Personal Branding & The Art of Making Your Mark by Mel Carson - SIC2014

Personal BrandingMel Carson – Delightful Communications - @MelCarson

The Art of Making

Your Mark

#SIC2014 ~ @MelCarson



A Little Background….


Ultimate Goals for Brand You!

1Be Discoverable

2 Be Sharable

3 Be Memorable


What is a Brand?


Defining Brand, Seth Godin

A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.

If the consumer doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.

““


Brand is Experience!








What and Why Personal Branding?


BUILD A RELATIONSHIP to become more trusted.

DIFFERENTIATE THROUGH EMOTIONAL CONNECTION to become more remarkable and unmistakable.

NURTURE LOYAL FANS to become more essential.

Brand Building through PR & Social

TRUSTED

ESSENTIAL

REMARKABLE

UNMISTAKABL

E


27% of Time on Social Media

Source: Experian Marketing Services

c


Bonfires = Social/Community


Fireworks = PR/Events


SPEAKERKeynotes & panels

SOCIALIZERSocial media following

WRITERArticle & interview contributor

DOERSuccessful track record

Personal Brand Sweet Spot


AGILITYClose to real time

VALUE EXCHANGEContributes both ways

REGULAR CONTACTSteady communications cadence

UTILITYUseful content

Elements for Success


Source: Rand Fishkin, Moz.com

Think Inbound Marketing

INBOUND MARKETING

SEO EmailResearch/White Papers

Infographics

Social NetworksWebinars

Document Sharing

Word of mouth Podcasting

Q+A sites

Direct/Referring LinksSocial Bookmarking

Forums

Online Video

BloggingNews/Media/PR

Inbound marketing tactics amplify the brand and generate exposure through ensuring useful and relevant content is discoverable and shareable.


Integrated Personal/Company Brand Approach

SHARE THE BRANDSuccessful sharing of knowledge and thought leadership occurs near brand.

ENGAGE WITH BRANDMarketing community engage and share content increasing affinity and reach.

SUCCESS STORIESIncreases opportunities for more stories via press and speaking.

INCREASE FOLLOWINGAuthentic & generous sharing of expertise builds engaged following.


Action – Start Architecting Your Personal Brand


My Book: Pioneers of Digital


Action 1 5 IN 5 ABOUT YOU

Think about your educational background.

How did you get into your niche?

What are your professional passions?

What do you find hard?

Where would you like to be in 3 year’s time?

Action 2PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE


To educate and inspire the business community to do meaningful and enduring work using digital media (both on and offline) with tenacity, curiosity and good humor.

My Professional Purpose


In one sentence, sum up your professional purpose!

Action 3PERSONAL BRANDING STATEMENT


Focusing on helping businesses and individuals achieve success through enduring social media, digital PR and personal branding strategies, my 14 years online advertising industry experience and 7 years at Microsoft as their Digital Marketing Evangelist, enables me to provide counsel to my clients that is truly relevant, robust and real-time.

Always striving to keep pace with the ever-changing nature of digital media and technology, I aim to improve my clients’ competitive position through partnership, tenacity and accountability.

My Personal Branding Statement

In no more than three sentences, sum up your professional you!


1 Be social by design

2 Optimize your speaking engagements

3 Divide your social media time

4 Invest in writing/speaking courses

5 Take an interest in others

Online Personal Branding Strategies


Online Personal Branding Tactics


The Science of Great Content = AURA

The DNA of successful and enduring digital content has FOUR main elements:

AUTHENTIC

RELEVANTACTIONABLE

USEFUL


USE IMAGESUSE VIDEOINCLUDE LINKSBE TWEETABLE

Multimedia Drives Reach & Engagement

Add multimedia elements

to your blog posts and articles to increase reach, engagement, shares & views.

Source: PR Newswire

Delightful Travel@DTravel

@DTravel

MEASURABLE

ACTIONABLEAFFORDABLE

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC

EMOTION

REAL-TIME

Always fancied a “wee dram” on a beautiful Scottish Island filled with coastal walks and magnificent wildlife? Leave your rental car keys behind on this tour of 8 of Scotland’s finest whiskey distilleries. “Like” and we’ll do a little jig!

ASPIRATIONAL SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

WE TAKE CARE OF YOU

PRODUCT DETAIL

CALL TO ACTIONPERSONALITY


Encourage Channel Hopping


Online Personal Branding Checklist

1 Create a thoughtful bio with links.

2 Have a professional photo that exudes your brand.

3 Name photo file is Your-Name.JPG.

4Comprehensively overhaul your LinkedIn profile. Add meat to all roles and having a robust summary.

5Add social channels to email footers, biz cards and out of office responders.


Online Personal Branding Checklist

7 Follow #eventhashtag and engage.

8Share company news & aligned content. Show well-rounded expertise .

9 Re-purpose content across channels. Slice and dice to maximize ROI.

10

Follow-up with everybody that engages on social channels. Be delightful.

6 Social signals during presentation.

18


Recommend a new photo as an avatar for cross-social channel use too!

MORE LESS

Optimize Offline ImageSuccessfully wear your Personal Brand in person as well as share it on digital platforms. Make what you say the focus, not how badly you dress!


Success Measurement

Keep to a communication cadence as closely as possible.


Success Measurement

Increase in engagement with, and sharing

of content from your social channels.


Success Measurement

Increase in mentions of you in and beyond your industry niche press and digital publications.


Success Measurement

Increase in placements and requests for you to speak or participate at conferences and events in and beyond the your niche.


Success Measurement

Increase in positive sentiment towards you internally and externally.


Next Steps

1) Actions > 5 in 5, Professional Purpose & Personal Branding Statement

2) Really think about how you’re presenting yourself on and offline

3) Have fun and good luck…

Thank [email protected]@MELCARSON