HOW TO BRAND YOURSELF ON SOCIAL MEDIA

WANT RECOGNITION FOR YOUR COMPANY? IT BEGINS WITH BRANDING YOURSELF BETTER.

BY JASMINE SANDLER

Having a strong online professional reputation today is more important now than ever.

Thanks to the explosion of social media and websites that rank and rate CEOs as leaders, it is not just a checklist item, but a priority for any executive to have a strong and well-maintained online personal brand.

Your credibility as a leader is at stake when prospects, the media, competitors, stockholders, and colleagues cannot find you online. Further, if you are then found online and what is found is outdated, incomplete, negative, or inconsistent, then you as the leader are at risk of being viewed as a poor leader. This is like having bad press, and no leader or company can afford bad press in a world now driven by consumer perception and opinion.

Just think about CEOs that have failed to invest in strong online brands and others that have succeeded. In 2012 a blog post published by IT company (NET)net reported that Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer had a "paltry 46% internal approval rating with his own employees. Compared to his competitor, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, who had a 97% approval rating "it’s a wonder how he remains the CEO." In that year, Microsoft missed major market opportunities in related profitability in search and online advertising, smartphones, tablets, social networking, mobile music, and e-readers, while others like Apple and Google took the lead.

THE BENEFITS OF BEING A POPULAR CEO BRAND ONLINE

According to CEO.com’s 2013 Social CEO report, only 32% of top CEOs had at least one account on a social network. Some 68% had no social presence at all. CEOs like Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg have a significant social media presence, and it’s no surprised that they are more successful, boasting 97% employee approval ratings on Glassdoor.com.

When your employees love you online, you can guess that as an employer you will be provided more awards and top talent will be more driven to you than your competitors. When you amass loyal social followers and engage with them appropriately, your fans and your customers become your best marketers.

The mentions, comments, and shares you receive as a leader all support social signaling for SEO on the major search engines like Google, BING, and Yahoo. This will provide your company with a better chance at gaining a higher search engine optimization rank around your CEO and company names, leading to more leads and online sales.

Here are three ways you can help brand yourself like Mark Zuckerberg:

1. DEFINE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND POSITION

This is your individual market position, which you will then need to commit to as your company leader. Your position must include these elements:

• Your overall statement of how you are different, yet better than your competitive CEO. What sets you apart? If you were to interview yourself, what would you honestly tell yourself about your top strengths and why you have earned the right to lead your company?
• Your own personal mission statement as a leader and for what the company will deliver to its customers.

2. DEVELOP A PERSONAL BRAND COMMUNICATION STYLE

Create a communication standard that you can commit to time and again and perfect as you commit. Your communication style is what you, innately, are great at in terms of driving influence and action as a leader.

To uncover this, you need to assess and ask those that follow you around you where you excel. It may be as a speaker, a panelist, a writer, an interviewee, an analytical thought leader, a visionary, or someone with strong opinions, ideas, and experience in their industry.

Choosing your style in relation to online personal brand development is critical before you invest any time and money in the process.

3. DEFINE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IMAGE

When defining your CEO image online, consider these elements:

• Your image should be in line with your corporate culture. Even if you run or are a part of a small business, the culture is important to developing a brand.
• Your personal brand image must suit the audience you are serving.
• Your smile, gestures, tone of voice and writing style need to be authentic to who you are and support your need to make your audience comfortable.
• A positive image and appearance is crucial to acceptance by the media. Don’t overdo it, though. It must be honest.
• You need to determine, based on your culture, where you do business and what type of business you are in. In industries such as banking, a powerful persona may be in order; whereas in a technology company, perhaps a more relaxed presence is more suitable.

It is never too early for you to start assessing and building a personal online brand. As noted, there is plenty of room for you to take the lead as others ignore the obvious importance of a social CEO brand.

Take it one step at a time and do it right. Before you know it, your CEO brand will be synonymous with a strong position, style, and image and earning positive social sentiment, ultimately leading to new business.

—Jasmine Sandler is a global keynote speaker, corporate trainer, author, and consultant in digital marketing and social selling for business-to-business professional services organizations. Sandler has more than 15 years of client experience in helping businesses drive positive online brand awareness, qualified lead generation, and sales.

courtesy of www.NakiaEvans.com 

Why Write an eBook?

It's not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an eBook. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today – innovative thinkers who can make the leap into the new millennium and figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. EBooks are a new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let's say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional eBook. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, "Why? Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my eBook when it's so impossible to get anything published these days?

