by Caroline Leach | Mar 11, 2018 | Learning, Social Media
The best part of a day of service? It usually turns into a day of learning and inspiration.
Students from Southern California high schools got an introduction to the power of personal branding at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism this weekend.
It was part of a broader USC Alumni Day of SCervice. Members of the Trojan family around the world came together to make a difference in their local communities.
At Annenberg, students and alums came together for mini professional development and mentoring sessions with students. The focus was on helping them build their personal brands.
What inspired me the most as an alum was the number of students who have already started their own businesses. They shared savvy social media tips for how they market their businesses.
An Instagram influencer with a large following shared what she learned from working with various brands and how to maintain her authenticity with her followers.
A provider of babysitting services talked about marketing her business on Facebook, because that’s where her mother’s friends, her potential clients, are on social media.
A maker of children’s toys talked about his plans to scale his business more broadly, and how he’s reached people through social media.
Annenberg’s Leticia Lozoya and Jaime Carias designed the delightful day, bringing together 40 alums and 40 students from partner high schools throughout the Los Angeles area.
Al Naipo on Personal & Professional Branding
Veteran news reporter Al Naipo kicked off the morning’s speakers. After many years with FOX 11 news, he launched his own business and he led communications for County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. He’s now the Chief Administrative Officer at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission.
Al focused on sharing how to maintain professionalism with your personal brand when you’re in the spotlight – whether it’s politics, business, education or any arena of life.
He started by sharing a newsroom phenomenon – a large display listing reporters’ social media followings, and how everyone ranks compared with their colleagues as well as competitor newsrooms. A social media presence is critical for journalists to be effective today. By extension, the same could be said for all professionals.
Al told several compelling stories, including how career opportunities had come to him based on the power of his LinkedIn profile. Here are a few of Al’s nuggets of wisdom:
- Your social media presence could be a make-or-break reason to get a job
- Everything you do has to do with branding and how you’re seen by others
- People view your work life and your personal life as all one thing
- Stick with your brand, because people associate it with you
- Social media is a powerful way to connect directly with almost anyone
Ashley Tesoriero on the Power of Your Personal Story
A national marketing specialist at IMT, Ashley Tesoriero told the group the secrets to sharing your personal story, even if you see yourself as a more private person. She emphasized the importance of tying your personal and professional life together make one.
According to Ashley, your personal brand is, “your online and in-person resume you present to the world.”
She encouraged everyone to figure out what their story is, and what medium(s) best capture it. For her, it’s Instagram, LinkedIn and her WordPress website.
How do you get to your story? It starts with reflection on your mission, vision and values. Ashley led the students through an exercise to begin thinking about these big-picture questions of what they want their lives to be about.
The group outlined their personal experiences – complete with challenges, opportunities and who they are in their communities – in order to establish their personal brands.
Emma Forbes on the Power of a Personal Brand
Students got to practice their “one-minute me” pitches during the lively closing session with Emma Forbes. She’s a radio and television presenter from the United Kingdom, and the parent of a current Annenberg student.
Emma told compelling stories of her own career journey to help students shape and package their personal stories to launch their personal brands and be a positive influence in a social media world.
When pitching a “one-minute me,” Emma said not to read a list of qualifications. Instead, she advised, “talk about where you come from, where you’re going, and what you’d like to do.”
She called these the defining moments that happen in a face-to-face setting a pivotal moments in everyone’s careers. “You need to be the face of your brand,” she said. “No one can sell it better than you. Be you and speak your view.”
What do you do when nerves get the best of you?
- Start with deep breathing
- Make eye contact
- Pause instead of saying “um”
- Clasp your hands front of you
“You need nerves,” according to Emma.
Then the emotional, electrifying moment arrived.
She asked what would have happened, “if I wasn’t nervous about meeting you today?”
If someone so accomplished, so authentic and so poised felt nervous about speaking to students and alums, then there is hope for all of us.
Bring on the nerves!
by Caroline Leach | Feb 27, 2018 | Social Media
How are you using social media to build your career?
- What social media are you on for professional and personal use?
- Why are you active in social media professionally?
- How has your social media activity helped your career, others’ careers and your employer?
I’d love your responses on these questions and more in a 15-minute survey. Responses are anonymous and will only be shared in aggregate.
Together, they’ll give a current snapshot of how professionals are using social media in their careers.
And they’ll inform future content on this blog, to help you continue boosting your career through social media.
Click on this link or copy and paste it into you browser:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/socialmedia4careerbuilding
Feel free to share it with friends and colleagues.
Thank you!
by Caroline Leach | Feb 25, 2018 | Social Media
How often do you make a desirable discovery by accident?
If you’re me, not as often as I’d like.
It’s like finding $20 in your pocket. It doesn’t happen frequently, but it’s always a happy discovery to meet up with serendipity.
Three times in the last 6 months I’ve posted a conversation in the The Official USC Alumni Association Group, and it’s shown up the next day as the lead item in the monthly digest email for the group.
There are more than 46,000 members in the group. And some portion of them probably opt in to get the group’s email digest. So my posts are landing front and center in the inboxes of many fellow alums.
