Last month Make Waves’ president Bonnie McEwan and Big Duck’s vice president Farra Trompeter gave a presentation on personal branding in social media at The New School in New York City. It was a dreadful, rainy night yet nearly 50 people showed up to discuss how to use social media venues such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to create distinctive images for themselves. Personal branding is not vanity. It is a process that helps you communicate who you are, what you value and why the work that you do matters.
Here are some nuggets from the event that people told us they found valuable.
From Farra: “Google yourself. See what is being said about you and take an active part in shaping your own image.”
“Claim your name. Go to namechk.com to register your name and manage your identity.”
From Bonnie: “Don’t tweet what you’re doing, tweet what you’re thinking. Twitter is a great way to showcase your intellectual capital.”
“The term ‘media’ derives from the verb ‘to mediate.’ Unlike traditional media where journalists mediate your content, you must be your own mediator on the Internet.”
The bottom line: Frame or be framed. You must manage your own brand on the Internet or someone else will do it for you.
Download the PowerPoint presentations from Farra and Bonnie here: Personal Branding PowerPoints
--Handprint photo by Tina Vega
I missed the presentation but saw the PowerPoint. I agree with you that people should use these service in a conscious fashion to build something deliberate due to privacy issues with some social networking sites.
Issues of privacy and content ownership are a problem for Facebook. After Facebook went public, many of their default privacy settings that protected information from being shared with people who were not “friends,” were no longer the default after the company went public. Default settings were changed to make “private” information public beyond the circle of “friends.” Private user information is now available to Facebook’s partners like Microsoft, so they can use the data to target their advertising efforts. There was a story on Zdnet.com discussing Facebook’s habit of not deleting content marked for deletion by users, from their servers. The content uploaded to their servers becomes their intellectual property and they can do with it pretty much as they please. Sometimes the service is not really about the users, but the providers of the service and their bottom line.
So people have to be smart. If you are going to be on these social Web sites than you damn well better pay attention to the persona you are creating and the content you relate with that persona. Make sure that you take advantage of the privacy settings provided. Scream and shout or delete your accounts when these services become abusive and betray the trust of the user.
Bonnie--Thanks for posting this shout-out. I enjoyed co-presenting with you.
Maria--I agree, it can be scary. But it is also an opportunity to actually *hear* what is being said about you (something we couldn’t do pre-internet/social media) and respond. Oh and yes, the presentation was recorded. I’m sure Bonnie will post the video link here once it is available.
I’m so sorry that I missed this. Thanks for sharing the slides.
One of the amazings things about managing our own identity through social media is that what others say about you, the organizations you are part of, your contacts and friends, everything speaks about you and build your identity.
We really need to manage that. It is like there are millions of mouths talking about you, which can be scary or excited and we can mediate part of this.
Did you record the presentation?
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Mar 26, 2011
I teach a professional communication course that largely focuses on personal branding. I would like to take a look at your slides. However, I can’t open them. Is there a way you can send them to me?