The idea of personal branding may not be new, in fact it can be traced back to the 1980s when it was introduced by Al Reis and Jack Trout in “Positioning: The Battle for your Mind.” Despite how you may feel about personal branding, social media has made it a part of our fabric. Not only is it important to be a part of the conversation, it’s also imperative to be consistent, relevant and distinguished.

Whether you post personally or professionally, you are establishing a voice for yourself and your audience will come to rely your tone, quality of posts and style. Why does this matter? You are building a brand that potential employers, clients, members of the media and your audience is watching and can reference at any time. You have an opportunity to build a greater audience, set yourself apart and develop more meaningful relationships.

So how do you ensure you put your best foot forward?

• Become an invaluable asset – build your network and continually provide them with resources and information they can’t get anywhere else.
• Find your niche and spread the word – what do you do particularly well? What are you passionate about? Use a blog and your social networks to position yourself as the go-to-person for a specific skill.
• Build equity – create consistency and post regularly. How often do you engage your audience? Do you have a signature blog post or style that keeps them engaged?
• Build your database through layers – as you generate more content, be sure you hitting on multiple touch points: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, email, etc. As you build your networks in these individual platforms, be sure to integrate them. Find people in your email database that may also have social networking accounts.
• Be visible. Be remarkable. Be everywhere.

Michele Laudig, food editor at the Phoenix New Times and blogger at Chow Bella, has used social media to help develop her voice, and inherently build her “brand.” She also recently added another layer when she began posting her popular “What I Ate” depictions…yet another differentiator. Here is Michele’s take on the issue:

Q. Has social media helped you build your personal brand and Chow Bella’s? If so, how?

A. As a writer, I don’t think so much about my “personal brand” as much as my “voice.” And social media, especially Twitter, is just other place to express my voice. But it’s also been a fun way to interact with readers and people who are interested in restaurants, and it’s been useful for share links to the blog. I like having instantaneous feedback, and I like the community feeling. Twitter is like one big digital cocktail party.

Q. How do you think it has helped you carve out your niche?

A. I think I carved out my niche back when I first started doing the blog a few years ago. Social media has helped bring attention to something I was already doing by giving me a way to immediately reach people who want to know about breaking news, or who are curious about random dish I decided to sketch. So much content goes up on the blog every day that it has been a way to pick and choose what I want to personally emphasize.

Q. Has building your and Chow Bella’s brand helped increase awareness for Phoenix New Times?

A. I’m sure it must — at this point, they are probably one and the same because I don’t write for anyone else in town, and I use social media under the auspices of being the paper’s restaurant critic and resident food geek.

Q. It seems the “What I Ate” drawings have provided your followers another way to share your brand, did you anticipate them serving this purpose?

A. When I think about my “brand” in this context, it boils down to my personality. These drawings are just a funny thing I do, and I’m happy to share them. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I started doing “What I Ate.”

Q. Have social networks (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn) helped build more interaction with readers or sparked more comments on blog posts?

A. Social networks definitely have helped build more interaction — it’s another forum for feedback, ideas, and even just socializing in the virtual world. And I do think that when I post a link to something from the blog on Twitter, it does get more comments.

Resources:
1. “10 Ways Personal Branding Can Save You From Getting Fired”
2. “Personal Branding 102: How to Communicate & Maintain Your Brand”
3. ‘Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation”

Question of the week:
What are you doing to create a need for your brand?

For more tips and tools check out JetPack Radio.

Enclosures:

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Are you Googley? No matter what area of business you are in, being Googley can help differentiate you from your competitors, at least according to “What Would Google Do?” by Jeff Jarvis.

In the book, Jarvis examines how Google operates and its core values: creation, openness, connections, uniqueness, collaboration, invention and keeping it simple. In previous podcasts I talked about Googlefying your business – that series was more focused on utilizing the many platforms Google has created to help you operate more effectively and efficiently in many ways. But by becoming what Jarvis called “Googley” a company is in essence taking the core values that Google has employed to better serve their clients. Whether or not you like Google (good reads: “Google Whacked” and “When Google Owns You”) some of the core values Jarvis outlines in his book should be fundamental in any business.

Fundamental values:

• Listen and monitor – What are customers saying about you and your competition? Where are they saying it?
• Collaborate and link – What do you do best? Focus on that and refine it. Make quality the one thing you do then collaborate and link with others who have different specializations. Linking to other bloggers helps you get found and increases your Google (or Bing) juice.
• Join and distribute – Your audience will likely not come to you, so go to them. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube…if this is where they spend their time, it’s also where you need to spend yours. Engage, interact and find out what they want. Think about how you can utilize these platforms, like Foursquare, in a different way beyond a special deal for the “mayor.” If you are a restaurant owner or chef, is there room for collaboration with other restaurants to develop a Foursquare-specific deal?
• Innovate – As Jarvis points out in his book, Google employs a 20 percent rule in which technical employees are encouraged to use 20 percent of their time innovating and working on new ideas, products and businesses. It has spawned many of the new ideas and features that come out of Google. Jarvis recommends spending time each week researching, learning, experimenting and inventing.

Get out there and join your audience, the conversation could be taking place without you. Create, and make it easy for your customers to share you or your product with their friends online. Remember, contributing, creating and linking will make you more searchable. Lastly, innovate! It will likely be one of the most liberating things you do in business.

Resources:
1. “Five steps to a Googlier you”
2. “What Would Google Do?”

Question of the week:
Do you implement the 20 percent rule? If so, has it spawned any great ideas that you’ve tested?

For more tips and tools check out JetPack Radio.

Enclosures: MP3, M4V

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What is the driving force behind your business?

Sure market research, smart marketing and operations, a good product, and hard work are all essential components of success, but I’m talking about the one thing that keeps you doing what you do, day in and day out.

Hopefully it’s passion.

Passion is the one common denominator among thriving entrepreneurs, strong businesses and great leaders. Of course successful businesses get by without it, but those with true passion at the core often grow faster and stronger, and outlast their counterparts. More importantly, people want to interact with impassioned businesses and leaders.

At the Blogworld and New Media Expo in October, I spoke with C.C. Chapman, marketer and creator of the Managing the Gray podcast, the Advance Guard (now Campfire) and Digital Dads, to name a few, spoke about leveraging passion.

Everyone has a passion, but why is it so important in business, social media and life in general? How do you learn to leverage it?

“It is really important, if you are creating content, whether it’s blogs, or podcasts or anything, that you are creating content you are passionate about,” Chapman said. “It might be a hobby, it might be your family, it might be a topic, but whatever it is, if you’re not writing about it from a passionate perspective then why would the readers connect with you?”

He said with so much content being produced it’s imperative to have passion behind your delivery. Consumers naturally gravitate towards the people who are creating content they feel passionate about. Once you’ve tapped into your passion, leveraging it to earn a living takes hard work and persistence.

“Just having a passion isn’t enough. You have to work really hard. Keep improving your skills. Do everything you can do to make your passion better. Something small and keep building on it. When you get to the point where you’re earning a paycheck from what you love doing, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

“Everybody is passionate about something.”

Thank you C.C. Chapman for the great interview and thank you for the podcast about passion that gave me the extra nudge I needed to pursue mine.

Was your business sparked by a passion? If so, I want to hear about it. Please leave a comment.

Also here are a few motivating resources I’ve come across:

• Entrepreneur magazine: Finding your passion
• The Huffington Post: How do I find my passion?
• Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• Book: Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life by Donald Trump (Ok, so I haven’t read this one, but the title alone is motivating.)

For the audio interview click the play button below, and for the video podcast visit JetPack Radio.

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