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5-Personal Branding Predictions for 2011 by @HajjFlemings

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

I look forward to seeing you dominate in 2011.

Photo Credit: Troy Johnson - Covenant Digital Photography

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Is LinkedIn Holding Back Your Job Search?

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.

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Be 100%: Complete your Profile.

This blog post is about being 100%. The first impression that most people will have about you will come from one of your online profile. Does your profile accurately communicate what you want employers, your community or potential strategic partners to know about you? It is the small that is the new big: completing profiles, correcting spelling errors, etc. that will communicate volumes about your personal brand. How important is it to be 100%? Your social network profile is apart of your digital marketing strategy. It is a strong indicator of your ability to finish and complete assignments. Completing your social network profiles is more about communicating a commitment to being a person of excellence.

Why your Profile Should be 100%

  • Linkedin: 100% Complete Profiles – Recruiters expect Linkedin profiles to be 100% complete. This is one of the key characteristics that recruiters are looking for when identifying potential candidates. You also have a higher probability of coming up in Google searches due to the inclusion of key words that would be used in a complete profile. You should include your companies, education, references, recommendations, and avatars. Remember to link to sites where you have written content recently.
  • Consistency Across all your Social Network URLs – When completing your social network profiles it is important that there is consistency. You should not be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Make sure you have done your due diligences and communicated a consistent message.
  • Branding your Social Networks URLs – Owning your identity on rental digital real estate (Social Network URLs) is important. All social networks give you the ability to customize your URL so own it before someone else does. One of the ways to do this is to identify the availability of social network URLs and Knowem.com is one way to do that. At a glance you can determine if you want to establish a profile in a particular social network.
  • Missed Opportunities – What opportunities will you miss out on because you have incomplete profiles? When someone follows me in Twitter if there is no website address in the profile I personally will not follow the person back. This could eliminate the opportunity for direct communication via DM. First it sends a message that there is something peculiar. Are you hiding something?
  • Recruiters Viewpoint – What does your social network profile say about you if it is incomplete? Maybe that you don’t pay attention to detail? You don’t complete assignments? You are not through? The missing information could be the critical piece of information that the potential employer might need to select you over other potential prospects.
  • Maintain your Profiles – A car runs better when the oil is changed regularly. It is important to have a routine to regularly review your social network profiles. How often is too often? Your personal and professional goals change and so you need to calibrate your profiles to be in sync. You have to identify the right rhythm for yourself at a minimum when there is a significant change that would impact your profile: change of employer, new position, new skill, or degree/certification.

Everything you do or don’t do communicates something about your brand. Don’t allow the perception of your brand to be tainted because you have incomplete social network profiles. Your social network profiles are living documents and should be a real-time snapshot of you and your personal brand.

Everything you do or don’t do communicates something about your brand. Don’t allow the perception of your brand to be tainted because you were not focused enough to have complete social network profiles.

Be 100%.

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Announcement: Brand Camp University adds Adjunct Lecturers: @KellyLux & @Riddick3point0

Today Brand Camp University is excited to announce the addition of two new Adjunct Lecturers (Bloggers): Kelly Lux and Lawrence Riddick. They bring a great deal of knowledge and incite from their career experience and we are very happy that they have decided to share content on BrandCampU.com. They will be posting content that is career, social media, and personal branding related. For more information about Kelly and Lawrence her bio have been included below.

Kelly Lux - School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University as Social Media Manager

I recently joined the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University as Social Media Manager. My duties entail designing strategies for the social media efforts of the Syracuse iSchool and Syracuse University. I manage SM accounts on a variety of platforms and engage with a set of diverse populations, while building community and brand awareness.

We are forging partnerships with a variety of social media companies in order to build and expand Syracuse University’s presence in this space. It is our intention to make SU the leader in social media among our peers.

I lead a team of graduate and undergraduate students on a variety of social media projects designed to enhance the social media experience of prospective and current students, alumni, potential donors, employers, researchers, educators and the community.

At the iSchool I am a member of the iComm Team which is responsible for internal & external print, social and web communications content and design.

Most recently, I worked in Career Services at SU managing the Mentor @ SU program, making connections between students & alumni for networking, using social media, one on one meetings and workshops to deliver career advice, and planning and hosting networking events across the country.

