Have you ever Googled your name?

I am heavily into the social media sites these days and have several accounts for our company. One of the reasons for having social media accounts are to set up a way to brand your company and to create company awareness. Social sites give you the opportunity to set up a profile, tell everyone what you do and the products and services you offer, and then make friends that are interested in your niche.

In the process of branding our company, I started thinking why not brand myself professionally.

I thought…

• Why would I want to brand my self as an expert in my field?
• What’s the benefit of branding my self professionally?
• Will I be hassled by every sales person who is looking for prospects?
• Does anybody even care who I am?

I then went and looked up the definition of Branding and found this from Telecom Marketing.

“Branding – A traditional advertising method used to create a response from a target audience based on cumulative impressions and positive reinforcement. The ads are aimed at increased product or company name awareness leading to lifelong customer purchasing.“

Ok, so I knew I wanted to create a response from my target audience. Who Wouldn’t? I not only wanted to increase my company’s name awareness, but my own as well. And, most of all, I would like life long customer and partner relationships for myself and my company.

If any of you read Jeffrey Gitomer you will know that he says…

“Make a sale and you will make commission but make a friend and you will make a fortune.”

Friendships last so much longer than a cold call from a sales rep that doesn’t care if he ever speaks to you again.

So why would I want to brand myself as an expert in my field?

You want to perfect your A.C.T:

• Awareness – about you, your accomplishments and your company
• Confidence – that you & your company are the right choice for your client
• Trust – that you will take care of their business needs like they were your own

This should carry over into the relationships you currently have as well as the ones you cultivate in the future. You also want to make it easy for people to see who you are and what you do.

What is the benefit of branding myself professionally?

There are many reasons to brand your self professionally. One of the most important reasons is to let people know what you have achieved in your career. You never really know who may be looking. People have gotten jobs, landed accounts, made deals and gained contacts and friends just by having a LinkedIn profile.

Will I be hassled by every sales person in the world because my information can easily be found?

Well, that depends on how you look at it. Honestly, any opportunity to make a new connection is an opportunity to generate some revenue. If someone calls to sell me something I take control of the conversation by asking questions. everybody likes to talk about themselves or their company, particularly sales people.

Before you know it I have established a relationship with that person. I may not need their products or services but I may be calling that company back to sell them mine. Now I have a point of contact that knows me and has talked to me.

Does anybody even care who I am?

YES! You would be surprised at who is looking for your profile. I have been on the phone calling on potential clients and they would be online looking me up as I tell them who I am and what I want. As they read about me they could see that I was established and have my A.C.T together.

So, Where do you start?

You brand yourself in much the same way you brand your company. You set up profiles about you and what you like and what you do or have done.

Recommended Sites to start on: (My name has appeared on the first 2 pages of Google for each of these accounts at one time or another)

• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Squidoo
• Digg
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Stumble Upon
• Blog
• Flickr

You don’t have to be on all of them but find the ones you like best and use them. You could even go as far as to get your own http://www.yourname.com/ (if its available)

• LinkedIn is a great way to start. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. As of December 2007, its site traffic was 3.2 million visitors per month, growing at an annual growth rate of about 485%. As of May 2008, it had more than 20 million registered users, spanning 150 industries. (Wikipedia)

  Wow, what an opportunity to meet people in your industry. If you don’t have an account already, go get one now. If you do have one, make sure you are updating it regularly with the most relevant information about you. It’s like you are creating your own online resume for the world to see. Careers have been started just by connections that liked what they saw.

• Flickr is important too. This site enables you to put pictures of you, your company and your products onto a page and then link them back to your Blog, MySpace, Facebook, Squidoo or other social sites. It also provides a valuable back link from Yahoo. Not to mention, everyone likes to look at pictures
• Blogs are awesome and you can talk about anything you want. However, they need to be maintained on a regular basis to be effective. In most cases you don’t even need to have a website. You can have your Blog be your main source of content about your company and then link all the other sites back to the Blog. Thus, driving traffic and increasing sales.
• YouTube is one of the hottest social sites out there and can be very effective in your marketing efforts. If you have video you need to have it here.
• Squidoo is a site where you can create a page for free on any topic you want. Even if it’s all about YOU, it doesn’t matter.
• MySpace and Facebook – If you want to brand yourself as an expert in your field, keep these very professional. Limit your friends to other industry professionals. Join groups related to your industry and make sure your privacy settings do not allow others to leave comments or become friends without your approval.
• Digg and Stumble Upon are social news and bookmarking sites. People will be able to see what you thought was cool or not. This gives people a more personal look into what you are all about.

Because I regularly update, add content and leave comments with links back to these accounts, I rank in Google for these sites. For instance, when I search for my name in Google (when I am not logged in – Gotta love personalized search) my company comes up first, then my Linked In profile. When I search in Yahoo! My Blogger profile comes up first. And in MSN Linked In is second. Now, since Google has gone all personalized I had to check outside my IP address. So I called a friend and asked her to do a search for me. Linked In again was number 1 in Google.

What have I learned?

The point is, if anyone wants to find out more information about me they can easily find it. They can see my likes, interests, accomplishments, work history, recommendations from others and more. But most importantly, these people can easily contact me through these sites. Just remember what you put out can be seen by everyone so be careful and keep it professional.

So…, go ahead and try it. Make “YOU” a brand.

After all, everybody likes NAME BRANDS!