The Indie Web movement is primarily about ownership and control over your identity. The difficulty is that many of the tools that we need to achieve the complete vision of data ownership just don’t exist yet, or they exist, but not in a way that is accessible to most people. During IndieWebCamp, we focused on discussing these current issues and starting to build some of the tools necessary to make the Indie Web a reality for regular people.

Start now

Here are a few things that you can do now to gain better control over your own data:

• Own your domain. The first step is to purchase and own your own domain name where you will build your online identity. If you aren’t ready to take the next step of hosting your own website software, you can start by redirecting your domain name to where you currently have your website.
• Use your domain for email. While some take the extra step of hosting their own email server, I’m OK with having my email managed by Google , but using my domain. If Google decided to shut my email down for some reason, I can always spin it right back up with a different email provider because I control the domain name.
• Host your own blog or website on that domain. Get some space on a server where you can install your own software and have control over your environment and ownership of your data. This has become much easier recently with one-click installs at many hosting providers where they can help install and upgrade your software if needed, so this doesn’t take as many technical skills to manage as it did a few years ago.

The future of the Indie Web

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But is that all there is? Would it be possible, for example, for us to use personal brands to enhance the business brand? To put it another way, could business brands gain depth, richness and outright likability if they managed to encompass the personalities of the individuals behind those brands?

The web makes this possible in countless ways. Let’s look at a case study that shows just one approach to using personal brands to add dimension and credibility to the corporate brand — and engage more authentically with customers.

Personal-Corporate Branding in Action

One of my clients publishes a podcast dealing with news and developments in their field of expertise. The brand, which is established, has something of a cult following built on a strong community.

The brand is now considering integrating interviews with staff members into the podcast, in which those people would talk about the projects they’re working on, what industry developments or events have captured their attention, and so on. Perhaps they’ll answer listener questions directed specifically to them. Perhaps they’ll return later in the year to report on the projects they discussed in their first interview.

This idea emerged alongside a strong social media presence. The company’s Facebook page is frequently updated with in-office photos, comments on team events and involvements within the industry, and so on. While the company’s  social media presence is managed by a single person, the brand has a strong personality built on the strong personalities of the individuals who work there. The podcast idea builds the personal brands into the personal brand even more strongly.

Potential Benefits

The essence of branding is to present to the audience traits with which they’ll identify. Brands that are heavily human-based — service brands in particular — and which have a strong company culture have the potential to enrich their brand perception by tying in the brands of staff members.

This can add depth to the corporate brand, make it more personable as well as more personal, and make it feel more real and less contrived. That’s especially the case in the social online environment — a place where personalities rule.

Hearing from the actual experts in an organization can reinforce customers’ belief in the brand’s expertise and technical leadership — not only is the brand at the forefront of its industry, but the people who work for the company are on the cutting edges of their individual disciplines, too.

Similarly, getting a sense of team members’ passion for their work can inspire a belief in brand quality, assuring customers of the brand’s dependability and its alignment with their own values and ethics.

Potential Pitfalls

Among the objections to the idea of merging, to some degree, personal brands into corporate brands is the obvious issue of consistency: will the inclusion of personal brands (or simply personalities) dilute the corporate brand? Will they confuse customers and be difficult to manage?

The case of my client above is probably a good way to avoid the potential issues: the podcast host represents the corporate brand proper, and guides the personal brands into the equation. The host sets the boundaries for the discussion as the podcast format sets the boundaries for the brands’ integration. The integration is controlled and carefully managed.

Business owners may be concerned about other issues, though: the potential to inadvertently promote their staff to headhunting competitors, for example (something that shouldn’t matter much if your culture is strong and your team members loyal to your organization; after all, if someone does wants to leave your company, they won’t wait to be headhunted).

Another concern might focus on the dangers of adhering a corporate brand to the brands of individuals who might move into different roles, or leave the company, undermining brand equity as they do so. The degree and way in which the personal brands are aligned with the corporate brand is the issue here: get it right, and your team members’ individual personal brands won’t be integral to the brand — they’ll support it in concert, and subtly, rather than on an individual level, or loudly and directly.

Does your business brand incorporate the personal brands — or personalities — of your team members?

Photo courtesy stock.xchng user banola.

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Today, we Google candidates to research their online presences, and often pay more attention to their social network activity than we do to their official websites. Candid behavior on social networks has shored up — and undone — countless reputations.

When we’re least expecting it, someone’s viewing our public profiles, and drawing conclusions about whether to follow, friend or even hire us.

Astute people-researchers — your clients, potential employers and customers — are going one better: they’re using social networks to research what others are saying to you, and about you.

Just as they may be more inclined to rely on your social network activity to reflect your true personality, they may see the Twitter @ replies you’ve received as the clearest indication of what your clients or colleagues think of your work.

