Personal Life

Personal Branding Motivation #1

August 30, 2015 by alaahassan

Repetition is the foundation of skill.

When it comes to personal branding, you will be required to take part in many initiatives in order to get noticed online.

One initiative is blogging. Not everyone likes writing or knows how to write, myself included. I’ve always struggled with it. I’m simply not creative enough and I honestly don’t enjoy it.

But over the past 3 years, I’ve been pushing myself and blogged about all sorts of subjects. I’ve noticed my writing improving and I’m actually enjoying it now.

The key is to get started and repeat. With time, you will improve that skill. It’s working for me.

5 Ways to Eliminate Smart Phone Distractions While Working on Your Personal Brand

August 29, 2015 by alaahassan

Most of us carry our smartphones everywhere we go:

in the bathroom
while eating
while driving
while walking
while sleeping
while working

Let’s face it. We are constantly distracted with all the notifications coming from our social media, email messages, texts and phone calls.

If you plan on investing in your personal brand, you need to be productive since there’s a lot of work to do. From creating a personal website to raising awareness of your brand on social media, you can’t afford being interrupted.

Think about it for a moment: what’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Here’s a list of 5 ways you can eliminate smartphone distractions:

1. Enable Airplane Mode (An Extreme Tactic)

use-airplane-mode

The only time that I actually use this feature is when I’m on the plane or when I really need to have a good night sleep and I can’t afford being interrupted. It’s like turning off your phone. You won’t really miss a thing only phone calls but they will be forwarded to your voice mail. Otherwise, your emails will come in as soon as you disable airplane mode and so will your social media notifications.

Use this feature if you can’t lose sight of your phone. It might be sitting right beside you but at least, it won’t distract you with all its notifications. Here’s a tip: airplane mode can also save some battery life in case you’re low.

2. Enable silent mode

use-silent-mode

This is a popular feature on a smartphone. If you really want to focus and not miss a thing, simply put the phone on silent mode. Calls, emails & notifications will still come in but they won’t make a sound.

I gotta admit though, your curiosity will be tested. When I do this, I keep wondering what’s happening on my phone as I can see notifications popping up on my screen. That’s why airplane mode is extreme since the screen remains off as there is no reception.

3. Turn off social media & email notifications

For me, the only thing that really distracts me is the social media notifications. I don’t receive many calls as I used to.

So whenever I want to focus on a project related to my personal brand, I simply turn off notifications coming from popular social apps like Facebook & Twitter. It really helps.

4. Put the phone in another room

No-Cell-Phone-bedroom

I remember listening to Arianna Huffington speaking at Hubspot Conference a couple of years ago where she mentioned that in her home, there are no electronics allowed in her bedroom. It makes a huge difference when doing so as you’re required to put an effort in getting your device since you need to walk to the other room.

5. Punish yourself

punish-yourself-using-cellphone

Similar to how a swear jar works where you end up paying some money every time you swear, you can do the same every time you pick up your phone whenever you should be focusing on working on your personal brand.

Conclusion

If you want to stop giving yourself excuses as to why you don’t have time to invest in your personal brand, you can implement these simple proven tactics to help you become more productive.

You will realize that it doesn’t take much to write a blog post, share a status update on Facebook or even message someone within your network on Linkedin. You just need to focus and get it done.

What other tactics have worked for you?

9 Ways Instagram Can Help Boost Your Personal Brand (with Examples)

August 25, 2015 by alaahassan

Instagram is one powerful visual social network. It became even more p0werfull when Facebook acquired it for $1 billion.

With over 300M monthly active users, you can’t afford ignoring it especially if you need to get your name out there. I can assure you Instagram will take your personal brandto the next level when done right.

Here’s an overview of how Instagram can help boost your branding efforts:

You can showcase your person brand using your Instagram profile
Your Instagram profile will appear in Google search results when someone searches your name
You can showcase your skills, services & knowledge (or social proof) on Instagram
You can use pictures & 15 sec videos to showcase your personal lifestyle
You can tag your Instagram posts while attending industry events & conferences
You can Increase website traffic by promoting your latest blog post
You can use relevant Hashtags to get your posts discovered on Instagram
You can expand your network by engaging with other Instagrammers (follow, love, comment, tag)
Easily share your Instagram posts on Facebook & Twitter

Let’s get started.

