compensation

As a personal brand it is a great time to diversify yourself to create greater marketing opportunities. Establishing a personal brand is really about more than just creating a blog and tweeting but being portable and leveraging your personal DNA being who you were designed to be.

Q: Endorsements for NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Shoe deals, product commercials, etc.
• Personal Brands: More and more opportunities for influencers with a strong personal brand presence to experience endorsements with large brands: For example Usage of Ford’s Fiesta Movement Challenge and GM’s Chevy SXSW

Q: Rock Stars NBA vs. Personal Brands

NBA: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki
Personal Brands: Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Charlene Li, Wayne Sutton

Would you rather be an NBA star or a strong personal brand? Goes back to the Michael Jordan v Bill Gates argument. Would you rather be an NBA Free Agent or a Personal Brand Free Agent?

As someone who is reading this blog, I think it is safe to say that you are a forward-thinking individual, who understands the importance of personal branding. It’s a fair guess that most of us, who have established a brand online have started since we have been out of college or have done so because our jobs have called for us to do so. Have you ever thought what it would have been like to start branding yourself online earlier?

Here are what I think are five compelling reasons why I think youth should establish their personal brand online:

1. Domain name
According to a Market Watch article, as of 2009 the Internet has surpassed a total of 193 Million domain names registered. With that stat being said, it is very important for youth to dip into the pool of names left and register the domain that matches their personal name at least. This way they don’t have to cobble together a URL, because nothing that resembles their name is available. Using their name as a URL is important for branding on a resume or for SEO (search engine optimization), which we will get into later.

2. Content Creation
Teaching your kids while they are young on how to create content on the web could advance them light years. The story from the proverbial book of “The Internet” is telling us that content consumption is moving from the TV to the Internet. Although the jury is out on whether content will completely move to the Internet, it appears that this is the trend. Knowing how to maneuver and establish themselves online could be the difference in whether your kids land career opportunities in the future. Obviously the content that a young person would create would ideally be targeted to their respective age group. The goal is not to teach them how create a huge audience, but to teach young people how to create relevant content to the audience they would want to focus on. Whether their audience is their friends from school or as small as their family, the experience they would gain would be very beneficial.

3. Good SEO out the gate
Google has made SEO (search engine optimization) a very important term on the Internet. Having a presence online early would allow search engines like Google, who crawl the Internet to find everything that exists, to populate the content that your child creates in its search engine results. Having an early start could be the difference between a young person with a common name like John Smith, having optimal search engine results online. Although you would have to maintain fresh content for these results to remain, a good linking structure on the website or blog would allow for decent results over a long period of time. To learn more about SEO, this article at searchengineland.com is a good start.

4. Seasoned Virtual Appearance
You may have aspirations for your child to become a million-dollar entrepreneur, however even if they become a worker-bee at a large organization, having tenure online can help. With a track record of providing content online, when the young person becomes an adult, people can see a past history of their contribution to a subject matter. Seeing an evolution in a young person can also show their potential, which is very important for employers.

5. Education Value
Creating a personal brand online through contributing content, allows a young person to prove that they can commit to something other than school. It could expand on their experiences whether social or educational. Additionally, when kids go off to college knowing how to create content online, they will have the edge of being able to express themselves via the Internet and will also have had the opportunity to establish a social network that could be valuable to them later on. Most importantly, they will have knowledge on how to use tools for content creation. Tools such as WordPress and Blogger for blog platforms, as well as social media tools like Twitter and Facebook that help them connect with other people and content creators online.

The Internet can be a scary place to let kids run wild and until they are mature enough to handle the responsibility, they may need a personal shepherd. If you are shepherding them along as they embark on this experience, you can curate their interaction and places they visit.

I feel whatever negatives exist for the personal branding of young people; the positives far outweigh any negatives that could pop up. A professor that I learned a great deal from, the late Professor Dr. Dale Haywood (creator of The Economics of Private Enterprise in a 12-cell Matrix) taught every student that they should create a Self-Designed Supplemental Curriculum (SDSC) and reach beyond our educational requirements. By encouraging young people to establish a presence online, it allows them to start training on how they want to present themselves to the world professionally, recreationally, or through creative contribution to the world. Personal Branding? For Kids? Yes.

Lawrence Riddick is a small business consultant and marketer at Clarity Consulting & Design and blogger at The Ideas That Stick.

