Today, I suggest the wonderful Paul Cook of PlanetPlanit. Paul is one of the first people that I connected with on Twitter and has been a great source of encouragement and an amazing resource. He does amazing work with students helping to prepare them for the industry and it has been wonderful watching him over the past year or two. In addition to all this, Paul also runs Event IQ Magazine – an online events publication that has featured amazing guest bloggers such as @JeniseFryatt. Paul has also written numerous blogs for this site offering information and advice to students across the industry. This website is such a resource to all planners and I encourage you to check it (and him) out!

Connect with Paul:

Twitter

Planet Planit

Event IQ Magazine

I recently wrote a post called “My Rant: Why Your Customer Service Is Killing Your Business” where I aired my grievances about David’s Bridal and many other little shops that don’t understand that value of responding to their clients. After posting, I received many inquiries from event professionals and friends wondering if David’s Bridal contacted me in response to my post. I have not, to date, heard anything from them.

Now, I’m not a delusional person thinking that the world is tuned into my tweets, but it did signal to me that they are not monitoring their brand. So many organizations are so focused on branding their organization – working with designers to create style guides, creating strategies for their social media accounts – that they completely forget about the brand that is being determined for them without their consent. There is one aspect of your brand that you don’t have much control over and means more to your clients than anything you can plan – the image that is determined by your clients themselves.

Continued on Icon Presentations Blog

Continued on Sounds ‘n Sights Blog

My mom used to own a bakery in a small town in Westchester, New York. Her cakes are absolutely delicious, but you could tell it was going to be good before you even got inside. The bakery was located in this beautiful Victorian building with all different colored paint and cute signs. When you entered, you were instantly hit with the smell of warm cinnamon buns. There was coffee brewing, beautiful paintings on the wall and the entire store was done in the perfect colors. When you walked into that bakery you felt it.

What kind of emotion does YOUR brand give? You see, people are very emotional creatures and they naturally respond to the colors and feel of your organization. While not all small business have a store front, everything you do gives an impression. From the colors of your logo and website to the interactions they have with you as a person means something. If a client calls and gets a voicemail message that sounds unprofessional, they may never call back.

It can be a little overwhelming when you think about just how much needs to be in order to create the right “feel” for a customer, but it is well worth the effort. People who have an emotional attachment to a brand are far more likely to stick with it through thick and thin.

Take a moment to look at your brand from a third party perspective and ask yourself what emotions are evoked. What is your natural response to each aspect of your brand? Good client relationships are begun by emotion and built through relationship so do your best to keep each of these things in sight. Make sure that your brand is attractive from a distance and then nurture the relationship with all your great customer service. If you don’t pay attention to these things, you may be losing clients you never knew you had!

I’d also like to thank you as the readers and the ever-reliable retweeters from the twitter #eventprofs community (EricLukazewski, Lyksumlikrish, Planetplanitbiz, Makeupbyjanine and InspirationGuy) who have followed this series and shared it with their networks. I’m thankful to each of you for your help in spreading the word about this series. I look forward to more collaborations with you in the future!

The #eventprofs group on Twitter has transformed my foray into social media and branding from a first date to a full-fledged relationship. I created a Twitter account nearly a year ago now just to see where things would go and since finding the #eventprofs group, I’ve made many connections that have extended to blogging, in-person events, chats and more! Many thanks go to Ready2Spark because she was the creator of the #eventprofs group. My hope for you is that you can find a group that is as dynamic and engaging as this one so that you can truly share your brand and resources with your industry. Whether you are an #eventprofs or a #socialmedia expert, there are many social networks that you can take become a part of.

Please leave your comments and let me know what parts of this branding series have been helpful for you (if any) and what other resources you’d like to have. I’ll definitely take them into account for future blogs. I look forward to connecting with each of you!

The reason that I wrote the "30 Days of Branding" series is because it was just what I was looking for when I first started. I wanted someone to break social media and branding down into digestible chunks so I could learn slowly enough to absorb. Unfortunately, I didn’t find such a program so I had to figure out what I know through trial-and-error.

