jessica lee writes.

Social Media for Personal Branding - The Outline...

just thinking things through in this post for next friday, my chat for internfest... i think i'm thrown off a little because i can't use a slide deck. not that i talk from slides or rely on them when i speak - it's just that i usually pull my thoughts together and come up with the flow of a talk by pulling together my deck first. so this time? i'm starting with just an outline of thoughts. here's the shell and then i'll add the meat in over the next week to flush out my thoughts:

• What’s my story? Recruiter for global PR firm… side interests in social media as an HR blogger.
• What does having a personal brand mean? Why is it important now in this climate in our industry?
  
• How do you define your personal brand, especially as a new professional?
• What are the most essential social media tools to use for personal branding?
• How does using social media for personal branding tie into your job search?
• True stories about candidates and social media - the good + the bad.
• Protecting your online brand.

back to me though - ha! i think i'm a little worried about not using a slide deck. i mean, i know i can hold my own but so much of what i usually focus on in any talk i give is developing a really, really good deck as a backdrop... but without one, it means they'll focus more on me. and i have to really know what i'm talking about! yikes! i'll be fine - i know i'll be fine... but i'll probably just obsess over this during the next week. thanks for bearing with me during that process, lol.

Today, You're Being Redirected Elsewhere...

guess what? i spend a good deal of time writing in other places and for other spaces. so today, i'm pointing you in those directions as oddly enough, i have a few different articles and blog posts dropping in various venues today.

• over on Fistful of Talent, i'm talking about offer letters and why some candidates refuse to give their resignation until they receive an actual letter with an actual signature. sure, as a job seeker, you want to be prudent before you call it quits at your current gig... but i kinda feel like if as a recruiter i've done my job properly, you should trust me. i am never going to make an offer to someone unless i know there's a job for them... so you should take my word that i'm not going to screw you over.

• i was also asked recently to guest blog/guest write a few different things. over on MediaBistro, a site dedicated to folks in the magazines, television, film, radio, newspapers, book publishing, online media, advertising, PR, and design industries, i'm squatting on their Media Jobs Daily blog on the notion of "great places to work" and what that really means. i think i might drop into their jobs blog more regularly with guests posts on behalf of the day job since the folks who read that blog are the kinds i recruit and hire. it's good exposure.

• then... at the end of June, i'll be in New Orleans for SHRM's annual conference and speaking on a panel with Lance Haun, Laurie Ruettimann and my pal Kris Dunn on HR bloggers... and in anticipation of that session, i've popped up a  quick and dirty post on the SHRM conference blog on e-business cards.

• lastly, my friend Martin Burns of Zoominfo who writes the blog good to know, asked me to contribute to Zoominfo's monthly newsletter which goes out to about 15,000 recruiting and HR pros. what an honor! i partnered up with Chris Ferdinandi of the blog Renegade HR to write a tutorial on using Twitter for employment branding. and really, the guide can be used for anyone who is trying to use Twitter to market just about anything. it's the basics... we might have to do a follow up that goes into more detail.

so there you go, folks! hop on over to any or all four of those locales to get your fix of my writing today. i'll be back tomorrow with more here though. here's to a fabulous thursday!

4 Questions With... Me.

in this four question interview with William Tincup (of Starr Tincup) at the blog JPIE, i cover everything from being sexy to stalking to pay transparency (if you can believe it!). oh, and i talk a little bit about me blogging on HR matters and other HR bloggers too. find out my answers to these questions:

• What’s your personal favorite blog post and why?
• What’s your favorite personal online brand and why?
• Out of all the folks online, who would you like to meet in person and why?
• What’s your favorite social media activity and why?

as William Tincup would say, go peep it. i think i came off amazingly witty... and it's a nice follow up to the initial interview about my blogging story. and if you have dug around on the JPIE blog yet, it houses a great series highlighting HR and recruiting folks in the blogosphere - learn more about our community of talent there.

Blog Spring Cleaning - Thanks, Suann!

this blog is a continual work in progress - and yesterday, it underwent its first redesign since it launched, thanks to the help of my big sister, Suann. Suann is a blogging and design queen - check out her design shop and blog. she's talented, and i love her work but we are very, very different individuals and we also have very different aesthetics... so it was a bit of negotiation at times as we looked at colors and fonts for my blog. just coming up with a new banner together was a process...  she wanted warm, feminine colors, patterns and fonts. and  me? i wanted things big, bold and... masculine! but talk about a true collaboration! i love where we've arrived and am so glad Suann offered to help me. she's always had my back and will forever be my "big sister." (even now, in our 20's and 30's... she still makes me call her when i get home after we've hung out - just so she's assured that i have arrived to my final destination safely. ha. this still makes me giggle.)

back to the blog though - still to do ... adding categories for blog postings, rejiggering fonts (including font size)... and maybe separating out the "about" stuff and doing a separate "about" page. we'll see... but for now, welcome spring and welcome to the new version of the blog!

