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  • Social Media: Putting Human Face on Your Business Social Media Brand

    What are the pros and cons of putting a human face on your business’s social media presence? Should you brand it with your fancy corporate logo, or should you consider making it more personable… more human?

    Our website, Keenpath.com, recently underwent user testing through an online service called UserTesting.com.  They provide a service that connects you with qualified individuals (“crowdsourcing“), that are based on certain credentials, background, demographics, and their ratings from other past customers.  You receive video feedback of the user tester navigating throughout the site, and their impression and feedback, as well a written comments.

    Like most businesses today, they have developed social media strategy as a supplemental campaign to help grow their business and increase their reach.

    Their incredibly useful service is driving some much needed changes for our own web presence. Besides the great feedback received, one of the first things I noticed was the “face” of UserTesting.com is human.

    Meet Aimee Williamson, the face of UserTesting.com. On the UserTesting X (formerly Twitter) profile you will find Aimee’s picture, as well as in the X (formerly Twitter) background. It introduces her as the Director of Customer Support.  Indeed, she is, as a couple of days after receiving the results of the Keenpath usability test, I received a personable email directly from Aimee.  I responded with a bit of feedback, and she kindly responded back.

    Needless to say, the reputation of UserTesting.com doesn’t hinge 100% on one person, because the service and website have proven to be self-sufficient in generating new customers through channels other than social media. For example, I found out about the service through an appSumo deal.

    Talk with your customers, not at them

    What I like most about UserTesting.com’s approach to using social media is that they are using it to truly have a conversation with their customers (who use social media). They aren’t using it as a direct-mail blast-em-away method, like some businesses do. The most effective means of generating new leads, as well as nurturing old ones, is through the building up of the human side of business.

    It is interesting how much customer service has transformed over time, going from face to face, to over the phone, to live chat, email, and now social media.

    A case study in social media: brand reputation

    Social media marketers like to use the @ComcastCares story as an example of how customer support can be done via X.  Better yet, what they’ve done after the original @ComcastCares guy, Frank Eliason, left publicly in July, is worth a thumbs up.  Since Comcast learned from their success at using social media for customer service, they are continuing the path with Bill Gerth now managing the @ComcastCares X account.  I would venture to say they have done this and made the transition without skipping a beat.

    Putting a human face on your social media: Which platform?

    There is nothing wrong with building a following on social media platforms such as X profiles and Facebook Pages with human faces, however, here are a few things to consider.  X may be the ideal platform to do this as it “flows” better because people can Mention, send a reply, or if mutually following, send a Direct Message to the X (formerly Twitter) account.  Facebook might not be an ideal platform for customer service. It is great for brand building around your corporate brand, building a repertoire with your customers and the world, but doesn’t have direct contact abilities for customers. The Wall is a less than ideal place to solve customer service issues. The Discussion tab might be better, but involves more work than a Mention or @ reply on X.

    Evolution of online customer service

    Many companies continue to innovate on the customer service experience online.  Mobile technologies allow for more freedom and flexibility and have also become a great way to receive quick customer service. RightNow Technologies, a customer service software technology company based in Bozeman, Montana, states in a customer service strategy article, “If you’re looking to drive loyalty and retain customers, it’s time to take a serious look at the mobile experience.”

    The impact of Internet and mobile technologies, in an interconnected world, spans the wide sea of using the web and social media for business, pleasure, research, and staying in touch.  It is imperative that your business learn how to use these platforms and mesh your brand and strategy throughout.

  • Introduction to Inbound Marketing

    Everything from the beginning of time has involved some form of communication, one way or another. This communication makes modern economies work, thrive, and grow.

    What does this have to do with marketing, especially inbound marketing? A lot. The objective with inbound marketing is to simplify the approach to marketing. For too long, marketing in general has been overcomplicated and this puts a burden on everyone, especially the small guy. The way we all now communicate has changed that. The Internet changed all of that.  What other platform can you expend energy on with tool sets such as blogging, and get great results in return?

    Do the math:

    • If it takes you 30 minutes each to craft out a brief, but informative post about your product or service, twenty posts would take about 10 hours
    • Break it down over a few days and spend 3 hours writing blog posts
    • If you were paying yourself $50 an hour to write these posts it’d come out to around $500, right?

    You can easily blow through $500 on advertising! Don’t get it wrong, there are purposes for paid advertising, but the beauty of inbound marketing is that if you can generate the content, it pays dividends.

    Why is blogging so important with inbound marketing?