What Do Your Contacts Say About You?

Take a look at the unofficial, off-the-cuff replies your contacts have made to you through Twitter. What do they say about you and personality?

Different prospects may look for different things in your @ replies; they may research your personal, social interactions as much as the number of retweets and responses your professionally-focused tweets receive.

Whether they’re adept with social media, or haven’t been using it for long, they’re likely to be impressed by the depth of the interactions you have through social media: How often you’re thanked for answering questions or for helping others (and how you’ve done that), what kinds of things people say about your work or performance, and so on.

On a day-to-day basis, few of us think about looking at our @ replies from a professional perspective. But if you’re seeking work, either as an individual or a business, you should.

Soliciting Great @ Replies

If your prospective employer or client uses social networks, @ replies directed at you will undoubtedly contribute to their opinion of you. For large companies dealing with hundreds or thousands of customers, it can be difficult to change the overall tone of @ replies overnight, but those of us with more contained exposure can take steps to build or enrich a record of positive, deep social network interactions in a comparatively short time.

Not surprisingly, those steps are the same ones you’d take if you wanted to be a more engaged, and engaging, social media user. Ask and answer questions, tweet great links and resources (and invite feedback or discussion on them in the process), point to breaking industry news, and contribute to larger discussions on relevant topics or events.

These time-honored tactics for engaging with social network contacts are, as you’d expect, the best way to solicit positive, meaningful @ replies.

We’re Watching…

Those embarrassing social media anecdotes — the boss spots pictures of an employee doing who-knows-what at a work-sponsored function and hauls them over the coals — and the publicity around social network security, have made most social media users closely consider their exposure through these media.

But the realization that people aren’t just assessing your performance — they’re also assessing the kinds of responses you attract — may make that sense of scrutiny even greater.

The ongoing evolution of social media as a people-research tool is certainly shaping the way we behave through the networks we use. While few of us are likely to make radical changes to our social networking approaches, we may tweak certain messages in light of our increasing exposure.

How do you feel about prospective employers or clients researching you on social media? Are you keeping an eye on the @ replies people make to you?

Image by stock.xchng user georgie_c.

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The terminology you use to acknowledge and address negative feedback is critical to your clients’ and colleagues’ perceptions of you. Of course, your behavior in response to that feedback is also critical. But given that you’ll likely need to respond — either in person, or via email, IM, discussion thread, or some other text-based means — before and after you act, the words you’ll use are worth thinking about.

I’m not suggesting you become a politician and talk around issues rather than addressing them head on; nor am I advocating dishonesty or spin. All I’m saying is that the better the language you use to respond to negative feedback, the more professional, reasonable, and capable you — and your personal and professional brands — are likely to seem.

“I’m Such an Idiot”

It’s an old marketing adage that every customer criticism represents an opportunity to exceed expectations and gain loyalty. It follows that the words you use to respond to clients or colleagues who question your work can cement their perceptions of your professionalism, or fatally undermine your relationship. Think of BP’s proposed “Top Kill” solution to its environmentally, economically, commercially, and politically fatal oil spill, and you’ll get what I mean.

“Top Kill”-style bumbles can happen in the workplace, too. Once, a client of the company I worked for asked the creative who was supposed to be delivering the final product why the copy changes we’d taken in the previous meeting hadn’t been made. The client was the CEO of his organization, the relationship was positive, and he asked the question in a reasonable, curious tone of voice.

The creative crumbled. His jaw dropped as he looked at the work he’d “finalized”. He put his head in his hands. Then he said, “Oh. Oh no. I’m such an idiot! I received those changes, but I forgot to implement them!”

This response achieved a number of negative outcomes. It was unprofessional. It made the creative appear flaky and lacking in self-confidence. It put the client — who, after all, had asked honestly and non-confrontationally — in an extremely awkward position. And it made the consultancy the creative and I worked for look extremely amateurish.

Good Language, Bad Language

There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the truth, admitting your mistakes, and taking responsibility for errors or oversights you’ve made. The first rule of accepting negative feedback is, obviously, to accept it — preferably with good grace and humility. But in doing that, there are certain types of language you should avoid, for the sake of your personal or professional brand, as well as your contact’s confidence.

Insulting Language

Never use language that suggests you’re anything but a serious professional who takes pride in their work. Whether or not your client or colleague thinks you’re an idiot for making whatever mistake you’ve made is irrelevant. You shouldn’t insult yourself, or anyone else, in acknowledging responsibility for an issue.

Everyone makes mistakes — including your colleagues — so don’t allow yourself to be overcome with guilt. You’re not an idiot; neither is that third party who let you down, and who you now want to blame for the problem. Substitute “I’m such a moron” or “Pete at the print shop is a total hack” with, “I’m sorry, I followed our standard procedure for checking the proofs, and even had a couple of other people look over it, but obviously we missed this error. It’s my mistake.”