You're A Graduating Senior... And So Now What?

i was at Georgetown University a few weeks ago chatting with a group of students. the topic of the visit of course was recruiting focused but like so many other employers visiting college campuses across the country, i had few positions to actually discuss. we can file that visit under pipeline development.

we talked about what my organization does, the kinds of skill sets and qualities we look for, career paths available... the usual stuff. but before we even broached the topic of positions available, i asked a simple question of the students: "how are you guys feeling about the job market and your job search as you near graduation?" i really wanted to know what they were going through.

most were discouraged and felt helpless. a few were looking for alternatives overseas. several were looking for other options to entering the workforce - another degree, a certificate program, the Peace Corp... anything to keep them further occupied while the market sorted itself out. and honestly, i felt badly for them. but i wasn't want to sugar coat it for them either. it's rough out there (albeit in DC, we're in a bubble of sorts...). many organizations are laying off and/or had hiring freezes. so what were they to do? well, it's the same advice i have found myself giving to experienced professionals who are on the market now too. four things:

- work on branding yourself digitally.
- network. (and you can find real power in networking digitally too.)
- wait it out but keep busy.
- do something entrepreneurial.

the latter three, no brainers, right? it's common sense advice, i think. but what i was surprised by was how few students had thought about how to turn all of their involvement in social media into something more tangible - like their personal brand, and possibly a path to their next/first job. some get it - but not all. check out Matthew Cadwallader, a senior at UMass who definitely gets it. he tweeted a reply to me recently when i put out a note that i am looking for junior level comms/public affairs pros and linked me to his website. and can i tell you how impressed i was? it is such a fantastic example of a student who gets personal branding and what a way to make an impression on a future employer!

i have another chat with a group of students this week on entering the "real" world - but this time with my firm's current crop of interns - and i plan to start off the chat by taking a tour of Matthew's website because i think it's that good.

anything else you think we should be telling students right now?

Twitter Analytics + Rambling w/ the Flip Cam.

i keep thinking about measuring social media for recruiting - because i don't think anyone does a fab job at it... but check out an interesting way my friend The Recruiter Guy discusses social network impact - measured in dollars raised for a cause.

something else... i forgot about an interesting twitter measurement tool, twitter-friends. (hat tip to John Sumser for reminding me about it...) pop your name into it and see what comes up. do you like what you see? sure, what your end game is for being involved in social media is important for how and why you use twitter and other social media tools... but it's good to check yourself ocassionally to even simply see if you're being a good citizen. i feel pretty good about what comes up - and here's part of what i see when i analyze myself via twitter-friends:

 


also... some ramblings on camera today. (click through to watch...). i'm discussing first dates and getting started in the blogosphere.

How People See HR.

we're a few weeks away from from my presentation for Bob Corlett's Project SAME networking group session and because i slave away, probably unnecessarily, on creating the *perfect* presentation deck, i'm going to start pulling it together now. i never love the end product - and i always end up with last minute, midnight hour changes - but aesthetic details are important to me. and i want it right.

the topic is focused on helping HR pros jump into the world of social media. and i'm thinking that message numero uno will be this: it's time to change your tune. HR isn't about just HR anymore - HR has to be about marketing, and that's is why social media has to matter to you. the talk will be about social media - but that's just a tactic at the end of the day. the discussion is actually about branding - your personal brand and your employment brand. a few things that i'm going to try to weave into this first message:

• here's how the American Marketing Association defines marketing - and it totally applies to us:

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

• every few years you have the old fight resurrected of HR vs. Finance, or just generally, why we should hate HR. we could be angry, and we could fight back - but even better is to just keep on doing what we do but let's try to be better. let's be exceptional, rather, and then, let's work on marketing ourselves. 

but to set the stage, i think i'll start here - with a little exercise on why HR needs to market itself better. you should play along out there as well.

more later from me on this presentation and the pieces i'll build into it... but for now, think about HR marketing itself. how do you see yourself? your function? and is it aligned with how others see it? and i mean how do others really SEE you? whether it's your forms, your policy documents, your program or training or recruiting materials to your presentations - how are you presenting yourself? how do people see you?

