For your Facebook profile, this will enable a new way of representing your personal brand online.

But before you make that change, have you considered how you will be able to track the statistics of who is coming to your Facebook profile and where they are coming from?

Socialtoo.com (developed by Facebook expert and a friend of mine Jesse Stay) has introduced a new service within their offering and it is FREE – a SocialToo vanity url which will provide you with social stats.

This video explains all about SocialToo.com Vanity URL’s and why you should consider it.

I’ve set up mine http://krishnade.socialtoo.com – remember it’s free to do.

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

Rohit is also someone who has done something extraordinary in terms of book marketing (any authors should go study him) as he has consistently developed additional materials (all free to access) on different aspects of personality since he launched the book last Summer.

His most recent project was to invite a number of women in his network to contribute to a project he has called ‘Women of Personality’ where each of the women were asked to answer a question about how personality had influenced their career.

Rohit has also created a Facebook Group for the project, as he says:

This group was created as a place to recognize Women of Personality – that is, women who have used and are using personality as a way to stand out in business and make themselves and the organizations they work for more successful.

The women featured in the ebook which is free to download are (including the Twitter handles):

Stephanie Agresta @StephAgresta
Kare Anderson @KareAnderson
Susan Bratton @SusanBratton
Anita Campbell @smallbiztrends
Krishna De @krishnade (I am honoured to be included)
Zadi Diaz @zadi
Kimberlie Dykeman @puresoapbox
Dr. Marsha Firestone @WomenPresidents
Jackie Huba @jackiehuba
Karen Kerrigan @KarenKerrigan
Mia Kim @miakim
Leah Komaiko
Yvonne Lembi-Detert @personalityhtls
Charlene Li @charleneli
Laura Mayes @kirtsy
Melanie Notkin @savvyauntie
Laura Ries @lauraries
Kaira Sturdivant Rouda @kairarouda
Roz Savage @rozsavage (you might recall Roz who was the first guest of 2009 on Biz Growth Live)
Marcia Silverman

You can access the Women of Personality Ebook online. The First Edition of WOP is available for FREE download and Rohit is currently accepting submissions from women to be part of the Second Edition – scheduled to launch in early June. To submit yourself or someone you know, send an email to pnibook@gmail.com or post a short introduction to yourself on the wall of the Women of Personality Facebook Group.

Sometimes expressing your personality at work and in your professional career can feel daunting and it’s might seem easier to stay in the background. Stepping out and standing for something carries with it some risks – risks that not everyone will agree with you, that not everyone will ‘like’ what you have to say.

When that happens, especially in today’s transparent digital world, it’s important to monitor and manage those conversations and actively seek out the feedback.

What I’ve come to realize over time is that our ‘message’ is not relevant for everyone – some people will resonate with your work and style and others won’t. I try to express my personality, be that in the virtual world or the ‘real world’, so that what people experience when reading or listening to me online is congruent with what they find when they meet me face to face.

What do you think about personality and what role has your personality played in your career choice and career success?

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

It’s no surprise to me therefore that as the economy is getting more challenging that I am receiving an increased number of enquiries for these workshops.

One open workshop that you can attend if you are interested in the subject of personal branding is a breakfast seminar hosted by the Sales Institute of Ireland Munster Branch.

Date: Wednesday 3 December 2008

Venue: Montenotte Hotel, Cork

Price for SII Members: EUR 15 (Non-SII Members: EUR 40)

Book Your Place Online: Call Kate on 01 662 6904 or email her at kate@salesinstitute.ie or book your place online HERE

In this breakfast seminar, we will have the opportunity to spend time considering how we can apply personal branding strategies to expand our personal and career success. We will be covering:

- An Introduction To Personal Branding – the origins of personal branding and why it is relevant for our success in the 21st century workplace

- Defining The Essence of Your Personal Brand – the steps we must take to define our personal brand

- Expressing Our Personal Brand – how do we make sure that everything we do is on-brand and consistent with our personal vision

- Getting Known Now – the three keys to an effective personal marketing plan as sales professionals

- How To Become Digitally Distinctive – online personal branding tips so we stand out from the crowd and recession proof our career through new media and social networking strategies.