Twitter is a great tool and provides many ways to impact, manage and build equity for your personal brand. In this blog post we will look at 36-tips for personal branding on Twitter.

1. Make your Blog Social – Integrate a Twitter widget into your blog to give it wings. (Example: @careerrocketeer)

2. Custom Background Image – Integrate a visual image in the background that reinforces your personal brand and connects with your blog. (Example: @ChrisBrogan)

3. Polish your Avatar – Integrate a professional looking avatar that is consist across all your social networks that visually looks like you so that people can associate with you.

4. Strategic Social URLs – Choose your Twitter handle wisely. Choose a name that you are strategically planning to build brand equity with.

5. Be a Trust Builder – Twitter is more than a channel where you build a large number of followers. You are really building trust with the people who follow you.

6. Character 2.0 – Your tweets are a character stream that people can validate.

7. Think before you Tweet - All tweets are now archived forever by Library of Congress (LOC), all tweets from March 2006 going forward. http://bit.ly/dq5Wws

8. Profile Bio - Your Twitter profile should identify who and what you are (Example: @KellyLux)

9. Re-Tweetable Bio - Create a bio that is re-tweetable with 120 characters.

10. Create Touch Points – Each tweet is a potential touch point with a potential employer, business partner, customer or strategic partner so handle them with care.

11. Integrate into your web 1.0 Content - Integrate into your business cards other marketing literature.

12. Own Mindshare - Own Digital Real Estate: tweets, @replies and mentions allow you to position yourself in the mind of your target audience.

13. ROI (Return on Identity) - Over time you are creating return on identity so make sure you are re-enforcing the identity you desire.

14. Become a Sound Bite King - Tweeting forces you to think in little commercials (or sound bites)

15. Own a hashtag - A hashtag is a community of people. Owning the hashtag is a commitment to purposeful content on a selected topic. (For example: #journchat is the hashtag for the Twitter Chat founded by @PRSarahEvans which is an ongoing conversation between journalists, bloggers and PR folks.)

16. Be Focused – The focus or goals of Twitter account must be determined. Are you a personal or branded account (For example: @HajjFlemings vs. @BrandCampU .)

17. Biz Development/Lead Generator – Think about how you can create monteizable biz opportunities.

18. Searchable/Query – Query content and keywords that are relevant to your niche it will foster greater interaction with people in the space you are focused on.

19. Broadcast your Blog Post – Great way to syndicate your blog post to your community (Example: @problogger)

20. Blog Post Titles - It forces you to think about tweetable blog post titles. Integrating Twitter handles and titles that people will want to share. (Example: @thisissethsblog)

21. Master 120 – If your tweets are longer than 120 characters you are grounded your tweets and eliminating the more value aspect of tweeting the re-tweet.

22. Twitter List Barometer – Use it as a barometer of how your network views you. If you want your network to view you as a PR Specialist but you are only on underwater basket weaving list then you need to re-evaluate the content you tweet.

23. Attend Tweet-up – As you began to attend tweet-up it is your badge and your ID that is used to communicate. Connect with likeminded people.

24. Track Content – Use Bit.ly or Hootsuite to track to identify quality metric data.

25. Set-up Groups/List to Focus on Content from specific users.

26. Meet People in New Markets – When I travel I use Twitter as a tool to meet users/influencers in new markets using tools like WeFollow.com

27. Pay attention - Listening is critical respond to your @replies and mentions build reputation as being attentive and responsive.

28. Become a Case Study - Melinda Emerson (@smallbizlady) – She developed a strategy 20-months prior to being on Twitter. The end result is that she has used Twitter to develop a platform for people to connect with her on her book ‘Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months’. She realized that 60% of people who buy books buy it from someone they have had contact with.

29. Become Geo Loc Enabled – Geo location apps like Foursquare and Gowalla are great at events like SXSW it helps you to connect with people that you want to network with.

30. Crowdsourcing – Your network is a diverse, geographically disperse community and is a prime target to crowdsource ideas to get quality recommendations and leads.

31. Mobilize – The use of smartphone third party apps allow you to be responsive and connect in real-time on opportunities you don’t the time to get in front of a desktop computer for.