But Even My Fellow Recruiters Don't Get Personal Branding...

okay. so, it's not easy seeing one of your own kind in the news and "highlighted" (for all intents and purposes) as another group or profession that's being hit hard by unemployment. i mean it's logical, sure - there are less jobs to be filled so recruiters have less work to do... but it still isn't easy reading about unemployed recruiters - in the NEW YORK TIMES for Christ sake. i mean really! the new york times! { sigh. }

i have to confess something though - not even before finishing the first paragraph, where they named a recruiter... i  Googled her. and i couldn't find much beyond her LinkedIn profile so i double checked Twitter. and i found nothing. i then checked Facebook and found 15 possibilities giving her the benefit of the doubt on that one. and lastly, i checked recruitingblogs.com. nada. and before i could even finish the article, all i could think was... she must not be doing any social media recruiting (so how savvy could she be? ouch. i know... but come on, wouldn't you think the same thing?) but beyond that, she must not be doing ANYTHING about her personal brand in the social media space - and what a shame, especially as a job seeker! i'm sorry to say this, because i know it sounds b!tchy - but, maybe she might be employed or more employable if she had a social media footprint. feel me on that one? and yes, fair enough - simply having a social media presence and using it to enhance your personal brand doesn't guarantee you a job... but really, it couldn't hurt if you're branding yourself in a savvy way, right?

the article continued on and other recruiters were also highlighted - and keep in mind, these are all Silicon Valley recruiters and so i do assume this means their fairly tech savvy folks. but still, i couldn't find any of them on any social media sites. how disappointing! even our very own kind really aren't "getting" the power of social media for your personal brand when now is precisely the time to do whatever you can to set yourself apart and gain a competitive advantage... oh, and yes, there's that whole networking piece of it too. but if you're someone i know professionally and you're reading this, i don't need to lecture you because you clearly "get" it. for my other readers though... for any job seekers, my friends or family, establishing and leveraging your personal brand for the sake of your career? you've gotta do it and here's seven tips for getting started:

1. start stalking but don't get caught. a good place to begin with establishing your personal brand is sitting back and seeing what others are doing and how they are doing it. so, go ahead. stalk them. personal branding boils down to marketing yourself. learn from marketing pros who are general marketing strategists, and then also learn from  those within your industry or space who are doing it well.
   
2. establish a footprint, pronto. if you're not ready to jump right in, okay. that's understandable. but at least go and reserve your name on social networks so that when you are ready to jump in, no one will have stolen it from you. just register. go to Twitter, Facebook, your blogging platform of choice, LinkedIn and reserve your user name. these are the places i recommend you start. you could also reserve your name on other sites like Youtube, Vimeo, and through business/fan/personality pages of Facebook.
   
3. stay simple and be consistent. use a consistent name and a uniform picture across all platforms, and use your real name or a simple and professional version of your name. even i'm not great at this, i'll admit it - i use "jessica lee" everywhere i can but before jumping into the blogosphere professionally, i used my Korean name "surbee" everywhere and i still need to consolidate or change my user name on some sites.
   
4. don't whore yourself out. sure, i said to go sign up for all those sites, but, you don't have to be everywhere. seriously. you have individual and group blogs. you have professional associations and other industry communities with their own social networks. you have Twitter, and Facebook, and Youtube... you can't be everywhere, and you shouldn't be everywhere. it's better to have a strong voice that contributes quality matter to conversations in a few forums rather than being everywhere for "maximum exposure." plus, if you're everywhere, people will wonder... do you do any actual work if you're spending all of your time on social networks? don't spread yourself thin.
   
5. find someone to pimp you out. find a mentor. find a more established voice or persona in social media for your industry, and get to know them. start with stalking, but then gradually try to build a relationship and let them be your champion. people in the social media world are generally pretty supportive of one another and love to help new and emerging voices find their way. be part of social media communities and take advantage of the communities.
   
6. clean up your act. you more than likely already have a Facebook page and in establishing your personal brand, you'll expand into other places... make sure you clean your act up and are presentable on all fronts. (or, consider two completely separate user names/personas and don't even mix personal with professional). i'll blog more next month perhaps on monitoring your online reputation.
   
