First Impressions count in Social Networking

Posted under Online Branding by Linda Griffin

I got a kick out of Seth Godin’s ‘Tiny Picture’ blog post. Most social networking sites force you to insert your profile photo into a small handful of pixels. Seth has some great suggestions on how to use that space wisely. I’d like to offer up a recommendation that he didn’t – always put up a profile photo! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at someone’s profile, only to see the default gray box, question mark,smiley face or whatever icon the site owners use as the default. 

When you meet someone at a networking event, you immediately form an impression based on how they look. It’s not fair but that’s the way it is. Some sources say that people form an impression about you in the first 3-5 seconds. They base that impression on how you’re dressed, whether you smile and seem approachable. Only then do they listen to the words you say. When you use social networking to build your brand online, a picture really is worth a thousand words because it must replace those clues that people would normally pick up in a face to face encounter.

What message are you sending to potential clients or business partners if your profile photo is a blank gray box? In my mind, it says that the individual is either too lazy to put in the effort or isn’t really serious about using the site. Either way, that’s not a person that I feel will bring value to me so I won’t follow them or friend them.

Other pet peeves of mine that are mentioned in Seth’s post are:

• Don’t have other people, pets, your boat or motorcycle in the photo with you. The photo is TINY! Other people and objects take up valuable space and prevent people from really seeing you.
• Smile. You want to give the impression that you would be fun to work with, not that you will be grumpy or scare small children.
• Crop your photo as tightly as you can to focus on your face. Did I mention the photo is TINY?

Putting a little effort into making a good first impression on social networking sites will give you the opportunity to make a second impression. What are your pet peeves about profile photos? Let me know in the comments. And if you want a copy of my Linked-In Profile Action Guide, you can request a copy here.

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Online Branding, personal branding, social networking

Subtlety doesn’t work when branding yourself

Posted under Personal Branding Strategies by Linda Griffin

“Two Scoops!” Those are the words that woke me up when I was supposed to be watching TV last night but was dozing on the sofa instead. If I told you the commercial was for a breakfast cereal, you’d probably guess pretty quickly that it was Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. On their web site they write:

“With so many raisin bran choices, what does one smiling sun offer that generations have loved? Why, Two Scoops® of delicious raisins, of course!”

You know immediately what distinguishes them from their competition. They’ve chosen to call out a feature of their cereal that makes them unique from all the other cereal brands and is almost impossible to challenge. Notice they don’t say they are the best tasting. Maybe they are, but that claim can be easily attacked by their competitors.  They also don’t say that they’re the cheapest. They’re not interested in making a claim which could force them into a price war.

The other thing they do in these two simple sentences is to focus on the benefits of their brand to their customers. They’re letting customers know that they will provide not just a handful, but two big scoops and they reinforce that image right on the front of the box.

I challenge you to look at the marketing and advertising for your brand and see if they pass the tests of demonstrating an ‘obvious value’ to your customers and making it difficult for your competitors to challenge.

 

Technorati Tags: branding strategies

With 99 days left to brand yourself in 2009, what will you do?

Posted under Personal Branding Strategies by Linda Griffin

I was preparing for a call today previewing my upcoming Business Retreat in October and decided to check the Time and Date web site to see how many days we had left in the year. To my shock, we have less than 100 days before we ring in the year! Wow! As usual, time has flown by. I don’t know about you but some of the goals that I had set for my business didn’t come to fruition. Some of it was lack of focus on my part and some of it was due to the unpredictable things that happen during the course of a year.

Now I’m energized to cross a few more things off of my action list in the next 99 days. One of those things is to build up readership in this blog. My previous blog was very successful with lots of readers, but the title and content no longer matched perfectly with the direction that I want to take my business brand. So I’m starting at ground zero again both with content and readership.

What do you plan to do before year end to raise the visibility and profitability of your brand? Here are few questions to start your thought process:

• Do you have a mission statement for your business?
• If so, does it link back to your life mission statement and your personal brand?
• Do you use social networking to establish yourself as an expert and generate leads?
• Do you have a marketing plan and is it up to date?