Well, let me assure you that publishing an eBook is entirely different than publishing a book in print. Let's look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that "you've got what it takes," your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you've checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most "vanity presses" require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses' minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies. And that's just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and - well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let's say you already have an Internet business with a quality website and a quality product. An eBook is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let's say that you've spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees, and now you're ready to share your knowledge and experience. An eBook is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

EBooks will not only promote your business - they will help you make a name for yourself and your company, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of eBooks. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely tuned in terms of the eBook scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing eBooks.  Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your eBooks. Maybe you're even thinking of producing an eZine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read eBooks is to find information about how to turn their Internet businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of eBooks to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of eBooks are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. EBook writers are experts in Internet marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing eBooks. The cyberspace community needs its eBooks to be successful so that more and more eBooks will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your eBook. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your eBooks. Think about this? Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what's out there already, and try to find a void that your eBook might fill.

What about an eBook about a wedding cake business? Or an eBook about caring for elderly pets? How about the fine points of collecting ancient pottery?

You don't have to have three masters degrees to write about your subject. People need advice that is easy to read and easily understood. Parents need advice for dealing with their teenagers. College students need to learn good study skills - quickly. The possibilities are endless.

After you've written your eBook

Getting your eBook out is going to be your focus once you've finished writing it, just as it is with print books. People will hesitate to buy any book from an author they've never heard of. Wouldn't you?

The answer is simple: give it away! You will see profits in the form of promoting your own business and getting your name out. You will find affiliates who will ask you to place their links within your eBook, and these affiliates will in turn go out and make your name known. Almost every single famous eBook author has started out this way.

Another powerful tool to attract people to your eBook is to make it interactive. Invent something for them to do within the book rather than just producing pages that contain static text. Let your readers fill out questionnaires, forms, even crossword puzzles geared to testing their knowledge on a particular subject. Have your readers hit a link that will allow them to recommend your book to their friends and associates. Or include an actual order form so at the end of their reading journey, they can eagerly buy your product.

When people interact with books, they become a part of the world of that book. The fact is just as true for books in print as it is for eBooks.

That's why eBooks are so essential. Not only do they provide a forum for people to learn and make sense of their own thoughts, but they can also serve to promote your business at the same time.

*This Report is courtesy of Nakia Evans, author of 8 Steps to Quickly Build Your Direct Sales Business.  My eBook is currently published and marketed online with Amazon Kindle for $8.  You can visit my “squeeze page” at http://www.DirectSalesIn8Steps.com and order your copy online via paypal or visit Amazon.com to check out more of my eBooks.  

Also, Please visit my Blog, and enter your email address in the Follow by email box.  You will receive an email notice when I post helpful business information and release other reports to help you Brand Your Business. Thank you!

The Value of Watching Over The Shoulder of A Pro

By Lynette Chandler

Ever thought what it would be like to sit beside a seasoned web developer and learn as they work?

Years ago, a marketing manager decided he would hire a web development company to build them a web site. He then instructed a young lady who was among his staff to spend an entire day at the web developers’ offices to learn how to update their new site.

The young lady was excited as she was really curious. At the same time, she was also nervous. Would it be difficult? Could she handle this? What if all this is way over her head?
She was awfully lucky that day because she got paired with a designer-developer who patiently answer questions and freely shared his knowledge.

Sitting side by side, he show her how to update the site. Later, he began building a web site from scratch. At every action, he took time to explain what he was doing and why he did things that way, while she watched and took it all in.

That woman is Lynette Chandler. She says, that single, simple event, changed her career direction forever. It sparked a new passion. Lynette took this new found knowledge, built upon it and used it to create a profitable business with services and products ranging from web development to WordPress plugins, themes and more.

Lynette is fully aware just how fortunate she was to have been paired up with an experienced, professional developer who was willing to do what he did. So many are afraid of you stealing their ‘secrets’ they don’t necessarily tell you what’s going on in their head as they work. But he did and Lynette recognized the immense value in that. In the early days of her business and even on occasion today, she often draws upon what she learned from him.

That’s why, when Lynette started customizing a theme for one of her own projects recently, she decided to record it, explain her steps, the decisions made as she went and why. The result is a 5 part video training that is raw and unedited; filled with golden nuggets and instantly usable knowledge for any web developer or anyone who wants to work on their own web design.  Watching it, would be as close to sitting next to Lynette as you can get. Just like she did with her mentor.

You can learn more or get a copy of this recording at http://techbasedtraining.com/?p=2987
While you’re there. Make sure you check out her other training courses. Lynette is a wonderful and patient technical teacher. Someone you’d enjoy learning from.

How to write a 30-second TV commercial script

We use YOUTUBE to broadcast our "commercials". YouTube videos are just like TV Commercials....in my opinion.
TV commercials are not like other media, such as print or websites.A reader browsing a website has plenty of time to absorb information and can even reread copy that is interesting or informative.However, TV commercials happen in real time. Most local spots run 30 seconds. That’s all the time you have to tell the viewer about whatever you’re selling. When it’s over, it’s over. ....click below to read more:

How to write a 30-second TV commercial script

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