Jessica L. Owens

You’ve chosen to begin using social media as a solution to solve your marketing gaps, or to build your personal brand online. Now, how do you decide which channels to begin sharing content on?

Whatever you do, do not just sync up the same content in 5 different areas. Just because you have a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account and a HootSuite account that can publish to them all in one swift click doesn’t mean you actually should use that power for every single message. People follow or friend you in different channels for a reason. Understanding how your audience (or potential) audience uses their social channels is critical to being successful in the digital world.

With that said, each channel may be an appropriate home for the exact same story, yet, just told differently based on capabilities of the technology and the allowance of the type of media considered acceptable on that channel.

Original article

Among the zillions of fantastic monitoring companies and softwares that brands can pay to utilize, there are some free techniques that can be used by small businesses, campaigns, and for personal brand monitoring. Among my favorites is Google Reader.

Let me show you how to use Google Reader to monitor your personal brand or any other keywords you’d like to monitor.

Start by conducting several searches in Google News and Google Blogs with various different searches. I used searches like “jessica l owens, michigan” and other variations of how an employer might be searching for me, using my college, my company, and any of my known usernames.

It’s okay if there is nothing there now, if something appears in that search anytime in the future, it will appear in your reader. Click RSS and copy the URL.

Create a tag or a folder in Google Reader called “Personal Branding” or whatever type of monitoring you’re doing so that you can categorize it and easily view it and add all of your feeds to that tag.

It will look something like the image above.

If you’re not sure how to do this, find help in Google Reader.

I recently participated in a #SMCGLB panel on personal branding and online profiles. It was rather useful, however, I realized that as a recent job seeker, I could have easily stood up there and participated on that panel as an “expert.” There are some simple steps to start an online presence whether you’re unemployed and looking for a job, an entrepreneur, or simply looking to increase online reputation:

Be available

To be found, you must be available. Have profiles across many platforms:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn <<A must!!
• YouTube
• Emurse.com

It is important to have a presence on several platforms, but have one main “hub.” This could be a Google profile with links to all of your various profiles or a blog.

Be an Expert

Subscribe to newsletters or RSS feeds that write about the subject matter in which you intend to find a job in. Join discussions on Twitter with professionals in your field and list them for easy access. By subscribing to discussions, you’ll have the ability to share useful and recent information in an interview or while networking with potentials.

Make Your Resume Digital

You will have variations of your resume, but it should always include your url – probably to your “hub.”

Also, have one variation of your resume be a digital resume. Whether it’s actually an html page, PDF, or a word document, it should contain links to your work in it’s actual environment.

Post an Ad

Use Google Ad Sense or Facebook Ads to target specific companies or recruiters. Link it to your “hub” or digital resume allowing potential employers to accidentally find you by targeted advertising. Talk about differentiating from the competition!

Propel your career or business with social media

Register Today!

Learn to use social media to build a personal brand at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 27 at Central Michigan University (location no longer in Grawn and will be announced soon).

This free seminar hosted by Social Media Club – Great Lakes Bay and CMU’s American Marketing Association will feature a panel of three well-known speakers who have successfully built brands for themselves and other companies/

Learn how to build your personal brand online

The panel will consist of Hajj Flemings, Nikki Stephan and Becks Davis. They will discuss how to build a brand using social media tools – such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and more – and will answer your questions about personal brands. Use hashtag #smcglb to tweet about this event. 

Afterward, join us for drinks and networking at our afterglow event (location to be determined).

About the panel

Hajj Flemings (@HajjFlemings) has been featured on ESPN.com and BusinessWeek.com. He is the founder of Brand Camp University and the author of “The Brand YU Life,” which was selected as one of Fast Company Magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Books of the year. His branded clients include Walt Disney, Ford Motor Company, Skechers Footwear and U.S. Department of Defense (Telecom Division).

