Last week I had the pleasure of delivering a seminar on how to use social media (LinkedIn in particular) for building your personal brand, at Hult International Business School here in London.
As per usual, I like to share the love so here is a summary of the deck that I used – hope you find it useful!
Do people know where you live and where you are from? Do you know where I live and where I am from? I am originally from Sweden but moved to London back in 2002 – it’s almost 10 years now.
I do however, still mention that I am Swedish and sometimes even put a Swedish flag up an introduction slide when conducting training – mainly to remove any doubt of me being German, Danish or South African (nothing wrong with those countries of course 
).
I also mention the fact that I’m Swedish on Twitter and Facebook and I do share Sweden-related stories from time to time on social media. The whole social media thing has muddled the waters a bit. It’s now very easy to pretend to be based in say, Shanghai, but actually working out of Munich. And people tend to look less at who you are, where you are from as opposed to what you are doing and what content you are sharing online. My point here is that it’s easy to get it wrong on social media, something I’ve experienced first hand.
I have recently had a couple of situations where my Swedish angle hasn’t really helped me. Last week I was at a conference and somebody I have known online for a year or two asked me “so you’re in London quite often, do you jet in from Sweden every month?”. No mate, I just get on the tube in the morning… And the other month at the end of a full day of training recruiters to use social media, one of them asked me “how come you know so much about UK recruitment when you live in Sweden?”. Because I have only ever done recruitment in the UK, 7 years of it in fact!
Until now I’ve seen it as an asset being Swedish, as most people I speak to have positive connotations with the country and its people. But if prospective clients think I’m not based here that can’t be a good thing. I know I wouldn’t buy services from someone flying in and out of the country frequently, I prefer someone who is nearby and that I can see face to face with short notice.
So what should I do? Tone down the Swedish bit and leave people guessing? Or just be even more clear as in “I’m Swedish-British”, just like someone that’s “Italian-American”? Or should I go full hog and invest in a blonde wig and viking helmet, proclaiming this is then 2nd coming of the Norsemen? As you can tell I could do with your thoughts here…
And have a little think about your own situation, do people ever get your location or origin wrong? If so, what can you do to remove any doubt?
Related: Do You Have Multiple Personal Brands?
What are the three keys to investing in property? Location, location, location.
Last week at the Nordic Career Forum (my talk here) I watched Mandy Lehto talk about personal branding and what she thinks are the success ingredients. She highlighted successful personal brands and pointed out what they all have in common; it’s differentation, differentiation, differentiation.
She’s got a great point there, just like Lady Gaga stands out in the music industry there’ll be a few originals in your industry as well. To become a successful personal brand you’ll have to identify that unique selling point that you have (or combination of selling points), and take that to market.
This is what Mandy had to say just before her presentation.
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting ‘Social Media and Your Personal Brand’ to no less than 240 young professionals at the Nordic Career Forum in London.
The whole event was very well organised by the Nordic Chambers of Commerce in London and featured exhibitors from companies like McKinsey, Mercuri Urval, Wimmer Financial and European Leaders. The chambers managed to get a large number of paying attendees which was an achievement in itself I think, it’s not easy to get young professionals to give up a Thursday night in this town.
I was one of four speakers and I think we all covered different approaches to personal branding. My talk was about social media and it’s a topic I could speak about until the cows come home, in this case I only had 15 minutes so had to limit the scope. LinkedIn is in my opinion the most important social network for most young professionals so that was my focus. I picked out 10 points from the LinkedIn trainings I deliver to companies that I think would be relevant to anyone looking to further their career by branding themselves online.
Check out the slides and please let me know what you think!
There’s also a YouTube video of this talk, not the best quality though.
Related: Building Your Personal Brand on Social Media [Slides].
ShortList Magazine here in the UK recently interviewed me about social media and personal branding. If you have never seen the magazine, it’s a commuter-optimised publication handed out for free every Thursday around Britain, currently with a circulation of half a million.
The content is not very in-depth as the name suggests, just like many bloggers they like to write their articles up as lists. This way it’s a quick read and most people can get through the magazine during their 45-minute commute to the office (well, if they live in London at least).
Here is what I came up with and thought would be published – but as you can see from the image above, they edited and shortened the text slightly.
Your personal brand is equal to your Google search results, the best way to influence these results is to get active on social. Search engines love to see fresh content coming out of blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn.
You want people googling you to find the same or at least similar picture of you on different platforms, recruiters always cross-reference candidates for instance. Use one image across the board that represents your brand online. If you’re a lawyer you should probably wear a tie, an architect could get away with a turtleneck.
Your personal tagline is where you tell the reader who you are and what you do in about 10 words. Whatever your tagline is, make sure it’s in your Twitter bio, LinkedIn headline and other places to achieve that consistency.
Being on every two-bit social network is not going to help you, instead look at where your target audience like to hang out and be there. Accountants like LinkedIn, marketing types are all over Twitter, writers like blogging and photographers tend to favour Facebook.
Just like traditional networking, social networking is all about who you know. Social media has made it easier to approach senior business types that historically have had strict gatekeepers. For instance, you can start with following someone on Twitter or commenting on their blog. Exchange a few words online to make sure you’re on their radar. Then advance things by connecting on LinkedIn and take it from there.
Just like large companies think about the content they put out on social media every day and week, so should you. Set up a system of procuring quality content from around the web that is relevant to your audience. Present this to your network on a regular basis, just remember to add your twist to anything you share if possible.
Even better than procuring content is creating content. This way you are not just reporting the news, you are the news. Content can be anything from a blog post, a podcast or a simple YouTube clip that you can embed anywhere. Ideally others will enjoy your content and like, share, comment.
Any good salesperson does more listening than talking. Any good social media user will set up a listening system so they can monitor mentions for their name, company and industry keywords. The more you know about your market, the better you can position your brand. Use Twitter Search, LinkedIn Signal and Google Alerts for this.
Social media allows you to network from home but some of the strongest business relationships I have started on social networks and were then taken offline. Make sure to meet up with people for a coffee, lunch or at events – this will create even stronger bonds online.
As brilliant as social media may be, it’s also a giant time bandit. If you find yourself easily losing half an hour just following a hashtag, it’s time to cut down. Try setting a daily limit on your social media activity by using tools like Freedom and StayFocusd.
What’s worked for your personal brand on social media? Please let me know in the comments!
Image credit Rhiannon Hughes