In corporate America (and probably corporate World), rules get created when people make bad choices. It's how child labor laws came to be and why we now have sexual harassment policies. The few and the stupid are the catalyst to regulation.
Which is why it's not a shock that companies big and small are beginning to institute social media policies. After the Dominos pizza incident and the world famous FedEx tweet — who can blame business leaders from wanting to protect themselves by setting down some rules?
I've put together a long list of social media policy examples for you to use as you create your own. I'll keep adding to the list as I find new ones, so you might want to bookmark the page. You can view/download them by clicking here.
Whether you work for someone else, are a serial entrepreneur or anything in between — in today's world, you can't afford to ignore the idea of personal branding.
A generation ago, employees often stayed with one employer for the lion's share of their career. Today, most professionals will not work for several companies — but they will most likely change their entire profession.
And even in the unlikely case that you do find the employer of your dreams right off the bat — you still want to distinguish yourself by standing out from the crowd.
Enter personal branding.
By the way, I don't think personal branding came about thanks to the internet. It's been around for generations. Abe Lincoln certainly created a personal brand. So did Hitler. But, the internet certainly makes it easier for an average joe or jane to create a credible, spreadable personal brand.
But to do it right, I believe it takes intention.
When I speak to college classes, I warn them. What you put out into the world via Facebook, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, FourSquare and whatever comes next — stays out there. And it's incredibly findable.
Two relevant facts:
No matter what we want to know, we Google it. (So imagine what the next generation of managers, business owners and reporters will do).
Google never forgets anything.
So given those facts…how do you intentionally build your personal brand?
Decide what you're all about.
Note I did not say…create your brand. Just like with a company — a brand comes from your heart and soul. So dig deep and figure out who you are — that is relevant to the world. (We're many things, some private and some for public consumption — your brand is the world's view).
There are lots of ways to figure it out. Write your own obit, do Strength Finders, Myers Briggs or put together your own little brand task force who knows you well and loves you enough to be honest.
Determine what your personal brand looks like — off-line:
No matter who you are or what you do, odds are that you spend more time off the computer than on. So be sure that you can live the brand in your daily life, 24/7. How does it come to life (remember, this is from other's perspective).
If your brand is that you're a developer of others — how would a developer behave? Think of all the touchpoints you have with other people — meetings, networking, on the phone, in an employee review, etc. How does the developer brand come to life?
Evaluate your existing on-line presence:
Google yourself. Does your brand show up? Is it the most prevalent message? Scan through your old Facebook updates. Is your brand there? Are the other themes complimentary to your brand or do they feel off? What types of things are you retweeting? What do your recommendations say on LinkedIn?
Don't just look at the subject matter. Look at language, tone, replies to others, what you do and don't talk about, play, share with others and the online/social media tools you do and don't frequent.
Step back and be as objective as you can. If a stranger Googled you — what would they think and know about you? Does it align with your brand?
And don't forget your traditional old website. It may be the most content rich place for your brand to live. Do you own your own domain (like www.drewmclellan.com). If not — grab it quick if it's still available.
Decide where you need to be online:
Depending on your brand, your presence might be expected on a certain social media tool. Should you be writing guest blog posts for a specific site? Is tweeting resources a part of who you are/want to be perceived to be? If you're the developer of others…how does LinkedIn figure into your plans?
Don't overdo this. Most people do not have the time or patience to establish a deep presence on every social media site, so don't try. Be active where you want to invest the time and where it makes sense.
Live it:
Off line, on line. Be your brand. Think about your choices. If your brand is about being the consummate, buttoned-up professional, should you be playing mafia wars or farming on a Facebook account that links you to your customers?
If your brand is about being very intellectual and deliberate — should you be firing off emotional responses to negative comments on your blog?
If your brand is about being gregarious and generous, should you be the wallflower at the networking event?
Like most things, if you did the prep work — it shouldn't be difficult to live your brand, once you've gotten in the habit of keeping it top of mind. If you find that you can't live your brand consistently or it feels fake — you probably have to go back to the drawing board and dig deeper.
Be consistent and be patient:
This isn't going to happen overnight. The more consistent you are, the quicker your brand will not only rise to the surface but stick. But it takes time to influence opinion and influence Google. Remember…we're living in the age of cynics. Don't try to be something you're not. Don't try to force it.