I do hope that you’ll be able to join me at the workshop.

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

But are you wondering what you should do next?

Well search no longer as you can now discover the secrets of LinkedIn and how to leverage it for professional and career success in this 2 hour ‘LinkedIn For Business Masterclass‘ which is taking place as part of Dublin City Enterprise Week.

This workshop is relevant for marketing, customer service, sales or PR professionals who want to discover how to integrate social networking into their marketing, business development and communications strategy.

You will discover how to enhance your online reputation with a professional profile on LinkedIn so that you and your business are digitally distinctive and how to leverage your professional profile on LinkedIn to attract more prospects, profits and personal success.

Date: Friday 21 November 2008

Venue: Dublin City Enterprise Board, 5th Floor, O’Connell Bridge House, D’Olier Street, Dublin 2

Time: 2.30pm-4.30pm

Investment: €30 per delegate

Registration: For more details about the LinkedIn For Business Masterclass and how to book your place visit the registration page HERE.

Numbers are limited so make sure that you book your place as soon as possible and together let’s make sure that your personal brand online at the social networking site for professionals and executives stands out from the crowd so that you attract more clients, business opportunities and strategic partners.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

If you can not attend the Dublin workshop or would prefer a workshop for your team or one to one support you can find out the details of how to book HERE.

Read a recent article I wrote about 5 steps to getting started with LinkedIn.

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

I have collaborated in many live and virtual events not just free lead generating events but paid for events and workshops.

Even if the event has not been part of a strategic ongoing relationship, I’ve also achieved the following:

1. Built my ezine subscriber list – In this case you advise subscribers to your mailing list and data base  about the event that by subscribing, they are also going to receive information from the event organisers – this means that on registration people know they will be added to more than one mailing list, (I do recommend that you overtly say in your online copy that they unsubscribe at any time). By partnering wih others you can build your valuable asset of your ezine subscriber list.

2. Benefited from a referral fee – If you want to share in a referral fee for people registering through you, I use a shopping cart service that manages my data base and allows me to implement an affiliate or referral programme. This means that all of the speakers at the even are provided with a specific registration code which automatically tracks registrations through their link. A a result, sales can be directly attributed and a referral fee can be calculated. Of course you could also use this approach not just for the speakers but offer it to trusted people in your network who you know will be able to help you promote your event.

I know that my best ever work has been when I’ve collaborated with others.

I also know that other people speaking about my business through word of mouth or word of mouse has helped me attract more clients that I probably could have done on my own.

So rather than worrying about the competition, which of your competitors do you think your audience would like to hear speak or present along side you?

What kind of event could you orchestrate – online or offline?

How could this approach help you attract more clients in recessionary times?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Here is the shopping cart programme, Easy Web Cart that I use to automate my website, manage my ezine and subscriber lists and manage referal programmes – please note this is my affiliate link so if you don’t like affiliate or referral programmes, don’t click!

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

The format is the same as in the UK and the US, but this time the boss is Bill Cullen, Irish entrepreneur who is offering the successful candidate a role working in his organisation for 12 months and a salary of €100,000.

The 14 candidates, all Generation X and Generation Y leaders we will see have been selected from some 1,400 applicants.

Watching Bill Cullen today on the TV3 breakfast show did however give me a few concerns. He claimed that the candidates are stronger than those in the UK as the UK candidates were ‘over educated’.

That’s a warning bell to me as surely the intent is not to say to our young leaders that education is not relevant? Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur and the success Bill Cullen has enjoyed is certainly not experienced by the majority of entrepreneurs today.

He did, after all, have an unusual start in life and as he shared in the TV3 interview, he was selling from the age of 3 and he attributes his mother having taught him everything he knows by the age of 13 years.

Yes there will be some comparison of The Apprentice Ireland to the shows in the UK – what we might however learn is something of what an entrepreneur like Bill Cullen believes is important to be successful in Ireland today.

In the interview on TV3 with Mark Cagney and Sinéad Desmond on this morning’s Ireland AM, Bill Cullen admitted that he had already identified four potential winners when the show started but changed their minds as the show progressed.