32. Online/Offline – Focus on turning your online Twitter friends into offline interaction.

33. Don’t Argue – Don’t try to prove to someone you are smarter than them by arguing back and forth in a stream of tweets to prove your mental superiority. This will not add value to your brand. (This was birthed out of a tweet exchange between @claudinerenee and myself about Butler University. She responded to one of my tweets in which she had more information than me so we continued our conversation offline. I wanted to understand her position without filling my Twitter stream with our discussion. I walked away more informed.)

34. Online Reputation Management – Use Google alerts, Keyword searches and third party apps to manage and monitor your Twitter reputation.

35. Account Managers – Be careful who manages your account. Giving a third party access to your account could cause your account to be suspended, lose your account name or to destroy our reputation by tweeting something that is beyond repair.

36. Tom Peters & Seth Godin Rule - It is not about the numbers. As of 06/30/10 together Seth and Tom have 17,303 followers (Seth Godin-5 & Tom Peters-17,298) but they have more influence, a higher quality of life and they make more than most people with over 100,000 followers.

The Michigan Tech – Tech MBA Online #mbachat has been moved to Thursday’s from 8pm-9pm EST.

The MBA Chat (#mbachat) is a 1-hour discussion on Twitter where anyone can participate in our open source conversation. The Twitter Chat on Thursday, May June 24^th 8:00pm-9:00pm EST will include Ryan Rancatore (@RyanRancatore) and Hajj E. Flemings (@HajjFlemings) who will answer questions.

Topic: Personal Branding vs. Career Branding

Noted web strategist Jeremiah Owyang recently posted this article debating the merits of “personal branding” and “career branding”. Understandably, Owyang is a proponent of building a career brand, as he has utilized this method for more than a decade. Let’s explore the differences between personal branding and career branding, and determine which path is right for you.

Show Bios

Ryan Rancatore – www.PersonalBranding101.com

Ryan is the advertising creative coordinator for a Fortune 500 financial services firm on the West Coast. His experience building the brand of a globally respected firm helps provide a unique perspective on the world of personal branding. Read more from Ryan at Personal Branding 101 .

Ryan’s role as advertising coordinator for a major financial services firm allows me the opportunity to work on both media plans and ad production – the science and the art of advertising, respectively.

His real passion is in the creative development of ads. I’ve helped develop television spots, print and online creative, social media strategy, and more.

Hajj E. Flemings – www.BrandCampU.com

Hajj is the founder of Brand Camp University and author of “The Brand YU Life: Re-thinking Who You Are Through Personal Brand Management.” He has been featured on ESPN.com, BusinessWeek.com, BlackEnterprise.com and travels nationally speaking as a branding expert enabling personal and business brands to remain relevant. His branded clients include Walt Disney, NFL athletes, Ford Motor Company, Skechers Footwear, U.S. Department of Defense (Telecom Division) and numerous colleges and universities to name a few. His book was selected as one of Fast Company Magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Books of the year.

How to Follow and Participate:

To participate you can use http://search.twitter.com or http://tweetgrid.com/. Watch for tweets with the hashtag #mbachat and follow the conversation on the @TechMBAOnline Twitter account.

This chat is sponsored by Michigan Tech MBA Online program: www.mbaonline.mtu.edu.

Let’s explore the differences between personal branding and career branding, and determine which path is right for you.

The #mbachat is a 1-hour discussion on Twitter where anyone can participate in our open source conversation. This Twitter Chat is on Monday, June 7^th 7:30pm-8:30pm EST with host Hajj E. Flemings and the topic is “How do I Become a Subject Matter Expert?”

How to Follow and Participate:

To participate you can use http://search.twitter.com or http://tweetgrid.com/. Watch for tweets with the hashtag #mbachat and follow the conversation on the @TechMBAOnline Twitter account.

This chat is sponsored by Michigan Tech MBA Online program: www.mbaonline.mtu.edu.

There is a lot of advice and information out there on branding yourself for the job search; however, personal branding isn’t just a one-time activity. Personal branding is an ongoing process that can not only help you advance your career once you get an opportunity, but also help you to keep your job in tough economic times.

