Author Archive
How to Build — or Erode — Your Personal Brand
A student asks a wonderful personal branding question. I’ll paraphrase:
“How can you project a personal brand online without coming off as arrogant? If all you do is go online and brag about yourself and how wonderful you are, doesn’t that make “arrogant, self-absorbed, narcissistic jerk” a big part of your personal brand?”
photo credit: probabilistic
To [...]
Social Media for Business: 8 Ways to Get Smart
When it comes to using social media for business, I often run into two camps of people. One camp views social media as a threat, and another camp views it as an opportunity.
Those in the threat camp have an alarming tendency to put knee-jerk policies into place. “No employees will be allowed to have FaceBook [...]
Listen Until It Hurts. And Beyond!
Your company’s first step with social media?
Listening.
(Listening is also known as “social media monitoring.)
And 90 days from now, guess what? You’ll still be listening! Still monitoring.
A year from now? Still listening!
Oh, you’ll be doing more than just listening in a year — maybe you’ll be interacting and energizing, too! But ongoing listening is at the [...]
Why Monitor at Google Video?
When almost everyone has a video cell phone, sometimes the CEO gets caught doing something in public that needs some explaining!
Or, perhaps your brand fans are rolling out product videos and tagging them with your name. Or maybe brand haters are showcasing your product in strange ways…
Try searching for your company name, CEO’s name, and [...]
Are You A Twitter Artist?
So. Are you a Twitter artist?
Twitter is a new medium. No question.
And like any medium, people can use it to create art and build community.
photo credit: Torley
What’s up with this image?
Think 1922, Paul Klee.
It’s no coincidence that Twitter came to be in an era of economic uncertainty.
Many use this simple new tool [...]
Business Cards: Only One Number, Please.
Give people ONE contact number on your personal or business card. Maybe two.
But not three. Not four.
It seems I’ve read at least 3 articles this month advising people to put every possible contact number on their business cards! Yikes!
photo credit: justgrimes
Um, no. Don’t do that. Here are three reasons why:
You have the technology. When [...]
Discover Your Personal Brand
Here is this week’s most oft-asked question:
“In social media, how do you separate your personal life from your professional life?”
photo credit: Kelly Hau Photography
The questioners explain that they thought LinkedIn was professional and FaceBook was personal — but now that people are using FaceBook for professional reasons — what is one to do? (And [...]
Who Do You Trust? People or Corporations?
When you’re interested in buying something online, you become an information junkie!
But where are savvy internet shoppers going to search for purchasing information? Google — or Twitter?
This 3+ minute video explains an important social media trend for customers and companies. You may not be searching for product information and reviews at Twitter yet — but [...]
Short URLs - Not Just For Twitter Anymore!
Running URLs through a service that shortens their length is a fairly standard practice at Twitter. After all, when you only have 140 characters, you don’t want a lengthy URL address taking up most of your precious, limited space!
At the moment, Twitter uses tinyurl.com to automatically shorten long URLs that you might enter into your [...]
Tweak Your LinkedIn Profile to Make it More People Friendly!
How can you make your LinkedIn Profile a little more friendly for people — and for search engines?
It’s easy.
Don’t use the default “My Website” or “My Blog” when entering the address of your website or blog!
Instead, use “Other” — and type in short and descriptive “anchor text” that tells your audience more precisely where the [...]
