Branding Yourself

Last week I was was presenting in Sydney Australia, when I met a young lady named Natalie. She introduced herself to me and said that she had read about me in a book that she recently downloaded. I of course found this very interesting and began to inquire about the book. It’s a book about branding yourself, she says. The light bulb went on!  The authors of that book are friends of mine in Indianapolis, Erik Deckers and Kyle Lacy, both of whom I met on a networking site called Smaller Indiana, and on Twitter.  I make it a habit to always follow locals on Twitter, this allows me the opportunity to meet them in person and to stay connected.  I also get to stay up on what is going on in the area, which is a bonus!

I had the opportunity to meet both Kyle and Erik face to face and over the years we have served on panels, and spoken at events together.  Both of them write great blogs and both are experts at using social media, so I was honored when Erik asked to interview me for the book.  I love his sense of humor and his ability to stay connected to the people in his network, I was happy to participate.

I had actually forgotten all about my part in that book, and never dreamed that someone on the other side of the world would be telling me about it.  Natalie and I had a great conversation about the Branding Yourself, the case study about me, and instantly had rapport with one another because we had something in common. Furthermore, I could hardly wait to let Erik know about the connection. It made my world feel small and comfortable, even on the other side of the globe.

Social media allows us to create a small world when combined with our face to face network.   It is not going to go away so pick up a copy of the book, you will not only build your brand, your world will become smaller and connected.

Remember when you were a kid and you would catch someone in a lie, all the kids would run around and sing “liar liar, pants on fire, tear your britches on a telephone wire”. I felt like tweeting that very thing to a tweeter this week.

I was on twitter early in the morning this week when I came across a tweet that said the following: “If you are thinking about or like tattoos here is a great resource link”.    I like well done tattoos, and I wanted to see this resource, so I clicked the link.

Imagine my surprise to be taken to a splash page to buy a social media marketing kit! I thought that I may have made a mistake so I closed the page and went back to the original tweet and tried that link again. No I had made no mistake at all, it took me right back to the splash page.

I went back to the tweet again and reviewed this “Social Media Marketing” experts profile and it appears that it is common place for her to tweet this way. More shocking she follows and is followed by 22,000 people and she has tweeted 10,000 times. So I went to her website and I was not surprised to find it filled with buy, buy, buy propaganda.

My next step was to report her tweet as spam, unfollow her and block her. In my opinion I think that she is a liar and not someone I care to follow or to expose my followers to. But here is the bigger question, does this this kind of bait and switch social media really work? Is this the level of integrity that people can expect in the world of social media?

If you expect me to buy from you, recommend you, or even continue to follow you then DON’T LIE TO ME! Don’t leave me feeling deceived, tricked or taken advantage of. Ok rant over, but I would love to hear from others of you. What is your experience?

Every now and then it bites us in the back side, and when it does we are often upset that we are being judged unfairly but it is our reputation so we have to take responsibility for it both personally and professionally.

Today more than ever those two reputations have a tendency to run together. There was a time that your private life was private or stayed within a very small community of people who knew you.

Not true today, millions of people are on at least one social networking sights and often on multiple sights such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. Not including all of the information that can be found out about a person by simply Googling their names. It is harder than ever to protect our reputation personally and professionally.

Today more than every it is imperative that you manage your reputation.  Be cautious about what you post online, be aware of what others are posting about you and your business.  If you are not on Facebook, Twitter, or other sites, then you need to find a way of monitoring these sights.  You can destroy your reputation, but it can also be destroyed by others.  Do you know what is being said to you and about you?

I know of many examples where friends have been denied a job based on information the employer has gotten via the internet, and business has been lost because the business owner has taken some very controversial stands in a very public way,

It is your reputation, hard to build, easy to destroy.  What are you doing to protect it?

Digging your well deep is important if you are going to get the best water, or even the precious oil that resides there. Have you ever seen a well that is only 3 feet deep and 6 feet wide?  Yes, they call them retention ponds and even they are deeper than 3 feet.  They serve little purpose beyond managing run off water.  This is not water you can go out and drink, it simply looks nice in most cases.  To get the clear cold water that can enrich your life, allow you to cook, clean, create steam and run a civilization you have to go deep.

It works the same way with your network.  The deeper you go with your relationships the more valuable the results you will reap.  Unfortunately, networking has the bad reputation of more is better.  In most cases, I find that people pretty much know all the people they really need to know in order to accomplish the things they really want to accomplish, only problem is, those relationships tend to be shallow and not well nurtured.

If you want to get results from your network go deeper, here are 5 things that you can do to begin the process of digging your networking well deeper.

1.  Choose 5 – It is easier to focus on a few versus the masses, if you have built a large network it is important to take a look at your inner circle.  From that circle, choose 5 whom you would like to have a better networking relationship and think about those 5 people and how you can help them.  Make deposits into the relationship.