Panicked Language

Gasping, exclaiming, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t see that!” and moaning “Oh no,” are all evidence of panic, and no client wants to think you can’t handle the everyday ups and downs of work life. In fact, they don’t want to get the impression that there’s anything you can’t handle.

So avoid the language of panic. Even if your heart’s racing and your palms are sweaty with horror upon receiving the negative feedback, don’t panic. Just take a breath, apologize calmly, acknowledge the problem, and pledge to investigate.

Casual Language

If a colleague or client raises an issue with you, you can assume it’s a serious problem for them. So, use appropriately serious language in your response.

BP apparently weren’t thinking of this point when they called a possible solution for the Gulf spill the “Junk Shot.” In talking about a multinational, apparently uncontrollable environmental disaster that’s impacting an ocean ecosystem, countless species, thousands of miles of coastline, and millions of human lives, you’d think they’d be able to come up with a solution that sounded a little less like circus entertainment.

Remember this the next time someone provides negative feedback on your performance. Giving negative feedback is never pleasant. Your contact is doing it because it’s a serious issue for them. So forget telling your contact “I’ll check it out when I get a sec.” Tell them you’re reviewing it now. If the problem is very serious, consider using more pointed terms, like “investigating” or “inquiring”. Always try to provide a timeframe in which you’ll have an explanation or researched response to their concerns, too.

Overly Personal Language

Usually, it’s not appropriate to provide details of your personal troubles as excuses or explanations of poor performance. Even saying something as generic as, “I’ve been having some personal problems” only serves to make your client or colleague feel bad for raising the issue. That’s the best outcome. At worst, it can make your more hardline contacts question your professionalism: “So your dog died. Whatever. Can we just focus on the issue here?”

In most cases, your client or colleague doesn’t need to know the background against which you underperformed. They’re more likely to want to know the mechanics of what went wrong, and/or how you’ll improve matters. Keep your language on the job and the problem at hand. That said, don’t take personal responsibility for things that aren’t actually your fault. There’s a difference between owning a problem and taking undue responsibility for it. Be honest about your role in the problem, and what you’ll do to resolve it, but also be honest about any aspects of the problem that were — or are — beyond your control. This is as much about expectation management as it is about protecting your reputation.

Take Care With Tense

In presenting your explanation, or other information, to complaining contacts, try to use the past tense to explain the issue: “We were using a process that didn’t anticipate…” rather than, “The process we use doesn’t anticipate…”

Use present and future tense — and spend more time — to focus on your process for resolving the issue and how it’ll provide a good outcome. “I’m undertaking training course that addresses these topics, and those skills will help me perform better in this area,” for example.

The language you choose can boost or undermine your personal or professional brand. What tips can you give to help those fielding negative feedback at work today?

Image by stock.xchng user hisks.

This question, which I came across in a recent interview with designer Arik Levy, stood out as possibly one of the most telling things we web workers can ask ourselves.

In our online work, many of us experience dwindling face-to-face contact with our colleagues and have to persuade and inspire co-workers, employers and clients we’ve never laid eyes on, let alone actually met.

If we put all the rhetoric of elevator pitches, unique selling propositions, authenticity, standing out from the crowd, personal branding, and getting feet in doors together, mix it up and boil it down, this is what it comes to: What makes your approach different from anyone else’s?

What’s Your Answer?

My initial reaction, when I asked myself the question, was to scoff. Why would my approach be so different from anyone else’s? It seemed presumptuous to think that, less than fifteen years into my “career”, I’d have developed a unique approach to what I do.

But this question isn’t about ego, it’s about experience. Look at Levy’s answer:

“I designed stages for 15 years … In the theater, people can be born or disappear. They can be in a fire or a storm. But we accept this is all happening in the same space. The theater is a location where you free the viewer from the world, where they accept what’s coming. I try to create theater in the same way, in objects. If I design something that looks like a cat, you can imagine it walking even though it can’t walk. If I can create something that taps your memories of other things, it can be something more than itself.”

The thing that makes your approach different from anyone else’s is your unique interpretation of your work and personal history, and your colleagues, challenges, and education. It’s your unique perception that precipitates possibilities for you that others can’t see.

What Does it Mean?

The way Levy answers this question is much more than an elevator pitch, a statement of brand, a USP, a philosophy, a mission statement, or a modus operandi. It’s all these things, as well as an insight into this person’s purpose.

His answer ties together his history, his personal interpretation of that past, and the product of that interpretive process. To be able to put words around something so personal, so integral that it’s subconscious for most of us, can be extremely helpful.