    View blogging as an informal medium that allows anyone to have a voice, from CEOs to entry level employees, to citizens to President’s and high-ranking government officials.

    The nature of a blog system; system referring to the structure, layout and sharing elements, is designed for a flow of information to be shared and collaborated on.

    The beauty of blogging is that it only requires user generated content. What drives success with blogging is quality content, good design, and how it’s promoted. Let’s break those down a bit.

    Creating quality content

    If time is put into the creation of the core message and purpose, the story comes out stronger.

    Ideas: Video is great for capturing visually, and often audibly, a message that can reach out and connect with the viewer. If they like it, it gets re-shared with their friends. Reports and research, it doesn’t have to be boring to be a report and research but can be something highly relevant to a niche audience. This may apply better to business to business, but consumers like reports as well!

    Good design

    The visual appeal of a website and its overall branded image does matter. The design is the front door that has a welcome mat on it. Content is the key that unlocks the door and welcomes the visitors in to stay a while.

    Ideas: Spend the time necessary to research layouts, themes, templates, whatever you might need to create, buy, hire out to produce something that is mostly if not completely unique to your brand. Strategize a bit – Is your content made up of one element such as video, or audio, or text? Do you want portions to stand out more than the rest. Think about the long term structure.

    How should you promote it?

    Better yet, how will you promote it. When social media first started hitting the mainstream there was a string of topical posts on how brand marketers where and are losing control over their brands. This is true, because what is going to stop false information from flowing, whether purposefully or accidentally?  Or misinterpretations of a campaign which backfires?

    The key to rolling with the punches is to be able to take them easier. With a well armed blog army, whether that consists of one or many contributors, a well written blog post can be crafted to clear up anything. What happens if its dropped out into no man’s land?

    Common mistake: A new blog owner starts generating content and never gets feedback and gives up. The feedback might come from multiple channels; actual blog comments or social interactions from a social network or real time search engine. Use tools like BackType, Topsy, Tweetmeme, and Facebook Pages, to see how much interaction is happening out there.

    Something to do right now: Set up a few Google Alerts for your brand name or service. Use the RSS option if you prefer or just receive straight email.

    The place where outbound and inbound marketing work together

    One of the places the two worlds collide with marketing is the collaboration of an online and offline campaign. It can be as simple as a sign up form on a website that is reached from some printed material that was handed out at an event, to something as complicated as a series of billboards that build up suspense for an online campaign. The possibilities are endless, and the basics are too easy to miss.
    Ideas: Check your profiles – make sure your profiles are all linking back to your website and vice versa, when you drive someone to Facebook or X (formerly Twitter) from a cute sticker in your window at your location, you also want them to engage with your website and take other actions as well. This is done with social media nurturing, creating great content, and promoting your key areas of a website in multiple locations.

    How it all comes together

    Inbound marketing is evolving. Just as many say it has been around for a long time in different forms, but with the modern age, the here and now, it has evolved to a point where it’s not OK to ignore and sit passively while the wagon strolls by. No matter the industry or the apparent hurdles, it’s key to stick to the basic marketing elements which have driven commerce around the world to succeed on many fronts and apply them to bleeding edge technological changes and innovations that happen daily. Social networks are growing rapidly. Social media, a buzz word, but with purpose is leading a charge to empower all with a voice, from consumer to brand to connect on a different level than ever before.

    In Depth: What is Inbound Marketing?

    inbound marketing pathwayInbound marketing is about generating traffic, conversions, and converting leads through your website using: blogging, content management, email marketing, landing pages, lead nurturing, marketing analytics, social media, and SEO.

    The three keys of inbound marketing are: inbound lead generation, lead conversion, and marketing analysis.

    Get Found – Inbound lead generation

    Content Marketing

    Well written and search engine optimized copy is key to the success of Internet marketing campaigns whether it is organically, or advertising driven.

    Writing high quality content for your website and online marketing materials is important. Not only does it make an impression on leads and customers, but it also directly affects your overall marketing efforts.

    Search Engine Optimization

    To get the quality leads that your business needs, you want your business to get found by the right prospects. With search marketing you can help your business to be found by future customers by focusing on tailoring the results to your audience.

    Social Media Marketing

    There is a story to be told about your product or service. Social media is about listening and telling a story at the same time. By telling your story, connecting with your audience, and sharing relevant information your network will strengthen and grow, increase customer satisfaction, and drive new sales.