Here is a summary of the 14 candidates we’ll be missing tonight before one is fired as detailed on the TV3 Apprentice Ireland website:

Stuart Butler, Age: 31, Career: Business Development Manager
Qualifications: Certificate in Sales & Marketing

Sarah Cowley, Age: 32, Career: Advertising Sales Manager
Qualifications: Diploma in Advertising

Avril Daly, Age: 24, Career: Recruitment Consultant
Qualifications: Graduate Diploma in Advertising, PR & Marketing

Shane Davey, Age: 29, Career: National Account Manager
Qualifications: Masters in Management Consultancy

Orla McAdam, Age: 24, Career: Medical Sales Representative
Qualifications: Certificate in Auctioneer, Valuations and Estate Agency

Joanna Murphy, Age: 33, Career: Sales Director of a supply company
Qualifications: Degree in Business Studies

David Neary, Age: 25, Career: Assistant Brand Manager
Qualifications: Masters of business studies in marketing

Nicky O’Callaghan, Age: 26,Career: Auctioneer
Qualifications: Certificate in PR

Paddy O’Dea, Age: 26, Career: Senior Sales Executive
Qualifications: Diploma in I.T.

Mark O’Rourke, Age: 26, Career: Company Director
Qualifications: Leaving Certificate

Orla Power, Age: 34, Career: Head of Marketing for software company
Qualifications: Diploma in Marketing, Advertising, PR & Sales Management

Derek Ramsey, Age: 26, Career: Regional Sales Manager
Qualifications: Diploma in Business and Commerce

Brenda Shanahan, Age: 32, Career: Bridal Shop Owner
Qualifications: Leaving Certificate

Ronan Whitty, Age: 27, Career: Yield Analyst
Qualifications: MBS in Strategic Management & Planning, Higher Diploma in Entrepreneurial Studies, B.A. Economics & Information Studies

I certainly wish all the candidates every success – you can be sure their every move will be scrutinised and dissected in the press, on TV, in blogs, forums, social networking sites, at the water cooler and in the pub! Their personal brand and reputation is at stake.

And if you are one of the 14 or know one of the 14 – make sure they head off to purchase their own name as a domain name before someone else does and puts off a spoof blog – there is already an unofficial blog for The Apprentice Ireland!

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

I first heard of Zane some years ago when I him online through Debbie Weil’s blog – he was previously CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited, the bridge line sponsors of the 2007 Personal Branding Summit which I chaired last November.

We had the opportunity to talk about social media, personal branding and employer branding and you can listen to the show recording HERE.

Zane was a generous host and allowed me to talk – I hope you will find the podcast of assistance if you are looking to further develop your personal brand for professional success and your employer brand to attract and retain talent.

SHOW NOTES

00:00     Introduction to the show by Zane

06:16     So just what is a personal brand

14:24     What we can do to develop our personal brand and sustain it and how social media can expand our global reach

24:40     What’s the most important lesson I’ve learned on my personal journey

29:00     The importance of mentoring and playing to our strengths

32:40     My biggest learning in personal development and career success

37:40     Action steps you can take do to develop your personal brand

48:10     LinkedIn for developing your business network

51:45     What’s an employer brand vs a personal brand and why’s it important for companies

60:00     Forthcoming projects including PodCamp Ireland and the 2008 Personal Branding Summit

62:00     One thing to remember about personal branding for professional and personal success to thrive not just survive through a recession

73:00     Show close

ADDITONAL RESOURCES

While we talked a little about Linkedin as a business social netowrk we were not able to go into a great depth. If you want to know more about how to use LinkedIn for business, you can join me with my guest an expert in Linkedin for business, Chuck Hester on my ‘Biz Growth Live’ programme.

The show is taking place at 1pm ET/6pm Ireland on monday 4 August 2008 and you can join us FREE HERE.

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

Interestingly due to the fact that he has a website representing his personal brand online, he is number one in the search engines here in Ireland for key words relating to his expertise.

You see although he is currently in employment i.e. he is on the payroll of an organisation, he realised the value in promoting his experience and his portfolio of skills online – he is using his own name as the domain name for his current website.

One of the tips I always cover in my personal branding workshops and consultations is to ensure that you purchase your own domain name – even if you have no plan to use it at this time to host your own business blog, website or career portfolio.

