Do you know Peter Shankman? If you are interested or active in the world of online personal branding and blogging, you should.

Peter is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, blogger, you name it; however, he is probably best known for founding Help A Reporter Out (HARO). HARO is currently the largest free source repository in the world, sending out thousands of queries each week from journalists, reporters and bloggers to more than 100,000 sources around the globe looking to be quoted in the media. HARO’s tagline “Everyone is an Expert at Something” is continually reaffirmed as thousands of new members contribute to HelpaReporter.com each week.

As a career search and personal branding blogger (and my own personal brand manager), I am always seeking new ways to build upon my own personal brand and reputation online.

While I currently do this through my blogging and professional networks by sharing news and advice and by constantly generating and seeking new and relevant content for my own blog and my guest posts, I discovered that HARO provides two outstanding services that can help you grow and enhance your personal brand online.

FOR EXPERTS

Become a HARO source by signing up for free here. Each day, you’ll receive up to three emails, each with anywhere from 15 to 30 queries per email. They will be categorized into groups, including Business & Finance, General, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Technology and Travel. If you match the query’s desired source request and can provide truly relevant insight, information or testimonials, you can contact the respective journalist to contribute.

If the journalist responds and your contribution fits his/her needs, you may be featured in his/her work online. This is a great way to build up your reputation as an expert in your field, help others with relevant information, and strengthen your personal brand.

FOR CONTENT GENERATORS

Ever get blogger’s block? Ever want to include others’ insights and experiences in your articles and posts? Create a new query and submit it for free here. You can include all of your information, or leave it anonymous, and submit it to multiple categories, including those listed above.

This is an excellent and simple way to gather valuable and relevant information to compliment your own in your articles and publications. Involving others via HARO enhances your credibility and that of your personal brand online.

No service or tool, including HARO, will make you a “star” brand overnight; however, HARO offers you two effective online channels through which you can gradually launch your personal brand.

_______________________

Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

Nothing too serious, but it’s a still a serious part of the body to be operating on (and, yes, I’m still weaning myself off the air-cast on my leg, it’s been a hell of a few months). So, I did my research and found the biggest, best, fanciest specialist in NYC. And, by the way, just like every other big, bad, best specialist in NYC, he doesn’t take insurance and my insurance doesn’t cover out of network. Translation, I ended up paying many thousands of dollars out of my own pocket for a 1-hour operation.

I shared this with a friend who responded, “man, that’s a nice hourly rate.”

But, here’s the thing. The reason I was happy to pay every cent of it was because I wasn’t paying for his “time in the O.R.” I was paying to be as far as possible away from the guy who went first. I was paying for his 25 years perfecting his skills, thousands of patients, tens of thousands of hours and tons of newbie mistakes avoided.

I was, quite simply, paying not to be first.

And, there’s a lesson in that. It applies to pretty much every solo practice Career Renegade. All too often, people are tempted to charge an “hourly” rate for their services, because that’s what the rest of the market does.

I never charge an hourly rate.

Every once in a while, though, someone tries to reverse engineer it out of my project fees or retainer and remarks about what it breaks down to on an hourly basis. But, just like my super-hero doc, you’re not paying me for my time talking, writing or strategizing. That’s only a piece of the puzzle.

Let’s say I charge $10,000 to write a sales letter. Maybe it takes me anywhere from 5 to 25 hours to write. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of money if you base it purely on “writing time.”

But, you’re not paying for the time it takes me to write it.

You’re paying for the thousands of hours I’ve spent studying the top copywriters, working with them, diving deep into the psychology and linguistics of persuasion. You’re paying to be as far away from the inevitable early disasters as possible. You’re paying the value of the revenue generating asset I am creating for your business. But, most of all…

You’re paying not to be first.

And, at least when I’m the client, the customer…or the patient, I’m going to pay to be as far away from first as my bank account can get me.

As always, just thinking out loud. What do you think?

What do you tell employers who are freaked out about their employees developing their own personal brand on social media, instead of the company’s?

Look, I get the tension.

As interactive platforms give employees the ability to build their own reputations and communities and demonstrate value outside the purview of their employers, companies are getting freaked about employees gaining too much “hand.”

Here’s my short answer to companies…GET OVER IT!

If someone’s tweets, posts and updates are so consistently, profoundly high-value that it’s making you nervous about their poachability or ability to launch their own competitive gig, don’t you think that same person would be establishing themselves both inside and outside the company as a thought leader to be courted…regardless of their use of social media?

Don’t you think they’d be savvy enough to “get” their true value and understand the extent of their bargaining power already?

Sure, social media might accelerate the process…

But, it also makes the pursuit of the acquisition of outside power and leverage by talented employees that much more transparent and observable. Rather than being forced into secret conversations and late night drinks, it’s happening much more in the light of day.

