Launching your brand, 3-2-1… ignition

Shuttle Launch by BlueMoose New to personal branding? No you’re not!

You’re well aware of your reputation, and probably work hard to make sure it’s what you want it to be: a reflection of you and the work you do. Of course by now you’re aware that in this wonderful social media-web 2.0 world, that you are your own brand.

I was talking with a co-worker at lunch yesterday about things to do to get recognized within the company. It’s plain to me, but somehow wasn’t as obvious to my friend. All the work you put into getting noticed within any one organization, to "climb the ladder" as it’s put, can also be focused on building your brand outside the organization and can ultimately be put to better use as a foundation for your brand.

So, you ask, what can you do to start promoting my brand and how is it different than building your reputation? Glad you asked!

Like most things in the online world, it’s both very similar and rather different than what we do offline. Start thinking of yourself as a brand like your favorite cola or automotive company and you’re off to a good start. At the same time, you need to be as diligent and aware of the record you leave behind as you did about your reputation. By working to promote your brand online, you’re going to be leaving behind a permanent record that is easily searchable by anyone.

That can be a double-edged sword of course. If you’re not consistent and follow through, it’ll be remembered, likely written about at some point. It all comes back to word of mouth – the best & hardest type of advertising one can hope for. In the case of personal brand in the 21st century (heh, don’t you just love saying that – so futuristic), it’s a fully indexed and archived word of mouth – and that is the biggest difference. Our memories are now much longer because of the technologies we use.

My biggest tip is to check out resources on the ‘net to start learning more about personal branding and how to go about building a successful one. Starting with Personal Branding Magazine (and it’s fine contributors), and moving on to Googling "personal brand". That’ll get you to the best initial places to start reading up on the topic.

It’s really up to you to make it work. Start filling out some social networks, decide if social tools like Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, Brightkite, are for you, start blogging or podcasting. Whatever direction you decide works for you, the key part is to participate and give back as much as you can to the communities that help you build your brand.

(Disclosure: I write the "Social Media Exploration" column for Personal Branding Magazine)

Photo credit: BlueMoose

50 Uses for Twitter

twitter Awhile back, I’d started a list of "101 Uses for Twitter", but never seemed to get past 27 for some reason.  Of course, it had been last autumn since I brainstormed on it.  While I don’t think that I personally could come up with 101 uses, I’m sure there are many more than that.

So I thought about this again for awhile this morning and did think of 50 uses that I’ve seen or participated in.  So here is a list of 50 uses for Twitter, I’m thinking of more as I write this, so maybe there is a chance at that "101" post sometime.

  1. Keep in touch with my Twitter peeps friends
  2. General news item links
  3. News & links on my industry or area of interest
  4. Fast answers to quick questions
  5. Professional networking
  6. Links to nearly everything
  7. Marketing
  8. Personal branding
  9. Corporate & product branding
  10. Haiku’s
  11. Making friends
  12. Feel "plugged into the web and it’s various personalities"
  13. Replacement for instant messaging applications
  14. Chat tool
  15. Promotional tool for my blog
  16. Providing new reading opportunities
  17. Fun stuff!
  18. Meeting new, interesting people to communicate with
  19. Collecting links
  20. Finding sites related to social networking
  21. "To listen in on my contacts rants"
  22. A web worker "water cooler"
  23. Micro-blogging
  24. A personal "techmeme"
  25. Lightweight text broadcasting tool
  26. Easy way to annoy your spouse
  27. Promotional tool for my brand
  28. Ranting
  29. Idea generator
  30. No-cost non-profit announcement system
  31. Bring a sense of community to your home office
  32. Tracking status of friends
  33. Status message generator for other social networks
  34. Frustration generator (at least when it is down)
  35. Thought publisher
  36. Promotional tool for my organization
  37. Following public discussions
  38. Travel guide
  39. Controlled discussion between friends
  40. Uncontrolled discussion between friends with viewers
  41. List generator
  42. Meeting agenda generator
  43. Coffee shop locator
  44. People search
  45. Promotional tool for my company
  46. Product reviews
  47. Trip planner
  48. Backchannel for events
  49. Feedback generator
  50. Authentication mechanism

So what are you uses for Twitter?  I’m sure I didn’t capture them all, so add your ideas and things you use Twitter for below.

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