Your genuine brand will come from within. All we're trying to do is make sure that brand stays in the spotlight so you can do and be all that you're capable of.
I don't know about you, but one of my struggles is sifting through all the information out there to find the real nuggets of smart.
I thought, from time to time, I might point out some of the really smart stuff out there so you don't have to go digging for it. I'd love to know if you find value in this sort of post. (Just click on the bolded text to get to each offering)
New study on customer gratitude:Elaine Fogel talks about a new study done by the American Marketing Association that looks at the sales impact of generating a sense of gratitude in your customers.
Woorank.com: Yet another analytical tool for your website or blog. But the interface and elements they rank made this a very valuable look see. For me, it was worth a bookmark.
Do you play Foursquare?: Foursquare is this year's Twitter or so they say. This Marketing Profs Daily Fix post looks at why as marketers, we should care. Humbly offered by yours truly.
There you have it…a handful of nuggets guaranteed to make us all a little smarter. Let me know what you think.
Remember when the Superbowl was about the game? Now it's the halftime show wardrobe malfunctions and of course, the commercials.
Here's one of my favorites from last year, to get you in the mood! (e-mail subscribers, click here to view)
Want to get a jump on Sunday's new spots? Don't want to have to wade through 60 minutes of football just to see what Budweiser, GoDaddy and Doritos have in store for us?
Update: One of my colleagues at Flynn-Wright let me know that Harvest Research Center has teamed up with CBS affiliates in Iowa to provide the annual “Big Game Survey” which determines which Super Bowl ads are the best and, of course, which are the worst.
If anyone is up for winning one of five $100 Visa cards, then click on this link and sign up to receive a survey at halftime on Sunday and then again at the end of the game.
For getting lost, desktop computers and glaciers. At least according to The Future Trends book called Future Files by Richard Watson. (buy it by clicking here)
As part of the promotion of the book, the author released the chart below. It's an extinction timeline…predicting that newspaper delivery will be gone by 2012 and FM radio by 2027.
I promise you…you'll find this fascinating and its content will be your conversation starter for at least a week.
If you're having trouble reading the timeline, you can click on the chart to open a full-sized pop up window or download a full-sized PDF by clicking here.
After you've had a chance to really look it over…come back and let's talk about how this changes your view of what your business needs to be focusing on.
Do you know that most businesses lose the opportunity to get a new client simply because they don't respond to an inquiry? That's right…return a phone call, answer an e-mail and voila — you get a client. The percentage of businesses that fail to respond to a new business inquiry is staggering.
If you have a problem that the client is counting on you to solve…regular phone calls to provide updates will help you keep a client. Even if the solution is a sticky one.
The final deliverable of a big project is finally in your client's hands. Do you check in to make sure they're delighted?
When was the last time you just jotted a note or picked up the phone to say "thank you" for your business and your trust?
Chasing a perfect prospect who just isn't ready to buy? How long do you keep reaching out before you give up and just assume they're not worth the effort?
I can hear you now…I'm just so busy…I mean to call. I'm just not good at following up. Some people are just naturally better at that.
Relentless follow through happens when it is planned. When it's part of your sales cycle. That's the head part of the equation. But it also has to be part of your culture. That's the heart part. It's about caring enough.
After all — we know that most buying decisions (and client retention decisions) come down to that. Caring. A buyer (and your current customers) really wants to look you in the eye and ask — do you care enough?
That's the differentiator. And that's what relentless follow through demonstrates.
Do you have a Facebook fan page? Do you wish you could create an e-newsletter that allowed your fans to get your pages content — but in a way that they could control how often they heard from you?
NutshellMail has just launched an easy way for any Facebook page administrator to create an automated email newsletter campaign. The NutshellMail application adds an “Email Newsletter” tab to your page, enabling your fans to opt-in to receive emails that highlight recent and featured content from your page on a schedule of their choosing (as seldom as once a week or as often as every hour).
NutshellMail makes creating and maintaining an email newsletter easy. Once set up, there is nothing for you to do; NutshellMail simply collects recent activity from your page, organizes it into an easy-to-read email and delivers it to each subscriber per their own delivery preferences. The application also encourages more comments and sharing of feeds from your page by giving subscribers the ability to comment, like, share or post comments back to your page directly through email.
