Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

Market yourself to your target audience

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You can’t maintain a personal brand in a vacuum, and it’s not a personal brand if you try to approach it like everyone else. One of the mantras in my book, Social Networking for Career Success, is that you need to select the networks and online outlets best suited to you if you’re going to have an authentic digital footprint. [Read more…] about Market yourself to your target audience

Personal branding helps you manufacture your own opportunities

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I tell clients they “drive their own career bus.” This issue of Personal Branding Magazine (I am co-editor along with Jessica Lewis) highlights how you can manufacture your own opportunities. Dan Schawbel explains:

“Volume 5, Issue 1 is focused on how to use your established brand to unlock new opportunities and beat your competition. Brooke Burke, featured in our cover story, is a great example of someone who’s successfully leveraged her brand. Brooke has taken the success of her TV and modeling career and used it to start her own company called Baboosh Baby. Since she is a well-known brand, she’s able to open doors and create new monetization opportunities. Whether you’re famous or just starting out, this issue will give you the tools and advice you need to create brand leverage in your industry.”

In my introduction for the magazine, I highlight the concept of using personal branding to create your own success. Social networking and brand building offers so much potential; I wanted my new book, Social Networking for Career Success, to include a bullet on the front saying, “Learn how to job search in your sleep,” because you can use your profiles and online networking to attract business prospects and jobs. In this issue, Nikolas Allen reminds readers, “One of the best results of creating a strong, coherent and positive personal brand is that, in time, opportunities start seeking you.” So true.

We all need to remember how much control we have over our career paths. In this issue, Howard Sholkin quotes Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, saying, “Opportunity can be manufactured. Yes, you can wait around for the right set of circumstances to fall into place and then leap into action, but you can also create those sets of circumstances on your own. In doing so, you manufacture your opportunities.”

I think that’s a great way to think about “personal branding” – an opportunity to manufacture your own opportunities.

Features

  • Full paid issue (August 1st):  22 articles
  • Sample issue (July 25th): 10 articles
  • Interviews with: Brooke Burke, Justin Haplern (Shit My DadSays), Jim Craig (Olympic Gold Medalist), Barbara Corcoran (ABC’s Shark Tank), Ali Brown, Adam Bryant (NY Times Columnist), and Peter Shankman (HARO).

Take a look!

Personal Branding Magazine – CEO strategies

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The latest issue of Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Magazine is available. (I am co-editor along with Jessica Lewis.) Dan explains, “Volume 4, Issue 4 is focused on CEO branding strategies, leadership and corporate culture. We interviewed some of the leading CEOs from across multiple industries, including Deloitte and Campbells, to present multiple perspectives on personal branding from the top down. The strength of the CEO brand can be attributed to the overall success of a company, regardless of size. Employees look to the CEO for guidance, leadership and personality.”

Features:

  • Full paid issue (May 1st): 25 articles total
  • Sample issue: 9 articles total, including how to make a good first impression, how to manage your digital image, and wardrobe tips.
  • Interviews with: Doug Conant (CEO of Campbells), Jim Quigley (CEO of Deloitte), Bob Taylor (CEO of Taylor Guitars), Sam Calagione (CEO of Dogfish Head), Brian Halligan (CEO of Hubspot), and Andy Boynton (Dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College).

Be sure to click through or subscribe for useful information, insights and details!

How to make it easier to find you online

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Job seekers often hear how important it is to make it easy to find information about you online. Why? A Cross-Tab research study, Online Reputation in a Connected World, points out:

  • 75 percent of HR departments are expected to research candidates online
  • 89 percent of hiring managers and recruiters review candidates’ professional online data
  • 86 percent of employers believe a positive online reputation influences their hiring decisions—and nearly 50 percent say the influence is “to a great extent” and they expect it to increase

Further proving how important it is to be discoverable online is an ExecuNet Inc. research study, 2010 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report:

  • 90 percent of search-firm recruiters regularly Google candidates to help draw a complete picture of that individual—up from 75 percent in 2005

If you have a common name, it may be difficult to distinguish yourself online. About 2,000 people on LinkedIn share their name with someone on the FBI’s most wanted list, says James Alexander, founder of Vizibility.com, a company that creates tools to help professionals and companies stand out on the Web.

Read the rest of the post on my U.S. News blog….

photo by dunkr

How to achieve your business and career objectives

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The newest Personal Branding Magazine, published by Dan Schawbel (I am co-editor along with Jessica Lewis) is about how to enhance your personal brand online.

This is how Dan describes it:

Volume 4, Issue 3 is focused on teaching you out to become internet famous through video, sHowocial networking, and blogging. We’ve collected stories from the most well-known internet superstars to teach you how to do it too! We spoke with Julia Allison, Judson Laipply, and Mr. Chocolate rain himself, Tay Zonday. Gracing the cover is Chamillionaire, who is a Grammy award winning musician, and someone who has pioneers the use of social technologies in the music industry. I’ve always said that visibility creates opportunities, and when more people know you, the possibilities are endless!

Features:

  • Full paid issue (November 1st): 22 articles
  • Sample issue: 10 articles total, including how to make a good first impression, how to manage your digital image, and wardrobe tips.
  • Interviews with: Chamillionaire (Grammy Award Winning Musician), Julia Allison (Co-creator of NonSociety.com), Tay Zonday (creator of the Chocolate Rain viral video), Judson Laipply (creator of the Evolution of Dance viral video), Brian Solis (author of Engage), Amy Marin (Shaquille O’Neal’s social media manager), and Brian Clark (founder of Copyblogger Media).

This is my introduction to the magazine:

Are you taking full advantage of the tools available to enhance your personal brand online? Are you achieving your business and career objectives? This issue’s columnists offer some great tips to help achieve your goals. The first thing to remember? It’s not all about you! Celestine Chua explains how important it is to be a role model. If you write, do you think about what your readers want? Are you sharing valuable information that will make people want to come back again and again? If you make your audience your #1 priority, it’s likely they will appreciate you and your value, which in turn increases your online cache.

Authenticity (as always) holds a lot of weight in this issue. Are you faking it? Michael Durwin makes an important point when he says:  There is no “virtual” you: Your online self is a direct extension of your real world self.” How should you respond? He says, “Be yourself: But try to be the best you can be — your reputation precedes you.” Rich Nadworny agrees, “If you stand for something online, you’d better act that way in real life.”

Once you identify what you offer, it’s much easier to extend your reach. Sam Decker explains that social media “is primarily about an exchange …a personal brand is best built by facilitating give and take. That might look like connecting people, retweeting or contributing to others’ ideas and projects.” Are you making that two-way connection?

One great benefit of using the social web to share information about you is the opportunity to avoid the “push and pray” method in favor of the “pull and stay” approach. Georgina Taylor’s book review notes that Scott Stratten’s book UnMarketing offers a strong case for the latter, which is about “focusing on engagement as a means of building trust, creating value for the customer by giving them a sense of support from your business.” What are you doing to engage your target audience?

Success is about so much more than just being online. In his interview with Harry McCracken, Howard Sholkin, founder of technologizer.com, explains that he attributes some of his success to going “where smart people are, rather than expecting them to come to us.” For him, that meant having a presence on Twitter and Facebook, which was key to growing his site’s traffic. Jack Humphrey echoes this sentiment, noting that “your virtual you must span your own domain and key sites around the Web where your targets hang out.”

Extend it a step further, as being where they are is an important lesson for anyone. When I coach job seekers and entrepreneurs, that is advice I offer: find “your people.” If you are lucky, they are spending time in social media, but maybe it makes more sense to physically go where they are. That may mean attending conferences or speaking engagements in person. It’s worth it.