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The Power of Social Media: The Ted Williams Story

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….

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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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Can Personal Branding be Defined by Numbers?

Can a personal brand be defined by numbers? Let’s talk about it. To set the tone for this blog post let’s talk numbers anything that you want to grow you need to measure. As a personal brand what are the numbers that you should be focused on?

I decided to compile a list of some of the top personal brands and people that I highly respect in terms of their passion and business acumen. Here are some of their numbers:

Facebook Friends/Fans

  • Joseph Jaffe – Founder of Crayon which was recently acquired by Powered and author of ‘Flip the Funnel. (3,252)
  • Rohit Bhargava – SVP Senior VP, Strategy & Marketing / Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence/Author of ‘Personality Not Included’ (2,300)
  • Gary Vaynerchuk – Author of ‘Crush It’ and Founder of ‘WineLibrary.TV’ – 46,723 – Rock Star Numbers
  • Lady Gaga – Musician (10,959,266) – Rock Star Numbers

Blog Comments

  • Seth Godin (www.SethGodin.com) - Author of ‘Linchpin’ and over dozen best selling books and runs the most read Marketing blog on the planet. There are no comments because Seth doesn’t allow you to leave any. (0)
  • Sarah Evans (www.PRSarahEvans.com) - She is the President of Chicago based public relations and new media consultancy Sevans Strategy and runs #journchat. (23 - Average number of comments per blog post in 2010)
  • Darren Rowse (www.ProBlogger.net) - Founder of ProBlogger.net and co-author of ‘Pro Blogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income’ ) – Rock Star Numbers

Twitter followers

  • Kevin Carroll (www.kevincarrollkatalyst.com) - Author of ‘Little Red Ball’ talks about the concept of play and is a internationally sought after speaker. (1,841)
  • Noah Brier (www.NoahBrier.com) - Works for the The Barbarian Group and created Brand Tags and was on one of Fast Company’s 2009 100 Most Creative People (3,964)
  • Tony Hsiesh (www.Zappos.com) - CEO of Zappos and Author of ‘Delivering Happiness’ (1,704,249) – Rock Star Numbers

Blog Post

  • Evan Williams – Founder of Twitter. Over the last year has three blog post to EVHead.com (3)
  • Guy Kawasaki – Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, Author of ‘Reality Check’ and 8-other books.
  • Majora Carter – From 2001 to 2008 she was Executive Director of the non-profit she founded: Sustainable South Bronx – where she pioneered green-collar job training and placement systems in one of the most environmentally and economically challenged parts of the US. This MacArthur “genius” is now president of her own economic consulting firm, a co-host on Sundance Channel’s The Green, and host of a new special public radio series called, The Promised Land. Spoke at TED. (10)
  • Emily Pilloton – Founder of Project H Design/Author of a Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People. Spoke at Pop Tech. Doesn’t have a blog. (0)
  • Chris Brogan – Founder of New Marketing Labs/Author of ‘Trust Agents’ (Blogs Like everyday) – Rock Star Numbers

Videos Uploaded in YouTube

  • Mitch Joel – Author of ‘Six Pixels of Separation’/Founder of Twist Image. Number of videos uploaded in YouTube (into the Twist Image & Mitch Joel Accounts). Runs an extremely popular audio podcast that you can subscribe to on iTunes. (6)
  • Chris Pirillo - Chris has been participating in Internet conversations since 1992, having launched Lockergnome as a content publishing network and building Gnomedex to be one of the blogosphere’s highly regarded conferences. (2,880) – Rock Star Numbers

E-Commerce Sites

  • Tom Peters - There are no financial transactions made on his site. Clicks Required to Make a Financial Transaction: (0)
  • Mark Victor Hansen - Author of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’) – Rock Star Numbers

If you listen to the tips of all the ‘EXPERTS’ they will tell you that you need to: blog everyday (or regularly), you should do video, you should write a book, you should have an insane number of Twitter followers, you need 10’s of thousands of Facebook friends/fans and you should have an e-commerce site that you can make a financial transaction within three clicks.