FYI, you can follow me on Instagram here.

1. You can showcase your personal brand using your Instagram profile

One thing I love about using Instagram for my personal brand is the fact that it makes it easy for anyone browsing my profile to learn more about me. Instagram allows you to edit your profile by adding a personal photo, full name, a brief bio and a website URL which are visible to the public.

Upload your picture (headshot) within your Instagram profile
You can add your picture by choosing one from your smartphone photo gallery or by importing your Facebook or Twitter profile pic. I recommend you use a professional headshot, one that you use for all your social media accounts including Linkedin. This is very important for personal branding as you need to stay consistent.
Add your name
Make sure to add your full name so that people know it’s you.
Add the URL of your personal website
If you’re investing in your personal brand, you must have a personal website. Add it to your Instagram profile so that people can visit your site and learn more about you if interested.
Add a brief bio
Use your Instagram bio to better explain who you are, what you do and what is so special about you. Personal branding is all about providing value to those who wish to work with you. I usually update my bio every couple of weeks. You will need to test multiple variations in order to find out which one would work best.

Click here to learn exactly how to update your Instagram profile.

2. Your Instagram profile will appear in Google search results when someone searches your name

When someone searches your name on Google, you want to make sure that you occupy most of the real estate on the search results page. One way to do so is by creating many properties across social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram.

When you create an account on Instagram for your personal brand, you will notice that it will suddenly start showing up on Google. There’s no way of knowing how long it will take for that to happen but it will. You just need to be patient.

When you are consistent with your name, bio and website url within your Instagram profile, it will make it easier for Google to associate that account with your personal brand.

Here’s a search result for my name. Notice how my Instagram profile shows up on the first page.

3. You can showcase your skills, services & knowledge (or social proof) on Instagram

I recommend you ask yourself these 3 questions before you invest any time or money in your personal brand.

Whether you’re trying to get a job, increase your salary or sell your services, you will have to let people know why they should engage with you. One way to do so is by letting people understand your qualifications.

Here are some examples of how I showcase myself on my Instagram profile.

– I post pictures on how people can reach out to me for my ecommerce advising services.

– I post pictures that describe what I do so that people know what I can offer them.

– I usually post some reviews and testimonials from recent clients as social proof.

social proof on instagram — Social Proof about my services

4. You can use pictures & 15 sec videos to showcase your personal lifestyle

People on Instagram love learning more about your personal life than just your professional one. Be authentic. Show what your life is all about but within limits.

Here’s how I showcase mine on Instagram for my personal brand:

– I share lots of pictures of my wife and I doing all sorts of things.

share my adventures — Adventures with my Queen

– I share pictures of my family.

– I share pictures of my hobby which is hiking.

– I share pictures of our vacations and trips around the world. This one is from our recent trip to Australia, New Zealand & Fiji.

– I share videos about my juicing healthy lifestyle.

– I also enjoy sharing pictures of men’s fashion such as shoes, suits and accessories or even cars.

instagram share fashion — Share men’s shoes on Instagram

instagram share more fashion — Share men’s fashion accessories on Instagram

instagram share cars — Share pictures of cars on Instagram

5. You can tag your Instagram posts while attending industry events & conferences

Attending events is one great way to expand your network, learn new thing & meet people that could potentially open up new opportunities.

A great way to get more exposure for your personal brand is to post pictures and videos of yourself at these events. It shows that you’re involved in your industry and always looking for improvement as well as acquiring new knowledge. Staying up to date is key and people will notice that.

Whenever I attend an eCommerce conference, I make it a habit of uploading pictures of myself either speaking or selfies with other attendees.

Instagram post industry events — Speaking at Think Global Retail in Las Vegas

speaking at catalyst — Speaking at Catalyst, an eCommerce conference by Channel Advisor

speaking at etail canada — Speaking at eTail Canada in 2015

6. You can Increase website traffic by promoting your latest blog post

When you have a following on Instagram, you can promote your latest content to them. That’s exactly what I do whenever I write a new blog post.

