The Top 15 Lessons I Learned in Dr. Bret’s Personal Branding Class

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During my last semester of grad school I was lucky enough to take Dr. Bret Simmons Personal Branding class at the University of Nevada. Dr. Bret, as he is known fondly by students, is a business professor, business speaker, a management trainer and consultant. He has done extensive research in social business and management. He teaches courses at the University of Nevada, Reno and blogs about leadership, management, social business, and personal branding. He is a the curator of TEDxUniversityofNevada and one heck of a social business motivational speaker.

If you are a grad student in the UNR MBA program, or taking under grad classes at the UNR College of Business, I highly recommend you take his class. The class isn’t just about Personal Branding lessons, but it is also about developing yourself and your brand as a professional. This blog is about the most important lessons I’ve learned and utilized from the class.

The Top 15 Lessons I Learned in Dr. Bret’s Personal Branding Class

1. Attract, convert, then transform is the name of the game in social media marketing.

To be a successful social media marketer you need to be able to draw attention to your website, convert strangers into consumers or customers, then transform by turning your success into a way to attract more traffic and start the cycle over. A great way to do this is to use social media platforms to share your success stories about your clients. For example, if you are a realtor don’t forget to post pictures and success stories on your social media platforms to celebrate your clients. You will celebrate the success, and in the process attract more business.

2. Content is King

To succeed in social media marketing you need to provide valuable, relevant, and compelling information. Make sure you bring legitimate and worthwhile material to the table. The more original and useful your content the better the results will be.

3. Blogging is Important

Blogging is the hub of social media strategies. It is a great way to share content and provide your knowledge and skills as a useful resource. Blogging allows you to interact with people and show them you are a credible resource. Blogging enables you to bring all social media platforms together to interact. This is why every time I post a blog on MadAboutEventsBlog.com I post it on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google +.

4. SEO is a big deal!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is key to any social media strategy. You cannot succeed unless you learn about SEO. The best way to increase your results in SEO is to maintain well organized content and have a site with good structure for optimal results. I have found that Google+ has increased my SEO results and improved the positioning and visibility of MadAboutEventsBlog.com in search engines.

5. The World Has Gone Social

We have moved from the Industrial Age to the Social Age and the progress being made with social media platforms is amazing. The industry is moving so fast it is hard to keep up. You must adapt, challenge yourself to learn new techniques, or you will fall behind and lose your competitive edge.

6. Social Media is a valuable tool.

The #1 reason people use social media is to showcase their own identity, #2 reason is they crave community. This is important! When you consider the motives of people on social media you can understand where they are coming from. You can gain a better understanding of your customers and what they need. You can also tailor your content to your audience or desired demographic that you’d like to attract to your business. Don’t be afraid of social media, embrace it as a tool.

7. Social Media Consequences Move Fast

Don’t be an idiot on social media. Okay Dr. Bret may have said it nicer than that, or maybe not, take his class to find out for yourself! Social media is a great tool but it also can bring unintended consequences into your life and it can be a threat to your success if you aren’t careful. There is a social lynch mob culture that has formed online. If you are an idiot and post inappropriate material you can be attacked by the lynch mob. The most famous stories usually involve some employee posting something incredibly stupid and then the mob goes after them and their company has no option but to fire them. The biggest lesson here is that there is no longer a line between your personal and professional life. Social media and technology have completely changed the dynamic of a personal and professional life.

8. Friend-of-Mind Awareness

Personal and commercial relationships have merged on social media platforms. Your customers see your posts as well as their friends in their news feeds on social media. Do your best as a social media marketer to gracefully slide into customers’ personal space on social media by being amazing and interesting at all times, or by being useful to your customers online. The best part is this is the kind of marketing that customers and potential customers want, and they will seek it out.

9. Be Useful!

Use social media platforms to be useful to your customers. Build loyalty through interaction and information. We live in a world ruled by research based consumers. Customers’ needs change so you must adapt to them!

