AltaeeBlog.com | By Mohammed Al Taee » Brand Conversations

Brand Conversation With Jacob Share

Mohammed — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:39:34 +0000

Today, I spoke to Jacob Share. Jacob is the job search expert who created JobMob in 2006, growing it to become one of the Top 3 blogs in the world about finding jobs, having attracted well over 2 million page views last year alone. Going back to 2009, Jacob is the longest-appearing blogger on The Personal Branding Blog other than its creator, Dan Schawbel. Jacob is also the founder and SVP of Share Select Media. He has been recognized as one of the world’s leading 60 Personal Branding experts on Twitter.

You can connect with him via @Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Mohammed: How can we keep our offline character authentic with the online presence? Do you think we need to mask some brand attributes such as humorist, honesty, shyness, etc. when we connect to the Internet?

Jacob: I don’t like telling people to hide things. We all have flaws and make mistakes (which is ok!). Rather, emphasize your strengths and let everything else fade into the background. This is definitely easier to do online, where you can pause to think before publishing anything, than in real life where your gut reaction might not always be what you hope it is. How to keep both synchronized?

1) By not trying to hide anything.

2) By choosing a personal brand that fits you like a glove. In other words, the less your personal brand is an act, the less conscious effort it will take for you to build it.

Mohammed: What are your favorite ways to monitor what’s being said about you? And how do you utilize the online conversation to brand yourself and your company?

Jacob: My branding focus is mainly on myself and the best way I do that online is through JobMob, the other places I publish such as The Personal Branding Blog, and my social media activity. I generate a lot of brand-building content, which is likely to drown out anything else about me. That said, you can never be too careful, so it is important to monitor your online reputation regularly. For that, I like to keep things as simple as possible:

1) Create Google Alerts on your full name and any other specific keyword phrases related to your personal brand

2) Do a Twitter search on your twitter id and full name, and subscribe to the RSS feed of the results so you can get updates whenever that search has newer results

3) Check your social network & email inboxes at least once a day

There are many tools you can use to monitor your brand and it’s very possible there’s one that could simplify this strategy for me even further, but I have yet to find such a tool that was as accurate.

Mohammed: Strong online reputation or strong offline resume? who will win in the upcoming years? and why?

Jacob: I don’t look at it that way. Your online reputation isn’t against your offline resume; everything needs to flow together as part of the same personal brand. The more important angle is the one that employers are more likely to see first. Before the Internet, the resume was the typical way job candidates were introduced to a company. Since background checks required extra work, many people were able to have their embarrassing work histories overlooked. That would be much harder to do today when employers can and will Google candidate names, searching for reasons to quickly reject candidates more often than not. The role of the resume is changing and it’s becoming more and more important for your Google search results to back up your resume’s message.

Brand word: Personal branding has always existed even if we didn’t call it that. The people who’ve met you all have an impression of you. The question is whether they have the same image, and if that image is a positive one. Using both online & offline tools, it’s easier than ever to continuously project and reinforce the desired impression of yourself so that people remember you the way you want them to.

Spotlight: Join Jacob’s free job tips newsletter today to get a FREE copy of his ebook, The Ultimate Twitter Job Search Guide. Subscribe here!

Brand Conversation with Robert Lavigne

Mohammed — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:40:52 +0000

Today, I spoke to Robert Lavigne, Robert is an Enterprise 2.0 Consultant and Project Management Professional (PMP). He performs extensive research and networking in the fields of Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Social CRM, and Personal Branding. The use of modern social networking tool-sets and related mindsets fully engages business relationships and departmental convergence. Through the application of these principles, Robert believes an organization can achieve Real Corporate Value (RCV).

You can connect with Robert via @Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube.

Mohammed: For new startup companies today, is it a prestige to have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.? How do you think companies should manage social media to engage clients and drive more sales?

Robert: Prestige? No. Opportunity for discovery? Yes!

One of the hardest things Startups face is being discovered commercially by their client base at a rate faster than their declining bank account. Social Media provides an element of discovery that traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies cannot provide.

Unlike search, where you need to know what you are looking for, a discovery-based marketing strategy targets the Three Degrees of Connectivity (contact, friend, friend of friend). By providing shareable content, you engage your primary market to relate your story and value proposition to their friends and subsequently their connections. This provides an exponential scaling model of marketing that is unmatched by common SEO practices.

The key to a successful Discovery Marketing Strategy is based on leveraging Social Media to tell a story worth relating beyond your existing market share. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are merely conduits for sharing content. The context of that content must be the real value your product or service provides.

By becoming a transparent organization that engages in Social Media, your employees and clients are not only the conduit of such stories, but the storytellers themselves.

Good stories are the ones that engage your entire market-space, are retold to previously unknown markets and as such drive sales.

Mohammed: For Generation Y and Millennials, what are the best social media tools to manage and brand their image online? Give us a summary of the tools you use and how they should use them effectively?

