Archive for category Personal Brand
LinkedIn Launches Targeted Partner Messaging
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Human Resource Practices, Personal Brand, social media on April 17, 2010
I received my first sponsored message from LinkedIn today, delivered directly to my inbox. The message was for job opportunites with Accenture and was actually well done. See the message below:
- LinkedIn Partner Message from Accenture
I can see this being effective for both LinkedIn and the sponsor of the message. Sponsors will be able to track the effectivness of their message as they get their own custom landing page. From LinkedIn: “Partner Messages allow for extensive marketing copy on a co-branded landing page, an ad unit, and a call-to-action element.” You can check out their partner message page here.
I also think it is smart that LinkedIn delivers sponsored to the top of the member’s LinkedIn inbox “for high visibility” while only allowing members only receive one Partner Message every 60 days, “providing impact and exclusivity.” This also means they get to charge a premium for a service that only can be used six times per year per member. It will also prevent me, the member, from getting too pissed off at LinkedIn.
I would say that Accenture, while having a nicely designed landing page, could have provided a better targeted message to the recipients. Their message was clearly targeting an IT / Tech professional. While I ran HR and Recruiting at Visible Technologies, a tech start up, I am not an IT / Tech professional. I suspect they sent the message solely based off industry without any refinement based off title, which in my case on LinkedIn, is clearly as a Human Resources Manager. Hopefully, they were not paying on per member basis.
Regardless, I think we will see more and more sponsored messages in closed social networks. I think LinkedIn, in this case, did a pretty good job creating a new revenue stream.
My Interview on SEO Boy Regarding Online Reputation Management
Posted by Dan Hall in Online Reputation Management, Personal Brand, social media on April 14, 2009
I had the honor of sharing my thoughts on managing your online reputation with SEO Boy. I believe that is increasingly important for business professionals to have a basic understanding of personal branding, search engine optimization, and managing your reputation (both in the traditional sense and online). There is more and more data about you on the Web, plain and simple. You can either influence and shape that data or you can let it influence your personal brand and your career.
Dan Hall
Warning: Social Media Can Be Hazardous to Your Job Search
Posted by Dan Hall in Personal Brand, The Lasting Tale of the Web, recruiting on March 27, 2008
That cute, affable guy who brags of his drunken exploits on FaceBook.com may be meeting a lot of other partiers online, but he’s probably not getting added to the “friends” lists of many corporate recruiters. A recent study by the executive search firm ExecuNet found that 77 percent of recruiters run searches of candidates on the Web to screen applicants; 35 percent of these same recruiters say they’ve eliminated a candidate based on the information they uncovered.
“You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen when researching candidates,” says Gail, a recruiter at a Fortune 500 company who recently began looking up potential hires on the Web. “We were having a tough time deciding between two candidates until I found the profile of one of them on MySpace. It boasted a photo of her lounging on a hammock in a bikini, listed her interests as ‘having a good time’ and her sex as ‘yes, please.’ Not quite what we were looking for.”
“Another time I went to a candidate’s site and found racial slurs and jokes,” Gail continues. “And there was yet another instance where a candidate told me he was currently working for a company, yet he left a comment on a friend’s profile about how it ‘sucked’ to be laid off, and how much fun it was to be unemployed!”
As the amount of personal information available online grows, first impressions are being formed long before the interview process begins, warns David Opton, ExecuNet CEO and founder. “Given the implications and the shelf-life of Internet content, managing your online image is something everyone should address — regardless of whether or not you’re in a job search,” he says. Because the risks don’t stop once you’re hired.
Twenty-three-year old Kara recently took a job as a management consultant at a high-profile practice in the Los Angeles area. An Ohio native, with no friends or family on the West Coast, Kara put up a profile on MySpace in the hopes of meeting new people.
Kara was judicious in how she set up her site: “I didn’t fill out that cheesy questionnaire many people post, where you describe your best feature and say whether or not you shower every day.” she says. “I used a photo that was flattering but not at all provocative and was even careful what music I chose.”
Within a few months, Kara met many others online who shared her interest in biking and water sports. One Friday morning, Kara decided to call in sick and go surfing with a few of her new pals. That weekend, unbeknownst to Kara, her friend posted some of the day’s pictures on her profile and sent Kara a message saying, “We should call in sick more often.”
Unfortunately for Kara, her boss happened to be patrolling MySpace to check up on her college-age daughter and came across Kara’s site and the dated photos!
Mortified, Kara says she learned an important lesson — not only about honesty, but about how small the world of online social networking can be and how little control you have over any information put out there.
Not all employers search candidates and employees online, but the trend is growing. Don’t let online social networking deep-six your career opportunities. Protect your image by following these simple tips:
- Be careful. Nothing is private. Don’t post anything on your site or your “friends” sites you wouldn’t want a prospective employer to see. Derogatory comments, revealing or risqué photos, foul language and lewd jokes all will be viewed as a reflection of your character.
- Be discreet. If your network offers the option, consider setting your profile to “private,” so that it is viewable only by friends of your choosing. And since you can’t control what other people say on your site, you may want to use the “block comments” feature. Remember, everything on the Internet is archived, and there is no eraser!
- Be prepared. Check your profile regularly to see what comments have been posted. Use a search engine to look for online records of yourself to see what is out there about you. If you find information you feel could be detrimental to your candidacy or career, see about getting it removed — and make sure you have an answer ready to counter or explain “digital dirt.”