It can give us guidelines for perceiving opportunities within our working lives — a solid sense of what will work for us, and what we can make work, and why.

It can also help us communicate ourselves, and our ideas, more clearly to others. For those of us communicating ideas using email, blogs, instant message, status updates, multi-party chat, and web or phone conferences, having an objective understanding of the way we operate — of what makes our approach different — can be useful in solving issues of understanding, building rapport and camaraderie, and working closely from a distance.

Finally, having this professional/personal self-knowledge can encourage us to put ourselves aside as we work with others. Instead of spending time trying to work out why something a colleague or client does unnerves us or makes life difficult, instead we can focus on the colleague or client, using our instincts and self-knowledge to devise solutions that work for them as well as ourselves. “Understanding my needs” is, after all, the thing most of us think we want from the professionals we work with, whether they’re contractors, freelancers, or permanent team members.

So, what makes your approach different from anyone else’s?

Image by stock.xchng user geoX.

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If your tweets haven’t been syndicated yet, that day may not be far away. When it comes, you’ll probably need to decide whether you’re going to self-censor for the benefit of whoever’s paying your invoices. What will you do?

A Matter of Perspective

One thing that can definitely be said for social media is that they allow users to express themselves freely, and as users, we relish such unrestricted opportunities. For many, social networks may provide the only opportunity to engage online with a broader “public” completely as ourselves.

The problem is that those who want to syndicate your tweets — to give you wider exposure, to help you engage with their company’s clients or customers, and to promote you as an expert — may not appreciate the degree of personalization and even personality that comes through in your tweets.

The appropriateness of a tweet depends on the context in which it’s read and the audience that reads it. That fascination you have with your cat, religion, politics, margaritas, and/or Elvis may be at odds with the thrust of your employer’s broader marketing efforts. The  occasional swearword or politically incorrect comment — no matter how tongue-in-cheek — may see you lose your chance for syndication instantly. You don’t need to have made the inappropriate comments in the last five minutes, either. Companies considering whether to syndicate your Twitter feed may look back over months of your activity — or longer.

Does the prospect of a client or employer syndicating your tweets fill you with excitement or dread? If they syndicated your tweets, would you change the way you presented yourself through social media?

Expecting Exposure?

The issues of syndication are really a question of audience. If you haven’t been expecting your tweets to be broadcast in a corporate arena, it’s time to accept that the possibility is real. Smart employers looking to harness social media may be asking to use your tweets soon.

Those who set out to create a professional online brand for themselves are likely to shape their engagement with social media accordingly, and may have no problems when their boss or client asks to syndicate their tweets.

But many of us love to merge the personal with the professional through social media. The question is: if you’re yourself on Twitter, will your tweets be fit for a client’s or employer’s Twitter stream? If not, would you change the way you tweet? The things you say? The topics you discuss?

If you don’t think your tweets would be suitable for corporate consumption, you may face a moral struggle when someone asks to syndicate your tweets — especially if you’d enjoy the extra exposure.

Even if you don’t think you’d change the way you interact through social media, the knowledge that your tweets are to be syndicated on a company web site may make you feel uneasy posting things you never thought twice about before. All the pundits’ harping about “authenticity” may fall very flat when you spot your latest tweet about Fluffy’s mouse-chasing antics on the homepage of your employer’s web site.

In these kinds of situations, you may self-censor without seeing the act as a negative. You may even do it without making a conscious change in your behavior. But self-censorship may reduce your enjoyment of social media, decrease your sense of freedom and self-expression, and undermine your self-confidence online.

A Solution in Segmentation

My solution to this quandary has been to approach social media — Twitter in particular — from a perspective of segmentation. Each social network tool I use reaches a reasonably discrete audience “segment,” and I target my communication accordingly.

For example, I use Twitter predominantly for professional purposes, and I tailor my tweets to those needs. This is not to say my tweets are stiff and impersonal, but it does mean that I don’t discuss my cute pets, vegetable garden or wacky family holidays on Twitter. However, interested contacts can access updates on these exciting matters through the other social networking sites I use.

This segmented approach works for me — when clients ask to syndicate my Twitter feed on their company sites, I’m happy for them to go ahead.

How will you respond when someone wants to syndicate your tweets? And are you preparing for that eventuality now?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Social Media in the Enterprise

Photo by stock.xchng user nkzs.

I returned from ten days at SXSW to find that our family dog is dying. In the past, I might have shared this news with my family and my friends. This week, I blogged about it, then shared the news with my Twitter friends. The outpouring of advice, sympathy and love I received within minutes of my tweet was staggering.