Here’s how you do it:

Write your blog post
Create a graphic for it using Canva.com
Update the URL in your Instagram Bio to link to the blog post & state in the caption “Link in Bio”
Post your picture
Add a quick summary in the caption with a call-to-action

– You can also promote your premium digital content such as online courses and training.

7. You can use relevant Hashtags to get your posts discovered on Instagram

What makes Instagram powerful is how easy it is to discover people’s content using hashtags.

Whenever you post something, you have the option of adding relevant hashtags that best describe the picture or video. You get to add 30 hashtags, so use all of them so that you increase your chances of getting discovered.

8. You can expand your network by engaging with other Instagrammers (follow, love, comment, tag)

If you want to expand your network on Instagram, you need to interact with others on the platform. You simply don’t want to be the person who’s only posting things and never likes or comments on other people’s pictures or videos.

If you give some love on Instagram, people will love you back. It’s as simple as that.

Here are 7 ways you can do to engage effectively with others:

1. You can love someone’s post by double tapping it

2. You can comment on someone’s post

3. You can follow someone

4. You can send them a direct message

5. You can mention others using the @mention

6. You can tag them on your pictures

7. Repost someone content using Repost App on iOS or Android

9. Easily share your Instagram posts on Facebook & Twitter

Instagram app gives you the ability to share your content on other social networks without requiring much effort.

We’re all busy with our lives and having to create content for every social media network can certainly be exhausting. Leveraging your Instagram content for other networks saves you lots of time.

A good reason why you should consider sharing your content is because every network has a different type of audience. Not everyone on Facebook is also on Instagram or Twitter.

Conclusion

Developing your personal brand on Instagram will certainly help raise awareness of who you are and what you can do for people. If done right, the return on investment is there.

3 things are needed if you want to succeed. Patience, Consistency and Persistence.

Develop the strategy that would work best for you and simply execute it daily.

Good luck!

How to Build Your Personal Brand With Guest Podcasting

August 16, 2015 by alaahassan

Do you listen to podcasts? Only 20% of the United States do, but that is about to change drastically.

In 2016, many new cars will be able to download and listen to podcasts. Drivers will be able to listen to what they want when they want. Podcast are quickly becoming on demand radio. Your ideal dream customers will be listening, but will they hear you?

The barriers to starting your own podcast have fallen. For under $1,000 in equipment and 4 to 5 hours a week, you can produce and host a quality podcast. You can speak directly to your prospects for 30 to 45 minutes each week. Learning how to record, produce, host and promote a podcast is easy. Many online courses teach everything and range from $500 to $2,000. The step by step instruction will allow you to launch in under 60 days.

If you want more results with less work, consider being a podcast guest. As one client explained “I could build my swimming pool, but why should I when get invited to everyone else’s?” With the investment of an hour, you can get featured on a new podcast, continually connecting with a new audience. While most people initially struggle with how to get on a podcast, having a proven strategy to turn listeners into customers is the key. Online course that teach you how to get business results as a podcast guest ranges from $500 to $1,000 and can show real business results in under 30 days.

Regardless if you are a host or a guest, here are five ways podcast can build your online brand.

1. Get More Speaking Engagements

If your goal is to speak professionally, podcasts serve as the ultimate marketing tool. Conference organizers can hear your message and know how you communicate and engage with others. No blog or book can accomplish this. Personally as a blogger, I struggled with getting speaking invitations. With every application, I included a recorded video presentation. Most organizers never watched it (Got to love Wistia’s analytics). Recently, I got two speaking contracts in one week after separate conference organizers heard me on podcasts. One interview was 18 months old, the other just posted. Podcast interviews truly are evergreen.

2. Rank Better on Search Engines

As a guest, you can benefit greatly from the podcast show notes. These typically include backlinks to your social media profiles and highlighted content on your site. Most hosts are very accommodating and will include the exact anchor text and link you request. The search engine sees these as authority signals and rewards your ranking accordingly. As far as link building goes, this strategy is as white hat as it gets.

As a podcast host, the benefits are not as strong. The best guests will link back to show and promote it on their social media. You can make this easy for them by providing preformatted tweets, posts, and images to share.

3. Improved Third Person Authority

As a host, it conveys authority when you are associated with respected people who chose to be a guest on your show.

