As the Wednesday columnist for Personal Branding Blog, I’m excited to announce my team and I just officially launched Brand-Yourself.com, a new platform that demystifies the process of building your personal brand using social media. In honor of you and the loyal personal branding community here, we’re giving away 100 free extended free trials if you sign up with the promo code “DanSchawbel” – you can sign up here.
The rapid rise of social technologies can be overwhelming without guidance. Where to start? What can you do? How should you build your brand?
To answer these questions, we created a simple four-step process coupled with automated tools to help you maximize your personal branding efforts online. You will proactively:
- Build on-brand content that aligns with your career goals
- Optimize that content to show up at the top of Google
- Promote yourself in the right places using social media
- Monitor your progress along the way
1. Build
You start in the build section. This is where we help you build the content you want people to associate with your name. We help you pinpoint your core strengths, write content around those strengths and build them into your online presence using our website builder and LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook profile analyzers.
Example Tool: Google Results Organizer
An example tool within the Build section is the Google results organizer, which helps you understand how your results currently represent your brand. You’ll click and drag items that are and aren’t about you into columns, identifying which you will optimize to show up higher in results, and which you will bury.
2. Optimize
Now that you’ve discovered how you’re perceived, built your website and strengthened your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook profiles, you will raise them to the top of Google results for your name. The optimize section gives you personal Search Engine Optimization tools and walkthroughs to take control of what people find when they Google your name.
Example Tool: Profile Organizer
An example tool within Optimize is the profile organizer. Here, you identify your digital footprint and build links to the sites you want to raise in Google. (Google counts each link to your sites as a “vote” saying your sites should show up higher in search results. The Optimize section helps you build and track powerful links to your positive content).
3. Promote
Now that relevant content shows up when you’re searched (which is reactive branding), it’s time to proactively promote that content in the right circles online. In the promote section, we give you daily recommendations of articles to read, blogs to comment on and people to connect with to grow your network. It’s like a personal assistant that tells you what to do next to promote your personal brand.
Example Tool: Twitter Network Builder
An example tool within Promote is the Twitter Network tool. This pipes in relevant tweets from people geographically nearby, and walks you through the process of growing a relevant professional network on Twitter that you can tap to promote your brand.
4. Monitor
Monitoring your brand is an ongoing process. We track mentions of your name on the social web so you can immediately react by engaging with new fans, responding to damaging comments, etc. We also notify you when Google results for your name shift position, so you can stay aware of changes in how people perceive you.
Example Tool: Mentions Monitor
An example tool is the Mentions Monitor, which tracks who is mentioning your name on blogs. This helps you build relationships with bloggers talking about you, and stay aware of what people are saying about you in the blogosphere.
Sign Up for a Free Trial and We’ll Donate $0.25 to I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation
During our official launch this week, when you sign up for a free trial, we’ll donate $0.25 to the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation, which ensures that every young adult affected by cancer is given access to the best support possible. The foundation strives to be a national leader in cancer advocacy, support and research, working exclusively on behalf of adolescents and young adults affected by cancer. With your support, they will continue providing hope, education and community to millions of survivors around the world.
- Sign up for a free Brand-Yourself trial now >
- Use the promo code “DanSchawbel” for an extended free trial
- Comment with your feedback and get an extension on your trial!
Once you try it for yourself, I’d love to hear your feedback on the new system. As CEO of Brand-Yourself, this is what I devote my heart and soul to when I’m not blogging for Personal Branding Blog. I’d love to hear your comments! What do you like? What don’t you like? What would you like to see that isn’t there? I’m going to email the first ten commenters who give feedback a special own promo code for an extra-extended free trial!
Author:
Pete Kistler is a leading Online Reputation Management expert for Generation Y, a top 5 finalist for Entrepreneur Magazine’s College Entrepreneur of 2009, one of the Top 30 Definitive Personal Branding Experts on Twitter, a widely read career development blogger, and a Judge for the 2009 Personal Brand Awards. Pete manages strategic vision for Brand‐Yourself.com, the first online reputation management platform for job applicants, named one of the Top 100 Most Innovative College Startups in the U.S.