This kind of sharing isn’t new. When I learned that my Dad was about to have open-heart surgery back in the 90s, I mentioned my fears in a forum on a service called Women’s Wire. The messages of love and support blew me away. I read every single one of them to him when he was recovering, and we were both overcome with emotion. How could these total strangers really care that much? But they did. I can’t even imagine how much bigger that support would be if I announced the same thing on my blog and on Twitter today. Dozens of messages could become hundreds.

Social-Powered Personal Support

My experience of the last 24 hours demonstrates the kind of intense and turbo-powered support that people around the world can tap into every day, thanks to the tools at our fingertips.

I marvel at the way we humans can truly “be there” for each other. Don’t know what I mean? Look at the blogosphere and Twittersphere buzz around Annisa Means Mayhew or Friends of Maddie or MckMama. There are very personal life experiences being shared online.

Too Much Information?

What are the downsides of sharing your grief online? Are there potential repercussions of this kind social sharing? Here are some of the things I’ve been thinking about and I welcome your thoughts:

1. Your reputation could be affected. While in our moments of life’s difficulties, we aren’t thinking about much other than our emotions and our loved ones. When we share the ultra-personal sides of ourselves in social spaces online, it inevitably affects our image and reputation. If you use social media to build a certain professional image, revealing your private life could change that image. Personally, I don’t think that is a bad thing — I am more drawn to the businesspeople who don’t shy away from “getting real,” but not everyone is comfortable with this kind of sharing.
2. You could get distracted. Many of the people who have shared intensely personal struggles get caught up in a movement; a cause. Take Drew Olanoff, for example. His work has shifted dramatically from being “just another guy working hard in social media” to someone who lives and breathes his fight against cancer publicly with Blame Drew’s Cancer. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.
3. You will always be reminded. Whatever we publish into the social mediasphere is not only near-permanent, but often scattered throughout the web, so that even if we were to pull down our emotional blog post, the retweets and reblogs and the rest of the amplification of our woes will still be there, and could continue to multiply. There may be things we don’t want to remember or relive. There may be some of us who want to move on, but get reminded of our personal pain when we least expect it.

What do you think? Are there potential repercussions of this kind emotional social sharing?
Photo by stock.xchng user leovdworp

What is Narrative?

Narration is the telling of a story, and narrative is the way you tell stories. It’s the glue that ties your characters to the plot events in your story. As well as elements like scene setting, narrative includes description, so we’ll deal with these aspects together.

A storyteller uses narrative to tell the story — to relate what’s happening, give a point of view, and explain events, characters’ responses, and so on. Narrative exists above and beyond the plot and characters, though — in a film or novel, for example, narrative can tell us things that the characters themselves do not know.

Narrative and Personal Branding

You are the key narrator in your own personal branding story, though other characters may have a part in narrating from time to time (for example, a guest blogger narrates part of your brand story while you’re on vacation, or away at a conference).

Since you’re the narrator, the way you tell your story will be driven largely by your character. The channels you choose, and how effectively you use them to narrate your story, will also depend on your character.

A friend of mine who’s an interface designer and early adopter was one of the first of my contacts to give Google Buzz a try, with a post that began “Must be my turn for a Buzz” and mentioned some of the things he liked about its interface and interactivity. Since then, he’s been one of the more prolific of my Buzz contacts, pulling in a range of relevant information from other social networks he uses, but also posting event (plot) and opinion (character) information specifically on Buzz.

In this way, he’s made Buzz central to the communication of his narrative. I know I can rely on his Buzz account to provide a slightly cut-down version of his overall story, and that I can use it to access more information in any of the subplots — family, his social life, his interests — in his life.

Like many social networks, Buzz allows me to observe his interactions with his other contacts. Importantly, these interactions adds an extra layer of narration to our stories. Not only do your contacts get to experience your own narration through your exchanges with other contacts, but those other contacts’ voices also combine to help to tell small parts of your story. These other perspectives can add a real richness to your story, and help to cement an authentic personal brand, so if you’re not making the most of opportunities to engage publicly with others, you’re missing out.

Some of my contacts choose to narrate their stories in real time whenever that’s appropriate. In my last post, I mentioned a friend whose social life is easy — and entertaining — to follow on social networks as well as in real life. He updates his status on various networks as an evening, weekend, or week progresses, which provides for suspense and enjoyment and ensures the continuity of his story’s narration.

As this contact’s example suggests, one of the keys to effective narration lies in plot — in the events and information you choose to relate to your contacts, as well as when you choose to tell them. If you choose content that you’re passionate about, that enthusiasm will come through in your narration. The things you have to say will likely be more considered, your descriptions will be more engaging, and your character will come across more effectively than if you waste time trying to talk energetically about something that doesn’t really set your world on fire.

So don’t get stuck in a rut, or wind up becoming a caricature of yourself. Let your character, plot, and narrative evolve with each day. And perhaps thinking about the storytelling concepts of character, plot and narrative will help you communicate your personal brand more coherently.