    Convert – Capture and Nurture Leads

    Lead Conversion

    All your lead generation efforts using search engine marketing, content marketing and social media marketing would be wasted if you didn’t have a strategy in place to fill the top of your sales funnel and help convert those sales leads into customers.

    Analyze – Marketing ROI Analysis

    lead conversion funnel‘Know Thyself’ – Learn What Marketing Efforts Are Fruitful

    Make Smarter Marketing Investments
    Marketing ROI analysis gives you greater insight into what is working and what isn’t working. Wouldn’t you like to know what investments in time, money and resources are having the greatest impact on the bottom line?

    By measuring the core components of your brand and impact from lead to close you can better understand the closed loop marketing.

    Key Components Measured

    Source

    How are your leads finding you? What is driving them to convert? Did a specific blog article or email campaign cause a spike in interest?

    Measure the source of your leads to give marketing analytics that help make better decisions of where to focus efforts.

    Reach

    With content being generated on your blog and promoted across social media, who is listening and responding?

    The measurement of success isn’t always how many followers or subscribers you have on one channel but often in your overall reach across all platforms.

    Competitive Analysis

    While measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns, and having closed loop marketing analysis is critical, having in depth understanding of how your marketing metrics stack up against your competitors can give you greater intel on how to target your market.

    One can only improve when and where you know improvement can be made.

  • Courage: Stepping to the Plate

    Having the courage to step to the plate will take you far. The sky is the limit where you can go. But what if you are having a hard time mustering up the strength to step to the plate?

    black diamond ski run photo - showing courage

    I will never forget it. As a kid I grew up skiing, and then in my teenage years decided to give snowboarding a shot.  I had some experienced snowboarder friends and told them about my interest. Of course they encouraged me, gave me all the tips on what gear to get and we arranged a time to head up to the mountain and they’d teach me.

    We got up to the mountain, and I asked my friend what run we’d be trying out first. Mind you, I thought he’d say the beginner slope. Nope. I guessed wrong. He said the first run of the day was a black diamond. Now I have done black diamond runs on skis but translating that into a snowboard is a wee bit different. I was sweating a bit, and thought well, I have skateboarded for a while so I should be able to do this, no problem.

    I strapped the board on my boots near the lodge, stood, pointed in the direction of the lift, and started sliding forward, and wham fell within the first few feet. Not off to the greatest start for my first time, especially considering in the next half hour I’d be standing, at the top of a black diamond with some eager friends to go down.

    At the time I thought I was giving in to peer pressure. The thought crossed my mind that if I hadn’t gone with these friends that I wouldn’t have ridden my board down a black diamond the first time.  I now know better.

    I cowboyed up and strapped on my snowboard eagerly awaiting my chance to prove to myself that I could do it. My instincts kicked in and I turned out to be a surprisingly good snowboarder. After I learned how to not catch my edges and slam face first into the snow.

    Work your way into it

    I had to take steps to get to the top of that black diamond:

    1. Research and get the gear
    2. Find friends (support) to get me there
    3. Push myself to do it
    4. Glean the efforts of my courage

    The same steps can be modified for a life experience in building up enough courage to step up to the plate.

    1. Research, learn more about it
    2. Get some support from family, friends, and strangers if needed
    3. Tell yourself you can do it, and then do it
    4. Self-evaluate, look back and ask yourself how you did

    Courage is not a dime a dozen

    There aren’t that many courageous people in the world. A high percentage of those who get through life never chase their dreams or step up to the plate.

    What gives us purpose in life is different for everyone, but your purpose is not to ignore and drive yourself away from the things that you love, it’s to bring you closer to it.

    Question: What do you do to overcome your fear and boost courage?

    (Photo credit: Paul Jerry)

  • Telling Your Story Using Social Media

    Is it important that your message is heard? What are you trying to portray?

    Social media, a hot topic across virtually every industry this year has merit, value and has brought to light a new form of telling your story.  The backbone of social media has existed for some time; with blogging and social networks ranging from the earliest Internet forums to chat protocols such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat). One could say that the first social networks were those held around campfires, talking and telling stories. While this may be true, the digitized aspect of social networking now has changed everything.

    Over time social media centric networks such as MySpace, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn began to take us on a roller coaster ride that felt wobbly at the beginning and then we realized that we like it and want to stay on the ride for a while. Some are still debating whether the ride is worth getting on, and some may be getting off, but the smartest know this ride is in it for the long haul.