Robert: For myself, I have a multi-tiered approach to developing my social network. I use Twitter initially to discover content, communities and individuals that I would not come across via traditional means. I start to follow insightful content providers and eventually get followed in return by those who share my values. Once we engage on Twitter, I invite them to join my Linkedin network. This formalizes our relationship and opens up our business networks to our respected three degrees. Once the relationship and trust develops further, I extend an invitation to them to join me on Facebook. This provides them with a behind the scenes view of my value proposition and personality that Linkedin does not fully provide.

Each layer of my social network provides an added level of credibility to the personal brand I am promoting and an opportunity for others to relate it to their own social network.

This eventually leads to a reverse process as I get discovered by their friends and thus grow my network back down the chain.

For Generation X and Baby Boomers, I would recommend that now is the time to build their social network, if they have not started already. Counting on traditional networking strategies is an outdated mindset that will eventually catch them off guard to this commercial market. Given their age, this could be prove disasterous as they approach retirement. They must realize that they are now competing in an emerging workforce and consumer market that is already socially networked and self sufficient.

Generation Y and Millennials tend to have the benefit of an existing Facebook community. However, they lack the knowledge of how to leverage it commercially. My recommendation to them, is to start learning more about the business side of their existing social network. The best way to do that is to start syncing their Facebook network to Linkedin. They need to start developing weak ties at the business level that will allow them to target not only their existing connections but the powerful third degree of connectivity. Those weak ties are the ones that will allow them to fully achieve the business value of their existing social network as their own personal brand emerges.

For all generations, however, I would highly recommend that they start engaging on Twitter as it is becoming the number one source of discovery. The lesson for all generations is to ensure that you do not live within your existing silos. You must constantly forge trails towards new content and communities to engage, collaborate and market in.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIX0m2gnlRY

Mohammed: As a certified project manager professional, how do you think next generation project managers will manage their team, resources and communication? Do you believe social media will be a must have skill for PMs and CEOs?

Robert: As an Enterprise 2.0 consultant, I spend the majority of my time researching and envisioning new forms of collaboration and engagement for the enterprise. Project Managers have the luxury of being tied to multiple disciplines within the organization due to their cross-departmental responsibilities and interactions. As such, it is my belief that they are amongst the primary benefactors of early adoption of Enterprise 2.0 toolsets and mindsets.

Enterprise 2.0 is formally defined as “a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise.” At its core, is the means of using the right tools that will generate the highest level of collaboration and engagement within the organization. Simply put however, traditional tools have done nothing more than build up silos and an unengaged workforce.

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and YouTube have exposed the workforce to a variety of alternative means of communication in their daily lives. By leveraging this off-hours training and awarness to their nine to five tasks, we are now faced with an opportunity to transform how we do business. By shifting from e-mails to activity streams, blogs and wikis, we can reduce the true costly expenses of doing business being rework and redundant processes. By becoming transparent, we can tap into the social network of the enterprise and find talent and engagement that has otherwise been unknown and untapped.

We have seen the power of these tools and mindsets outside of the organization, yet we choose to remain in our traditions within the enterprise. Traditions that don’t embrace transparency and true collaboration will find themselves uncompetitive in the emerging social market. Project Managers can truly become the change agents towards this evolutionary means of successfully delivering value and mitigating risk.

Brand Word: Only through engaging using a Third Gear philosophy will you achieve the real value proposition that Social Media can deliver. Whether it is within your organization using Enterprise 2.0, or outside of your organization using Social CRM, your mindset and attitude in using the tools will determine your success or failure and not the tools themselves.

Spotlight: Robert Lavigne is currently available for hire to assist you in formulating your Enterprise 2.0 strategy and integration. My Personal Brand Statement “Seasoned GenX Leader Capable of Leveraging the Technically Savvy GenY Knowledge Worker”

Robert Lavigne has recently written a blog entry called “The Three Gears of Enterprise Social Media Adoption.” I would highly recommend it to any who wish to properly leverage Social Media both within and outside of their organization.

Brand Conversation with City Sylvester

Mohammed — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:55:13 +0000

Today, I spoke with City Sylvester, City is a Personal Branding Consultant and Coach. He is a master of the relationships we have with ourselves, and communicating our core beliefs to the outside world, in a way that’s authentically true. Some where along the path in life some may have gotten lost, his passion is aligning careerist and Gen Y entrepreneurs to the paths they were meant to live. I recently interviewed by City to share my branding story, read it on his blog.

You can connect with City via @Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Mohammed: How do you explain “Personal Branding” to someone who just heard about the term?

City: Effective Personal Branding takes you from where you think you are, shows you exactly where you stand, and establishes a plan for where you authentically need to be. Often when people first hear the term “Personal Branding” they think of branding an individual like you would a lifeless product, but human beings are dynamic, and can’t be squeezed into small boxes, and topped with perfect bows. Personal Branding is a proactive way of dealing with life, it’s us waking up and taking control of our destinies.