Can you see any opportunities for using narrative to support your personal brand?

Photo by stock.xchng user Lens.

What is Plot?

The plot is the course your story takes — the events that happen within it. Last time, I suggested that every day is a new adventure in your life. I know: you thought that was corny. But if you think of your life as a story, then each day is a new adventure. So each day may form the next section in your plot.

You may want to communicate multiple plotlines through your personal brand — one of the friends I mentioned last time is a freelance designer, a dad and a band member, so he has a lot of story arcs happening at once. We all do. Depending on how you’ve decided to build yourself as a character through personal branding, you might choose to focus on particular plotlines and leave others out. But let’s start at the start: what is plot in our daily lives?

Your Plot is Your News

In a personal branding story, plot is news and events. If each day is an adventure in the story of your life, then each event has the potential to form part of the plot.

Storytellers leave certain aspects out of plot (no one uses the bathroom in a movie, for example, unless something crucial to the storyline happens in there). They do this because some events are irrelevant to the story they’re telling. Those events waste time and distract the audience from the critical pieces of the story.

So for you as an individual trying to build a personal brand, your plotline is your news: what happens every day, and what it means to you. If you have multiple plotlines (reflecting different facets of your life), those events may have a range of impacts on your life. Which parts you choose to communicate, and the ways in which you communicate them, is up to you as the storyteller.

Characters and plot interact. One other thing that every storyteller knows is that their character and plot have to coincide — they have to justify one another. Sure, amazing things can happen in your plotline, but for the character to fit believably into those scenes, they have to be presented as someone who the audience could see responding to plot twists in the way they do. So the character’s reactions to the plot twists must be appropriate — authentic — to that character.

This becomes even more important when we realize that often, a character’s response to a plot event alters the course of the plot, or sets off a given chain of events. For those trying to build their personal brand, being able to identify plot twists that matter (and may matter in future) is important. Appropriately communicating your responses to those twists takes skill and practice, and, again, will depend on the channels you use and the kind of character you’re building.

A final key element of plot is suspense. I have a contact on Twitter who’s a freelance journalist and frequently asks his followers for help with articles: requesting contact from anyone within a certain industry, for example, or asking for suggestions of cultural nuances that we think fit a certain mold. He tags these requests with “#foranarticle,” which achieves two goals.

Firstly, it inspires you to try to respond, since article-writing is his livelihood. But more than that, it creates curiosity. The “#foranarticle” tag is like a preview of next week’s show — it’s a flag that tells you to keep your eyes out for the results of this event. In short, it creates suspense. The kind of suspense that keeps my eyes on this journalist’s Twitter feed and online folio of work, as well as the publications he writes for, so I can see just what became of my responses to his comments. That really seals the deal in terms of audience involvement: I’m following this journalist’s work because, in part, it’s a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure novel: I’m impacting on his storyline. I’m shaping his plot in some way. I’m an audience member, but I have some stake in the story itself.

Once you’ve identified an important plot twist, it’s important to follow up with the denouement, so that your audience has a sense that the plot has been carried through, that they’ve been satisfied, and that you deliver as a storyteller.

Communicating Plot

We see people communicating plot all the time through social networks: they’ll invite us to a party through Facebook and post the photos a few days later, perhaps pulling them in from a Flickr feed that presents photos from other story arcs (their daughter’s third birthday; their last art show opening, etc.).

Perhaps you’ll go further: you’ll preempt the event by sending invitations through a social network (or email), and communicate your anticipation through your status updates and in calls and emails with friends. On the day, you might provide real-time updates, including photos or videos. Later, you might refer to the event, mention how you felt about it on reflection, and publish all 75 of your event photos to the web.

One friend of mine is very good at communicating plot through Twitter: I know where he is every Friday night (thanks to Foursquare), who he’s with (he links photos to his tweets), and if it’s a big night, what time he gets home. Usually, I also have some idea of how hung over he is the next day. All in all, it makes for very entertaining reading — another wacky adventure in The Life of My Friend.

Stay tuned — tomorrow, we’ll look at the final piece of the puzzle: Narrative.

How do you communicate plot through your personal branding activities?

Photo by stock.xchng user hbrinkman.

Public breakups, breakdowns and tantrums are just some of the personal events I wish I hadn’t seen online. But pointless name-dropping, disjointed communications that make contacts seem like split personalities, and mysterious updates that are never followed through are among the more common ways in which many of us dilute our personal brands every day.

One approach that can help us to identify information that we’d be better not to publish to our peers — and information we really should — is to use creative storytelling techniques to assess and improve our personal branding efforts.

