Blog

We remodeled our house in Seattle a couple of years ago. It was quite a large job which included replacing the roof, furnace, windows, doors, floors, and adding a new kitchen and bathroom. In all we needed 8 specialist contractors to do the work and we needed it done quickly. While early summer is not the best time to request bids as it’s a busy time in the lives of contractors, I was amazed by some of these businesses lack of communication and marketing strategies.

Channeling my frustration into some lessons learned, here are 4 of my takeaways from an experience that EVENTUALLY has helped us renovate a home we love living in.

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In the final of 10 installments of our Personal Branding Strategy Series I want to encourage you to use social media for personal branding, to be “social by design”.

I first heard the phrase from Carolyn Everson, my former big boss at Microsoft Advertising and now Head of Global Advertising Solutions at Facebook. Adapted from the industry cry for brands to be “digital by design”, Carolyn’s morphing of the expression is the perfect discipline for the busy professional of today.

Here are a few ideas of what it means to be “social by design”:

Getting your social infrastructure right

I talk about it in detail in the post on How to Optimize Your Personal Brand Online, but this is about making sure your social profiles  – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. – are set up properly so you’re half way to success. Your profiles need to be discoverable, they need to have the right security settings activated and it needs to be easy for someone to interact with you, understand immediately what you are about, and share whatever you are trying to get out there.

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IFTTT, If This Then That, is ‘a free platform that lets you do more with all your apps and devices’. IFTTT is at its core an automation platform that can automate and connect services from Twitter to your Phillips Hue lights to spreadsheets. For examples, you can create an applet to sync your Amazon Alexa to-dos with your iOS reminders.

So how does it work?

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We are beside ourselves with delight to announce that we’ve won our first ever industry award from the Content Marketing Institute for the Best Use of Technology as Part of a Content Marketing Program for the role we played in the creation and execution of the Majestic in Space Campaign.

The prestigious Content Marketing Awards received over 1000 entries and in our final category, we were up against the likes of such mighty brands as Salesforce and FedEx!

Our quest, in partnership with our fine clients at Majestic.com and the crew at Made In Space, to 3D print a data visualization of “The Internet” on the International Space Station had been about 2 years in the making (astronauts move pretty slowly you see!) and so this accolade really is the icing on the space cake of what has been a thrilling year for us.

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I have a story.

You have a story.

We ALL have a story.

If our personal brand is all about what kind of experience people have with us online and in-person, that experience has a past and we need to embrace it.

During a personal branding workshop I delivered last week, we talked about our professional past: what was our educational experience? How did we get into our niche? What were our professional passions? What did we find hard? Where did we want to be in 3 years time from a career perspective?

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In June, Delightful Communications welcomed me as the newest addition to the team!

I am taking on the role of Digital Marketing & PR Assistant and I am thrilled to work with this wonderful team.

A graduate fresh from Seattle University, I majored in Marketing and minored in Entrepreneurship.

One of the greatest learnings from my time at the Albers School of Business was to stay value-driven and committed to advancing the common good. That’s why, when I saw this role advertised, Delightful Communications’ mission to build brilliant brands through people really resonated with me.

In past experiences, I have gleaned a lot of insight into the importance of creating a positive and strong impression with others. In my education, I acquired values and training which supports this. In my past roles, I have learned about the importance of team work, competition, sustainability, and delighting customers.

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We’re delighted to let our readers know that the fine people at SLCSEM have asked me to deliver the keynote speech on the second morning of their digital marketing conference which will be held at Megaplex Theatres – Jordan Commons on 14th and 15th of September 2017.

I’ll be speaking on the importance of and how to build your personal brand and 300 lucky people will receive a free copy of my book: Introduction to Personal Branding: 10 Steps Toward a New Professional You

Buy your tickets here! And I hope to see you there!

Cheers,

@MelCarson – Founder of Delightful

I am the newest member of the Delightful Team and, as a Digital Marketing Specialist, I will be working with clients providing strategic and tactical support for their digital marketing and social media campaigns.

I’m on the left with Ashley Seffernick at a Janes of Digital event last week

A graduate of the University of Washington with a double-major of Political Science and Eastern European Language, Literature, and Culture, I have spent the last few years working both freelance and at a tech staffing firm here in Seattle working in digital marketing, with a focus on social media.

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When we deliver our personal branding workshops and training, one of the exercises is to have people work on a Personal Branding Statement.

The 3 step process starts with what we call “5 in 5” where we all sit down with a partner and talk for five minutes about:

• Their educational experience
• Their work experience
• What they love about what they do
• What they find hard
• Where they want to be in 3 years time

We use that information and our internal compass to define and establish a Professional Purpose – the reason why we do what we do and (beyond money) why we get out of bed in the morning.

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When it comes to digital marketing per se, one of the biggest gaps I see companies unable to fill is the real-time understanding of what their competition is up to. During my sixteen years in digital, I’ll be the first to admit being so down in the weeds executing on the tactical plan that I’ve not had the wherewithal to run a competitive analysis and notice what my competition has been up to.

Having learned that lesson, one of the first things we do at Delightful with our clients is conduct a competitive analysis to see who’s out there, what they are doing well and where the opportunities are to differentiate and stand out.

Competitive analysis is as important for you and your personal brand as it is for the company you work for. Understanding what other people in your niche are doing, saying and how successful they are is crucial to personal branding success and here are a few things you can do to figure out who they are, their impact and what you can do to wrestle attention away from them and onto you.

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