Here are 7 tips on how personal branding can help you increase your job security at work:

Demonstrate to your boss that you get it. Make it known that you know what needs to get done and are doing it and a lot more. Today job security is about company security. Any employer feeling on the financial ropes looks for ways to lighten the load. All too often, that means reductions in force, or simply put, layoffs. The people aren’t casualties are those who bring real value to the enterprise. Smart employees brand themselves by making it clear to the leadership that they understand the harsh realities of business and aren’t afraid. They demonstrate that by identifying problems and fixing them, by seeing opportunities and seizing them, and by being a strong voice that motivates positive action. If you’re a whiner and naysayer, you’re toast! If you’re a “I’m with you no matter what,” can-doer, you’re golden. - Dawn Lennon, ConsultBigPicture.com

Be mindful of who you need to be influencing. In many cases, it may not be just your immediate boss or even people in the same office or country. Be very clear about who makes the decisions about your role and department and that they are aware of the contribution you are making. - Paul Copcutt, SquarePegSolution.com

Find an internal champion who can speak knowledgeably about your contributions. A mentor is the best person to serve in this capacity. If you have a mentor who is well placed in the organization, this person is in an excellent position to speak up for you. Very often employees are let go because upper management does not know that they are very valuable. Having an internal champion to speak for you can go a long way in terms of persuading management that you are too valuable to lose. Some organizations have formal mentoring programs in place. If your organization does have such a program, make sure that you take advantage of it. If they don’t look around to see who might fill this role for you. - Cheryl Palmer, CallToCareer.com

Go the extra mile in your role. While you’re building your external brand, you also need to build your brand within your company. If everyone knows you, and knows that you add value to your team through contributions, industry knowledge and industry research, you’ll become more difficult to get rid of. - Erik Vermeulen, ErikVermeulen.com

Go above and beyond your role by getting involved. The more involved and active you can become in the company, the more entrenched and indispensable you become. This could be joining a cross-functional committee, writing for the company blog, sharing/contributing ideas, expertise or opportunities to other functions and teams within the organization, offering to start, lead or coordinate company-wide initiatives and more. This will showcase your value and talents, but also your loyalty and commitment to the company’s long-term success. And who wouldn’t want someone with those assets on the team? - Chris Perry, CareerRocketeer.com

Become the Subject Matter Expert (SME) in your area of expertise! When you are the SME for your area, it is very difficult for a company to let you go unless you are an extremely difficult person to work with, or the company completely changes direction whereby eliminating your functional expertise. However, in addition to becoming a SME in just your area, having a strong foundation of understanding about the overall business of your company and picking your spots strategically for where you add sound judgment and advice in a respectful, thoughtful and positive manner, could also help you stave off being let go involuntarily. - David Kimmelman, GetTheJob.com

Cross-train so that you can backfill a position, if necessary. In an era of cutbacks, you make yourself more valuable if you are flexible and can do more than one job. If your company does not formally cross train its employees, volunteer to be cross trained. - Cheryl Palmer, CallToCareer.com

Special thanks to everyone who contributed to this wealth of personal branding insight!

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.

One of the biggest challenges in life is not starting but finishing. Anybody can start something but to the finisher goes all the spoils. What if Fred Smith founder of FedEx stopped with his term paper at Yale, when his professor told him overnight shipping would never work? Fred is a finisher and the impact of his start is still being felt today.

History chronicles those that finish. We rarely talk about the runner-up, second place, or the 500-page book manuscript that you wrote but never published. Personal branding is captured in one word is finishing. One of the people that I have a great deal of respect for is Seth Godin who has talked about this topic at length and has packaged it as shipping.

Reasons Why we Like Starting Stuff

• Big Bodacious Teams: At the start of a project, leaders and teams are galvanized and inspired to change the world.
• The Shiny Objective Syndrome: People love working and focusing on new task, projects, and the flavor of the day. Even entrepreneurs believe that they can do the impossible.
• Excitement – Launching an idea is typically very energizing.
• Drinking Bathwater – People who would drink your bath water because they think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread gassing your head up.

What is the value of finishing?

• Building Mindshare: Mindshare is owning a slice of mental real estate in the mind of your target audience. Building a strong personal brand is established over time by finishing projects that are consistent with your personal brand objectives.
• Creating a culture of execution: You begin to approach projects, ideas, and businesses with the mindset of starting things that you are intentionally planning on finishing. Your life becomes a series of completed projects or ideas that slowly build or speak your consistency. People began to identify you as a person that executes.