Think about it: the way you communicate your personal brand isn’t static. You grow every day, and every day is a new adventure in your life. It follows that getting a grip on the storytelling techniques of characterization, plot and narrative can help you to assess, improve, and communicate your evolving personal brand.

In this three-part series, I’ll be looking at each of these elements in turn. First up: Characterization.

What is Characterization?

A storyteller uses characters to help communicate the key themes in a story. You’re the key character in your story, but there are undoubtedly others too — the people in your contact network, your colleagues and clients, mentors, family and friends, idols and heroes.

Characterization involves using the information you have about yourself to best effect in giving others a clear picture of you.

Building Your Character

If you were to think of yourself as a character, you can see that the information you choose to distribute about yourself, and the means you use to distribute it, will help others build a perception of you.

A storyteller selects crucial defining information about their characters and focuses on communicating that clearly, in a way that suits the character. We can do the same to build our personal brands efficiently.

Applying characterization techniques in personal branding is less a question of, for example, avoiding mentioning that you eat dinner at an unfashionable restaurant each week than it is about meeting your audience’s desire to know you in the most effective way.

We all know that there’s a plethora of options for communicating your character though personal branding, including:

• the channels you use
• the language you use
• your profile data
• the photos you publish of yourself and others
• your interests, pastimes, and the topics you focus on, including links and other content you promote
• your frequency and depth of public engagement with others
• the places you like to visit or meet others

The other side to the characterization coin is to work out which pieces of information most clearly define the key aspects of your character. Few of us have time to transmit every piece of the minutiae of our days or nights, so we need to choose what we’ll communicate. How do you know what will best illustrate your character to your contacts?

The answer will depend on your character! I usually only communicate about things that I feel very strongly about — topics I’m passionate about — which in itself reflects my character to some degree. You might decide to focus on communicating the things you enjoy or like the most, or information regarding what you feel are the main, or most important, areas of your life. Conversely, you may choose predominantly to communicate about lighthearted, non-serious topics if you’re that kind of person.

Characterization in Practice

Some of my contacts are extremely good at characterization. One, a designer, uses a combination of his blog, Twitter and Flickr to communicate his professional and personal interests in a very coherent form, though at first glance, it may seem fragmented. He uses his blog to chart his creative pursuits and interests, Flickr to illustrate his role as a husband and dad, and Twitter to make brief philosophical comment on the world.

He rarely, if ever, links between the three, so he possibly sees these channels as serving different audiences. But as a friend and creative contact who I follow fairly closely through all these online channels (and see pretty often as well), these efforts combine to make him a very clear-cut character.

Another friend is a computer programmer by day and singer/bassist in a band by night. Between his blog, his Facebook page (he’s just polled his Facebook friends about whether he should cut his hair or not), his Twitter comments (he was recently snapped manning the BBQ at a backyard concert and tweeted the link) and technical articles he writes occasionally, as well as my personal contact with the guy I know and love, I have a clear idea of his character.

Obviously, since personal branding involves a range of channels, consistency of your character across all of these is key, but as my friends’ cases illustrate, it doesn’t mean you have to communicate the same pieces of information across all of those channels. But it may. Ultimately, the way you communicate your character is limited only by your creativity and personal preferences.

However you implement characterization, it will help your personal branding if you think about yourself as a character in your own story. I should help you put yourself in your audience’s shoes, and choose to communicate that character efficiently, effectively, and thoroughly through various channels.

How do you communicate your character online?

Photo by stock.xchng user somadjinn.

The most common option is to brand yourself under a company, which works well when your company name is unique, brandable and broad enough to encompass a variety of products and services. This option works well for technology companies, for example, like Google and Apple.

Another option is to brand yourself under your own name. This is the way I ultimately decided to brand myself, but coming to that conclusion wasn’t quick or easy.

How It Works For Me

In years past, I tried to identify and promote each of my business ventures individually, but more recently, I asked myself what my main mission was for my work and business. I was able to succinctly say that my goal was to be a resource for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Once I realized that I had that one central objective, I saw that it really served as an umbrella for all that I do.

All of my work in some way supports small business owners and entrepreneurs. I have one site that provides articles and podcasts on issues related to small business owners, as well as products and services to help them along their way. I have a radio show that covers topics relevant to this same group, as well as a web design company that serves, for the most part, solo entrepreneurs. And, of course, I write for sites like this one on topics relevant to the group.

That unifying thread of serving small business owners and the entrepreneurial crowd shows itself in everything that I do, and usually, clients who work with me through one of my sites end up working with or following me through one or more of the others, so I decided to simply introduce myself under my own name. I changed my email signature, Twitter handle, Posterous handle, etc. to my personal name (or a shorter version of it), and now, when I introduce myself, my business card points people to my main web site (the domain is my name), which then links them to any of my business ventures that fall under the umbrella of what I do.

