Networking Insight

Stay Visible to Build Your Personal Brand

Your personal brand is extremely important when it comes to building relationships. Your reputation and expertise are how others perceive you. Make an effort to stay visible so others get to know you. 

In today’s world, we have a lot of choices to connect with others and stay visible. Don’t exclusively rely on technology as a means of building your brand. Face time is a very important component. People need to see you in person from time to time to see how you interact. Once you are seen in person, people can better bridge the gap between your digital and in person persona.

Each week, you should be making yourself visible to your network and greater business community. Leverage tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, and Four Square to keep you connected. In addition, attend a couple of events each week so you can build new relationships and re-connect with existing contacts. The more people see you the more you will get noticed.

Other ways to stay visible include speaking at events, hosting your own events, and writing guest articles. Continuously think of ways to keep yourself and brand in front of others. Make sure that with each activity that you are demonstrating your expertise. As a result, you will build a credible brand that others will respect. When this happens, your network will significantly grow and opportunities will present themselves.

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How NOT to Use Business Cards

Personal Branding Magazine - "Internet Famous" Issue

The next issue of Personal Branding Magazine comes out on February 1. Below are details about this upcoming issue.

Summary:

Volume 4, Issue 3 is focused on teaching you how to become internet famous through video, social networking, and blogging. The issue has a collection of stories from well-known internet superstars such as Julia Allison, Judson Laipply, and Mr. Chocolate rain himself, Tay Zonday. Gracing the cover is Chamillionaire, who is a Grammy award winning musician, and someone who has pioneered the use of social technologies in the music industry. 

Features: 

• Full paid issue (February 1st): 22 articles 
• Sample issue:  10 articles total, including how to make a good first impression, how to manage your digital image, and wardrobe tips.
• Interviews with:  Chamillionaire (Grammy Award Winning Musician), Julia Allison (Co-creator of NonSociety.com), Tay Zonday (creator of the Chocolate Rain viral video), Judson Laipply (creator of the Evolution of Dance viral video), Brian Solis (author of Engage), Amy Marin (Shaquille O'Neal's social media manager), and Brian Clark (founder of Copyblogger Media).

Free Sample Issue

Paid Subscription

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Book Review: The Network is Your Customer by David Rogers

The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age was written by David Rogers, who is the Executive Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School.  In addition, he is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world and has advised various companies such as SAP, Eli Lilly, and Visa.

The book is broken up into the following sections:

• Part I: A New Model for Customers in the Digital Age
• Part II: Five Strategies to Thrive with Customer Networks
• Part III: Leadership and the Customer Network-Focused Organization

In this book, Rogers discusses how to leverage digital technologies to connect you to new networks of people.  In fact, he stresses that organizations need to adopt new strategies to stay competitive and in touch with customers.

Rogers shares the following strategies for any business:

• ACCESS– be faster, be easier, be everywhere, be always on
• ENGAGE – become a source of valued content
• CUSTOMIZE – make your offering adaptable to your customers’ needs
• CONNECT – become a part of your customers’ conversations
• COLLABORATE – involve your customers at every stage of your enterprise

Each strategy is explained with numerous case studies from various types of organizations. It is interesting to read these stories so you can learn first hand how companies have adapted and evolved.

Below are a few of the stories that he shares:

• How Apple harnessed a host of collaborators to write apps for its iPhone
• How IBM designed a videogame to help sell its enterprise software
• How Ford Motor Company inspired an online community to build brand awareness for its new Fiesta

The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age lays out a plan for implementing a more relationship driven customer network strategy. It is important to embrace technology and engage with your customers.  Your network is an important part of your personal and business strategy. Take it is very serious so you can build and sustain your network of customers.

Click here to hear the author speak about his book.

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Stay Connected to be Connected

In order to truly be connected with people nowadays, you need to connect through various methods. While face-to-face interaction is still extremely important, don’t rely exclusively on it to stay in touch. You need to find what communication tools your network is using and connect with them.

Most of us are now using some form of online networking such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Continue to use these services if you want to stay connected. In fact, you should be using multiple services to stay in touch. Each service will provide a different perspective about each person.

In today’s world, you need to utilize both online and offline methods to stay in touch. Regardless of how you met someone (online or offline), you should combine online and offline interaction. While a purely online relationship works, it can’t replace in person interaction. Obviously, it is difficult to see everyone in person, especially if they are overseas. Try using a service like Skype so you can have a live conversation.

If you met someone in person, then technology is a great way to stay connected and manage your relationship. If you met someone online, then connect in multiple ways via technology and find a way to speak with or meet in person.

Take the time to use various methods to stay connected with your network. Otherwise, you will have a difficult time managing your relationships.

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Who Knows You?

 
As you spend more time building relationships, people will start to know who you are in your community. In order for this to happen, you need to stay very visible. Stay visible by attending events, making introductions, connecting online, and speaking/writing about your subject matter of expertise.

One of the most important aspects of relationship building is the diverse Rolodex that you can build. Ultimately, you will know all of the people in your network to some degree. If you have done a good job of branding yourself, then you will have built a positive reputation in your community. Therefore, other people will know who you are even if they are not a part of your immediate network.

Once your name gets out there, more people will know you than you knowing them.  In fact, you will be surprised at how many people know you.  When this happens, new opportunities will present themselves and people will start coming to you.

It is a good feeling when people approach you because of your reputation. Make sure to stand out so you can make a name for yourself.

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Social Networking Humor

10 Encouraging Words about Positive Relationships

Having the right relationships can make or break your network. Therefore, spend your time and effort building quality and sustainable relationships. If any of your existing relationships become hard to manage or turn negative, then it is okay to part ways. Below are 10 words of encouragement about having positive relationships.

1. Easy

2. Helpful

3. Friend

4. Partner

5. Advice

6. Connect

7. Listen

8. Comfortable

9. Brand

10. Strategic

What other words can you think of?

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Five Reasons to Take Networking Seriously

Building the right relationships is an important component of personal and business success. Some of us take it very serious while others do not. Below are five reasons as to why you should take it very seriously:

1. Finding a Job – Most jobs are found through relationships versus applying to a job posting. Build relationships before you need a job.

2. Finding prospects and customers – Most business development roles require relationship selling. Therefore, leveraging your relationships is critical to finding prospects and customers.

3. Finding friends – By meeting new people on a regular basis, you will get to know some people very well. When this happens, you will make some new friends who you may not have met otherwise.

4. Building social capital – One of your greatest assets is your network or “social capital”. No one can take this away from you.

5. Branding yourself as an expert – Your personal brand is very important for your reputation. By demonstrating your expertise with your network, they will see you as a subject matter expert.

What other reasons can you think of?

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What is the Make Up of Your Network?

 

Each of has our own network of people who we personally and professionally leverage. In fact, for most of us our network defines us. How do you define your network?

As you look into the make up of your own network, who is it comprised of? By categorizing each contact, you will get a very good sense of who you are connecting with on a regular basis. Organizing your contacts is critical for you to efficiently manage your relationships. While it may be painful to do so, take the time to go through each contact in your database.  It is a good idea to do this every couple of months so you can keep your Rolodex up to date.

As you go through your contacts, you will notice if you are connecting with people in your industry, executives, investors, etc.  Is your network comprised of who you want to be meeting? Think about who you want to meet and focus your efforts on meeting those people.

With each new job or opportunity, you usually have to build new relationships. With an organized Rolodex, you will know right away if you already have these relationships in your network or if you need to meet new people.

Treat your network as one of your biggest assets. It is something that you can take with you to each employer or company you may start. No one can take it away from you.

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