• Conversion: Finishing is about converting objectives into strategies. To complete anything that is significant you have to create small victories on the road of completion. Finishing forces you to strategically approach your work in a way that will result in measurable objectives you complete.

Tips for Finishing

• Set measurable goals and objectives.
• Validate the objectives align with your personal mission and purpose. The end result should add value to your personal brand.
• Shorten your list: You are not creating a list to sound or look important.

What Finishing Means to your Personal Brand

Finishing is not about being a rocket scientist or throwing junk together but about establishing clear objectives and aligning strategies to make those objectives a reality. Personal Branding taken a step further is about completing projects that are mission and purpose driven and align with your passion, the way you are wired and your personal brand DNA. The end results is attaching your name and your legacy to finished projects, ideas, or products that aligns, builds, and strengthens your personal brand.

The #mbachat is a 1-hour discussion on Twitter where anyone can participate in our open source conversation. The Twitter Chat is on Monday, May 31^st 7:30pm-8:30pm EST we will have three serial entrepreneurs: Melinda Emerson (@SmallBizLady), Matt Wilson (@MattWilsonTV), and Cindy W. Morrison (@CindyWMorrison), and host Hajj E. Flemings who will answer questions that relate to Entrepreneurship.

Come and pick the brains of these practitioners who are living the entrepreneurship lifestyle and not just talking about it in theory.

How to Follow and Participate:

To participate you can use http://search.twitter.com or http://tweetgrid.com/. Watch for tweets with the hashtag #mbachat and follow the conversation on the @TechMBAOnline Twitter account.

This chat is sponsored by Michigan Tech MBA Online program: www.mbaonline.mtu.edu.

#mbachat Guest

Melinda Emerson – Author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 months/Host of #Smallbizchat

Melinda Emerson “Smallbizlady” is a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach. Her areas of expertise include small business start-up, business development and social media strategy. Melinda hosts #Smallbizchat, a weekly talk show on Twitter. #Smallbizchat is the trusted resource on Twitter to discuss everything entrepreneurs need to know about launching and running a profitable small business. Melinda has been featured on NBC Nightly News and in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report and Black Enterprise. Melinda publishes a resource blog www.succeedasyourownboss.com and has several special reports including 44 Things To Do Before You Go Into Business and The 12 Cardinal Sins of Small Business—and How to Avoid Them! Melinda’s first book Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to Start a Business that Works!” was released in March 2010 by Adams Media. For more information, please visit www.melindaemerson.com

Matt Wilson, Co-founder of Under30CEO.com

Matt Wilson is co-founder of Under30CEO.com a website dedicated to giving young entrepreneurs the tools and resources they need to succeed. After using social media to create huge buzz online around the brand, landing Under30CEO on MSNBC and BusinessWeek, he began helping others build their brands online through his own digital marketing agency. Wilson’s passion for entrepreneurship began at Bryant University after where he led the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization to becoming the world’s #1 entrepreneurship organization and earned personal accolades as National Student Leader of the Year. His personal mission is to inspire young people to use technology to create opportunity and become leaders.

If Matt is around he will be easy to spot as his long luxurious hair is generally flowing freely in the breeze.

Cindy W. Morrison – Author of Girlfriend 2.0/Emmy Award-Winning TV Broadcaster

Emmy award winning TV Broadcaster Cindy W Morrison successfully reinvented herself after the economy lead to corporate downsizing. Leaving a 20 year news career behind, Cindy wrote a book, hit the speaking circuit and created her own consulting business. She now teaches people how to reboot, upgrade and reinvent through networking, social media and branding so they can make more money and live a better life.

Cindy’s new book “Girlfriends 2.0″ is already a cult favorite and she hosts a popular show by the same name for The WIN Online (Women’s Information Network). Plus, Cindy does a weekly radio show with the founder of the Diva Toolbox based on the Girlfriends 2.0 concept. The idea is to empower women to reboot and upgrade their Girlfriend Network so they can not only survive but thrive our changing times

Cindy also speaks across the country about “Reinvention 2.0″ and how anyone can network strategically to be more successful. In fact, Cindy is the media contributor to Startup Princess which has been named one of the top women’s websites by Forbes and Entrepreneur. As a consultant, Cindy’s clients range from TV stations to major universities to heavy hitting corporations. Cindy helps companies and individuals use social media to create brand loyalty and get the kind of media coverage that money can’t buy.