2.  Get to know them – how much do you know about your 5 people.  You should know what Goals they are trying to accomplish in their business, what they are most proud of accomplishing, where else they network or would like to network, what are they passionate about beyond what they do for a living.

3.  Ask “How can I help you?” – find out ways that you can help your 5 people.  Can you distribute material for them, make an announcement for an event they are having, display their business cards, or mention them in your newsletter/blog?   Making deposits into the relationship assures you of the opportunity to make a withdrawal when you need it.

4.  Stay in contact – When communication changes so does the relationship, being out of contact for long periods of time slows down the relationship process and allows relationships to go cold.  Leave the occasional voice mail reminding your network that you are there to help them, drop a note card in the mail and of course invite your 5 to events and network together.

5.  Take advantage of Social Networking Sites – Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter make it easy to keep up with your network.  Connect to them, read what they are posting, comment on their post and in general show them that you are interested in what they are doing and saying.   The Internet has made it so much easier to stay in communication for those times when you are out of the loop but still want your network to know you are interested in them.

All things being equal people want to do business with people they know, like and trust.  Going deeper into your network and building stronger relationships will reap you more rewards than constantly adding more strangers to the mix.  This week take some time to identify at least 5 people you would like to develop and start working on making deposits.

Do you know how good it is to wake up in the morning, get your coffee, flip on your computer, log in to your twitter account and find that YOU are the person being twittered about?  I do, it’s great!   It is exactly what happen to me last week. There were a great many “mentions” on twitter about my being listed as one of the Top 100 Women Bloggers to Watch.   I was surprised and honored.

It is the second time that I have been listed in a Top 100 List and both times I have been surprised and honored. I know that I am not the best blogger on the net and I am not the most prolific, but I do blog from a place that I have passion. As I said in a previous post, passion draws people to you like bee’s to flowers.

That being said, I also spend time on my social networking sites promoting my blog.  If you too are new at blogging use some of these tips to help drive traffic to your site.

1. Comment on other peoples blog – comments let bloggers know that you are reading their material.  It is always a morale boost when I get comments from others even if they do disagree with me.

2. Post your blog on your Facebook account and tweet your link now and then, let people know when you have posted new material.

3. Add links to other peoples blogs. If you are writing on a topic that others have written on, link back to them. It will build visibility and credibility for both of you.

4. Put your blog link on the bottom of your email, on your website, and even on your business card. It is a great way for others to get to know you.

5. Be brief, people do not take the time to read the long rambling blogs.  Say what you have to say in 300-500 words you will get more people to read your content.  And blog frequently, that has been a challenge for me this summer.

I am a novice blogger compared to many on the internet and I am sure there is so much more for me to learn, but I am proud to say that I have made to 2 top 100 list and I can’t wait to see what happens when I get really good at this.

Going out for a drink with friends, playing golf, and hanging out at a cookout are all ways that we build relationships. It is the social aspects of our relationships that make for strong business relationships too. It is those times when I get to know someone personally that makes me want to help them achieve their goals. While we may not be fast friends we have developed a deeper relationship and it is that relationship that builds trust and a desire to help. Building my network effectively is very important to me, adding the right people, building relationships with them requires that I stay in communication with them.

One of the things that I love about Twitter is my ability to have communication with local tweeters, to meet them face to face at tweet-ups in a casual manner. Because we have spent so much time getting to know each other on twitter it is as if we have already met, we start the relationship much further along than if I had just met them. I already know what they are interested in by the tweets they post and the links the tweet. I learn about their business when they tweet and list their blogs and I build credibility with my followers when I take the time to post good material on my blog, when I post good tweets. I give to my network of tweeters by recommending them and retweeting their tweets. When we finally do meet at a tweet-up we already know each other.

If you are tweeting take a little time to set up groups of local people who are tweeting. They are most likely people you are going to have the opportunity to meet and build networking relationships with. For me, Tweetdeck has been a great tool for sorting my tweeters and creating groups that I can interact with, create relationships with and add to my network.

When I was a teen I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents.  My grandfather owned his own business, JR Custom Floors and I learned a lot from he and my grandmother as they ran that business.  Today as I was putting some dates and times on my calendar for some local “Tweetups”   I was brought back to a time when my grandparents did much the same thing with their coffee meets.

My grandfather belonged to a club, it was called the “Metro CBers”.   You know, those guys who had two way radios known as Citizen Band Radios and they talked to each other all the time.  There were many a night when my grandfather would be on the Radio until 1:00am in the morning talking to his friends.   They talked about everything on those radios and they all had “handles”  like “Floorshine”, “Qupiedoll”, “Bigbelly” and so forth.  Once a month they would meetup and have coffee, introduce each other, welcome the new CBers and handout their CB Cards with their handles on it.  It was a lot of fun and I always looked forward to going with my grandparents.  I did not know then that I was actually learning to network and those lessons would follow me into adulthood when I would start using a tool called “Twitter”

Oddly, the more things change, the more they stay the same!  Oh, and my grandmother reminds me, that I was “Qupiedoll”.  The handle that my grandfather gave me!

