What’s Your Personal Brand?

As you may know, I got to speak at the first Personal Branding Summit last week in Boston. I was in good company with Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.o and Gil Yehuda, business speaker and analyst extraordinaire. It was a fantastic experience, and one I hope to replicate again soon.

There was a great turnout at the event…actually, it was SRO. It was such an exciting and fulfilling event and we had such a diverse and participatory audience. We had ad agencies like Mullen in the house, a virtual world designer (think Second Life), Kennedy Information (research and news for the recruiting industry), career counselors and job-hunt.org. Dan kicked off the event talking about the state of the job market and had some interesting research from Jobvite on how companies are using social media to recruit and research candidates. Gil talked about the power of blogging and how blogging is the foundation of your personal brand. I covered the evolution of the job search over the past 50 years (my, how actually complex it is gotten even with the advent of technology), how recruiters use social networking and a recommendation on what tools you should be using.

Here are a few highlights from my session:

1. How Recruiters Use Social Networking: I had the chance to catch up with an expert, Deborah Hankin, who is a recruiter for brands and the advertising world at Liz Glatzer and Associates in NY. She said that she uses: LinkedIn for accuracy on your job history, chronology and title, Facebook for researching your personal life (Yikes!) and Twitter to “listen” and “observe” what candidates are saying.  According to an ERE Media Survey, 64% of recruiters indicated use of professional sites such as LinkedIn to conduct background research and 66% of hiring managers said they would not hire a person for the job if they found something in their profiles they did not like.
2. Positioning…Why It’s So Important. Too many people jump on to LinkedIn and throw their resume into their profile (it’s so sloppy it looks thrown). Or, people use Twitter to talk about their kid’s potty training (not when you’re looking for a job folks…there’s a time and place for it…or I guess it depends on what type of job it is!) As a Marketer, I recommend taking a step back and ask yourself the following questions: What’s your Elevator pitch? How are you positioning yourself? Who are you up against? What is the competition? How would you differentiate yourself? What are you looking for? What value do you bring?
3. Make a Plan. Yep, that’s right. Map it out. Savvy Social Media Coaching provides what we call the Savvy Editorial Calendar. We tell you what to say, when to say it and with what tools.
4. Don’t Put Anything On Your Social Networks That You Wouldn’t Put On Your Desk at Work. Folks, there’s a fine line with talking about your personal life and yes, that is what social networking is all about. But, the main point here is just use plain ‘ol common sense. Remember, anything you put on the interweb (I borrowed that) is permanent. Kind of like a tattoo.

Lastly, I really need to thank our incredible audience. They were truly supportive of yours truly! I got incredible feedback, that I’d love to share with you:

“What’s clear is that Sheryl is extremely knowledgeable about social networking applications and how to use them successfully for marketing/branding. She introduced the audience to an outline of questions we need to answer, and steps we need to take, to differentiate ourselves in the web 2.0 world. Sheryl is an excellent speaker with great presentation skills! She is personable and connects quickly with her audience. By the time she was done speaking, I knew exactly what I needed to do to be more effective in my online presence, and I couldn’t wait to start!”- Nina Rogoff

“…you were awesome. You have a very natural speaking style, your content was solid, and you came across as incredibly likable and knowledgeable. You were much better than that other speaker (me). OK, maybe not “much”. – Gil Yehuda

“I very much enjoyed meeting you and hearing your presentation. Good information, well presented!” – Wendy Gelberg

Got Personal Brand? If not, email Sheryl at Sheryl@SavvyStrategyOnline.com.