The answer to being fortunate enough to hire great talent isn’t doing everything possible to keep other people from knowing it.

It’s doing everything possible to make that person love you and your company. Empowering them with responsibility, trust and appropriate recognition, compensation and, if appropriate over time, a piece of the action. It’s creating a culture and mission that so resonates with everyone that the thought of jumping ship remained a distance second, third or fourth to the opportunity to contribute your gifts to the adventure.

As a small business owner, I dealt with this all the time.

When I ran a yoga studio in NYC and there were always a handful of teachers who would amass huge followings. We paid well, but not top of the market, because that wasn’t our model or our mission. But we always worked to create an amazing, respectful, tight-knit environment and grow a community of students that were magical to be with. And, that’s what kept so many amazing teachers in the fold for so long.

Did some superstars establish their own brands through word of mouth and social media and end up leaving? Sure. Did we experience a short term revenue hit as a result? Yup. But, these were the exceptions to the rule, we always recovered and grew and we were always happy to help them move into the place that was right for them.

The problem isn’t social media…it’s fear.

Whether through social media, face to face, conferences or publications, thought leaders always become known as thought leaders…independent of the brand or the entity they work with. Social media is simply serving as a catalyst to the natural process of demonstrating mastery.

Deal with it by cultivating genius, not caging it.

Imposing a moritorium on social media for your best and brightest will not in the end, do a whole lot to stop the talent drain. All it’ll do is push the process back underground.

Which leaves us with the same question entrpeneurs and employees have been dealing with for decades.

How do you allow people to flourish and also make them want to stay?

As always, I’d love to know what you think.

Share your thoughts below…

Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success

So, I asked Dan if he’d be kind enough to answer a few questions for me and here’s what unfolded…

JF: The name of your new book is Me 2.0, so I’ve got to ask, what is the difference between Me 1.0 and Me 2.0?

DS: The title of the book aligns with the transformation of the internet from web 1.0 to web 2.0 and thus, since we’re able to create personal brands online, we’ve moved from me 1.0 to me 2.0. Web 1.0 was a static web, where companies had sales material and had no channels to have meaningful conversations with customers.

Also, for individuals looking to start a career or a company, it was hard to build a lot of relationships in a short period of time and really get your ideas out there to the world. Web 2.0 is the surfacing of community enabled technologies that allow for two-way communication and sharing. Me 2.0 is where individuals can have the same or an even stronger presence than some companies.

You look at the way Facebook has constructed corporate profiles and the profiles that people can create and you can’t differ because we have the same entitlements. Me 2.0 is our ability to be a spokesperson with our right to free speech.

JF: What are the benefits of building a powerful personal brand?

DS: Just like corporate brands, people can demand a premium price (a higher salary).  Also, you will become more visibility and recognized by your peers, hiring managers and other successful business people and entrepreneurs.   With visibility come speaking engagements, jobs, clients, celebrity and much more!

Aside from self-promotion, you will establish a professional and social network, which will protect you from an uncertain work environment.  You will also learn how to own your Google results and protect and secure your online identity.

JF: How can social media help people break free from their current existence and do what they love?

DS: Just like you have in your book, Career Renegade, my book’s major theme is “command your career.” It’s all about using these social media tools to feel empowered, confident and to really make a difference in your life.

Everyone, especially ambitious people, have the opportunity now to stand out from the crowd, leverage their unique personality and start creating content based on what they’re passionate about. When you combine that with a lot or marketing, determination and persistence, you can do just about anything. Who wouldn’t want to live their dreams?

I would recommend that everyone takes a moment to reflect on their current career path and see if it’s the one that they want to follow for the rest of their life. If it isn’t, then it’s time to reposition your brand, doing what you love.

JF: What hardships have you had while building your own personal brand?

DS: I’ve gone through a lot of hardships as I’ve built my brand, including getting rejected by 69 literary agents, getting laughed at by a few authors and getting picked on as a first-time non-celebrity author. Also, to manage a full-time job, alongside a magazine, blog, book, speaking, consulting and more, it’s been truly impossible to have good time management.

Right now, I’m launching my first book, with my grandfather sick in the hospital, so it’s been really hard. A lot of my friends early on didn’t believe in what I was doing, but now since they see results, they have altered their thoughts. I think it’s all about believing in yourself, holding true to who you are and pushing through adversity to get to the next phase in your career.

JF: What are your top three personal branding tips that you can offer people?

1. Claim a niche: Entering the internet world as a social media expert won’t get you far at all unless you do social media for a Fortune 500 company. Instead, you’ll want to own a niche online and deliver content over and over again to own those terms in Google. You want to position yourself as the number one person in that niche, so that everyone comes to you for that information and will pay a premium price for your services based on your strong brand name.