7. don't be too cute, don't be too silly. social media and social networking is... social. it's about conversations and communities and the very human nature of it makes it's a lot of fun. but, it's your personal brand at stake. it's what could lead you to your next job, or to professional development opportunities. you show and teach people how to treat you, you're shaping how people will see you - and more than likely, cute and silly aren't the factors your prospective employer really are interested in. too cutesy and too silly just doesn't scream professional or competent. witty and funny are still okay, but some things just don't translate well online, so use judgment.

there are folks who are professional personal branding strategists... but the first thing is to simply get started and see what and how others are doing... and then it's simply about being authentic. and if you want proof that this stuff works? well, i'm not only the president... you know that line. i'm your proof. blogging on Fistful of Talent has led me here and on Twitter among other places... and i feel like the opportunities keep come a knockin' as i keep on working on brand "me." there's something to this one folks...

You're Just Another Voice in the Blogosphere. And It's Too Loud.

the blogosphere over saturated. most people write junk, or they write in a junky way. and when i say "most people"? that could very well include me. i question myself before every post goes live, and then still after it's live.

before re-entering the blogging world last year, i thought about blogging on one of the many community sites that are out there to help build my audience and give me more exposure. but i realized that with many, if not all, of the groups out there, there are hundreds or thousands of voices on their respective sites - and not all good or thoughtful or provoking - and i would be just be another voice. sure, the potential exists for my lovely voice to rise above the others... but is that possible without bringing myself down in the process? because if there's little "quality control" over who gets in (so to speak) with your community, that means anyone and everyone can get in - and therefore, a lot of crap and junk will get in. and even if you find a way to become *outstanding* and rise above the rest, i'm not sure if i'd really want the taint of being affiliated with all of the others when so much of it is junk. i sound rather snobby when i say this, i know. i'm not for everyone, and not all of y'all are for me. but it's just that i've come to the conclusion that my blog and online presence is my brand so i've gotta be prudent about who i affiliate with. 

sure, for some, being part of a community means you can build a quicker audience. it's actually easy in the bloggy world to become a bloggy star and build up your audience if you choose the sucker's way of rising to the top. have a listen to this podcast with the gillmor gang that a confidante of mine recently exposed me to. in particular it was this podcast on the death of the blogosphere. fast forward to the 27 minute mark and you too become a blogging star! it's easy. (and if you are not aware of the gillmor gang, as i wasn't... it's essentially tech + social media's royalty - the "thought leaders" of that world.)

after listening to that podcast, i couldn't get their voices out of my head - and i hope the same thing happens to you too. think about the discussion on how the blogging world originally started - intelligent people had voices that weren’t being heard. they had something to say that was profoundly different and much more important than what was being said in the mainstream media - and so it created a beautiful counter balance. that made me pause. how about you? the blogopshere is full of voices now - and collectively, the voices are loud... but what is anyone really saying? are there profoundly different discussions really taking place anymore? and the loudest voices are popular for all the wrong reasons, it seems. many aren't producing quality content or original thoughts... and those who are? well, you get drowned out with all the other noise. and that's maddening, isn't it?  

listen to the whole of the podcast if you can. it was almost enough to make me want to stop blogging altogether. i can't decide what makes sense for me just yet... in the meantime, while i figure out what to do with this bloggy... well, i'll stay solo and i won't jump into any 'ole blogging pool where the voices aren't strong, or where simply put, i think the writing is crap. i'm going to affix myself to people who i think are original. and different. and authentic. and i'm going to stick with them. and as for this blog, i'm going to continue being my authentic self. i'll strive for being profoundly different. and i won't stoop low and piss on anyone's leg or kick anyone in the nuts just to get you here and reading - and i hope you won't do that either. be choosy about where you gather and where you share yourself. and remember how blogging got started. say things that are profoundly different. happy blogging. 

So You Want Some Blog Love, Eh?

over at Fistful of Talent, we put out our second installment of the The Talent Management Blog Power Rankings 2.0 [Sponsored by FOT and the HR Capitalist]. i have really loved seeing the appreciation and joy folks have shown for being mentioned or voted into the top 25. the pleasure is ours - to be part of the same community is really neat. one of the things we've seen happen after the rankings are comments from folks who didn't make the list about not making the list, or asking how to be considered in the rankings.

sorry to be the queen of mean on this one... but there's my take. we had 115 blogs on our "blogroll" for the rankings this time around. any of the pollsters can add to the blogroll at any time, and any of us can "write in" a blog if they'd like. if you weren’t voted on, if you didn’t make the top 25 though… is it because we just don’t know about you? sure, it's a fair enough question. the blogosphere is big. HUGE. so what to do?

