This is the second part of Montana State SID's Chris Syme series on personal branding, which she wrote for her blog "
New Adventures of an Old SID". In reviewing current practices, she talks about six core principles to consider when you are coaching staffers to develop personal brands.
See
Part One of PERSPECTIVE: Montana State SID Chris Syme on The Sum of the Parts: Encouraging Personal Branding (published on CoSIDA.com on March 30)
In my last blog entry, I promised to finish what I started on personal branding by continuing through the article in
The Strategist by Ed Schipul. But I want to start out with a shameless promotion of
Brian Solis' latest blog entry to set the stage. Solis is a social media expert who has written several books on the subject including his latest called
Engage.
The blog is a conversation (with him, basically) about the thesis that drove the book. I like Solis' blog because he is not just out there waving his arms, jumping up and down screaming that everyone should jump on the social media bus, "and don't forget to sign up for my seminar." His stuff is thoughtful, well-researched and not particularly self-promoting-- although he is an expert at personally branding himself. Solis is more interested in making sure that people find a plan that succeeds for their own business. But yes, he is jumping up and down. As a matter of fact, the whole premise behind Engage is, "If we do not participate and eventually lead online interaction related to our business, then we are walking a path toward oblivion." And Schipul would agree.
In his article on how to encourage personal branding, he talks about six core principles to consider when you are coaching staffers to develop personal brands.
1. "Listen. Pay attention to what people are saying and know where the publics (stakeholders) that you care about are active." Remember social media is a conversation, it is a community. In our athletic department, community service is part of our mission. Our college town is a volunteering, giving community. So we have joined the community by encouraging staffers and student-athletes to get involved in those organizations that encourage and support us.
2. "Define the story. Focus on what differentiates you from everyone else. Emphasize and build upon those things that make you special." All of our coaches have unique personalities--some more unique than others. The trick is to help them find a way to set their programs and themselves apart from the rest. It isn't necessarily competition, it's differentiation.
3. "Select the right channels. There are thousands of online communities. so determine where your time and energies will have the greatest impact. As in the offline world, the size of the community is less important than who the participants are." This is where the concept of "influencers" comes in. This is one of the most important steps in helping develop a customized, successful social media campaign.
We were dogmatic about this principle. Our Montana State athletics social media campaign doesn't look like many others. For instance, our Facebook page is based on our mascot's personality. It is a real community--they are his followers. We do use our Facebook page to promote some news items, but mostly we use it to tell stories. It is definitely a community. We made that decision based on a fan survey we sent out that asked our fans where they were already engaged and what they wanted to see from us.
4. "Create. The personal brand ultimately is the expressions of ideas and observations through original content; words, images, video and sound."
Content is probably the most underrated piece of the puzzle. Especially words. The tweets that are the dullest look like this: "Track team takes third at conference meet. (tiny url follows)." Ugh. The bottom line--create content that is engaging.
Twitter feeds I really love -- University of Wisconsin (UWBadgersdotcom) and dukeblueplanet (Duke men's basketball).
5. "Curate. Personal brands are strengthened by pruning information that is inconsistent with how you want to be perceived. Choose what to keep and what to eliminate." This somewhat relates to #3--be discerning in what you do and don't share. Everything doesn't need to go up on your social sites...don't gorge your followers.
6. "Think about terms of use." This is basically talking about who owns the content and whose rules you follow.
Schipul makes a parting comment I really like:" The relationship between employers and employees has changed forever...Organizations that resist will miss the opportunity to profit from their employees' personal brands and will spend the rest of the decade playing catch-up."