2. Be yourself: The greatest differentiator you have is your own personality. No one else can be like you if you stay authentic and showcase exactly who you are to the world. If you try and mimic someone else, then you will be a copy and people won’t be able to connect with you. You will get a lot of traction out there if you use your own voice over and over again.

3. Have a game plan: Don’t just brand yourself for the sake of branding yourself. Have a clear destination, along with short-term and long-term goals. Be smart about your branding strategy and don’t use every social media tool because you think it’s cool. Decide how you want to brand yourself, then select the right tools and use them to get your message across.

JF: I imagine many employers would feel threatened if they knew their employees were actively building their personal brand, apart from the companies. What are your thoughts on how both sides should handle this?

DS: Any intelligent company understands that employees are their greatest asset. With marketing budgets depleting day-by-day, companies are going to have to figure out how to do more with less. As you all know from reading this blog, social media is a time expense, not a monetary one. Employee brands already have networking accounted for and they are visible online.

You can see how many Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers an employee has and tap that network to spread your messages for free. If you’re a startup company, it’s going to be very challenging to break through the clutter that is mass media and stand out. Strong personal brands can be leveraged to consistently and repeatedly get your brand name out there, even if you have no budget.

From the personal brand perspective, we need to make sure we are supporting our corporate initiatives at the same time we have our own agenda. We have unique opportunities to help our companies with their branding, while reaping the rewards ourselves.

———

You can check out Dan’s new book, Me 2.0, at amazon and booksellers now.

]]> http://www.careerrenegade.com/a-conversation-with-me-20-author-dan-schawbel/feed/ 1 http://www.careerrenegade.com/on-conventional-wisdom-book-excerpt/ http://www.careerrenegade.com/on-conventional-wisdom-book-excerpt/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:54:43 +0000 Jonathan Fields http://www.careerrenegade.com/?p=913 Sharing a thought on the role of conventional wisdom from Chapter 3 of Career Renegade:

For the Career Renegade, conventional wisdom is actually a great asset. It thins the herd of competitors, leaving only those who choose to blaze their own path, rather than follow another’s. It creates space for those who lead with passion to truly shine.

Your first challenge is to understand this, to see conventional wisdom as simply the first of many tests, the collective presumptions of other people who have not been able to succeed in their own quests. Or, even more likely, a reflection of an unwillingness to ever try. Know this, accept it. Then resolve to move beyond it.

So, what do you think?

I’ve been a huge proponent of social media as a tool to build community, brand, showcase knowledge and even market your ideas and business.

But, a new study just completed by Professor Lipra Sloof at the London School of Economics revealed…

A horrifying connection between tweets/day and gluteal mass (aka, butt size).

And, that’s got me thinking seriously about pulling back from social media in a huge way.

According to Professor Sloof:

We’ve just completed the first-ever longitudinal study of 16,427 regular twitter users and the results took our entire team by surprise. We discovered a direct linear relationship between tweets/day and gluteal mass, the concern being that gluteal mass is leading indicator of obesity, heart disease, anxiety, insomnia and even @GuyKawasaki syndrome.

The data show the impact of “tweeting” to be so potentially harmful to the participants’ health profiles, as determined by relative-change in Gluteal Mass Index (GMI), that we terminated the study prematurely and strongly advised all participants to immediately terminate the use of twitter.

While details of the study were being prepared for publication, Sloof did agreed to release the following chart in an effort to get his message out to the masses, before it’s too late:

Tweets/Day      Increase in Gluteal Mass Over 16-wk Study Period

1-5                           Not statistically significant
6-10                         3.2% increase in gluteal mass
11-15                       12.6% increase in gluteal mass
16-20                       18.3% increase in gluteal mass
21-25                       22.8% increase in gluteal mass
26-30                       26.4% increase in gluteal mass
31+                          42.1% increase in gluteal mass

Immediate action is needed to stem the damage…

While the team conceded that the study is correlative and can not prove causation, because the results were so compelling, Sloof et al have requested an immediate hearing before Parliament with the intention of proposing an immediate, worldwide treaty-based moritorium on the use of twitter.

We, here at CareerRenegade.com, were able to track down 14 study participants who were willing to share their experiences, under the promise of anonymity. Sadly, 8 of the 14 could not make it into our London studios, due to an inability to extract their twitter-plumped globules from their desk chairs.

While all conceded a noted increase in gluteal mass, though, many also decried an inability to break the addiction cycle induced by the twitter demon.

One even compared the pull of the twitter screen to crack cocaine, sharing…

Honestly, I didn’t even get it in the beginning. People just sharing the studipest stuff. Then, it’s like ‘BAM,’ something clicks and you get sucked in. You start checking your damn timeline every 5 minutes, then comes the phone app and text-alerts. It’s like you blink and you’re hooked.