to borrow from Penelope Trunk who provides a guide to blogging on her site, “blogging is conversation, and it is much more fun if you are part of it, instead of just talking at people.” so that means you've got to:

• get engaged.
• be an active part of the community, and join in on the conversation.
• but listen. listening to others is important.

there are a lot of tips out there for how to grow your blog and gain an audience. you can use SEO, and other tools/technologies that i don’t really understand… but i dunno if all that jazz is going to help if you aren’t part of a community, the community rather. it takes a village. another Penelope tip: write at the very edge of that topic. if you write in the center, that’s where everyone else is and it will be hard to present something that is unique.

so if you wanna be noticed? get in the game. be part of the conversation. i've discovered fantastic new bloggers who have visited FOT and joined in on the conversation there... so come, talk to us. tell us what's on your mind. you don't have to agree with what we write, but start a conversation, will ya? because if the first time we've heard from you is an email saying you would like to have your blog considered... eh, kind of a turn off. at least for me that, is. i'm just one of the pollsters after all... so you're lucky it's not all up to me.

happy blogging!

I'm Not a Thought Leader. I'm a Practitioner, and I Do.

yesterday in the office, we spent some time talking with staff and doing a training on managing their personal online reputations. there's a lot of good stuff out there on the web already on how to do this including this and this and this. AdWeek also ran a good column recently on how starting a blog could save your career, which fits in nicely with the theme of managing your online reputation. of the ten reasons listed for why a blog is good for your career, i liked the following:

[ 4. You'll establish yourself, prove yourself and position yourself within the community.

5. You may become a titan. Take David Armano, for example. His blog, Logic + Emotion, is a must read. Before, he was a nobody (to me, that is). Perhaps crayon will be able to afford him one day...

6. You could become the go-to resource for all things new, emerging and/or mystifying. ]

you could say that with me starting up my own blog independent of Fistful of Talent that i'm working on building my reputation or brand... sure. it's a little weird to think about myself as a brand though - i just want an outlet for my thoughts and to be part of a community. my reputation or brand, i hope, is based on the work i do and the results i create. but all this talk of personal brands got me thinking... it's easier now more than ever to create an identity/persona/brand because of the online space. really - you too can become a thought leader! all you have to do is think, and write, and put it out there, build relationships, network, and... voila. you will have created some big online footprints and a presence to boost your brand. but what if what you create isn't real or there isn't much depth behind it? what if you're all talk and you don't have the goods to back it up? and then what happens when reality comes crashing into what you've created for your online persona? does that make sense? i hope with where i'm going, i'm not getting onto a soapbox with this one... i feel a rant coming on though.

it struck me recently when someone asked me how things were going with Fistful of Talent... could that turn into a full-time gig? would i want to get involved in further evangelizing for HR/recruiting in the online world/social media and abandon what i do during the day? they were harmless enough questions, but my reaction was slightly visceral. i'm a practitioner, i blurted out. for the time being, i have no desire to stop "doing" HR and recruiting and just talk about it... what kind of credibility would i have if i weren't in the trenches and just wrote/talked about it? i don't want to be too out of touch by not doing and practicing what i write about. it could also an age thing - i'm eight years into the game but still feel like i have lots to learn and want to be fully immersed in it all. plus, i'm still very new to the recruiting/HR blog + social media scene. i'm super proud of what we're doing on the other bloggy and invested in really making that a top-shelf brand... but i feel like we're just scratching the surface of that and it's much too early to bank on my success as a so-called thought leader there and with that alone. but the truth of the matter is, there are "thought leaders" out there who aren't or haven't ever done much "doing" and just do a lot of talking instead... and i just don't get how they've become big or why others have so much love for them. are our expectations that low?

i think it's time we all start expecting more.

HR and recruiting isn't rocket science, i know this. you don't have to be a genius who is doing it daily to talk about it - a lot of it is common sense and good instincts, actually. but i don't want to ever preach, and advise, and recommend when i'm not doing it anymore. maybe when i'm old and gray, i can preach without practicing... but for now, i'm going to keep doing, and being. and i think you should expect this from your recruiting and HR thought leaders too.

******

a post-script... some interesting stuff that i came across after writing this little bitty but before publishing it... there's a good dialogue happening on choosing your recruiting idols wisely, the rise of recruiting celebrities, and it took me three-times to read and get-it, but how speaking in tongues relates to the recruiting blogosphere... refreshing thoughts in those three posts. it makes me think that perhaps i'm not totally nuts when i say i don't get why some folks out there have become so popular in the blogosphere. maybe not everyone's expectations are so low...