10. Always respond and be relevant in real time.

No question is unworthy of an answer. Radical transparency will help your company develop loyal customers. It is important to respond in a timely fashion. Customers expect you to respond almost immediately. I can tell you this is true from my own experience at work. I had a customer post comments on two of my companies social media platforms, and then slam us on an online review site because we didn’t respond immediately to their complaint. The problem was that they posted in the middle of the night and no one was working. I was surprised how customers expect a response 24 hours a day on social media, whether it will make a difference in their situation or not.

11. Be nimble – Nano is good!

Large organizations are challenged to adapt to these fast changing times. They are challenged to respond and react to fast moving social media platforms. If your company is nimble they can adapt to changing markets and have a better chance at being successful.

12. Crowdsourcing

There are new opportunities through crowdsourcing to work temporarily with a network of people for a common mission and then disband when finished. Keep your skills sharp and continue working to become an expert in your field so you can capitalize on these opportunities. Crowdsourcing allows ordinary people to make an extraordinary network.

13. Be a Social Leader – Blue Unicorns Are Cool!

It is important to embrace social media and have a social leader in your company. Set the example of being a listener to social media and your employees will pay attention as well. This can give you insight to the customer experience, what they think, and your company’s short comings. Rare leaders who are connected socially, and social media champions, are considered blue unicorns because they are so unique. They are able to engage the workforce, engage customers and learn what customers think about their company and their competition. This can lead to an advantage!

14. More Social, Less Media

It is important to be more social on social media platforms and less media / marketing. Be useful but don’t be pushy with your marketing messages. It is annoying to your customers and potential customers if all you do on social media is preach your marketing message.

15. Personal Brands Open Doors

You should always work on enhancing and protecting your personal brand. Since today there is no separation between professional and personal identity it is important to take care of your image and reputation. Personal branding can help you develop your image and connect with new business contacts. Social media is a great tool for personal branding. The people that do well on social media tend to be the people that were already doing well to begin with, it is easy to see the correlation and social media can help them showcase their success. You are a product whether you like it or not, so you must make sure to develop and protect your brand. Success attracts more success.

Going forward with my personal brand…

Developing a personal brand is a lifetime mission. I plan on using the tools I learned in Dr. Bret’s class to continue to develop my personal brand. Using the lessons above I will continue to develop as a marketing professional.

Suggested Reading:

Dr. Bret’s Blog
Follow Dr. Bret on Twitter

A World Gone Social – Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt

Youtility – Jay Baer

The Zen of Social Media Marketing – Shama Kabani

If you enjoyed this blog post please retweet and follow me on Twitter: @LisaJansenNV

6 Rules I learned from The Zen of Social Media Marketing

Image Credit: The Zen of Social Media Marketing on Amazon.com

The number one reason people use social media is to showcase their own identity. The second reason is because they crave community. This is a great opportunity for special events and marketing professionals to use social media as a tool to build relationships with customers and potential customers. Special event producers should be aware of the reasons social media is so popular and try to use it as a tool to enhance their special events.

Social media is powerful because people are more likely to believe what they learn from their friends. This includes the simple action of sharing and liking social media posts. This in a sense makes your customers and social media contacts become your brand champions. For example, when your friend posts on Facebook about a new special event they are interested in attending, you instantly are open to the idea of attending the event or at least clicking through to learn more. This helps build brand followers and relationships, which is valuable because later you might need these champions to help you drown out the critics.

Here are a few rules I picked up from “The Zen of Social Media Marketing” by Shama Kabani:

1. Respect others online. Respect others everywhere…period. Since this is a blog post about social media we will stick with the online community. It is important to show respect to others online because you never know the consequences of your actions or who you are really interacting with. You also don’t know who all can see your message or how they will interpret your online posts. It is safest to respect others online and avoid trolls at all costs.

2. Don’t try to control or manipulate because it backfires. Sometimes you have to realize “it is what it is” and move on. If you try to control or manipulate it will backfire on you, maybe not every time, but eventually it will. A good example of this is when companies get busted shilling online review sites. When caught they get blocked and it ultimately hurts the business more than just having honest reviews from customers.