Honestly, I think I’d rather do dope than twitter. I want to stop, but I can’t. I actually heard Promises in L.A. has a new twitter addiction program and I’m whacking around the idea of jetting to L.A. to get this monster under control. Hell, I’d go tonight, but I’m waiting for Virgin to install wifi.”

So, where does this leave us?

Honestly, I don’t know what to say. As a strong proponent of social media and twitter, I feel somewhat responsible. But, I guess, really, the only advice I can offer at this point is…

Have a wonderful April 1st!

A recent search of twitter revealed that, on any given day, hundreds of people are tweeting about job hunting…and how much it sucks.

Well, here’s a thought, stop hunting for a job and start hunting for a life!

One, where you’re not waiting around, hoping and praying someone else finds value in who you are and what you do. One, where you maintain substantial control over your career, regardless of whether you work for yourself or someone else.

Here are 5 killer ways to rapidly tap technology to wrestle back control over your livelihood…and your life:

1. Megalo-Blog

Whether you plan to work for someone else or break out on your own, one of the most powerful things you can do is establish yourself as a thought-leader, go-to person, someone with industry cred and high value in the field you’re passionate about. And, this starts with your blog. It’s your career-power home base. Even if you have a personal blog, set up a standalone blog and create meaty, substantive content that showcases your mastery/value and thought-leadership in the area you’d like to become known for.

2. Tweet Stalk

Tap twitter.com as your primary vehicle to find, connect with and wow others in your industry or the industry you’d like to move into. Use twitter’s search function, wefollow.com and twellow.com to search conversations and profiles for keywords that are relevant to what you do best, find the people and conversations that touch on your industry/passion, then join in and, most importantly, add value to those conversations. And, begin to develop relationships with other thought-leaders, connectors and influencers.

3. Answers Rawk

People have questions, lots of questions. And, they ask them in the darndest places…online! Right there, in front of everyone! On Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn.com Answers.  Your job is to go and troll, looking for people asking questions that center around your area of interest/expertise/passion. Then dish out responses that make people say, “whoah, this person really knows their, um, stuff!”

4. Forum Crash

Do a google search for “[keyword that's of interest to people in your chosen field] forums” to find forums where people are having daily conversations about that same thing you love to work at and talk about. Lurk for a bit, then start by sharing non-spammy, high-value ideas and answers in threads started by other members. Then, once you have a feel for the vibe of the forum, begin to start your own threads, offering high-value information and conversation.

5. Google Stalk

Don’t you just love the fact that google has now made it possible to covertly cyber-stalk words, phrases, ideas and people all over the world…from your inbox?! Take those same keywords, along with the names of the major players, and set up daily google alerts that let you know who’s talking in your field and what they’re saying. Toward the bottom the each alert is a section on blogs. See what the blogosphere is saying and, if appropriate, jump over to the individual posts and share high-value comments.

So, what are you REALLY doing here? Simple…

You’re positioning yourself to become a Master of Your Career Domain!

By establishing yourself, individually, as a force to be reckoned with, you effectively build a portable career power structure that:

• Is totally portable, it goes where you go
• Opens doors and opportunities, both in entrepreneurship and other employment
• Demonstrates your value to your current employer (if you have one) and to potential suitors
• Serves of a source of leverage coupled with social proof of your value and reach, and
• Builds a tribe of people who will rally to, evangelize and support you.

So, you all know, I am a big fan of the control and freedom that comes along with the entrepreneurial option. But, even if you prefer to stay under the umbrella of another person or company, these strategies will help you build your own base of power.

Once built, what you do with it is up to you…

Your job is to use it wisely, judiciously and ethically. In other words…

Use it for good, not evil!

P.S. – Yes, I know this brings up the question of your employer freaking out when they get wind of the fact that you are in the process of taking ownership of your career path, reputation and future.

I’ll be posting about that in detail next week…so if you’re not subscribed, HELLO, sign up below, so you don’t miss it!

Got any other thoughts on the topic?

Let’s discuss…

Career Renegade TV is now live!

Our first episode features a totally behind the scenes interview with entrepreneurship, wine, vlogging and social media giant, Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV.com fame. In this nearly one-hour, in-depth interview, we get into…

• How tasting hot asphalt as a little kid led to a career as a wine mogul
• How he mastered a huge body of wine knowledge, even though he hated school
• What is was like moving into a family business and helping take it from $4 to nearly $50 million in sales in less that 10 years.
• Why he decided to launch WineLibraryTV.com, why it actually lost the company money early on.
• The importance of passion, patience, work ethic and money
• Why being real is what it’s really all about
• Balancing family and work time
• Where he’s going from here.

Enjoy! And feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below…