What I Do: Building a personal brand in social media

 

I was flipping through work notes from my recent Fulbright project in Ethiopia, and the topic of personal branding using social media caught my attention.

Earlier this year, I presented my course “Branding, Content and Social Media” to faculty and staff in two Ethiopian universities.

Daily, I wrote an outline of the topics I expected to cover for each session so I wouldn’t forget anything.

For the personal brand topic, I actually wrote out more of a script. I don’t include this subject in my iTunes U course, but I wanted to emphasize the use of social media in personal branding for my Ethiopian students.

I thought I’d share my notes here:

Branding is not just for your organization. It also applies to you.

Your personal brand is similar to reputation – how others view you and how you show up in your daily life.

Are you a genius? Trustworthy? Responsive?

Do you do what you say you will?

One way to communicate your personal brand is to write a blog about a special project or a cool hobby. Since I work in higher education, I am always looking for faculty who can be thought leaders on an issue of importance.

If that person writes a blog, then we can tweet about it, promote it on our websites, or include it in e-newsletters. Expert blog posts can also be promoted to external media as a possible information source or future interview.

However, having a blog can be a big time commitment. Perhaps your experts can’t invest the time in regularly posting to a blog. One option is to pitch that expert as a guest writer on someone else’s blog. The key is to be a relevant voice and add value to the site’s followers.

What to write about? Perhaps there is a photograph that speaks to your expertise. Writing about the backstory for that image could be a great blog post.

Here’s an example: We have a great photograph of our American students and Ethiopian partners conducting surveys on perceptions related to rabies. Here it is:

interview (1)

The Ethiopian expert in the photo could write a post about what is happening and why, what she was thinking when this was happening, and the challenges of getting to and from the rural location.

Throughout my course, I focus on an organization’s use of brand, content and social media. My point here is that it can also apply to your personal brand.

What I Do: Event communications

You might know this about me: I value collaboration.

In many instances, I think we get better results when we collaborate.

My iTunes U course is a great example. For most of the chapters, I recruited experts to serve as guest speakers. They recorded themselves answering questions I had sent them in advance. Then I took the raw footage and created mini-lectures ranging in length from 2-10 minutes. Their participation makes the course even more effective by offering a variety of perspectives.

The course includes a chapter on event communications. That chapter is primarily a case study using the first Building Healthy Academic Communities conference held at Ohio State in 2013. The next conference will be at UC Irvine in 2015.

At the time of the conference, Kathryn Kelley was Chief Advancement Officer for the College of Nursing and led the strategic planning and implementation for the event communications. (She is now the program manager for the Ohio Manufacturing Institute.)

Here is the case study video on event communications. It’s about 10 minutes long, but well worth the time.

 

 

Lagniappe: Five (plus 2) learning resources for communicators

Like me, most communicators I know have one or both of these strengths: Input and Learner. These are from the StrengthsFinderTM assessment.

book-cover“People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.”

“People strong in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.”

Strengths-Based Leadership, by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie

In short, we want to know more, and we want to continuously improve our skills.

In that spirit, I offer five learning resources for communicators:

1. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

My favorite way to use this website is to compare what I know about my target audiences with Pew’s data on those audiences’ behaviors. One topic that interests me is the strategic use of social media for health organizations. Here’s a Pew presentation that relates.

Another great piece is on the youth of today entering the workforce. They have grown up in the digital world. IPods, smartphones and online social sharing are the norm. Here’s the article and a quote from the article:

“So, why shouldn’t young employees think it clever and fun to post on their blogs pictures of Apple computers being delivered to the loading bay at Microsoft headquarters? That is what Michael Hanscom, a temp employee for a Microsoft vendor, did and was quickly fired for violating the company’s non-disclosure rules.”

Yikes! What might that look like in an academic setting? The football coach wearing a Michigan sweatshirt?

2. Ragan.com

A publisher and professional development firm, Ragan Communications publishes many e-newsletters for communicators in different sectors. The company also hosts conferences, webinars, and workshops. I subscribe to its PR Daily e-newsletter.

Here’s an article on 10 features that an employee intranet should have. I love #4. Sometimes at 3 p.m., I need to know who has chocolate on hand.

3. Content Marketing Institute

This professional development and consulting business offers guidance and training on content marketing. I like their articles.

In my iTunes U course on Branding, Content, and Social Media, I use Coca Cola examples throughout. They are mostly positive, with only one or two questions about Coke’s intention. Here’s a great article by CMI on Coke’s content strategy.

4. iTunes U

Speaking of ITunes U, I encourage you to browse its course listings. My course is Branding, Content, and Social Media. There are many other courses on marketing, writing, PR, etc.

5. Mindset Digital

Some of you might know Betsy Hubbard and Debra Jasper from their time here at Ohio State. After leaving the university, they built their own social media consulting business called Mindset Digital.

The company’s website offers a page they call the “cheat sheet” that includes all kinds of tips and tricks.

Check it out!

BONUS!

I only promised 5 things, but here are 2 more bonus ideas for Ohio Staters:

That’s enough for now.

What online sources do you use for continuous learning?