Brand YOU!

Today I attended a luncheon focused on developing ones personal brand through social media. I am often asked some basic questions like "which networks should I join?", "who should I connect with?", "how can I stand out in my industry?", "how much time should I dedicate to social media each day or week?" and "how can my business use social media to grow?"

Networks: The big ones are Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube, you can also have or contribute to a blog, utilize networks like Slideshare or create your own network on Ning. My advice is to think about your goals. If you're trying to market a consumer-oriented business usually Facebook is best, Twitter may also work. If you're trying to promote yourself and or a B2B product or service, LinkedIn, blogs and Twitter will likely be most effective.

Who to Connect With: Customers, potential customers, friends, family, colleagues, groups. Many people use LinkedIn for professional and Facebook for personal. I connect to all my people on all of my networks so they really get a true sense of who I am as a person because in the marketing business relationships are important.

How to Stand Out: Mostly just commit to being engaged. Post relevant and also fun information. Always be yourself but maintain a level of professionalism on all of your networks. Position yourself as an expert in your field.

How Much Time: As much as you can afford. Minimum of once or twice a day for social networks and once every week or so for blogs.

How Can it Help Your Business: create or strengthen your online brand, connect you to people so you can create relationships, promote your expertise and your products or services.

Hopefully this helps. It is very important to complete your profiles on all of your networks and to be actively engaged in conversations. If you have questions feel free to comment or contact me.

Rebuilding and Rebranding Youngstown

Cities like people have persona's. I lived in the Youngstown (Valley) region for several years and came to know many hard-working, intelligent, passionate people (including the wonderful folks at YBI). People who despite what the outside world thinks or says will fight for their Valley. The persona of Youngstown that I know is one of hope and determination. Although I live outside of the region now (still in NEO though), a piece of Youngstown will always be in my heart. I am happy to see the city garnering some national attention for its many efforts to rebrand itself as a city that went through tough times but emerged years later as a center of technology. Go Youngstown!

Youngstown, Ohio: A young town again | The Economist

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The YouTube Era

YouTube has reached one billion views per day! That number boggles my mind. YouTube is celebrating this milestone by showcasing a special version of its logo and rightfully so.

If your company has any video content be sure that you're not missing out on the opportunity to strengthen or even build your brand through the use of video marketing on YouTube. If you haven't done so already, you can create your own YouTube channel and upload your video and multimedia content to share on YouTube and link to other sites such as your own website and social media networks. If you're in need of help getting this setup or in generating the actual content contact me and we can chat.

Cool Twitter Directory for Companies & Execs

Looking for a Company or CEO on Twitter? As I was doing my daily research on social media, I came across a site that I thought might be helpful to agency or sales people on Twitter that are looking for companies or execs they'd like to follow. The site Twitter Corp (http://twittercorp.com/) is an easy-to-use directory of companies and executives that are actively engaged in the Twitter community. I love that people take the time to develop applications, tools and directories for Twitter - it's what makes the community so unique and so helpful!

New LinkedIn Competitor on the Scene

I am a huge advocate for LinkedIn as it has opened many fruitful connections for me. But just because I use it and love it doesn't mean the whole world agrees. Some executives are reluctant to share information on Linked in because they don't want to share their connections or want to allow limited access to who gets to view their information. They feel linked in is "too open". A new social networking B2B site called "WhoDoYouKnowAt" is trying to carve a niche that competes with LinkedIn. It will be interesting to see how this new site performs as we all know that LinkedIn is a huge success!




WhoDoYouKnowAt: Because LinkedIn is Too Open

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Interesting New Twitter Study

Sysomos recently released a study called "Inside Twitter" that I felt shared some interesting insights into the users of Twitter or Tweeters as we often refer to ourselves. For the survey, they analyzed 11.5 million+ Twitter accounts including profiles and status updates.

Some of the study's highlights were as follows:

• over 70% of Twitter accounts were from January 2009-on.

• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of the activity.

• 21% of users have never posted a tweet.

• There are more women than men on Twitter (53% versus 47%).

• Market share for Twitter publishing tools is ruled by Tweetdeck at close to 20% use.

Some explanations for the data can be explained as follows:

• Rapid growth has been fueled by media attention and celebrity usage and endorsement.

• Those who understand or see the value with Twitter are likely to post more often than those who don't so the usage stat makes sense.

• Some people open Twitter accounts and just follow others or open it and never use it.

• More women in the overall population so this stat makes sense.

• As people come to utilize and understand the value Twitter provides from a monitoring and relationship-building standpoint we will see usage across Tweetdeck and other apps increase.

Interesting Stats on Social Media

I just stumbled upon some interesting statistics regarding social media. It's funny, I still hear a fair amount of people who don't like or just don't get social media and feel it's a fad. People listen up...it is not a fad!

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network

• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

• Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.

• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia

• 80 % of companies are using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees

• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama

• 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

• The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube

• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs & 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily

• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them

• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, Only 14% trust advertisements

• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

(note: the sources to back up these statistics can be found on Socialnomics Blog)