According to Mark Schmulen, CEO of NutshellMail, “More and more organizations are using Facebook pages as a primary channel to reach out to their fans and many are posting content, news and offers that cannot be found on their own websites. We want to make it easy for their fans to keep track of this great content.”
NutshellMail also offers an easy way for users to monitor the latest activity from their Facebook pages that haven’t installed the NutshellMail app. Users just sign up for NutshellMail’s core service, which sends a consolidated email digest of activity from pages. The service also allows users to set up their digest to include all Facebook activity and disable the one-off email alerts that Facebook currently sends.
Not using Facebook — but have created a Ning network? NutshellMail has also released a similar application for Ning, enabling any public Ning network to create an email newsletter campaign for their site: http://nutshellmail.com/ning/
Over the past few months, I have been delivering quite a few presentations on social media to groups (conferences, conventions etc.) of business leaders.
One aspect of embarking into the waters of social media that seems to give most of them some sort of tick is the idea that you have to relinquish some control.
You can't take advantage of the connectivity, reach and viral nature of he beast without also being willing to connect, reach many people and let others share. It's like wanting to enjoy the sensation of flying over the water in a boat at high speed but without the engine noise. It' the "other people" part of social media that provides its power.
Here's what I think of as social media's price of admission:
You have to be willing to spotlight and amplify other people's voices:
Many business owners seem to want to mute their employees and customers. That doesn't work in social media. Not only do you need to "let them" talk but you need to invite it. You have to allow comments. You are the topic of conversation somewhere. This is just about allowing it to happen (and encouraging it) in your digital home.
You have to be willing to be imperfect:
You need to be willing to be imperfect (like Dominos). You need to be transparent and that takes some courage. But let's be honest here. Everyone already knows you're not perfect. And…will actually respect and love you all the more for just admitting it. It's not how or whether you screw up. It's what you do next that matters.
You have to be willing to let others change your direction:
Viral means letting go. It means tossing an idea or program out into the social media space and inviting other people to pick up the ball and run with it. Sometimes, they go where you think they'll go…and sometimes they'll surprise you.
I'm pretty sure the FourSquare folks (a location based social network) hadn't anticipated that Marcus Brown would create the International Day of the Toilet — and encourage his worldwide network of friends to all create "water closet" venues on Foursquare. The interesting thing is — will FourSquare shudder at the news or help promote the idea?
There are plenty of other things you need to do to create a successful social media presence. But…if you can't swallow these three, don't even get started. Social media is nothing if it's not about inviting other people into the party.
I've noticed something that's been quite prevalent in my writing of late. The word "great." Apparently I think just about everything is great.
Lazy is what that's all about.
Lazy writing is boring writing. It's not juicy. My words aren't caressing a darn thing. Lazy is not memorable, quotable or even mildly noteworthy. No matter what the subject — word choice matters.
So….
First, I apologize that I've been serving up lazy word choices. You deserve better.
Second, 2010 is going to be the year of juicy language. Now I am not going over the deep end. Every sentence is not going to be jam packed with gooey adjectives just because I know how to mine a thesaurus. But, I am going to be much more attentive to making conscious word choices.
And third…on the hunch that your writing might have a dash of lazy in it as well, here's a writing exercise for all of us. Come on…it's time to do a bit of stretching.
Flip through a magazine and find a photo that catches your eye. Once you've selected your photo, simply look at it and do the following three exercises.
The warm up: List 25 adjectives that describe the photo. Don't censor or judge. The obvious ones will pour out first but notice how you have to push to get to 25. Is the 24th one better than the 2nd one?
The workout: Create a business analogy from the photo. What might it say about anything from your industry to leadership to social media? The point is to see beyond the obvious and see a hidden meaning inside the image you selected.
The cool down: What is the perfect word that captures either the meaning or the mood of the photo. A single word. No cheating.
Whether you are a copywriter day in and day out, a business owner who crafts an occasional flier or an exec who writes 10 e-mails and memos a day…your audience deserves your best words. Get out there and and be great! (Just kidding….)
In corporate America (and probably corporate World), rules get created when people make bad choices. It's how child labor laws came to be and why we now have sexual harassment policies. The few and the stupid are the catalyst to regulation.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=fdde930e-655a-494d-9493-dbbc7e853df2)
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