Even if you are employed in a company, the chances are that you won’t be in their employ in 10 years or 20 years time – but the one thing that will be constant is the need to ensure that you continue to nurture your personal brand and reputation online as many people search for us prior to or after meeting us.

An example of when not purchasing your domain name is the recent case of Shel Israel, author and social media consultant.

Shel is one of the contributors at FastCompany.tv. He would not position himself as being an expert in video or film production, however the expectations of his interviews with guests seem not to have been met by his audience as you can see from the video here and the accompanying comments where there is concern being expressed over the production values of the video.

You can read more about the story here at the Blog Herald and at Shel Israel’s blog.

What resulted is that someone create a website as a parody of his interviews – and yes you guessed it – the domain name for the site is ShelIsrael.com. You see, Shel had not purchased his own domain name so it was freely available for someone else to purchase.

You could conside it a form of online identity theft.

I am sure that Shel is kicking himself now – though it does mean that he is getting many people talking about him online – perhaps not for reasons he anticipated or would like.

But let his case be a lesson for us all – if you don’t own your domain name – please buy it even if you have no plans to use it at this time. And if you love your children – buy their names as domain names too. They’ll thank you for it in a few years time.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Here’s an article  about making sure that you have your own name as a domain name, published in the Wall Street Journal that I was quoted in called “You’re A Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well”.

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

I’ll be celebrating by hosting a panel on the subject of “Women in Technology” and a session about using social media to create, publish and market your book at Creative Camp, taking place in Kilkenny.

I’ve also been invited by Frank Fullard, CEO of the Mayo County Enterprise Board to facilitate a workshop for female business leaders in celebration of International Women’s Day 2008.

The event will take place at Knockranny House Hotel, Westport on Tuesday 11 March 2008 starting at 7pm with refreshments and networking at the end of the workshop at 10pm.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE

Personal branding is a revolution in the way we manage our careers or businesses.  It’s a way of clarifying and communicating what makes you different and special and using those qualities to separate from yourself from your peers so that you can greatly expand your success. 

At the end of the workshop the will have developed a personal action plan for further nurturing your personal brand so that in 2008 you’ll be able to enjoy even greater professional success.

In this interactive workshop, we will be covering:

• An Introduction To Personal Branding – the origins of personal branding and why it is relevant for our success in the 21st century
• Defining The Essence of Your Personal Brand – the steps we must take to define out personal brand
• Expressing Our Personal Brand – how do we make sure that everything we do is on-brand and consistent with our vision
• Getting Known Now – how do we create our personal marketing plan based around the 3 keys to building connections – we will look at these three strategies both through traditional and new media
• Action planning – developing your personal branding action plan.

HOW TO BOOK YOUR PLACE

You can book your place to attend the “Personal Branding Masterclass” here. I do hope you can join me the other female entrepreneurs. And if you are planning to atten, don’t hesitate to email me or post your questions here about how to nurture your personal brand – just add your questions to th comments section.

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites

For some time I’ve been wanting to do a major overhaul of my visual identity online.

So this year I am planning to develop a number of my personal website and business blog sites and try to bring them back to the core of my personal brand.

I would always recommend that you start with looking at the corporate identity of your business and work from there, but since my personal brand is so intertwined with the corporate identity of my business and the fact that most people come to know me through “Biz Growth News”, I made a decision to start with a redesign of this site.

Given that I teach others about branding and social media marketing, I have been accutely aware that I’ve needed a major face lift – in fact you could say an extreme make-over online.

I’ll share more once the new blog design is in place on the reasons I made the decisions I have about the elements of the blog as they consitute for me key elements of best practice in business blogging for professional services firms – I’ll probably so this through a teleseminar for my “Biz Growth Community”.

But for now I’d love to share a sneak peak at how the new banner for Biz Growth News is shaping up.

Believe me I have been one of the most challenging clients my designer has had to work with as I have a clear sense of what I was looking for and in fact there is more design that has gone into the relative simplicity of the the new business blog site than for a complex design.

So here it is … what do you think?

I hope to have the new blog in place in March do do watch out for the make over!

Did you find this article helpful? Then please share it!

Hide Sites