Image Credit: Shapeshift
I’ve written previously on how your resume is meaningless, on building career security, not job security and on the rise of personal branding. To summarize the overarching themes of those three posts quickly:
- Your work should be working for you, building your reputation, not locked away in a resume.
- A resume proves nothing, a living case study proves everything.
- Creating a name for yourself in your industry provides you the ultimate freedom: career security.
- The tools exist for you to influence your industry in deep ways to make positive change and carve out a name for yourself.
- Building your personal network enables incredible connections with the world around you not previously possible.
It’s interesting to me which industries decide to engage in social media. It is even more interesting to see who does so in a way that makes sense for their brand and is seen as authentic and true.
The QSR industry (QSR stands for Quick Service Restaurant, if you aren’t aware) in particular seems to have a big opportunity here, as many people are already quite fond of their brands.
In fact, the tactics they can take don’t have to be anything crazy and could be quite simple, especially if there is pent-up demand for their presence in the social space.
Everyone is marketing web products like crazy online. Physical products are used by people online too, and the realization that most reading this already know is that those active on the web don’t see a difference between interacting on and off the web. It’s a big missed opportunity here not to join the conversation about your own brand. Continue reading...
image credit: adstream via flickr
Smart organizations and individuals across industries are building their brands through gathering organic audiences and encouraging dialogue.
By organic, I mean people who have opted-in to receive messages. And, encouraging dialogue not only between individuals and the organization, but also between fans of their brand as well. When you function as a connector, you become even more valuable to your audience than merely providing content.
Blogs function great as connectors because they publish not only a reader’s name but a link to their blog or website when they comment. So, when someone posts an interesting comment, it not only adds to the conversation on-site, but it allows the readers of that comment to potentially connect with the writer. Continue reading...
I don’t post too many blog tips here lately because there are just so many sites devoted to that subject.
Anyway I did come across a blog search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that is a nice way to help maximize long tail traffic to a blog. This may have already been written on before, and I don’t think it’s a secret. But, it is a simple way to optimize what you’re already doing for cumulative results.
This works best assuming your blog already has a bit of trust in Google and your articles are getting at least somewhere on page one.
Here’s what to do:
Ken Kadet, an independent communications consultant (previously an agency guy) left a great comment here the other day that got me thinking.
Let me pull out the part I want to focus on:
“Back at the agency, we kept waiting for the Digital Natives to show up, but they never did. There are plenty of 20-somethings entering the workforce with no clue how social networking can be used for anything beyond posting a plastic-beer-cup toast on Facebook, let alone marketing.”
I think it’s interesting he makes that point, as I grew up building computers, making websites, interacting online and ultimately being passionate about technology for as long as I can remember. I figured most of my peers had as well, at least the ones who saw how incredible the emerging tool was for society. It was just too cool of a movement not to be a part of. Continue reading...