    A typical story told on social media

    There are countless social media case studies that show how connecting with their target market, while offering compelling, unique and valuable content whether written, visual or audible, can harvest the ultimate story telling situation, maximize sales, create a community around, and build your brand.

    One organization that we worked with, American Red Cross of Montana, found they were able to leverage social media as a way to raise awareness of their mission and day-to-day services.  They are able leverage social media to not only create an awareness around their emergency services, but also around training and volunteer opportunities, creating a community around their mission. During Internet marketing workshops we’ve presented, a theme that shines through is to use an approach that works best for you, that is tailored to your niche and marketplace, after putting thought and research in to what really matters in your overall marketing objective.

    What your story should portray about your brand

    A great story has a couple of elements worth noting.

    • First of all, its memorable. There are many different ways stories are memorable. It can either be outright crazy, funny, sad, weird, and filled with useful information. A great story is worth repeating. If your goal is to create a viral marketing message, then you may consider using out of the ordinary methods to tell your story. It doesn’t have to be a video to “go viral”. It can be a well crafted article or blog post, or podcast. The point is think outside of the box and put yourself in your market’s shoes. What is interesting to them?
    • Second, a great story is told with conviction. If someone stands before you, tells a story and is monotone, doesn’t have a sparkle in their eye or seem to care about what they are telling you, do you listen, or at least feel inspired to believe them? No! Why would you? People have big lie detectors ingrained in their brains, and social media amplifies this instinct. If you aren’t genuine and are not sharing what is truly of value to your market, then don’t even try it.

    Your story should always portray what the core focus of your organization is all about. If you are a florist that wants your arrangements to spread the message of love and inspiration to the world, tell us about it! If you are a Fortune 500 company that has a goal to sell your product that you are certain will change the world in a positive way, then tell us about it! Don’t hold back, now is the time to tell your story using social media.

    Use the inbound marketing tool set for success

    After crafting a memorable story filled with conviction, now is the time to share it. There is no better way than to use the tools in the inbound marketing tool chest to do so.

    • Blogging
    • Social Networking
    • Landing Pages
    • Email Newsletters
    • Well written copy

    Now tell your story with social media. It is worth telling, your audience is listening, and the bounce back marketing effect it will have is tangible and increases the awareness of your brand.

  • Domain Name Defensive Registration

    image of someone holding a web domain address symbolizing importance of defensive domain registrationFrom a brand perspective you want to ensure that your desired web properties are registered to you. This goes to say that if you have a website (that you care about) you should own the .COM, .NET, and .ORG domains, if available.

    The small investment made to register these is worth the type of image you want to present to those who may either mistype or get re-directed from a search engine.

    In the legal world, simply protecting your intellectual property, or trademarks, registering any domain names you can with your brand name in it is called defensive registration.

    Whether you are a small business owner, or an executive at a large firm, it makes obvious sense that an investment as small as $10 and typically at the most $100 a year for a domain name makes sense. You want potential or current customers to land on your web property if they type in a domain name with your brand name in it.

    (Photo credit: annaOMline)

  • Effective Marketing Message Importance

    When you created your product or service, you had a target customer in mind. It could be a broad audience, or highly targeted. Either way, you have a desired set of customers that will purchase and use what you have to offer. Have you clearly relayed to them what value you offer them?

    It happens all too often that the perception of a target market may be the opposite of what effect you wished to have on it.  With inbound marketing, the driving of traffic and converting it into leads and customers, you have the chance to be concise, clear, and effective in your message, while affecting the bottom line, while increasing customer and client satisfaction. This happens with the product or service being found by the right target market and their perception being more qualified, or in line with your desired result. Both sides find success.

    There are a few key differentiators from an effective message and an ineffective one:

    1. Unclear value – Can the reader, viewer, listener understand the core value that your product or service offers?
    2. Difficult to follow calls to action – Some calls to action are utterly miserable and are difficult to follow for the “end user”
    3. Boring – Keep it lively. People interact better when the message being relayed to them isn’t dull and stiff, even if the subject is

    By combining the natural desire, you must promote your brand in a vein of positive light, be authentic with the message and by using smart inbound marketing techniques your Internet marketing and social media marketing campaigns will have natural success.

  • How To Communicate Well With Anyone

    I recall those trucker style hats that have adjustable bands on the back. As a little youngster playing tee ball, I thought those bands were awesome. If only life wasn’t like those bands, where everything had a one size fits all approach.

    people-communicating-in-a-meeting-7101975

    Not everything has a cool adjustable band like those hats, but one element does: communication. Mastering the art of communication is a lifelong challenge, and one that no one masters completely, because there is too much to be learned.

