Personal branding online

Who I am • Simon McDermott @simonmc

• Graduated from Vlerick in 2003 IMBA

• Co-Founded Attentio in 2004 – Monitoring social media for brands

• Founded New Media Cloud in 2009 – Advising companies and people on social media

• Personal branding, Reputation monitoring

• Mentor at Founder Institute, Director of Jam Publishing

What we will cover today • Why online personal branding is important?

• Definitions

• Different use cases, stories

• Tools

• Personal objectives & Go forward

Traditional definition of brand

A brand is a perception or emotion,

maintained by a buyer or prospective buyer,

describing the experience related to doing

business with an organization or consuming its

products and services.

A perception or emotion, maintained by

somebody other than you. Describes the total

experience of having a relationship with you.

A lesson in brand value

€4 €.80

Source: Hajj Fleming

Why online is so important? • Competing names

Why online is so important

• People check you out...

• And that’s a good thing!

Why online is so important

• Recruitment paradigm shift

– Recruiters live on LinkedIN, Viadeo etc.

Stories from online personal branding

• The non-existent

– Most people

• “The egg”

The over sharer

The Player

– Has own personal web site

– Uses about.me

– Thousands of followers

– May speak a lot at events

– But not illustrative of most people...

– But worth looking at how they do it and benefit of being guru at something, one thing!

Gary Vaynerchuk

My experience

• Having a social media profile is valuable – Don’t over do it

– Tempting to waste time updating or browsing • Like a party you don’t want to leave!

• Much of your network is developed offline – Events, Sport, Friends

• Recent example of a paid consulting project – Reality is cross over from social media to old

fashioned network

The tools

KARATE belts

• In steps – 1. White: Basic, minimum

• LinkedIn profile, checks online by

searching Google

– 2. Green: Developing • LinkedIn, Twitter ID, Facebook rules

– 3. Black: Personal Brand Fiend • LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Own web site (e.g.

about.me), brainstorms with people on their “brand values”, checks their reputation online

Going forward: Budget

• From 0 to $1,000

– Mostly time...

• About.me is free, so is LinkedIN, Twitter etc.

– LinkedIn premium may be interesting

• Maybe paying someone to take a good picture?

• Perhaps coaching but try and get your company to pay ;)

Going forward: Warnings

• Make sure personal life is what you want to show, you own your brand – Argentinean Rugby story

• Make it work for you and your objectives! – New job, want to share with network etc.

• Different parts of you for different social networks!

• You are always more that what you show online...People know this

Key Takeaways from today

• Check your online brand – Search your name and colleagues

• Own your name – Buy a domain name, get @Twitter, start your LinkedIn

and/or Viadeo

• Learn some social media etiquette – Twitter (RT, HT, @ versus D), Facebook Likes – LinkedIn updates tied to Twitter (not other way around)

• Decide what time you can give to it and frequently change your status – Even a few times per month! – SHARE USEFUL CONTENT, IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU...

Thank you

• Contact me simon@newmediacloud.com