Maybe I am looking at this issue beyond the numbers because I only have 5,300 Twitter followers and 3,280 Facebook friends. Maybe my opinion is jaded because I don’t have the big numbers, but my point is find the numbers that matter to your personal brand versus chasing others. My blog post is not about the numerical silver bullet for personal branding but that looking purely at numbers will not always accurately tell the story or the strength of the personal brand.

Let me know what numbers impact your personal brand?

(Note: The data for this blog post was as of 07/05/10)

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Tony Hsieh – @Zappos CEO, “Delivering Happiness Book Release”

The poster child of corporate culture and the usage of technology to connect with customers is Zappos. Zappos is ran by one of the smartest, most relevant CEOs on the planet Tony Hsieh. What does Tony do? Does he build brands, create corporate culture, deliver happiness or all three? I had the opportunity to hangout with Tony Hsieh and the Zappos Team in March 2010 in Austin, TX on the Happiness Bus at SXSW. I experienced the Zappos corporate culture for a few hours and I will validate he is doing all three.

I am an avid reader and I am excited to share with you the latest book that I am reading, “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh. Tony is a proven leader who is living what he is teaching. He has developed two companies LinkExchange which was sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1995 and Zappos.com which was sold to Amazon.com for $1.2B in 2009.

Be a part of the movement his book ships June 7th purchase part of his brain for under $25, what a deal.

Zappos’ Core Values

The Framework of the Culture

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

Follow Tony/Zappos
Follow: @DHBook (Delivering Happiness Book Twitter Account)
Follow: @Zappos (Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zapppos)
Blog: www.DeliveringHappinessBook.com

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You are a Business, Period.

I know that title is a little forward, but thats how convinced I am, that business and our personal lifestyles are largely parallel.

You are a business because everyone you are connected to expects you to yield something, in some form or fashion. Whether it’s your spouse or family with love and relationship or your boss and coworkers with on the job production and results –we are all created to produce.

The same goes for a business, its no different. A business is built to yield profits, yes, but businesses are not around to just yield profits. Although that is a large part of the end result.

My reason for this post is driven by an article I read in the February 2010 issue of Fast Company. In this issue was a great cover story with Steve Nash, point guard, for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. The title of the article is, “Rules for Winning: How Creativity Can Beat Chaos in Basketball and Business.”

Great title, right? Its actually a good article. But here is my disagreement with Steve. He makes a point to say in the article, that these days “…professional athletes think of themselves as a brand, but thats not my way of thinking.”

Why? What’s wrong with thinking of yourself as a brand or a business? He brings in $13 Million a year from the Suns (not including endorsements and business ventures) and I am sure he employs people. That kind of sounds like a business to me. Isn’t he a brand? Would he establish these business ventures or opportunities if it had not been for his reputation (brand) on the court.

I am not going to beat Steve up in this post, he’s definitely entitled to look at things this way, but it made me look at a bigger picture on why he may feel this way. To some people being a personal brand and business is still a progressive way of thinking. Some may feel a brand represents ego or chest pounding, a “THIS IS WHO I AM” syndrome. I think its because with this media-crazed advertising world we live in, we have managed to de-humanize the concept of a brand. We tainted it with corporate scandal and sensationalized branding to the point the concept seems very plastic and unreal. Or the thought process of, “If you are a brand, you are trying get one over on me, or you selling me something I don’t want.” Well people this is not always true. Those realities are there and it is the very reason our large corporations who have failed to care for their customers in a very human way – are collapsing right before our eyes.

I like Steve’s approach to the game of basketball and I like his off court persona. He works hard and he is about his team receiving limelight, not just him. He goes out and play’s the game well, produces day in and day out, and in result excels in many of the categories respective to his position. Sounds like a good brand to me. What do you think?

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