    You communicate daily with those around you. People you like and get along with, and people you have a hard time being around, but are forced to deal with. Luckily, communication skills are flexible and can be tweaked to any situation, no matter how grim. Mastering the art of being flexible is the key, as that is the ticket to success in academia, career, and life.

    How to communicate with those you get along with

    It may feel natural to speak with or be around those with whom you have no qualms, and the conversation can typically be light and well rounded. Your shoulders let down and you can be yourself. These are typically good friends, classmates, or friendly co-workers.

    Ways to continue building these relationships:

    • Pat them on the back for their successes – this will come easily anyway because you don’t mind giving them praise
    • Teach them a skill they didn’t know – this gives you an opportunity to work on something together or be in a teach-and-learn scenario which strengthens your friendship

    How to communicate with those you do not get along with

    No matter how professional the setting, or how relaxed the setting, you may feel you just can’t strike up a conversation or hold a conversation of interest with someone you don’t connect with. It is critical that you realize right now that a high percentage of the people you deal with on a day to day basis may fit into this category. Why the phenomenon? Because of the vast array of personalities and backgrounds, we can’t all be the best of buds. In a perfect world that would be great. But it’s not the case.

    No harm done, because here are a few skills to help you sharpen your verbal and non-verbal communications skills to deal diplomatically with those it’s hard to deal with:

    • Meet in the middle – Build a communication bridge that can’t be crumbled. Don’t be defensive and work hard to see the other side
    • We are all the same, really – Although they are the opposite of you, and may make your life miserable, work on yourself first, and worry about your attitude, not theirs
    • Stop furling your brow – Non-verbal communication is huge. If you look annoyed or irritated, others know. Don’t be fake and smile until your face hurts, but show a little compassion and don’t give the evil eye

    Lead the way and others will follow

    Now that you’ve learned a few tips on improving the personal or professional relationships you have by communicating better, apply them often. Rinse. Repeat. When you step up to the plate, hit a home run, others will high five you at home plate. The greatest leaders have often been the best communicators.

    Challenge: Strike up a conversation with someone you struggle to talk with. Ask them about their background, learn something, and you never know what could come of it.

    The above post is my weekly column for the Brand-Yourself blog. I cross-post it here, but you can check out the original version online here.

  • Personal Branding Tips: Get Out What You Put In

    Growing up my mom would always tell me, “You get out of it what you put into it.” I never realized she was giving me perfect Personal Branding Tips.  At first this didn’t make sense to me, and I’d roll my eyes and move along. But over the years it clicked one day, and I had a paradigm shift. It is true. It stands true in the general sense of the phrase, and if applied to a specific topic. In the case of personal branding tips, “you get out of it what you put into it”.

    inspire dream and accomplish - image of child holding up spaceship toy

    As a netizen in the online world, your opportunity to collaborate in real time is only a few clicks away. We are surrounded by social networking tools, and freely available resources, such as this blog, which give you some best practices to succeed in your career, life and beyond.

    Personal Branding Tips: Things to avoid

    Not participating-

    If you never get in there and experiment, or try new things, then how will you find what you like? Or how will you grow? It’s no different online than it is offline. Show up to the game and play it. If you never reply or participate in the conversation online, whether it’s on LinkedIn, Facebook, or X (formerly Twitter), don’t expect others to converse with you, or vocally care about your accomplishments.

    Sleeping at the wheel-

    Obviously, no one would advocate you driving while half asleep or sleeping at the wheel. Building a strong personal brand takes time and effort. Many of the most accomplished personal brands today started off with no fans, and no blog readers. How they took it up a notch is what differentiates them from those that sleep at the wheel. (Just don’t overdo it and deprive yourself from sleep.)

    Staring at the floor-

    Peel your eyes off the floor and look around you. Get a sense of who you are by your surroundings. Many of the places we put ourselves shape us. If you hang out in the same community all the time and it’s stale, why not peek around the corner, and see what else is happening.  You might be pleasantly surprised!

    Personal Branding Tips: Actions items to aim for

    What would a blog post on being proactive be without actionable items?  Here are a few items to shoot for in your endeavor to begin getting the most out of your efforts, whether it’s career building, entrepreneurship, or succeeding in college.