Linkedin, Twitter, FastPitch, BizNik,  Ecademy, Plaxo, HiveLive, Facebook, MySpace, and any of the 500 different sites online are all available to you if you choose to network online. However, how many and which ones should you belong to?

I am often asked  if I am able to track back any income from the social networking sites that I am on.  I am certain that I have indeed generated exposure and branding and I have been able to generate referrals for others in my network because of my membership.  I can track income because I have booked 2 speaking engagements via the sites.  and a couple of new coaching clients.  That being said, does the income match the time spent.

I do know that I easily spend at least ten minutes per day six days per week on the site for a total of one hour weekly.  At my current billing rate that is $125 per week multiplied by 52 weeks for a total of $6500. On average most people belong to 5 social networking sites, doing the same math above for all 5 sites I would spend a total of $32,500 per year on my social networking site.

Therefore, the question is how much is too much.  It really depends on what results you are trying to achieve in your activities.  I recently had a man who paints homes ask me if he should be on all of these sites promoting his business. If he were going to join one or two sites, which ones should he choose?   Here are the five tips that I gave to him.

1.  Find a local networking site, for instance, I am on Smaller Indiana. This would allow him to promote his business to people who might be willing to hire him.  Smaller Indiana is predominately people in Indiana who are in a variety of businesses.  Not for Profits, Professional Services, Business Owners, and Employees of companies are all members of this site.  The key is, they are local, so I can sit down and have a cup of coffee with anyone of them at any time and build a stronger relationship.

2.  Find an online networking group that has people with common interest.  Ning has a variety of these kinds of networks.   On Linkedin I belong to a Group that is made up of other BNI Directors.  We are able to share information, help one another and arrange to meet with each other at conferences.  I may or may not generate new business from this site, but I am able to build stronger relationships with those who are members because we have a common interest.

3.  Know why you want to join the group. Is it for information, connections, to sell your product or services, to develop your expertise or just to socialize?   I am a member of Ecademy.  This is the only group where I actually spend money to be a member.  Ecademy has a very international flavor and I want to make connections with people who can help me land more speaking engagements in the UK.  Last year when I spoke in Bristol, England, I had the opportunity to meet several of the people I had been networking with online.

4.  How much time do you want to spend online?  Online networking takes time just like face to face networking.  If your intention is to be known as an expert, you will have to spend time online blogging, spend time in discussions and commenting on other blogs.  Do the math, even if you are not paying to be on the site, you are paying in valuable time.

5. Free or Fee?  Most sites like Linkedin have a Free and a Premium membership. With the exception of Ecademy I am on the free memberships for all other sites.  Try the 30-day free trial that most sites offer, if you like it and want to get more involved, then you can purchase up.  Ecademy has two different levels that you can purchase; power networker and black star each are vastly different both in price and in access to the network.  I recommend the lowest priced level to start and once you know for sure that you are going to be consistent and use the site, then consider moving up.  Otherwise, it is like joining a gym; you make the payments every month and never go.

Just like face-to-face networking, you can waste a lot of valuable time and money if you do not have a plan and a system to utilize your network.  For me this is Visibility Networking, and some Credibility Networking.  I have been able to connect others in very powerful ways and that goes a long way to building trust with those I have made connections for.

If you are going to jump into this arena, you must have realistic expectations.

I am not a Techie but I do love technology and more than that, I love to network.  When I can combine the two together I am really happy.  Twitter has allowed me to do that!  One of the keys to nurturing your network is to stay in communication.  Communication also allows you to develop relationships that you can add to your network.  Twitter allows me to  maintain visibility and create credibility with my network.  Recently it has allowed me to create some profitability.

Here are some tips for those of you who want to use Twitter in your networking strategy.  These are a few things that you should know, beyond that have fun.

Important Things to Remember When Using Twitter

• Be Authentic- Be you
• Read Others Profiles and Tweets
• Find Local People to Follow – Use Search for your town or city
• Follow those who follow you – after you read their profile
• Send a Personal Direct Message (DM)  to those who follow you
• Do more than post your Blog or your website to the tweet stream
• Retweet Others- Retweeting is key, when you read a good tweet, RT
• Try to keep your follow/followers about even
• Read and Comment on others Tweets/Blogs
• Recommend others to follow
• Keep it positive
• Engage and again be Authentic
• Go to some Local Tweetups & meet the people you have been tweeting with.
• Follow your Network Members, you are able to communicate more frequently with them.
• Lean more by following links that your followers will often provide.

Most of all, have fun, don’t become addicted, but be consistent in your tweets. You will find that you are starting to build relationships with some of the people you do not know and enriching those that you do.