These are some basic, but often overlooked areas that every business should have. Remember that the new year will happen regardless of whether we take action or not. When you look back at 2009, what will your assessment be of the progress you made in defining and enhancing your brand?

Technorati Tags: branding strategies

Branding yourself for health

Posted under Personal Brand Definition by Linda Griffin

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index™   is an ambitious 25-year project whose goal is to collect and measure the daily pulse of the well-being of U.S. workers. By interviewing at least 1000 people each day, the project aims to help people create a better way of life by understanding how work affects life and health and vice-versa. It’s no surprise that the index dropped from a high of 66 in January ’08 to a low of 63 in December ’08. The good news is that the index had continued to climb in 2009 and is at 67 as of August.  

 

As part of this effort, the group released the findings of a survey of over 100,000 working adults. Business Owners ranked highest in overall contentment over professionals such as doctors and lawyers and corporate managers. The Wall St. Journal  profiles one of those business owners, Roger the Plumber, in a recent article. According to the article, even though Roger has had to lay some of his employees, he still loves the work that he does and is excited to help his customers solve their plumbing problems. He feels that even in hard times, he is in control of his own destiny. Roger is a wonderful example of someone who is living his brand.

 

Technorati Tags: branding

Branding yourself with your business name

Posted under Personal Brand Definition by Linda Griffin

Photo Credit Brent and MariLynn from Flickr

 

You’ve decided to take the plunge and start your own business. Now you must decide how you want to name it. Start by brainstorming. Write down the words that best describe either your product or the problem it solves and try different combinations of those phrases.

 

The Write Express web site has lots of good writing resources and it also has a random name generator. Use it to kick start your thought process but you’ll have wade through a lot of nonsensical combinations that don’t reflect your brand or mission. ‘Branding yourself brainless’ was one of the suggestions that came up for this blog. I don’t think so!

 

Ideally, you want to make an immediate positive connection in the mind of your potential client and you want to make clear the benefit your brand will provide. Let your personality come through and make your business name memorable. Joe’s Pizza is totally unforgettable but Joe’s Taste of Italy invokes the potential customer’s senses.

 

In today’s Web 2.0 environment, you may have to try multiple business naming combinations as many obvious names have been snapped up and registered by people who are holding them to be used later or sold to the highest bidder. You may have to get extra creative assuming you want to have a corresponding web site.

 

In future posts, I’ll cover more aspects of this topic. If you have run across a particularly memorable business name, please share it in the comments.

 

Technorati Tags: branding, marketing

Branding Yourself three easy ways

Posted under Personal Branding Strategies by Linda Griffin

After you create your mission statement, the next step is to tie it to your business brand. It will do you no good to create a wonderful mission statement and then sit in your office waiting for the phone to ring. You must actively brand yourself and pursue your prospective customers.

 

One of the first things I recommend in branding yourself is to create a tag line and use that tag line as much as possible. It’s a quick way to tell people what to expect from your brand. Add it to your email signature line. My email signature line says: Showing you how to rise above the competition. It reflects back to my overall brand and business name which is ClearWind.

 

You want to tell everybody you encounter and work it into the conversation during networking events. Pretty soon, people will start to remember you by your tag line. Use it when you’re in line at the post office, when you’re traveling, after church when you’re socializing and at parties. Every interaction with another person is an opportunity to publicize your brand.

 

The second way you can brand yourself is with your business card. Business cards are one of the easiest ways to showcase your brand. They’re very inexpensive and you can change them frequently or have multiple versions that focus on different aspects of your brand. The key to having a memorable business card is to let it reflect your personality. Go beyond the standard templates and add a photo or graphic that highlights your unique traits.

 

The third way to brand yourself is with a web site. I believe that in today’s environment of widespread social networking, everyone should have a personal web page. At minimum you should have a profile on one or more social networking sites. Why? So that you control your brand image. You probably don’t want the pictures of you at the family reunion to be the first thing that pops up when a potential client is performing an online search on your name.

 

Try these three techniques and let me know how you make out.

 

 

Technorati Tags: personal branding, social networking