It wasn’t something I planned. It’s part of my volunteer role on the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors. I’m proud to represent the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where I got my master’s degree.
Each of us on the Communications & Marketing Committee led by Tom Henkenius and Mary Ann Brennan regularly post content in the group and engage in conversations with fellow alums in the group. Madeline Lindsay from the Alumni Association also keeps us on track.
It just so happened, a few of my posts were on Sunday nights as I was wrapping up my weekend to-do lists.
And on Monday morning when I saw my post featured in an email, I paused for a moment.
Wait.
What?
Why was my post being featured?
Then I realized I must have been the last person to post before the monthly digest email went out.
The learning?
If you want your posts in a group to get pushed to a larger audience, identify the timing of the monthly or weekly digest emails, and do your post shortly before then.
Now, I don’t want to take the limelight from my fellow alums. I don’t want to be the featured post every time. But once in a while is kind of fun.
The other learning?
It’s imperative to customize your headline in your LinkedIn profile. Don’t use the default of your current title. Personalize it to tell your story. Why? Because it displays when you comment on content … and appear in search results … and when your group post is featured in the digest email.
The recommendations?
Join groups that are relevant your interests. Be an active participant. Post content that the group can benefit from. Engage with the posts of others, by liking and commenting on the content.
Social media is all about reciprocity.
And maybe every once in while, you’ll have the featured post. That’s what serendipity taught me.
What have you learned in social media about serendipity?
by Caroline Leach | Feb 24, 2018 | Social Media
Are you making the most of your LinkedIn presence?
Don’t overlook these seven often-missed opportunities to increase your effectiveness on LinkedIn.
1. Not completing your profile
The first thing to do in LinkedIn is create a complete profile. Here are great tips on being bold in your LinkedIn profile from the MAKERS Conference.
Be sure to complete every field, until LinkedIn identifies your profile as “all-star.” You don’t have do it all at once. You can set aside time each week to work on one section at a time. Start from the top and work down:
2. Not keeping your profile up to date
Each month, add something new to your profile. Did you start a new job? Take on a new project? Complete a course or a certification? Publish a paper?
If you finished a work project that can be shared publicly, add it to your profile. Maybe it’s a multimedia presentation or a video or a podcast. Just make sure it doesn’t include any company confidential information and that it can be made public.
It was a thrill to see my employer, AT&T, included again on Fortune’s 2018 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. As a proud member of our Employee Engagement Advisory Board to make the company a great place to work for all, I added the company news release to my LinkedIn profile. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)
3. Not customizing your public profile URL
Not personalizing your URL is like using an aol.com email address. It marks you as out of touch and not current.
Customizing your URL gives you a personally branded link to include in event apps where participants share their social media handles, your email signature, your bio if you’re giving a speech, and your resume if you still maintain a separate document from LinkedIn.
This feature uses your name in your LinkedIn URL, rather than a random string of numbers. It will appear like this: linkedin.com/in/yourname or in my case as linkedin.com/in/leachcaroline.
If someone else already has your name, try putting your last name first or adding your middle initial. Make your URL as similar to your other social media handles as you can.
In my case, based on what was available, I use leachcaroline for LinkedIn and Facebook and @caroline_leach for Instagram and Twitter.
4. Not personalizing your professional headline
Right under your name in your LinkedIn profile is your professional headline. It defaults to your current job title. But you can and should change it. Here’s why.
Your headline appears frequently throughout LinkedIn. It’s displayed in search results and when you comment on others’ content.
If you don’t personalize your headline, you’re missing a big opportunity to personally brand yourself.
Here are tips to make the most of your headline by using keywords and benefits statements about you and what you do.
Headlines have been limited to 120 characters. But Wayne Breitbarth shared a new tip about how recent LinkedIn changes benefit you.
If you update your headline in your mobile app (not your desktop), he says, you get 220 characters. As he notes, that 83% more space to tell your story.
5. Not using a background photo
Just as customizing your professional headline helps you better tell your story, so does adding a background photo. This is the photo that appears right above your profile photo.
If you don’t include a customized photo, your profile looks similar to everyone else’s with the standard blue background of connecting points and lines. It doesn’t stand out or attract attention.
Ideally, use a photo you’ve taken yourself that shows the essence of your professional self in an image. Here are other tips on telling your story through your background photo.
6. Not experimenting with content
If you’re not currently sharing updates and articles in LinkedIn, get started by observing what you gravitate toward in your LinkedIn “home” feed. What catches your eye? What makes you want to watch the featured video or click on an article link?
Start to “like” content that reflects your professional interests. Engage further by adding a comment that adds another perspective or asks a follow-up question. When you @mention the author, they’ll be notified of your comment and are more likely to see it and respond it.
Once you’ve done that, you can start experimenting with content of your own. Here are some ideas for sharing an idea, a photo or a video.
I did a month-long experiment to see what would happen when I posted to LinkedIn every weekday for a month. You could experiment by using video, varying types of posts, using different lengths of posts, trying out different hashtags, and so on.
