Presentation presented to a professional group on building a personal brand using social media by Kathy Leonard, President of Freeman Leonard; Marketing and Creative Staffing Firm in Dallas, TX.
12. For YOUR AUDIENCE who DEFINE THEIR DESIRED BENEFIT, YOUR NAME DEFINE YOUR UNIQUE POINT OF DIFFERENCE THAT GIVES YOUR AUDIENCE WHAT THEY WANT .
13. For decision makers looking for a marketing partner that gets results , Kathy Leonard delivers insights, strategy and ideas that connect with consumers and move them to action.
25. Follow @emily_rushing on Twitter “ Notable legal scholars, judges, managing partners and corporate counsel may be found on Twitter sharing information and relevant news items, connecting their personal and professional networks.” GENERATING CONTENT IS KEY
There are more than one million lawyers in the U.S. according to the American Bar Association. 83,600 of those live and practice in Texas. Granted, Company X is a well-known brand and part of the value of your affiliation with a major law firm is that you ride the coat tails of that brand presence – as well as contribute to the corporate presence, hence it’s brand perception in the marketplace. WHAT IS Company X KNOWN FOR? HOW DO NEW CLIENTS FIND Company X?
WHAT IS Company X Known FOR? HOW DO NEW CLIENTS FIND Company X? MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW WILL CLIENTS FINE YOU?
Movie Goes Here. See Social Media Revolution 2 Refresh on You Tube
So We’re going to talk today about YOU. How are YOU going to compete Just like marketing any product or service in a highly competitive market – you first FIND A NEED IN THE MARKETPLACE AND CREATE A BRAND TO FILL THAT NEED..
What is a brand? A brand is a promise delivered and reinforced through multiple points of contact, over time (experience). Who here has considered building your own personal brand? Who has put an effort into that?
So, how do you go about building your personal brand? Well, here’s a hint…it’s not by focusing on your resume, your legal specialty, what you’ve accomplished in your professional life. Let me give you three guiding principles for building your own Personal Brand:
Let’s start with a personal positioning. I think you could argue that all human knowledge comes down to taxonomy…categorizing things into various buckets. It’s the way our minds work. This is ultimately what branding is about….determine the category you are in and then positioning yourself within that category. It’s important to understand that positioning is mainly an exercise in sacrifice to define WHAT YOU CAN DELIVER…what are you willing to give up to position yourself as THE ONLY CHOICE for a particular product or service Let’s take three famous attorneys. Do these women (Marsha Clark, Hillary Clinton Bella Abzug) each have a Brand in your mind? What distinguishes them as a brand?
This is not one of those areas where you can fake it til you make it. You either are or you aren’t. Nothing is worse than a poser. So, just build on what you have. WRITE DOWN 3 WORDS/QUALITIES THAT DESCRIBE YOU AS A PERSON AND A PROFESSIONAL THAT WOULD MAKE YOU A DESIRABLE ATTORNEY FOR A CLIENT LOOKING FOR YOUR EXPERTISE
Being excellent at what you do is not a difference. It’s a prerequisite. By different, I mean, what can you do better than anyone else? WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE TABLE THAT IS DIFFERENT? SO NOW WRITE DOWN ONE THING ABOUT YOURSELF AS A PERSON AND A PROFESSIONAL THAT IS DIFFERENT, UNIQUE, SPECIAL
So, here’s a classic positioning statement.
Here’s how I’ve adapted it for my personal brand. HOW WILL YOU WRITE YOUR OWN PERSONAL BRAND’S POSITIONING STATEMENT?
LIKE THE LIGHTBULB THAT GETS NOTICED, YOU MUST COMMUNICATE YOUR BRAND WITH PASSION AND CONVICTION
Because the target isn’t doing what they used to be doing -- How we reach people has changed. The world has gone from a tightly controlled analogue communication system to a digital wild west and the end user is now the one in full control over what, when, where and how they consume media and communication. AND, how they seek information about products AND professional services. AND, it’s not just consumers – the habits they establish for “shopping” as consumers, carry over into their professional lives. On the job, they “shop” for professional expertise – law services in much the same way.
The marketing function has gone from being a ONE TO MANY process built on pushing out messages
To a ONE AMONG MANY practice where the marketer must create interesting content the audience will pull to themselves and share among themselves
With trust of traditional institutions at an all time low, we turn to one another to help us make decisions. Think of the new role marketing plays as fostering word of mouth on steroids.
I met Jeffrey Hayzlett recently. Jeff is the CMO of Kodak. He is one of the few top execs in the U.S. who tweet. He sees it as a way to engage with customers. He uses it to get millions of people to talk about him and about Kodak. Here is his twitter from 5:00 PM Sunday night of the Academy Awards. He believes a person or a product can become an instant brand on Twitter. He believes in it so much that last year one of the biggest product introductions Kodak had was done only via Twitter.
THIS SITE IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL SOCIAL NETWORK. RATHER, A DOCUMENT REPOSITORY FOR INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE LEGAL PROFESSION. -- Allows lawyers, law firms and legal professionals to publish and distribute their work online to a wide audience -- Legalprofessionals publish and share court filings, briefs, alerts, articles, newsletters and numberous other legal documents on JD Supra.
22 Tweets styles itself as a source of “real-time Twitter interviews with practicing lawyers who tweet” You can follow the author @lancegodard and @22Twts on Twitter.
Let’s bring this back to YOU. IF YOU’RE GOING TO COMPETE IN A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE MARKET PLACE – AND IF YOU’RE GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEW CHALLENGES FACING MARKETERS AND ADVERTISERS IN THIS MARKET YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GET NOTICED FOR BRINGING SOME KIND OF VALUE TO THE TABLE. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO FOCUS ON BUILDING A BRAND AROUND THE ONE THING YOU’RE TRYING TO SELL: YOU If there’s anything that the recent economic problems and job market have shown us, it’s that the only thing we can really depend on is ourselves. More people are coming to the realization that the brand that really matters is themselves. We’re all brands now and we need to be busy building our brand because that value goes with us no matter where we work.
Once you define your ownable position, the next step is to think about the content you need to collect or generate that supports your position. Finding a job or building business is no longer about a resume or capabilities presentation….any more than marketing is about advertising. You have to create an engaging stream of content your audience will find compelling and that will speak to who you are.
GENERATING CONTENT IS KEY. Emily Rushing’s article covers everything: Competitive Intelligence from Wikipedia; Communications – LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning and Twitter And Delivery tools – PDFtoWord and FeedMy Inbox
Once you know your position and the content that can represent and promote you, you’ve defined your strategy. Next, you need to create a content stream. This is the tactical plan to take your content and get it our to your audience.
One approach to this is to use your blog as the centerpiece of your content strategy, then feed that out to other content distribution points.
There are literally thousands of distribution points for your personal brand content. It really comes down to forming the right strategy then determining your tactics from there.
In summary, think like a community organizer. You’re developing interesting and engaging content that addresses the needs of your audience and at the same time speaks to what you’re all about. This is how you go about building your business or finding the next great career opportunity.