Mohammed: For students, recent graduates and Gen Y in general, how their reputation 2.0 strategy should be?

City: The first thing would be, owning your name by registering it with a domain registrar.

The second thing, Brand your social media profiles with your full name ex: facebook.com/citysylvester

The third thing, Converse on topics you’re passionate about when using social media, and stay out of conversations that you wouldn’t be comfortable discussing in public.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBk4CJKw7Pg

Mohammed: What is the one essential thing that everyone has to know about branding?

City: Whether we realize it or not, we’re being branded. Positive and negative images are being attached to us daily, and branding has given us the power to choose those images. Done right, branding will change the way the world sees you, done wrong you’ll end up with the same outcome.

Brand Word: Trophies are meant to be won and loss. Don’t hold on to the material things as much as the experiences that made getting them possible. Discover what you’re passions are in life before you begin any branding strategy. “Only you can make or break yourself”

Spotlight: I offer one on one consulting for re-strategizing and creating personal brand profiles for careerist and Gen Y entrepreneurs.

I recommend Managing Brand You: 7 Steps to Creating Your Most Successful Self for people interest to read more about personal branding.

The Branding Story For The Man Behind The Tweets

Mohammed — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:05:00 +0000

I would like to thank all the experts that I interviewed on my blog. Those who gave their time to share part of their experience. In Insight From The Pros page, you can find valuable tips and experts’ advice on the social media, online reputation, personal branding, project management, leadership and other categories.

Some experts asked me for similar conversations on their blog so here are some of the interviews that I did for them.

Mohammed Al-Taee: The Man Behind the Tweets by Jörgen Sundberg

The Branding Story: Mohammed Al-Taee by City Sylvester

Also, Keith McIlvaine wrote a generous post about me.

Mohammed Al-Taee – A Generous Man

Insight From The Pros is one of the most visited pages on my blog. I’m planning to interview 100 experts so I hope to make it very soon. If you have any suggestion about people you like me to interview or may be you like to among those experts, just email me and let’s make it happen.

Brand Conversation with Ulrike Berlenbach

Mohammed — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:46:49 +0000

Today, I spoke with Ulrike Berlenbach, Ulrike is marketing expert for strategic marketing. She works as an intercultural consultant, is a certified executive coach and communication trainer. She is an energizing activist an founder of www.brandingmedia.de and CEO of www.Eichenhorn.net. She developed a combination of social media and personal branding as a certain holistic tool named brandingMEDIA® brandingMEDIA® is a conceptual brand building process adding the target group congruence according to the Web 2.0/Web 3.0 communication. She is born in Germany with an European-American entrepreneur spirit.

You can connect with Ulrike via @Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin

Mohammed: How have you built your own personal brand?

Ulrike: To me a personal brand is a summary of your own experience, your goals and life vision. Since I was born I was taller than other children and so I expressed my first brand as an attitude and own style. Later at university I graduated in Economics, Marketing and secondary in Psychology and got passionate by creating strategic brandbuilding . Effective brand building needs a holistic approach and remembering my own preferences and roots I started by social media about 5 years ago to build my brand Nussknackerin. That’s the German word for a female nutcracker according to self development in profession and personal. It´s a complex brand and gives me the opportunity to be more dimensional. It`s more interesting and alive for your market especially when you are working on a market niche as a pioneer. An obvious reason is to gain a 360-degree picture of your personal brand; that is, to understand more of the dimensions of the current brand, whether they are positive, negative or neutral.

Mohammed: How has social media impacted the brand of your business and yourself?

Ulrike: Social media is a real benefit to me. I can approach much more people and potential customers than ever. I can take a legitimate approach to my personal brand and say what I mean and mean what I say. I am authentic in “selling my own” as the vehicle of my services. Next point is to use social media to gather opinion about my brand from colleagues, clients and customers. Gathering recommendations and posting them on social media sites, own blogs and guest blogs will work to build greater credibility.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

Mohammed: Should a CEO outsource his personal branding to a professional social media expert? How does that reflect on the trust factor?

Ulrike: One of the opportunities for business to enjoy the benefit of social media is to express value to customers in an authentic, unmediated voice enhanced by the potential for immediacy. No doubt there are needed certain practices and skills communication in dialogues but it is important that CEOs begin to acquire them directly, rather than mediating through staff or/and pr agencies. The heart of attitude is gratitude which means to me that social media must be authentic. Hiring an expert to start social media is the best leadership decision to start with training you and your staff. But the voice of the company must be the company`s one. The trust factor is the highest in your own write. All readers will appreciate is you stay by yourself in the sense of your company’s voice.

Brand Word: You have to be you before you get popular in your market. Rock on!

Spotlight: I recommend reading Linchpin by Seth Godin | following homepage: www.Eichenhorn.net | following Personal branding Expert