Right, you’ve done the hard bit and defined your personal brand and created a toolkit. Now what?

Chances are you set out to create your brand in order to attract more business or interest from employers, peers and investors. Let’s reach out to these target groups and bring your brand to market. You will have to be where your customers are and the goal will be to be perceived as better than the competition.

Here are a few steps you can take:

1. 1. Be the expert

Everyone wants to work with or buy from the expert in their field. This means the expert can pick and choose who to work with and they can set their own price. Becoming the expert is a long-term process but it starts with you making sure to know more than others. You should read blogs, books and periodicals, listen and discuss with industry leaders and fully immerse yourself in your subject matter. In addition to that, always strive to develop new ideas so that you are able to deliver eye-opening concepts to your audience. Look at Seth Godin, this man’s ideas are usually ahead of their time and I would venture to say that he reads and listens more than most of his peers. (Note: Being an expert is not a title that you anoint yourself with but is confirmed by the community you serve.)

2. Share your expertise

This is all about believing in the law of reciprocity and trusting that your hard work will come back to you. Although the obvious way of doing this is by blogging, there are lots of other ways you can offer free information, advice or coaching. The point here is that you want to be seen as a person that happily shares great advice with others and this will attract a need for your services as an up-sell. A great example of this would be Chris Brogan, who churns out quality content every day that ensures he stay at the top of his game. His up-sell are consulting services to major blue-chip companies, I suspect you wouldn’t mind being in his shoes.

3. Be well-connected

With the power social media it’s easier than ever to get to know people. Make sure you are active on Twitter www.twitter.com as this is where you can get a feel for what is going on in your industry. Using a combination of offline www.meetup.com and online networking tends to be very effective. Get to know the ‘big cheeses’ in your industry, it really not that hard – they are just regular people that have more experience than you. See your peers as colleagues and not competition, there is plenty of work to go around. Make sure you connect your contacts with other contacts, as they will do the same for you.

4. Work all angles

Avoid becoming a one-trick pony and risk boring people to bits. Mix things up a bit by writing and speaking about your hobbies, about your family and generally injecting a bit of personality in your brand. Don’t just be in ‘work mode’ when you are working and don’t just be in ‘chill-mode’ when you are not. Some of the most lucrative business partnerships ever have been formed outside of the professional arena, when it’s actually a great deal easier to fly in under the radar and create solid contacts.

5. Stay in business mode

The downside to promoting your personal brand is that you can easily get carried away. Taking on too many speaking opportunities, attending too many networking events or blogging too much are all symptoms of this. Your first focus has to be on sales and you have to stay profitable no matter what phase your branding exercise is in. Remember that success breeds success and you will only achieve monetary success by keeping your eye on the business first of all. Richard Branson has one of the greatest brands ever but the no. 1 factor that brought him there is his strong business acumen.

Bottom line

That’s the smoking hot tips for you today; these tips have worked well for others and will work for you. Just bear in mind that whatever you do has to stay authentic and above all consistent with your brand. If there is any discrepancy or discord in people’s minds, you risk doing more harm than good to your personal brand.

Jorgen Sundberg is a London based personal branding consultant with a passion for social media and blogging. He blogs at JorgenSundberg.net http://jorgensundberg.net and his company site is Personal Branding UK http://personalbrandinguk.com. You can connect with him on Twitter @jorgensundberg

The live video footage of Hajj E. Flemings speaking at Ignite Detroit on April 5, 2010.

The Re-Education of the Disposable Worker Speech Discription

We live in the era of the Disposable Worker (DW). How does Detroit/America re-educate it’s human resources to prepare workers for the new economy. This presentation will focus on re-branding, re-thinking, re-inventing and re-educating DWs into thinking about themselves as the new factory.

This blog post is about the story of seven rock star recruiters and career pros who tell their story about finding their passion and working in the recruiting and career services industry.

What prepares you to work as a recruiter or in career services? Is there a certain educational path? Are there strategically aligned companies to work for that will put you on the fast track?

