I was contacted a couple of weeks back and asked to help Fast Company reporter Chris Gayomali revamp his personal brand and give him some tips on how he could position himself as more of a business journalist.
Click on the link below to see what happened:
What It’s Like to Get a Personal Brand Makeover by Personal Brand Consultants
Cheers,
Mel
This Thursday – at 1pm PST – I’ll be talking all about Personal Branding during a Twitter chat – #MarketingChat – organized by those fine people at Experian US.
I’ll be answering a bunch of questions on Personal Branding from the Experian Community Manager – @MikeDelgado – and anyone can join in with their questions and thoughts as well.
These occasions have drawn some engaging and inspiring conversations – like this one on Facebook marketing featuring Brian Carter, Mari Smith, Raymond Ray and Andrea Vahl – so I’m thrilled to be asked to impart some of my experience of helping people with their personal brand!
Again, the Twitter chat starts at 1pm PST this Thursday 12th of February.
Follow me – @MelCarson, @Experian_US and #MarketingChat for all the action!
Hope to “see” you there on Thursday!
Cheers,
Mel
A while back I wrote about my loathing of the word “excited” in press releases and the post still gets discovered by people searching for alternatives via the search engines.
Imagine how excited thrilled I was to learn that our friends at LinkedIn had published the latest overused buzzwords of 2014 in a post by their esteemed career expert Catherine Fisher.
Here are the lists:
2014 Global List – Top 10 Most Overused LinkedIn Buzzwords
2014 US List – Top 10 Most Overused LinkedIn Buzzwords
Funny how “expert” doesn’t make the US Top 10 right?
The one I see most often is where people say they’re an “experienced marketer” or an “experienced manager”. We’re all experienced in some way or another, it’s how much experience and what the results you garnered were that counts so make sure you tell me that too.
My advice is for you to go back through your LinkedIn profile and see if any of these words are omnipresent. If they are, change them up a little in an attempt to stand out from the crowd and prevent eye-rolls and “oh yeahs?” from people peeking at your summary and experience.
There’s a reason LinkedIn share these lists. It’s because they want you to be successful via their platform and success comes from being disciplined, taking your personal brand seriously and spending some quality time crafting a profile that does you justice and doesn’t smack of everyone else’s.
Don’t hesitate to contact us about our personal branding services and good luck!
Cheers,
Mel Carson – Founder of Delightful Communications
As we wrap up an awesome 2014, I wanted to share this awesome presentation design deck with you.
A few weeks ago I was asked by those nice people at SEMrush to provide some thoughts on how business people should approach putting together presentations for conferences and events.
Well they’ve put together a mammoth deck split into smart sections that, if brushing up your presenting skills is a new year resolution, you really should take a few minutes to flick through.
Other than that, we’re taking a couple of weeks off to enjoy Christmas and the holidays so enjoy yours and here’s to a fabulous 2015!
Cheers,
Mel
P.S. One of OUR new year’s resolutions is to provide more content on the Delightful Blog for your delectation. I’ve been a bit too focused on getting my weekly column on Entrepreneur up and running but will get back into the swing of things on here next month!
Over the last few months I’ve been asked to do a lot of interviews and write a bunch of articles about Personal Branding which makes us very happy because we’re obviously onto something here at Delightful.
From a Q&A on Brafton’s site to a two part radio interview on Webmaster Radio with Brad Geddes: Learn About Personal Branding with Mel Carson and Learn How to Increase Your Personal Brand with Mel Carson coupled with being invited to write weekly for Entrepreneur.com on personal branding and pretty much anything to do with digital marketing and start-ups, I’ve been busy sharing my thoughts on how business people as individuals can stand up and stand out in their niche through their personal brands.
Asked to share some more insight based on a LinkedIn post I wrote a few weeks ago, I’ve also recorded an interview on how to present yourself with true confidence and sincerity for a local job network as well.
This immense interest has given us much food for thought on how we can expand our personal branding services in 2015, so stay tuned…..
Hope you enjoy listening and reading and, as always, do let us know what you think and if you have anything to add!
Cheers,
Mel
One of the other speakers at the Digital East event I gave a talk at a few weeks ago was Andy Beal, CEO and Founder of online reputation tracking tool, Trackur.com.
I’ve known Andy since his SEO days and when he founded Marketing Pilgrim, so in this interview we talk about how he got into the online reputation management space, how he thinks brands and CEOs should approach online reputation and personal branding, and where he believes PR teams should start when letting the executives in their company start using social media to promote themselves and the company brand.