3. Don’t try to be all things to all people and don’t chase everything under the sun. When it comes to social media you should focus on the tools that will give you the best return. It is best to use those tools and do a good job, rather than use all social media tools and be average. I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram. I am finding Instagram is my new shiny toy for special event social media. It is a really fun platform. The people on Instagram are very positive. It doesn’t have the same political and commercial influence experienced on other social media platforms.

4. Traffic is nice but not the only goal. Yes traffic is measurable and that is great, but what if that traffic never transforms into a customer and they are only passing through. I’d much rather have smaller amounts of traffic but build real customer relationships and build brand recognition. I like to use social media to share stories and build relationships with my business partners, customers, and potential customers.

5. Use your real name. This was new to me, in the past I’ve had accounts on Twitter and Instagram that used names no one would recognize because I thought it was a way to keep some privacy. Looking back that is one of the silliest ideas I’ve ever had. There is no privacy these days on social media. So you need to embrace that fact, be a real person, but also be aware that you are out there and make sure to behave yourself. If it won’t make Mom and Dad proud, or your boss, don’t do it!

6. Be proactive. Don’t go out there and be a pushy marketer. Try to have conversations online and interact with people. Make sure you are providing legitimate content and that you are being genuine. The positive results will follow.

If you are new to the social media marketing field I highly recommend “The Zen of Social Media Marketing” by Shama Kabani. The book has a lot of valuable lessons and reminds you of common sense that you may forget when dabbling in the virtual and social media world.

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10 Tips for Using Facebook Event Pages

Facebook event pages still get the job done. I’m a fan of Facebook event pages for smaller events that attract 5,000 or less people. Just this year I’ve used Facebook event pages to promote Reno Mardi Gras, the Rotary Club of Reno Fundraiser, and Brew HaHa the fundraiser for Sierra Arts. Both pages were very successful and helped spread the word about the event without spending too much money on advertising.

The event page offers some great benefits including giving invitees a link to see all of the other events you’ve created, a link to your page, a link to your personal profile or company profile, and the ability to directly message and invite your personal profile contacts to the event.

Here are 10 tips for using a Facebook Event Page:

1. Make it easy for attendees to find the key information. The first form Facebook has you fill in when you create an event page is the most important to make your event successful. Make sure to fill out the form, be concise and supply all the important information.

2. Make it easy for attendees to buy tickets. Highlight the link and make it easy to find.

3. Title the event appropriately. Make it easy for the Facebook search tool to find your event. If the event is an annual event make sure to make it easy for attendees to see that in the title.

Image Credit: Rotary Club of Reno Facebook Page

4. Photos are important! Make sure to post a cover photo that is the appropriate size. I also like to post event advertisements and other photos to engage invitees. For Reno Mardi Gras we post a lot of pictures from Pinterest to encourage guests to dress up, and it works!

5. Try to use Facebook recognized locations for your event location rather than just the address. Usually the venue pops up when you type the name slowly. Make sure the map is working because that is really helpful to your event attendees.

6. Allow anyone to post on your event page, encourage attendees to post before and after the event. This is the best place to add content and interact with event attendees. This also helps invited guests communicate with you if they have questions about the event.

7. Encourage invitees to invite their friends. Ask them to share it on their page or to use the “invite all your friends” to the event. Be careful though not to become a spammer.

8. Keep adding content up to the day of the event by making new posts on the event page. Also post after the event to continue to add more content to keep people engaged. If it is an annual event make sure to post a “Save the Date” message for the event the following year on the event page.

9. Promote your event on other social media. Don’t forget to add the event invite to your Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Yelp.com, Blog sites and other social media sites.

10. Advertising – Buy Facebook advertisements if you can afford them. I personally like to promote the posts for events on Facebook Event pages, for example, Reno Mardi Gras and Brew HaHa because the pictures get a lot of attention, our guests like to share them, and they have a more viral response. It is hard to prove if the ads actually add attendees but I know I’ve seen them have an effect on attendee behavior. We’ve had social media contests and encouraged people to dress up in the ads. We had great results!

Facebook Event pages aren’t for all events, but if you are planning a local charity event or something that has a niche market, an event page will help you promote the event and increase attendance at the event.

Do you use Facebook Event pages to promote your special events? Feel free to brag about your success using Facebook Event invites in the comments!