Regardless of how you learn, it’s essential to put some sort of evaluation plan into place. Of course, it doesn’t need to be too formal, but I would suggest that you take time to think critically about what you are doing and how it effective it is. Keeping in mind that the goal of social media is to cultivate and maintain relationships, are you able to do that? Are you on so many social networks you don’t know how to keep up? Do you find that there isn’t an established community in your industry on Twitter? Realistically, how much time are you spending on maintaining these networks? Think about these questions regularly – I suggest once a month. Remember, there’s no harm in trying something and realizing it doesn’t work for you.

Finally, you may find that you need to adjust your plan. Perhaps you are finding a lot of opportunities on your networks, but you are spending way too much time trying to keep up. Here are my suggestions on how to fit social networking into your busy life:

• Don’t forget that the point of social networking is to share who you are (your brand) with others. Therefore, if you are reading articles for a blog, post the blog and then tweet all the articles that were relevant. This way, you have more information to share and it’s all related to who you are and what you’re doing. You don’t have to search out new content all the time. Most likely, you’re already working with a lot of content in your professional life.
• Set a schedule for yourself. While this might seem overly structured, this is a good way to get started. When I began, I told myself I was going to send 5 valuable tweets every day, even if it was the last thing I did before heading to bed. I stuck to that plan and now I’m a regular tweeter. I don’t have to schedule it anymore.
• Challenge yourself. Two months ago, I would have told you I didn’t have time to blog and that felt very true. But, since then, I created this "30 Days of Branding" series and I’ve blogged for twenty nine days straight now. It’s only because of the goals I set to focus on blogging this month.

I’ve found that social networking fits into your life quite well if you take your time, evaluate as you go along and adjust to fit your needs and schedule. Don’t feel like you have to have your hands in so many baskets. It’s okay to start slow and build up. Besides, that’s the only way it will be long lasting for you. Yepp, I’m going to say it – Slow and steady wins the race.

Industry Leaders on Twitter

Wefollow.com
This is a great site because you can type in a hashtag like #eventprofs and be directed to a list of the most influential tweeters as well as the people with the most followers. By comparing these two lists, you can likely find industry leaders who are using social media to brand themselves well.

WtHashtag.com
Here, you can also search by hashtag. The great thing about this site is that it shows you the most active tweeters in an industry by day. In addition, groups that are more established like the #eventprofs group, include information about tweet chats, wikis and other events and programs that they are hosting.

Industry Leaders by Professional Associations

Each industry has professional associations that you can join which is a great way to connect with industry leaders. Below are some general listings of associations which you can search to find the right ones for what you do. Many of these associations also have in-person events that you will want to attend.

Weedle’s Association Directory
Yahoo! Professional Groups Directory
Google’s Association Directory

Industry Leaders at Events

Many of the best connections you will make will be at in-person events so it’s a good idea to do a quick search on upcoming events in your industry. Whether you attend a networking event, a panel or a speaker presentation, these are all opportunities for you to connect with great people. In addition, you’re likely to stumble upon industry leaders in your research. If you see the same person speaking at several events, look them up on your social networks and see if you can connect with them.

Industry Leaders Who Write

If a person knows what they are talking about, you’ll be able to tell from their blog. So, it’s a good idea to search for people who blog about your industry. Once you find blogs that you enjoy reading, subscribe to them using your RSS reader and begin commenting where appropriate. Don’t forget to share good articles with your colleagues. Engaging with a writer’s content is one of the best ways to begin a great relationship with the blogger!

Google Blog Search
Blog-Search.com
 

If you are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks along with your blog and website you are probably feeling like the man in this picture – like the world is flying by you and you can’t keep up. If you haven’t already latched on to some of the applications that can help simplify the publication process, you’re probably publishing your blog and then linking to it manually from each of your social networks. What I’d like to do today is give you links to some applications that you can set up to automatically feed from one network to another. Before I get into that, let me share a few things that you should try to remember.

• If you set up one network to feed to another, that doesn’t mean that you never have to log into the second network. You need to stay engaged, but these feeds will help automate some of the most tedious work so you can focus on creating and maintaining relationships.
• There is some security risk in allowing applications to link because for many of these you will need to give username and password information. Be sure to do your research before allowing this link to exist. That being said, I’m not endorsing these applications as safe. I’ve compiled this list based on what I have used and what I know other friends use. So, while they appear to be safe for now there may be security issues down the road.