The big benefit goes to the unknown person who is a guest on a respected podcast. Instead of referencing your website in email nurturing, point prospects to the interview on someone else’s site. Sure you loose the traffic, but you gain the credibility.

4. Expand Your Network

Who do you want to meet? That author, speaker, business leader or celebrity probably wouldn’t return your email request for a free 30 minute one on one conversation. They will respond to the chance to address your audience. One podcast host admitted his entire podcast plan was to meet people. He’d talked with everyone from sports stars to business geniuses. Then he was intentional enough to leverage and build that relationship. Fast Company described Podcasting as the new networking. As a guest or as a host, people that would never give you 5 minutes to talk, are suddenly giving you 30+ minutes on Skype to record a podcast.

5. The Holy Grail of Content

Audio is extremely easy to repurpose. The entire interview can be transcribed by a service like Rev.com for $1/min. The typical interview last 30 to 45 minutes and contains 5 -10k words. Since most blogs are 600 words, this means you could potentially make 5 to 10 blogs for around $5 each. Take that transcript and highlight your great one-liners. Those make for perfect tweets. Add your pearl of wisdom to a graphic on Pablo or Canva and you have a shareable image.

Podcasts are the best way to talk directly to your ideal dream customer. As a host or as a guest you can use this emerging technology to allow people to get to know, like and trust you. Then it’s a matter of setting up an automated and scalable online machine to move them from listeners to leads. By helping them solve their problem, they become customers and raving fans.

Tom Schwab is an Inbound Marketing Engineer. He’s run a nuclear power plant and an online business. Only one came with an instruction manual. Tom provides small business owners, entrepreneurs, and small business owners the manual to harness the power of the internet and accelerate their growth. He provides coaching and teaching to give a step by step roadmap. His book, CONNECT: Grow your business talking to your ideal customer as a podcast guest is scheduled to be published in September 2015.

5 Definite Ways of Failing with Your Personal Branding Efforts

August 13, 2015 by alaahassan

Who loves to fail?

No one!

But you know what, sometimes you need to fail in order to move on to the next step towards your success. I don’t like failing but I do enjoy it especially if I’m able to learn something valuable from the experience – and I’ve failed a lot in my life.

One way to avoid failure is to plan for it not to happen in the first place by being proactive.

Personal branding is no rocket science. It works when you know what you’re doing. When it doesn’t, it’s very easy to know why.

Most of the time, I believe a personal brand will fail due to these 5 main reasons:

1. Not Answering these 3 Important Questions

I recently shared on my blog 3 questions you must ask yourself before investing in your personal brand. If you want to avoid failure, please take a moment and answer them. Trust me, it will clarify things for you.

Who am I?
What am I trying to achieve with my personal brand?
Why am I investing in my personal brand?

I’ve asked this question to many individuals who come to me for personal branding advice. You’d be surprised so hear how many of them have no clear idea of what they’re trying to achieve.

2. Not Having a Personal Branding Strategy

Most of the time, the first thing I see people do whenever they want to boost their personal brand is they head immediately towards social media. Although social media is truly a powerful medium for any brand, it’s simply not enough.

With any type of project, you will need a plan. You will also need to develop a strategy that will help you achieve your ultimate goals with your personal brand. It’s almost like your going fishing. You won’t catch fish wherever you go. You need to throw your line in places where fish exist and hungry for some delicious bait at the right time.

The same goes for your personal brand. If you want to attract specific individuals, you need to know exactly what they value, where they hangout and what you need to do in order to get their attention.

3. You Lack the Required Skills

Another reason why you could potentially fail with your personal branding efforts is because you lack some of the most important skills to help you achieve what you’re trying to do.

Skills related to:

Technology
Communication
Writing
Speaking
Leadership
Management
Social Media

and much more…

Nowadays, there’s no excuse for not having a general idea of how to do things. There are lots of websites out there such as Udemy.com or Lynda.com which offers lots of online courses to help you learn any topic you wish get acquainted with.

I even launched my own personal branding course to help individuals learn the required skills in improving their personal brand.

4. You’re Not Seeking Help

One of the easiest ways to avoid failure is to ask for help before you even fail. It’s as simple as that.