You might be surprised by what you learn, as I was when I dug into my analytics. I learned that posting an inspirational leadership quote along with a striking photo on major holidays rose to the top of my content with the most engagement.
7. Not joining groups
LinkedIn expert Donna Serdoula advises joining the maximum allowed 100 groups, to enhance your visibility. You can follow groups that align with your areas of focus in your career and on LinkedIn.
Beyond that, she takes an interesting contrarian view. Don’t limit your groups to those comprised of colleagues in the same field as you, she advises.
Instead, “think in terms your target audience,” she says in her book on LinkedIn profile optimization. Who do you want to be found by? Recruiters? Colleagues? Potential customers?
Groups are an area I’ll explore in future posts. Why? Recently I posted content in a group and discovered serendipitously a great way to get that content amplified. This will be the topic of my next post, followed by a more detailed exploration of how to make the most of groups.
What other missed opportunities do you see?
by Caroline Leach | Feb 17, 2018 | Social Media
This was a post I started but decided not to write.
Why?
When I searched about things not to do in LinkedIn, the content that came up was similar to my own list. I didn’t think I’d be adding anything new.
So instead I analyzed my weekly LinkedIn articles.
Why?
It was a subject that only I could write about. It was unique to me and my experience posting a LinkedIn article every week for nearly a year.
But a comment on that post changed by mind. Jason Dunn expressed interest in the bad behavior I’d observed in LinkedIn. And whether he was serious or not, I reconsidered.
Here are 7 things NOT to do in LinkedIn, if you want to build your career and promote your network and your employer. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)
1. Spamming a new connection
Is there anything more annoying than a new connection immediately sending a direct message pitching a service, requesting a meeting or asking for a job?
Sometimes it feels like the number of messages requesting a 30-minute meeting add up to more than 50 hours a week. People on LinkedIn are professionals. They have to spend their time on their top priorities, not on meeting with people pitching something in which the recipient has no interest.
In order to have permission to make a pitch, a real relationship has to be formed first. People have share information of value over a period of time. They have to get to know each other.
And while I generally believe in responding, that only extends to an initial response. Follow-up responses asking why I can’t meet or why I’m not interested or if I can refer a colleague are not messages that I respond to. The last thing I want to do is burden a colleague with spam.
2. Posting TOO frequently
There are a few people in my news feed who post SO frequently that I sometimes wonder if their work is suffering as a result. How much is too much? Anything more than 2 posts a day.
The only exception to that is if you’re attending a big event and you have a great deal of content you want to share. But even then, a better way to share a volume of content is via Twitter, where greater frequency is more appropriate.
On LinkedIn, posting up to once each weekday is ideal. To dig into the wisdom of that and the data behind it, I did an experiment to test what would happen if I posted to LinkedIn every weekday for a month. As a result, I focused on how to make my content more compelling.
3. Sharing inappropriate content
Keep it professional and positive on LinkedIn. Don’t disparage other people or companies. Make sure your content is suitable for a work environment. Don’t ever share content that is confidential information about your employer.
And ignore the birthday notification feature – Facebook is the place to wish people a happy birthday, not LinkedIn. Don’t include your own birthday in your contact and personal information on your profile.
4. Making it all about you
When you scroll through your LinkedIn “home” feed, what catches your eye? In all likelihood, news and information that helps you be better in your career.
Don’t make it all about you. A constant stream of posts about you won’t resonate with your connections. Of course, it’s fine to post on occasion about an award you won or an honor you were given or somewhere you are speaking.
Just make sure that the majority of your posts are about offering up news, info and tips that will help others on their career journeys.
Social media is about reciprocity. Be generous with your network. Read their posts and articles. Engage with those that are particularly resonant.
Beyond liking the content, leave a thoughtful comment that adds new information. Consider sharing it with your network if it adds to the topics you generally post about.
5. Misspelling names
Three direct messages I received recently spelled my name wrong.. They opened with Carolyn. My name is Caroline. It’s clearly stated on my profile.
There’s no excuse for misspelling someone’s name. It shows a lack of attention to detail. It gets the whole communication off on the wrong foot.
As the American writer Dale Carnegie said, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Spell it right. Check it against how the name is spelled in the person’s profile. And check it again, before you hit “send.”
6. Ignoring analytics
LinkedIn offers data on each post and article. If you don’t look at the analytics, you won’t know which content is performing well and engaging your network.
Spend some time each week or month reviewing how each one performed. Come up with a hypothesis as to why posts did particularly well or not. Increase the frequency of content types that get the most engagement, as measured by clicks, likes, comments and shares.
7. Sending the default invitation to connect
How many invitations do you receive from people you don’t know with the standard, “I’d like to add you to my professional network in LinkedIn”?
If you don’t know why they want to connect, why would you accept? Given my strategy for accepting invitations, it makes me work harder to decide yes or no.
And even if you’re inviting someone you know to connect, it makes for a much stronger connection if you articulate why you’d like to connect.
Always personalize.
And if you’re scrolling through the people you may know feature, you should know that you cannot currently customize your invitation. Instead, go to the person’s profile and personalize an invitation by clicking on “connect.”
What would you add to things NOT to do in LinkedIn?
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