Central Michigan University alumna Nikki Stephan (@EstrellaBella10)  is a public relations professional and social media strategist at Identity Marketing & Public Relations. Nikki is a member of PRSA Detroit and Social Media Club Detroit. She also leads a weekly Tweetea discussion group in metro Detroit. She’s a frequent contributor to Identity’s blog, id tags, and maintains a personal blog, Essential Elements, where she shares stories related to creativity, happiness and success. 

As the founder and editor of detroitmoxie.com, a website focused on Detroit, Becks Davis (@BecksDavis) has built and fostered a community organically using social media tools. She also is active in the Detroit digital community, working on projects such as TEDxDetroit and 140 Characters Conference Detroit.

Social Media Club – Great Lakes Bay is sponsored by:

Platinum: AGP & Associates, Inc. and Dow Chemical
Silver: Think Marketing and Design
Venue: Apple Mountain and Midland Center for the Arts
In Kind: CMU Career Services 

Interested in becoming a sponsor? E-mail SMCGreatLakes@gmail.com for information. 

Creating Organizational Change to Support Social Media Integration

The Speaker: Shannon Paul

Shannon is the Social Media Manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and she writes about social media for business at the Very Official Blog, a blog listed in the Advertising Age Power 150.

Prior to her current role, she managed social media for PEAK6 Online, parent company of several web-based businesses in the financial services sector, and the NHL Detroit Red Wings.

Shannon has experience creating and implementing social media programs, policies and workflow systems to help businesses participate in the social web, including those in regulated industries.

The Afterglow: Apple Mountain

Stay after the seminar to network with others. There will be a cash bar at Apple Mountain

On May 15, 2010, I graduated from Northwood University with my Bachelor degree with a double major in Advertising and Marketing, Management. I successfully completed my degree; something I have been working on for the past three years—or maybe you could argue—my whole life. Yes, I feel accomplished and proud, don’t get me wrong, but I feel far from successful like I thought I might feel at this point.

What is Success?

This led me to wonder what exactly “success” is and at what point have we reached success? As defined by the Webster dictionary, success is a favorable or desired outcome. As defined by humans and fate; we may not ever be successful in our own minds or have reached success in our lives.

Steve Medincea on Success

When I was in London, I visited a company called PRISM, an affiliate of JWT, a global advertising agency, one of the biggest in the world. Steve Medincea is the founder of PRISM and I had the honor of listening to him speak to our class and the ability to pick his brain on advertising, business, and success. Many students implied on the level of his success as they asked questions regarding how he reached this point. He showed gratification and honor that we felt that way about his accomplishments but he made a point to make it clear that he did not feelsuccessful. He had so much more on his “bucket list” that he needed to do before he even came close to consider himself successful.

In our eyes, Steve was at a level of success that we could only dream about. He founded a company in advertising with one of the largest companies in the world. He works and lives in one of the best cities we had ever been to. He had earned awards that we had only read about. He’s worked with companies that we study every day… And yet, he still does not yet consider himself successful.

Will Smith on Success

Will Smith was featured on Oprah shortly after I contemplated the theory and philosophy of success. I was inspired by many of his values and his philosophy on life. He mentioned how he is still stuck in the mindset of a poor man even after 20 years of financial success. Clearly, he does not see wealth as a sign of success. Later he touched on his beliefs of success by saying, “to be successful is to overcome death.” His philosophy of success is a level that many do not consider, including me. I have yet to truly understand this, but I have thought about it every day since, and how it impacts my views on success.

It is hard to say what will make me successful in my eyes throughout my life. Will my job define that? Will my family relationships define that? Will my experiences, knowledge, and network define that?

For me, it is a combination of all and the quality of my relationship with those things that will define success.

I had coffee with an old friend from high school this weekend and started talking about my upcoming graduation and career plans. I explained to her what I wanted to do including SEO, digital marketing, Facebook, Twitter… and her face went blank! Of course this was a foreign language to a Sociology major!

This wasn’t the first time this has happened to me so I quickly gave her my mini description but found myself going into the business strategies of the companies that I wanted to work for and the pros and cons of the digital strategy of the companies that I’m considering and this- and that- and… I realized at that moment how important this work is to me. I realized the passion I had for digital marketing was very real. I know I’m making the right career path and I can’t wait to start.