For more information follow Kelly at: @KellyLux

Lawrence Riddick - Principal at Clarity Consulting & Design

Lawrence is a dynamic marketing professional with over 8 years of experience in helping brands and ideas emerge and evolve. He has working experience in marketing, design, project management, publishing, and writing.
Most recently while at Experience Marketing as an Experience Director, Lawrence helped his team execute and activate hundreds of sponsored events on behalf of General Motors. Prior to Experience Marketing he worked as a project manager in the branded content publishing division of Campbell-Ewald Advertising on publications such Corvette Quarterly and OnStar Magazine.
Lawrence started his career with an entrepreneurial effort as owner of an agency, The Riddick Group, that serviced small to mid-size businesses with marketing communication solutions. In addition to creating marketing plans and ad campaigns for clients, he expressed his design and writing abilities, as publisher of a branded publication for the apparel company DAVERSE in Detroit, MI.

He is currently consulting individuals and small organizations at Clarity Consulting and Design on marketing, branding, and content creation in the web 2.0 space.

For more information follow Lawrence at: @Riddick3point0

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How Portable is your Personal Brand?

How portable is your personal brand? You are responsible to manage your career. The portability of your personal brand is going to become more important and more of an asset as the workplace changes and we become more hyper-connected. Let’s first define the meaning of a portable personal brand.

Definition

Portable Personal Brand: It is the ability to take your online personal brand assets with you when you move from company-to-company, change careers, change positions, or transition to being an entrepreneur. Essentially the digital characteristics and assets of your personal brand move wherever you go.

Why is this important? The number of times a person changes careers is about 5-7 from the research that I have done. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t provide data on career changes but on the number of jobs a person holds in his/her lifetime (which is 10.8 jobs from ages 18 to 42.) So it is not a matter of if but when you are going to change careers and/or change companies. It is critical that you keep your personal brand portable.

Tips for Portability of your Personal Brand

  • Personal Branded Social URLs: Always maintain separate personal branded accounts. Your personal social network account URLs should not be tied to the company accounts as the only accounts you have or manage. When you leave a company your accounts should come with you no questions asked, but this can only happen if you own the accounts. In an ideal world you want to bring your pre-existing accounts with you to your place of employment if they are relevant.

  • Own Your Network: If the contacts in your network are housed only in the social network there is an inherent risk if your account gets comprised or the terms of service changes. Your network will become more of an asset in the workplace, not necessarily because of numbers but become of influence. Create your own personal database from your social network contacts, you need to own your contact list. Download and import your contacts into a personal list that you own and manage (Note: If you are tweeting from company accounts legally you don’t own the contact list. Everyone knows there is a difference between contact names and relationships.)
  • Set-up Linkedin Profiles Properly: Set up your Linkedin accounts with your own personal email address (i.e. Gmail account). There have been situations where people have been locked out of their accounts because the account was set-up with a corporate email address.
  • Own Your Hub (Don’t just rent): Every professional should own the online hub of their personal brand (the online destination/dotcom.) Make sure your dot com isn’t linked to your current job (i.e. www.HajjFlemingsNike.com.)

Case Study: Frank Eliason v. Comcast Cares

The new poster child of portable personal branding is Frank Elisaon who most of us have known online as @Comcastcares. Frank recently changed companies and is no longer the Comcast Cares guy, like LeBron he has decided to take his talents elsewhere (Note: There was no TV special and Frank left on good terms with Comcast from what I can tell).

Franks former Twitter handle @ComcastCares is obviously not portable and will be maintained by Comcast. Let’s be clear both Comcast and Frank have mutually benefited from the work that was done. Has Frank lost the total value of his personal brand or the work he has done? Absolutely not! There are something’s he will have to start from scratch on and build awareness of his new portable personal brand. If you look at the web location on his Twitter account it is linked to: www.frankeliason.com. Also you can follow Frank on Twitter at @FrankEliason to date he has about 1,700 followers.

@ComcastCares

@FrankEliason

Benefits

One of the major benefits of having a portable personal brand that it can create a unique opportunity for a portable career. What do I mean by a portable career? Portable careers are job situations that don’t depend on location with flexible work environments that allow you to do your job remotely for the most part. With the development of technology: Skype, WI-FI, and other technologies that allow you to work remotely these types of opportunities are starting to increase. Portable careers will grow in popularity in the future as work changes. The forerunner to this is alternative work arrangements which companies have become more comfortable with as a way to provide a benefit to the company and cut cost when they can’t pay an employee more money.

When is this critical? Portability of your personal brand will come into play the most when you are executing a career change or moving to a new employer.

How Portable is your Personal Brand?

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