There’s nothing wrong with asking someone for a helping hand. The challenge is ASKING SOMEONE.

Social media has made it very easy for anyone to seek help. You even have websites like Kickstarter.com that help you seek financial backing from strangers on the Internet. You can also get help from mentors or advisers. I offer help on Clarity.fm.

Remember this…don’t be shy…JUST ASK! You will be surprised to see who might come to your rescue.

5. You’re Simply Not Taking Action

Finally, this is the ultimate reason why people fail. THEY SIMPLY DO NOT TAKE ACTION.

Lots of talk, lots of planning, lots of wasting time and no real execution.

Does this remind you of someone?

I need to launch my website
I need to start blogging
I really want to speak at events
I need to improve my resume
I have to start being more active on social media
I need to create an account on Instagram (everyone has one)

Stop saying it and Just Do It!

So let me ask you this: what’s your reason for not spending time or money on your personal brand?

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Investing a Single Minute (or Dollar) in Your Personal Brand

August 6, 2015 by alaahassan

Let’s face it. Reality is that you want to have a valuable personal brand and be known within your network.

Great.

But why exactly do you want that?

There are lots of great advantages in having a powerful personal brand, but I want to share with you 3 questions you need to ask yourself before investing time or money in it. It will help you focus and understand the true meaning of what you’re trying to achieve from your efforts.

Take a moment and ask yourself:

1. Who Am I?

It’s a simple question to ask yourself but you know what, many of us don’t have a clue who we truly are and want to be remembered as. It’s not about your name or where you come from or what degree you have.

It’s about your personal value proposition.

Who you are?
What you do?
What differentiates you from everyone else?

2. What Am I Trying to Achieve with my Personal Brand?

Now that you know who you are, ask yourself what exactly are you trying to achieve with investing in your personal brand?

Do you want to land your dream job?
Do you want to get a new client?
Do you want to boost your salary?
Do you want to speak at events?
Do you want to be recognized as an expert in your field?
Do you want people to buy your product or service?
Do you simply want to make more money?
Do you want people to join your movement or tribe?
Do you have your message to be heard?

Simple questions to ask yourself in order to figure out what is it that you’re trying to achieve from your efforts.

3. Why Am I Investing in My Personal Brand?

We all have reasons why we do what we do. When it comes to your personal brand, you might be trying to get a higher salary or get hired by a large company, whatever it is, you need to know why are you even trying to do that.

For example, simply stating that you’re investing in your brand because “you want more money” is not enough. Ask yourself “why do you want more money”.

Are you looking to improve your lifestyle?
Do you want more freedom?
Do you want more time to spend with your family?
Do you want to be able to travel the world?
Are you trying to buy something (house, car)?

The WHY is what will make you want it even more. It will push you harder to achieve your goals.

Try it. Ask yourself these 3 questions even if you’ve already started investing in your personal brand. You will be surprised by your answers.

Personal Life

1. Enable Airplane Mode (An Extreme Tactic)

2. Enable silent mode

3. Turn off social media & email notifications

4. Put the phone in another room

5. Punish yourself

Conclusion

1. You can showcase your personal brand using your Instagram profile

2. Your Instagram profile will appear in Google search results when someone searches your name

3. You can showcase your skills, services & knowledge (or social proof) on Instagram

4. You can use pictures & 15 sec videos to showcase your personal lifestyle

5. You can tag your Instagram posts while attending industry events & conferences

6. You can Increase website traffic by promoting your latest blog post

7. You can use relevant Hashtags to get your posts discovered on Instagram

8. You can expand your network by engaging with other Instagrammers (follow, love, comment, tag)

9. Easily share your Instagram posts on Facebook & Twitter

Conclusion

1. Get More Speaking Engagements

2. Rank Better on Search Engines

3. Improved Third Person Authority

4. Expand Your Network

5. The Holy Grail of Content

1. Not Answering these 3 Important Questions

2. Not Having a Personal Branding Strategy

3. You Lack the Required Skills

4. You’re Not Seeking Help

5. You’re Simply Not Taking Action

1. Who Am I?

2. What Am I Trying to Achieve with my Personal Brand?

3. Why Am I Investing in My Personal Brand?

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