It is an amazing feeling for that to just click like it did. Since my time at CareerEco, I knew I loved the work I was doing so much, that I honestly didn’t think of doing anything else. After that conversation this weekend, I know I will do anything in my power to get “there.”

I’m reading the book, The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman and I’m learning a lot about different tools that individuals can use to start leveraging services that prior to this “flattened” world, only large corporations could afford. Since I’ve started the book, I’ve realized this to be so true- especially in advertising– and even more in digital marketing.

One person can do what a whole corporation used to do.

I met with a new colleague last week, Todd Terwillegar, and he briefly explained his company, how he started, and the people who have been the most influential and helpful people to him while he got to where he is. He’s in his mid-twenties, a 1-man company with a couple of clients, and working towards making his career with his own company. Ten years ago, that would have been impossible.

New online business services such as 1DayLater allow 1 person to do everything.

If you really wanted to, you don’t need a secretary, or a team of employees that manage different aspects of the business processes. There is technology and the internet for that. One can just track it easily and save the hassle.

Full service agencies might, one day, contract all the work out and a small handful of people are permanent.

I’ve been offered many jobs in the past 6 months in advertising for my services of a social media marketer. Every single offer has been as a contractor. This economy has been forcing companies to cut back in ways they never have before. The work still needs to be done, but the money isn’t there to make it happen. Perhaps these jobs will still continue to be contracted out and many in advertising will be their own boss working for a dozen different agencies. There’s good and bad to that, I guess. That is just a part of the world going “flat.”

I’ve seriously applied to hundreds of jobs- maybe even pushing a thousand job applications within the past 6 months or so. I’ve uncovered what seems like every single stone I can to find new openings in my area of expertise. When I feel like I’m at a dead-end but need more to find, sometimes I just find myself Goggling “marketing jobs” or something similar. The results are always something like “MAKE MONEY ONLINE TODAY!” Even if I just search Monster.com the results are similar.

It’s a hard spot to be in because there are so many qualified people with experience that are applying for the same job as I am. It’s hard to even find a legit job to apply for let alone get hired by one.

But as I keep searching and applying, I set my standards low just for the chance of getting hired. I still only try to apply for a job at what seems like a legitimate  company, but when it comes down to it, I really only want to work for a “good” company.

I realized recently, that there are legitimate companies that aren’t “good.” Sometimes people create or run companies for their own benefit and don’t realize what the customer wants or needs. Some companies try to find ways to make their customer think that they need their product. Yes, that’s part of marketing, but the other half of running a sustainable business is after you get the consumer to buy the product, they should like it, and they should come back for more, because they know it’s a good product.

The founders of Google based their company on the customer versus the potential of making more revenue. They constantly sacrifice millions of dollars or more by doing things like no ads on the home page, etc. Their motto is “don’t be evil.” What they really mean is don’t fall into the typical business man’s mind by focusing more on how to make the income bigger and bigger. Google wants to be a company that is focused on what the consumer needs.

In my advertising class, my professor was talking about how TiVo and DVR is ruining the advertising business. I spoke up and explained that I’m going into advertising but I’d never give up my DVR. He thought there was something wrong with this picture and simply couldn’t believe it. TV ads are still relevant but there are obvious signs saying that TV ads could be nearing the end. But that’s not the end of advertising.

I want my job to be the one that finds what works for the company without interrupting what the customer wants. I want to compliment the needs of the customer by giving them what they need exactly when they need it. I want to be that company that consumers seek just as much as we seek them. I don’t want to find a way to push my product in the homes of people who don’t need them just to make a buck.

How many people can say they work for a good company? How many marketers find themselves pushing the product more than it’s getting received? I want to be more than a legit company. I want to be a “GOOD” company. I don’t want to reap benefits that I don’t deserve. I want the hard work to pay off for the consumer and my company.