    Spend time with yourself daily-

    While you can learn so much from others and their experiences, how about experiencing some things on your own? Isn’t that always the best way to learn?  History can teach us what not to repeat, but we are making our own history by living it now.

    Actionable item examples: read a book on a topic of interest, go on a walk, and ponder your goals, journalize your thoughts.

    Boost up another person daily-

    People that call attention to others in a positive manner are usually those who have the confidence to stand in the limelight a bit. They know the value of lifting another, that will increase the respect they garner and their social standing with others. Don’t be afraid to do this, others will return the favor. Think good karma.

    Actionable item examples: Make an effort to click the Like button on worthy Facebook updates, and re-tweet useful information on X (formerly Twitter). Offer a hearty review on LinkedIn, without being asked first.

    Build up your portfolio and let it shine-

    Create a hub, a home, for all your projects, accomplishments, goals hopes and dreams, and links to social media accounts. An easy way to do this may be through getting started with your own blog, or at the very least a website that you control. Not only are you building a hub, but also a place for others to find you and relate back to what you are.  The possibilities are endless with the online world but do what is easiest and most comfortable for you. The Brand-Yourself crew makes it easy to create a remarkable web presence.

    Personal Branding Tips: Thank your Mom for her advice

    Mother’s Day is just around the corner (May 9th). This weekend I will thank Mom for showing me the value of getting more out of life, my career, my goals, and dreams by putting my all into it.

    Question: What are you doing to put your all into it?

    The above post is my weekly column for the Brand-Yourself blog. I cross-post it here, but you can check out the original version online here.

  • Life Changing Bubble Wrap

    Believe it or not, I’m sitting here thinking about bubble wrap, and how it applies to us as humans. Bubble wrap is an interesting thing. You look at it you see there are hundreds, or even thousands of bubbles to pop and you think ooh if I could pop even one of those then it’ll pop! You get a little reaction and a little reaction there.

    It’s fun. Who doesn’t like to pop bubble wrap? If you don’t then there is something wrong with you.

    How does it apply to us as humans? We have so many different interests, so many different realities, so many different perceptions, so many different things that we’re faced with. We are like bubble wrap. We are spread across a plane and spread across a variety of challenges. A variety of obligations, things that we must do, things that we’d like to do, things that we are unable to do, and things that we are able to do, and aren’t doing.

    So, do we reach out to the whole layout of the bubble wrap and pop that one that’s within reach, or do you try to pop the bubble that is on the farthest right? A little out of reach, but you know that when you get it, it will be worth it. That one is the good one right there. That one will make you the happiest. That one will be the best one for you that day.

    Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about the paradigm shift. A paradigm shift often happens when you reach for that farthest right bubble, and you finally pop it.

    When you pop it, you are done, however there are thousands more bubbles to pop! Hundreds more, thousands more… they are always there.

    Question: Are you reaching for the farthest bubble?

  • Jump Start Your Personal Brand

    On a cold winter night my phone rang. A friend of mine called in need of a “jump;” their car battery was low. As I arrived, I was greeted by my cold friend with a big thanks! After hooking up the jumper cables and letting the battery charge for a couple minutes, we de-thawed in my warm truck. A few minutes later they were back on the road again.

    jump start your brand - image of someone jump starting a car

    Let this serve as a reminder: have you checked your personal brand’s battery lately? Is it running low and feeling drained? It may be time for a jump start!

    Pull into the pit stop, and test, recharge and jump start your personal branding battery.

    Test and grade your brand

    Use the Brand Grader developed by Mention to do a quick check to see how effective your personal branding efforts are. Also check out some of the excellent Grader tools made by HubSpot. These tools will help check how effective you are in your activity across the Internet.

    Recharge your personal brand

    Make a conscious effort to spend quality time networking, writing, and commenting on blog posts, becoming not just a bystander but an active part of the conversation! Try to comment at least a few times a day on your favorite blog posts but only do so when you can add valuable feedback. Don’t force yourself. Retweet, “Like” and share useful information. Your reward is adding value to your network while becoming a resource for others.

    Ignite a spark

    Jump start yourself by pursuing your passions. Make sure to find the time to do the things you love. If you’re getting bored or complacent with what you’re doing now, find a new hobby, or even a new blog to read or a new e-community to become a part of.  Work on smiling more and being optimistic. No one wants to be around a grump! This applies online as much as it does offline, seriously.

    Question: What are you doing to jump start your personal brand?

    The above post is my weekly column for the Brand-Yourself blog. I cross-post it here, but you can check out the original version online here.