The Story of Seven Rock Star Recruiters and Career Pros

• Jennifer McClure – Started in Human Resources
• Kelly Lux – Started as an Executive Assistant
• Tammy Turner – Started as a Public Accountant
• David Benjamin – Started as a Social Worker
• Kim Benjamin - Works with the Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Program
• Molly Sly – Started in the Tourism Industry
• Kristi Daeda - Start as a Computer Programmer

Our list of recruiters have started College & Career Chats (#cchat), work with prisoners to get them prepared for the job market, and been ranked as the tops in their field to name a few of their accomplishments.

Jennifer McClure
President of Unbridled Talent
Twitter: @CincyRecruiter
Website: http://www.cincyrecruiter.com

Jennifer McClure is President of Unbridled Talent, LLC a Cincinnati based consulting firm providing services to clients in the areas of attracting, recruiting, developing & retaining key talent in their organizations.

She is passionate about helping businesses to improve their people strategies through consulting and training opportunities and she’s also a popular speaker who is regularly engaged to present at conferences, associations and to HR, Recruiting and leadership teams at a variety of organizations, including Fortune 100 clients.

Prior to beginning her Consulting career, Jennifer led the life of a full-time Human Resources Pro with leadership and executive-level experience in privately held and Fortune 500 companies and also worked as an Executive Recruiter and Executive Coach partnering with C-level leaders to find, recruit and develop key leadership talent. An active participant and user of a variety of social networks and social media, Jennifer has been named a Top 10 Employment Blogger to Follow by Monster.com, one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Recruiters and has been ranked as one of the Top 25 HR Pro’s to Follow on Twitter. She writes frequently about a variety of talent management topics on her personal blog www.cincyrecruiter.com and the industry leading blog www.fistfuloftalent.com.

Kelly Lux
Career Development and Relationship Management Professional at Syracuse University
Twitter: @KellyLux
Website: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kellylux

One of the things that led me to the career field as a profession is the fact that I have always been conflicted about exactly what it was I wanted to do. I believe it is the rare individual who knows what they want to do and never wavers from that course. That has not been my experience.

I will admit that in my younger years I was not very career-oriented and was just looking for a way to pay the bills. With a bachelor’s degree in psychology, I worked as an executive assistant for several years and in various places before ending up at Anheuser-Busch in 1997. In my role as Assistant to the Plant Manager I was given much more freedom to be creative, to lead teams and to develop all kinds of skills that would serve me well in the next phase of my career. However, there wasn’t much room for advancement in this position, so I ended up leaving to pursue a Masters in Education. To make a long story short, I never ended up securing a full-time teaching position and had to go for plan B, which led me to a job at Syracuse University. Initially, I had to swallow my pride and go back to an administrative assistant role, Masters degree notwithstanding. However, within a year of being hired at Syracuse, the position I currently hold opened up. While I had no experience in Career Services or working with alumni populations, I was able to sell my transferable skills, education and passion for the job. While employed at Syracuse University I have continued my education and taken classes in higher education administration, career counseling and, most recently, social media. Two years later, I have greatly expanded my knowledge in the area of career, become a certified career coach, delved into social media with great enthusiasm, and learned that I have a gift for managing relationships and finding creative ways of communicating with people from all walks of life. This is what I was meant to do.

Tammy Turner
President of Kapstone Recruiting and Training Services
Twitter: @TammyTurn
Website: www.Kapstonejobs.com

Tammy Turner is an entrepreneur, author, professional speaker, consultant and career coach. Tammy started her career at Plante Moran, LLP in the tax department, later moving on to Deloitte & Touche, in Enterprise Risk Services, and then to Arthur Andersen in International Payroll and Global Human Resources. After more than 6 years in Public Accounting, Tammy realized that her true passion was in Human Resources, and more specifically in Recruiting. In 2003, she became a recruiter for Robert Half Finance & Accounting, specializing in the permanent placement of Finance and Accounting professionals. In 2004 Tammy had an opportunity to travel overseas and work as a Recruiting Consultant for UNICEF and HR, Inc. Cambodia. Tammy spent nearly 3 years in Cambodia working as a consultant and ultimately started her own recruiting business International Employment Solutions (IES), in 2006.

In February 2007 Tammy returned to the United States and launched a second recruiting business Kapstone Recruiting & Training Services, LLC and in 2009 she purchased a franchise exclusive to Food Service & Hospitality (Food Team). Tammy has aspirations to grow her business globally and open a Kapstone Recruiting office in Singapore in 2012.