Facebook to Twitter Link
There is a Facebook application that will take your Facebook status messages and feed them to Twitter. You will notice that there isn’t a 140 character limit on Facebook so you’ll want to watch the length of your updates. This application will automatically truncate the post and provide a link if it’s too long for Twitter, but you don’t want your first 140 characters to be "I have something really, really cool to show you that I know you’re going to love, love, love" since that won’t have any meaning once it’s truncated.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn has built-in integration to Twitter and Facebook so that your status messages posted on LinkedIn will automatically feed to Twitter and Facebook. The great thing about this is that you can turn this feature on and off per post so you can control what is being fed to the other social networks.

LinkedIn also has applications to bring in your WordPress blog so that your posts will be visible on their site.

WordPress
For those of you who blog using WordPress, I would definitely suggest that you do a Google search for "Wordpress feeds to __"social network name"__". There are so many applications so it’s only a question of where you want to feed your blog. Facebook has an application called Networked Blogs. This application makes it so that you can feed your blogs to Facebook in addition to gaining followers of your blog connected to your Facebook profile.

Tweetdeck
This is an application you can try to balance several different social media networks. I haven’t tried this one, but it’s pretty popular and I’m sure you can find a friend using it who can give you good feedback and tips.

All in all, there are seemingly limitless possibilities when it comes to simplifying your social media presence. Whenever you do something regularly, ask yourself if there is a way to automate it. Do some research and ask around and I’m sure you will find many ways that you can speed the process so you can focus on the more important aspects of your branding – relationship building.

While Twitter and LinkedIn are some of the most popular social networking sites out there, there are so many other sites that you will likely find interesting and helpful to the spreading of your brand. Today I want to list a few that you may want to check out (based solely on popularity), but before I do that I want to reinforce a few points.

• Remember that quality trumps quantity. Only use these sites if you are able to maintain them.
• The best way to try a new form of social media is to go in with some tangible goals or hopes for how you can use it. Of course, it’s okay to try them just to see how they work, but it’s important to be strategic and focused.
• When you can, find applications that will feed from one technology that you choose to involve yourself with to another. We will talk about examples of this tomorrow, but keep it in mind today.

Okay, with those main points off my chest, I shall proceed to give you an idea of social networking sites that you may indeed find useful.

Google Buzz
Google Buzz is very new. In fact, it was just launched in February 2010. This application integrates with Gmail and allows you to share pictures, videos, conversations and more with followers. Unlike Twitter, Google Buzz does not have a character limit with each post which can be good or bad, depending on how you use it.

Google Wave
This technology is slightly older than Google Buzz and can really been seen as Google’s version of a wiki (in my opinion). This allows you to collaborate on documents that include pictures and videos with other wave users. This may be useful for peope working on proposals or projects together.

Meetup
While this site is not entirely professional, you can find many industry or interest based groups that meet on a regular basis. This is a great way to find in-person networking events and communicate with people who share your interests and professional goals.

Ning
Ning is an interesting site that allows you to create your own social networks. While perhaps not as popular as other social networking sites, this is a good option and has both paid and free options for you to use.

Plaxo
Plaxo is a great way to keep up with your contacts. It is a social networking site and address catalog in one and helps you to keep track of contact information, birthdays and important information. Plaxo syncs with many other sites and softwares like Outlook and iPhone to keep you informed.

Tumblr
By all accounts, Tumblr is essentially a blog which integrates social media technology like the Twitter "follow". You can also "like" posts as you can on Facebook.

This is just a small sampling of the vast array of social networking sites that are available for your use. If you do a search, you can even find industry specific sites. I hope today you get a bigger picture of all the possibilities there are to brand yourself. With just 4 days left in this branding challenge, I hope to give you many resources that you can explore. As you try each new technology, try to apply the principles from the earlier parts of this series to ensure that you approach each with strategy and evaluation. This will help you to maximize the return on your branding effort.