Enhancing your personal brand with a blog. Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Today’s agenda ✦ For beginners and neophytes ✦ Some ‘why-to,’ ‘how-to’ and ‘what-to’ ✦ Why blog? ✦ Where to start/models of blogging ✦ Cool things you can do ✦ Getting started ✦ Refining, enhancing and publishing

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 JSFG and job search ✦ “I’ll never forget the night Michael and I combined for 70 points.” ✦ Stacey King, Chicago Bulls, on a 1990 game ✦ In that game Michael Jordan scored 69 points

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010

Why blog? ✦ Key component of your personal brand ✦ Establish credibility ✦ Maximize SEO ✦ Hone writing and expertise ✦ Update LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter ✦ Reinforce your website OR ✦ Serve as your website

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Personal branding across platforms ✦ Establish your full name, consistently ✦ LinkedIn profile ✦ Twitter name ✦ Facebook ✦ Purchase domain name ✦ Multiple addresses ✦ Your blog and/or website ✦ Make it look right!

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Steve Phelan ‘Your Virtual CMO’

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Steve Phelan ‘Your Virtual CMO’

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Lisa Haneberg Author and consultant

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Lisa Haneberg Author and consultant

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Michelle Lentz ‘Social Media Adventurer’

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Daniel Johnson, Jr. ‘Social Media Evangelist’

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Michelle Lentz ‘Social Media Adventurer’

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Did you have job search in mind when you started your blog? ✦ (SP) Not for transition. It is for keeping me top of mind with people who might have need of my consulting services. ✦ (LH) Yes, and no. I was an independent consultant, so I wanted to attract more potential clients. I wanted my blog to build and strengthen my professional platform. ✦ (ML) I got a job blogging by tweeting to the right people. My other blog - the wine blog - hasn't exactly gotten me a job. It's just fun. ✦ (DJJr) My initial purpose was just to learn how to blog. Later spun off other blogs (18), including job search. In 07/08 I started a portfolio blog to document my work.

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 What topics do you post on? ✦ (SP) Marketing thoughts. See the blog to get a flavor. ✦ (LH) Mostly management, leadership, and personal success. ✦ (ML).

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 How frequently do you post? ✦ (SP) Once a month. ✦ (LH) When I started, I posted nearly every day. After 5 years, I now post 1-2 times per week. I would recommend that new bloggers post every day until they build up many posts and a readership. ✦ (ML) I do recommend to my marketing clients that they create a blog and leave it hidden/unpublished for about a month while they create content. Once they go live, I recommend posting at least 3x per week for the first 6 months to a year. That's what drives visitors and differentiates you from other blogs. My wine blog tends to have 2-3 posts per week (although I've been busy lately, so I've been lax at posting) to continuously drive traffic. ✦ (DJJr) Using WordPress and the TwitterTools plugin lets me archive what I’ve posted on Twitter through the week. So I’m guaranteed to post weekly. Even so -- I’ll post when I have something to say.

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 What has been the most valuable part of your blogging experience? ✦ (SP) The thought that goes into writing it helps focus my thoughts as well. ✦ (LH) My blog has helped me stay fresh - it helps me think through topics and keeps my mind fresh. And the blog, now with over 7,000 subscribers, has helped me build a global network. ✦ (DJJr) It’s helped me communicate my thoughts and words better. It’s also been a great emotional outlet. I can’t say enough about the community of other bloggers I keep in touch with.

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 How has the blog led to a new lead/opportunity/job possibility? ✦ (SP) Several times it has reminded people of my existence at an appropriate time (right people and right product are easy--you have to be top of mind at the right time.) ✦ (LH) Because the blog is informal, blog readers get to know me. This has helped them pre-qualify people who might want to hire me for a project. I have to do much less to convince people of my credentials, because they know me and know how I approach my work. ✦ (DJJr) I link back to my main blog. One hiring manager found me on LinkedIn and invited me in for an interview. That I have substantiated myself thought building an online presence is one reason I believe I was hired for my current job.

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Overall, has it been worth it? ✦ (SP) Definitely. ✦ (LH) Yes, my blog has been an important part of my professional life and has paid back, in terms of relationships, leads, and gigs, more than the effort I have put into it. I also feel more connected to younger professionals, who tend to read blogs more than their older colleagues. ✦ Much of what I’ve done over my years of blogging has been experimental - trying out new things, just to see if it could be done. I truly believe it has been worth it.

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Where to start blogging? ✦ Blogger.com ✦ TypePad.com ✦ WordPress ✦ Free and paid options ✦ Highly customizable ✦ Easy to use (in 5 minutes!) ✦ Clean, elegant look and feel

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Three models of blogging with WordPress ✦ 1) Install WordPress.org Content Management System (CMS) on your own web hosted space ✦ 2) Publish as ‘yourname.wordpress.com’ ✦ 3) Publish as ‘yourname.com’

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 WordPress.org CMS on your space ✦ Domain and web space ✦ Most flexibility and control ✦ Strong personal brand ✦ Cost is reasonable ($ per year) ✦ Greatest refinement of look and feel ✦ Requires some knowledge of HTML and/or SQL and PHP, at least for now

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Arthur C. Clarke ✦ “Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic.”

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010

5 cool things you can do with a WordPress blog (automatically) ✦ New content on your LinkedIn profile ✦ Tweet ✦ Update your Facebook status ✦ Maximize SEO For Google, Yahoo and Bing ✦ Post from your cell phone

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 ‘yourname.wordpress.com’ ✦ Most common ✦ FREE! ✦ Easy to use ✦ Good technical support online ✦ Starts in 5 minutes ✦ Little or no HTML required ✦ Partial personal branding

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Publish blog as ‘yourname.com’ ✦ Strong personal brand ✦ Minimal technical requirements (same as ‘yourname.wordpress.com’) ✦ Low cost (c. $50-$100 annually) ✦ Can be made to integrate with your website

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Starting your WordPress blog X johnsmith

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Choosing a look (Theme)

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Navigating the Dashboard data: posts, pages data: views options

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Shaping display contents with Widgets select available widgets drag to sidebar

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Creating and editing Posts put your post title here put your post content here preview categories write a brief excerpt here Twitter and Facebook publish

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Pages

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Pages

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Creating and editing Pages

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Creating and editing Pages

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Publish blog as ‘yourname.com’ ✦ 1) Buy domain name through WordPress ✦ Least complicated ✦ Least expensive (c. $15/year) ✦ Some restrictions (e.g. no Google ads) ✦ 2) Use one from another ISP ✦ Publish your blog to the domain (or sub-domain) ✦ Change ISP settings to allow this

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 ✦ Profile photo ✦ Comments -- allow/ moderated? ✦ Jump posts, or full? ✦ PermaLink to full post ✦ Private or public? ✦ Allow search engines? Other items

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Using your blog as your web site ✦ Modify blog so structure is minimal ✦ Look at entries per page ✦ Modify navigation and other elements ✦ Make a static page the home page ✦ Blog can still be one of the alternate pages ✦ Requires careful construction of widgets

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Changing your home page

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Automatic publishing on LinkedIn excerpt most recent post

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Search Engine Optimization

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Using your blog as your web site ✦ “Not every website is a blog. ✦ But every blog is a website.” ✦ Easy to update without HTML ✦ Multiple contributors if desired ✦ Automatically creates an archive ✦ Archive is searchable

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Using your blog as your web site

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Goodbye.

Enhancing your personal brand with a blog Job Search Focus Group June 14, 2010 Cleve’s contact info ✦ ✦ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/clevecallison ✦ Twitter: clevecallison ✦ Blog: bit.ly/clevesblog