David Benjamin
Principle of Dave E. Benjamin Consulting, LLC.
Twitter: @DaveBenjamin
Website: www.davidebenjamin.com/

Graduated college, became a social worker for 3 months. Got tired of restraining adolescent girls all day, became a financial advisor for almost a decade. Successful career, got into management enjoyed it but got burnt out. Transitioned into recruiting industry, first staffing nurses at hospitals, nursing homes, and correctional facilities. Moved to Direct Hire - placed accounting/finance professionals and other miscellanous positions. Left corporate workforce in 2005, joined The Sales Matrix (Sales Consulting Firm) as a consultant and Recruiting Mng, placing sales professionals with clients. Still with TSM, started own consulting firm in Jan 2010 (David E Benjamin Consulting LLC), primarily helping clients with everything digital/social media. Enjoy speaking for Universities, Corporations, Associations, Etc. on a variety of topics: Social Media related & job seekers. Getting ready to launch SalesBasix (Sales and Marketing E-Learning Co) with 6 other guys.

Kim Benjamin
Founder of A Purposed Transition
Website: www.HRStrategiesPlus.com

Kimberly’s has over 19 years of human resource experience working for Fortune 500 Companies such as General Motors, Ford Motor Company, ITT Industries, Cornerstone Schools and the Michigan Primary Care Association. She also teaches job readiness, human resource management and entrepreneurship classes at local universities, community colleges, churches and correctional facilities. Kimberly enjoys teaching entrepreneurship classes at the State of Michigan Mound Correctional Facility in Detroit, Michigan. She has taught three classes at the correctional facility over the past 2 years and plans to continue to teach more classes in the future. Her students eagerly call her “Professor Benjamin” and enjoys receiving first-hand knowledge on how to identify their preferred skill sets, understand how to start a business, write a business plan and pitch their business idea to potential investors.

Molly Sly
President of Hire Logic LLC.
Twitter: @MollySly
Website: www.HireLogicLLC.com

I never thought I could sit behind a desk. This would explain why I graduated from Michigan State with a degree in Park, Recreation and Tourism Management. I emphasis the Management because otherwise it’s a fairly embarrassing degree, especially because I have been sitting behind a desk for years! I will say that my first job upon graduation was tied to my major. I was in marketing for the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau. While I was starting out there, I had a friend in California that kept telling me I should work for his company because I have the right personality to recruit. I didn’t know what recruiting was so I declined. However, about a year later his company was opening up a Chicago office and Chicago seemed like a great idea. This move to Chicago and this move into recruiting was definitely the best thing I could have done for myself. My first job was for a large consulting company hiring CAD engineers. Since then I moved into IT recruiting, then corporate recruiting, then field recruiting, then an independent gig followed by another corporate recruiting position at a large advertising agency. The advertising job really did change my life and opened up doors I didn’t know existed. It was so refreshing to recruit for really interesting and exciting jobs (creative positions, digital strategy, experience planning, social media, etc.). The timing of it all perfectly coincided with the changes in the web. I become immersed in LinkedIn, Boolean searches on Google, tweeting and friending like it was my job. That’s because it was, and is, my job. I’m now working at Hire Logic, LLC which is an independent contingency based recruiting firm that is comprised of me, just me. I specialize in all things digital. I love making connections with people through the web and then meeting them in person and in a perfect world, finding them an awesome new opportunity or an awesome new employee. Some of the biggest risks I’ve taken in my career have absolutely been the most rewarding and I’m always excited to see what is coming next.

Kristi Daeda
President of Successitechs
Twitter: @Kristid
Website: Successitechs.com/articles?

I was a computer programmer, a marketing copywriter, and an HR leader and recruiter before a layoff helped me discover where my greatest value lies-creating foolproof success plans for others. Now, I help career-minded professionals define and confidently market their value so they can find their ideal job sooner. Plus, my tech background keeps me in touch with the specific needs of my core client base — IT professionals. It’s great that what seemed at the time to be twists and turns in my career have equipped me to make sure that my clients don’t have to go through that uncertainty.

The end of the story confirms that there are no silver bullets in any industry even as a recruiter or career pro but, that passionate, committed, competent people will always find their way.

Photo Credit: wanted, originally uploaded by babblingdweeb.

Here are 5 specific web locations that allow you to directly answer questions - showcasing your expertise in the process.