He also give us some advice on what to do with Google Plus, now authorship has been dropped.
Thanks to Andy and the crew from Digital East for lettings us film at the event!
Enjoy!
We’ll be having many more Delightful Conversations like this, so subscribe to our Delightful Communications YouTube Channel and you won’t miss a single one!
Cheers,
Mel
Two years after my Seattle Interactive Conference debut talking about the book I co-authored – Pioneers of Digital – I’ll back this October speaking about personal branding and digital PR.
Even though we don’t have a title for my presentation just yet, we wanted to let you know because the “early bird” rate runs out on the 1st of September.
If you’re local to Seattle (or not) you should really make it up to this beautiful city for this fantastic digital event.
I’m proud (no, really I am) to be on the same speaking roster as people I respect like: Jeremiah Owyang, Rand Fishkin, Adam Schoenfeld, Sarah Bird, Joanna Lord and Teal Newland……plus a host of others.
So if you want to see me tear it up (Delightfully) on stage at SIC 2014 and learn a bunch of other digital smarts from the guys I’ve mentioned above, start buying your tickets by registering on the Seattle Interactive 2014 site!
See you in October.
Cheers,
Mel Carson – Delightful’s Founder and Principle Strategist
We’re off to sunny San Francisco in a week or so for the ClickZ Live digital marketing conference!
I’ll be speaking on behalf of Majestic at a theatre session on Wednesday 13th August entitled: How to Use Link Data to Boost Your Social Media and PR Efforts
The premise behind my talk will be that Big Data has so much more potential than just being a buzzword, and I’ll provide a smorgasbord of ideas and case studies that will show the audience how to quickly and easily get ahead of the competition with a little bit of lateral thinking across the disciplines of social media and digital PR.
Immediately after that I’ll take the stage with the fabulous Katherine Griwert from Brafton on: Scaling Engagement: How to Drive Results with an Efficient Content & Social Strategy
Here’s the blurb on that session:
If you’re interested in engaging customers online, you’re probably already posting content on social media. Even though the average company uses 6 social networks for marketing, they’re largely “unsure” about the results. So how do you know what to post, and when, and where, if you want social ROI that really matters? A multi-channel content approach sounds like a lot, but a smart strategy has built-in opportunities to engage prospects and influencers. In this session, led by content marketer Katherine Griwert and Digital PR specialist Mel Carson, we’ll walk you through tips and tactics on strategic content for social.
You’ll learn answers to common challenges, including:
Brafton were kind enough to interview me a couple of months back on personal branding strategies and I’m thrilled to be working with them on delivering a top-notch session for the ClickZ Live audience in San Francisco.
Hope to see many of you in California for this fabulous event.
If you won’t make it, we’ll be sure to post the presentations on SlideShare soon.
Cheers,
Mel
In 3 weeks time I’ll be in New York for ClickZ Live, the digital marketing conference programmed by digital marketers.
I’m teaming up with the fabulous Erin Zefkeles from Bing Ads to give an expo theater presentation:
Personal Branding – How to Stand Up and Stand Out as a Digital Marketer
The internet is not just crowded with brands vying for consumers’ attention at every turn, it’s jam packed with gurus, experts and aficionados who claim to be “AdWords Obsessed” or “Social Media Divas” who promote themselves as the thing you need to take your business to the next level through digital marketing. In this session, Mel Carson from Delightful Communications and Erin Zefkeles from Bing Ads, will explore why taking care of your personal brand is so very important in the digital age, and how you can position yourself as an authentic, educated and trustworthy source of advice to your clients and potential customers. There won’t be a whiff of snake oil, we promise!
The session will definitely be different by focusing on how individuals can enhance their personal brands through digital, and in turn help the brands they work for.
The ClickZ Live team are a valued client of Delightful’s, and Erin and I are grateful they’re so enthusiastic about letting us bring this kind of wisdom to their audience!
Learn more about how to register for the event here, follow ClickZ Live on Twitter for the scoop in the run up to this awesome event and do check out what Delightful offers in the way of personal branding services.
Spotted this from Gal Borenstein on The Hub Comms where, ahem, I write an article every couple of weeks.
Sums up a few of the ways I’ve been persuading CEOs and senior executives they need to be thinking.
It pains me when I get pushback from exec comms people who say, “he or she just doesn’t have time”!
We all make time to listen and learn and, in my opinion, industry leaders need to lead this understanding from the front.
Relying on trusted advisors is ok for detail, but not understanding the general landscape or being oblivious to the latest trends in your industry is corporate suicide, when those trends change daily!
