Boost Your Professional Profile And Personal Brand – Online.

This morning, I had the pleasure of being a special guest on ‘Your Career Catalyst‘ Blogtalkradio with hosts Annemarie Cross and Keith Keller from Advanced Employment Concepts.

Listen to the show here.

One of the more pleasurable aspects of my work is disseminating ideas about the online sphere and things like radio interviews (and another upcoming event is the Inspecht HR Futures Conference on 26 February 2009 in Melbourne. I will be one of the speakers in the (the panel discussion with Michael Specht) are a fantastic opportunity to do this.

The broad topic of the show was regulating your professional brand online.  Once upon a time, preening one’s image was a matter of ducking out and grabbing a new pair of shoes, having a haircut; you know, physical stuff.

With the prevalence of online communication, making sure your online profile is in tip top shape is also important.  Don’t publish photos of yourself on the P15S.  Don’t make ridiculous sexist or racist comments on your profiles in Facebook and MySpace.  And while we’re on that, don’t join Facebook groups whose views may prove politically unsavory.  Make comments on blog sites (especially mine).  This is an excellent and subtle way of building your reputation as a person of knowledge in your field.

Point is, each of us should take control of our online branding.  Here I’m reminded of the story about Steve Irwin.  When he died, he didn’t own SteveIrwin.com.au.  Someone else did.  But Steve Irwin was a man with a very successful publicity network.  Why didn’t he own himself virtually?  One of the reasons is it’s taken a long time for the Internet to shed its reputation as a shady medium dealing mainly in porn.

Like the suburb you all have in your states, in Melbourne, for instance, it’s St Kilda, that used to be a hub for dodgy enterprises like prostitution and drugs, but makes good due to an influx of investment, the net’s still being forced to prove itself as viable contender in the publicity stakes.  There are those who remain wary of walking its streets for fear of how they’d say “no thanks, but I appreciate the offer” to a hooker.

As a person who was hanging out in the net’s streets when it was a metropolis for the exploited and mentally unwell, I can assure you of its rise to blue chip status.  It is already the primary tool for communication and for personal promotion.  Get ye to a real estate office and make a down payment today.

Social Networking Is On Fire!

Social networking is king. I’ve discussed this before and the latest Hitwise Australia data, Asia Pacific Social Networking Report 2008, adds credence to my rants.

“The 40 leading social networking websites experienced strong growth in the past 12 months in Australia, New Zealand,Singapore and Hong Kong; Australia and New Zealand experienced the highest growth, increasing 62% and 88.6% respectively comparing market share of visits to the Social Networks custom category in February 2007 and January 2008.”

I’m not going to bore the heck out of you with a bunch of figures. But check out the graph below for the figure freaks:

I will draw your attention to a few salient points. Prime among these is that of the traffic moving downstream from the major palyers Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, 89% is sent to second tier players. This means that many folks are maintaining several profiles on different sites. Perhaps, for instance, they display a professional profile on one site, whereas on another they might choose to communicate with close friends and family. This makes me wonder at the feasibility of a site that morphs a professional site like LinkedIn with a Social Networking site such as Facebook. Users could maintain several different profiles in the one space.

It also seems that the major players are attracting different audiences. Well-educated and more affluent types are veering toward Facebook, while Bebo attracts multi-cultural and family groups. Important data, especially if you’re doing WHAT I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU TO DO and integrating your online presence with a social networking facility.

Finally, and this is the boon for me (Watch for that word in my future blog. It’s old; retro, if you like, but I’m big on it at the moment), users are increasingly choosing to communicate with one another via social networks. Imagine the world without email. Imagine the world where people’s social and professional and familial alliances are built around their online profiles. Now dump yourselves right in the heart of that space.

Get a Job, Gen Y!

Way back in 1999, Business Week proffered some sage advice. It told its readers this:

“The marketers that capture Generation Y’s attention do so by bringing their messages to the places these kids congregate, whether it’s the internet, a snowboarding tournament or cable TV.”

It seems that finally, after all this time, some folks in recruitment are taking on board the advice.Speaking of Gen Y’s, remember when News Corporation purchased the in social networking site MySpace and made some Gen Y’s very rich? CareerOne, also part of News, has now officially integrated its job search into MySpace.I’m sure you’ll agree that the page looks great. And I’m a bigger supporter than anyone of the growing need for businesses of all descriptions to use the internet as their primary marketing tool. However, there is a glaring problem with the way the team at CareerOne has executed this innovative marketing plan.Consider for the moment that you’re a 20-something gen-yer, ipod eared and determined not to take a 9 to 5 job, but aware that your parents are getting narky about your not paying board…food…your own toiletries…I’ll stop now, before I sound like a moaning Babyboomer.Anyway, you’re on MySpace, checking out your own profile, and think that you might start your job search. You type in “jobs”and search myspace. I’m pretty certain that the crew at CareerOne would like it if that particular search produced their page. Instead, this is what our Gen-yer would get:Sure, there’s a link to MySpaceJobs on the homepage, but guys, let’s face it, the only people who enter MySpace through the homepage are the Boomers and Gen-xers who go in posing as 25-year-olds!Point is and this one extends across the board in internet marketing, when you’re sitting in your board rooms, guys, when you’re huddled over your copies of the latest McKinsey propaganda, have a think about how users approach their search and make yourself available within the spaces where you want to advertise. Marketing 101.