This article is courtesy of Careerbuilder.
The Value of Your Network
Posted by Dan Hall in Open Networking, Personal Brand on March 21, 2008
I had coffee at Zeitgeist with Brien Thompson from Haystack Creative. We were meeting after being introduced by a mutual connection from LinkedIn. I don’t accept invites on LinkedIn if I haven’t had at least one fairly substantial value added conversation with the requester.
I have thought much about Open Networking lately, there is a seductive lure of having thousands of connections at your fingertips, but the real question is what the value of your network? I am convinced that while there would be some value to having that many connections, for most professionals ,myself included, it would actually dilute the value of my network. For social media to be effective and actionable there must be a distinction between one’s contacts and one’s network, even though many use these words interchangeably.
Brien and I had a great conversation about the shortcomings of current social networking sites, the lack of specificity and this notion of dilution in social networking. He mentioned the need to be “superniched,” that is being radically different. I really liked that phrase and what it means. Most professionals understand the import of differentiation, creating a personal brand image that distinguishes you from your peer group. Are you radically different though. He asked me what my personal brand image was, I told him to my brand was being a subject matter expert of 
Human Resources in Seattle to include recruiting in Social Media and Web 2.0 companies. I am both passionate and skilled in this particular niche. We agreed that this is radically different from the traditional human resources manager mindset.
You have to embrace change, technology, social media and networking no matter what field you are in. Brien is an expert in his field, it is obvious by sitting down and talking with him. He humbly laughed at the notion and he added, all I do is this:
Say what you are going to do (clearly) (parantheticals are my emphasis)
Do what you say you are doing to do (well)
And tell people what you did (every chance you get)
If you follow these simple steps, become an expert, hone your personal brand, and always add value, you will be well positioned to take advanage of future opportunities as they arise.
Create Efficiencies and Add Value
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Personal Brand on March 19, 2008
Align everything you do in life. Evaluate how you spend your time and create efficiencies. If you can’t create any more efficiency, analyze how you can add more value to the process, your personal brand, or your company.
or example, I am a Seattle recruiter (one of my hats, along with being an 
HR Manager ). Part of my job is talking to candidates each and every day. I could just dial as many candidates as possible and pepper them with questions. Instead, at the very start of the conversation, I spend the time to passionately describe our company and what makes us radically different from what others in the Social Media Web 2.0 space are doing. I am going to sell my company to them first and foremost. Why? Because I am not arrogant enough to think the position is lure enough to excite them, and if it did I am not sure if I would want them on my team. It also adds a lot of value to the recruiting process, I can recruit candidates that otherwise might not be accessible either due to competition or pay range. I want to hire passionate employees who add value to our mission and culture.
To many people, I am the first voice they hear of my company. This shapes my actions and my words drastically. Maybe they won’t get the job but if I am successful, they will go away an advocate of my company and my personal brand. This is my goal at the end of each and every screening interview.
Try to determine what cascading effect opportunities exist within a situation. Who knows what will happen in the future, who knows what social networks a person belongs too. Maybe, they are trusted friends with the perfect future employee. Or maybe, they will think about my company or me for future opportunities.
Unless you sit in a cube all day (and night), we all have the power to shape perception and therefore reality. Everyone one you meet has a neutral view of you and what you represent when you first meet them. Turn them into an advocate for your personal brand and your company.
The Lasting Tale of the Web
Posted by Dan Hall in Personal Brand, The Lasting Tale of the Web on March 17, 2008
I had a lively chat with my boss today about “The Lasting Tale of the Web,” that is the immortality of sorts that one achieves through active or reactive life events captured on the internet through various channels. We were talking specifically about the fusion of generational effects of social media and its impact on future employees (and our own children) as it relates to HR Management and Recruiting, i.e. young people doing stupid stuff on their myspace page or writing controversial articles for their school newspapers (he would kill me if I perpetuated such effects by linking to said article).
As a 
Seattle Recruiting Manager, I research every qualified candidate passing muster during my initial phone interview in a variety of manners (google, Yahoo!, myspace, facebook, LinkedIn). I start to think of friends that post pictures of their newborn babies and in effect capturing their lives on the web. In 20 years, there will be a whole generation of people whose lives will be fully accessible to people like me. Decisions to hire will be made with a dashboard that will scrape these historical media files along with previously posted resumes (think they don’t exist?), transcripts, performance evaluations (more discussions around this topic in the future), criminal and credit checks. And oh by the way, companies are already connecting your username with your real life identity.
In reseaching this fact that what is put on the web stays on the web. I read a very well written post by Mitch Joel called ”Your Blog – Your Personal Brand And The Big Long Beast That Is The Long Tail“
He is addressing Marketing, Communications, and PR professionals, but I strongly believe it applies to all of us including HR Managers.
“All of the content a Blogger creates is a reflection of their personal brand and, for most, the only reflection of who they are in everybody else’s eyes.
Blogging is still a relatively new channel. All of this content being created becomes part of your Personal Brand’s Long Tail. It will exist forever when somebody does any kind of search on you, and can be accessed by anyone looking for specific content that you Blogged about.”
Be careful of the personal brand that you put on the web, I (or someone like me) may be evaluating it.