You Are A Brand, Blog Indiana 2009

1

You Are a Brand

Using Social Media to Develop and Manage

Your Brand Online

2

You ARE a Brand, Like it or Not

Personal brand, not company brand.Employers, potential daters, clients,

customers, debaters, your readers, - all will Google you.

Everything you put online is there forever for everyone to see, regardless of claims of privacy (like Facebook).

Credibility depends on consistency.

3

Who Am I?

Search Chuck Lasker on Google, Bing, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and you will know all about me.

Writer, Tutorial Creator, Social Media Addict (not guru).

I own a Shih Tzu. I support President Obama.

4

5

The Chuck Lasker Branding Story

Started with trolling, became the truth teller and generated reputation.

By being dramatic, I became a star in my niche (Miva or Bust).

Decided to experiment with putting it all out there, for good or bad.

Cultivated positive “mentions” as often as possible.

6

Who Are You?

Develop a full definition of who you are and your voice.

Be honest.What do you want public, what hidden?Be human. Don’t focus only on

profession.Don’t leave it to chance.

7

Defensive Techniques

Google Alerts - ego-searching is not bad when it's business

TweetLater Keyword Alert DigestsGoogle Reader searchTwitter Search & Other RSS feedsBuy your name domain

8

9

10

Defensive Techniques continued

Get your Twitter handles - full name, company name, products, etc. - it's okay to have several names, just don't register them all at once.

Respond immediately to any posts about you, in a positive way – be the “bigger person” or risk your brand.

11

Proactive Techniques Have a consistent photo/avatar – not logo,

should be actual photo of you. Have a consistent voice – Be yourself – Do

not fake it, just be careful. Be sure your bios are complete, personal

and consistent.Writer, tutorial creator, Shih Tzu owner, live in Indy but heart in Kauai, happy husband to same woman for 27 yrs and proud father of 2 adult sons.

Get into every social network possible – general and your niche – but focus on a few – and contribute/interact!

12

Proactive Techniques continued

Create a custom Twitter background. Add links to your social network profiles

everywhere - email signatures, forum signatures, blogs, web sites, business cards, etc. and link them all to each other.

Write articles in your niche and submit to article-distribution sites. Get into magazines and big blogs, too, if possible. Public speaking, interviews, news, ebooks, TweetUps; Squidoo, AllTop, HubPages.

13

14

Proactive Techniques continued

Create a single central personal site or About Me page somewhere.

Add Twitter feed and Follow Me buttons to your Wordpress blogs with plugins.

Get together in person with your social network friends.

Comment, Reply, Tweet, reTweet, and be reTweetable.

15

Good Examples

Good: James PadenGood: Erik Deckers

16

17

18

Bad Examples

Peter Santilliastrospace on Twitter

19

20

21

Tips & Tools It's not who you know, it's who knows you.

Converse with the stars of your niche so that they know your name.

Use tools to manage your brand - TweetDeck, Seismic, HootSuite, Ping.fm, TweetLater, etc.

22

Tips & Tools continued

Post news early and often. Keep feeds open to get news quick for your niche.

Retweeting builds friendship, but only do it if your followers will be interested. Always give credit to the original tweeter.

Most retweeted: lists, breaking news, quotes. See dailyrt.com.

23

Tips & Tools continued

Do not auto-DM or auto-email anyone for any reason. It kills your brand and labels you as a spammer.

Keep your Tweets short enough for others to retweet.

While it's okay to send out a bunch of Tweets in a day, lots of Facebook updates gets annoying.

24

Closing

All that to say, always keep your branding in mind when doing anything online.

Links and downloads available at chucklasker.com.