Instead of trying to wrap my mind around all the different products, companies, or spin-off sites that I develop, which will likely be an ever-growing and changing list, I now focus on thinking about what I personally want to represent and be known for: helping small business owners and entrepreneurs through a variety of resources, products, and services. People start with knowing me and what I do and then figure out which of the sites under that umbrella might help them.

Other Successful Examples

Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, and Gary Vaynerchuk are examples of successful entrepreneurs who identify themselves by their own names rather than those of their companies. They each have two or more sites, books, or companies underneath them and are considered experts in a particular area or niche. Seth Godin is known for marketing, Chris Brogan for social networking, and Gary Vaynerchuk for parlaying passion into business. Their followers know the niche that they serve, and they know them by their individual names first then that of their companies or products.

Michael Port is another example. He has his main, personally-branded site, MichaelPort.com, which directs visitors to any of his books and programs. People know him as a marketing expert, or maybe as the “book yourself solid” guy. They don’t necessarily remember every one of his books or products, but they know him and his name, and they know what he represents.

When to Go With Your Name

I think that if there’s even a remote chance you’ll start another business, sell your current one, or change directions, it’s probably better to go with your name over that of your company. This option works well for entrepreneurs and writers especially. If you think that you’ll start spin-off companies, products, or services and want to be known as an expert on a particular topic, then going with your name might be the easier choice when it comes to branding and promotion.

For me, it’s been much easier to promote myself, definitely, but I’ll also say that it seems to be a lot easier for new contacts to wrap their mind around what I do as well. They immediately see that I do a variety of things, all geared to help them as small business owners. It has made things easier to manage, and I’m much more confident in my marketing efforts as a result.

How do you promote yourself, as your name or that of your company? What made you decide to go that way?

Photo by Flickr user Frogman!, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I saw Mel Gibson on a talk show last night. He was there to promote a new action flick he has coming out, and the host asked him about his “Three E” approach to movie making. He responded that there are three things he tries to achieve with his movies: first entertain, then educate, and then, if possible, elevate.

I instantly thought these were admirable objectives to shoot for in almost any kind of communication, though the order of priority would vary depending on the type of communication and its purpose. It may seem like I’m stating the obvious, but what came to my mind right away was how appropriate these three objectives would be for a content development strategy.

Then it occurred to me that in this context, there has to be a fourth “E,” one that is pretty critical in the social Web: engage.

I wrote about content strategy not too long ago. It’s a hot topic and a rising career field. So if you create content (and who doesn’t these days?), you might want to ask yourself if your content satisfies any of these four criteria. Think of them as a kind of quality control standard.

The content you create — from animated demos to blogs to tweets to videos on YouTube — all influence your clients’ and peers’ perception of you. As a professional, you understand the importance of the quality of your product, and you should consider your content as one of your products.

Think about the people you follow on Twitter or whose blogs you read. Chances are your favorites provide a lot of Es. I looked at the tweets of one of the people I enjoy following, and found that most of his tweets qualified:

Just for fun, take a look at what you put out there and do a quick analysis to assess the quality of your content based on the four Es. What do you see?

If you want to learn more about content strategy, don’t miss “Content Strategy Forum 2010,” two days devoted to the topic in Paris in April.

What guidelines do you use for the content you create?

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Two days ago a friend of mine asked me to review her résumé. Since she’s a graphic designer, I wasn’t surprised that some elements of it reflected her design style. She didn’t just pull up an MS Word template and fill it out.

This made me wonder: Apart from the usual web sites, business cards, and letterheads, are there other opportunities for us to brand ourselves?

Résumé. To elaborate on my friend’s job-hunting experience, she noticed that as she lined up for job interviews, a few of the other candidates had creative résumés as well. Though it may be common for designers, I don’t see why people working in other industries shouldn’t take a similar approach. As long as the execution is legible, cohesive and easy to understand, it may be a good way to stand out from the crowd of applicants. Georgina provided some excellent creative résumé pointers in a recent post.

Email signature. You can also use your business tagline or brand statement under your name in your email signatures. If overdone, this can seem too bothersome and intrusive, so keep the statement short and simple. I’ve seen some colleagues use this differently as well, adding links to industry-relevant PDF reports and white papers they’ve written. Your email signatures don’t have to be always be branded in the same way, either. Use a different signature for each target audience.

Invoices. Even the documents you use to charge customers can be a branding opportunity. If you send paper invoices, this also helps to make sure that the client won’t lose it in a pile of paperwork. For inspiration, you can check out these creative invoices featured by Smashing Magazine.

Milestone sheets, progress reports and other related documents. It’s perfectly sensible to put your logo in these documents, even if you’re already working with a client and don’t necessarily have to sell new services to them. Branding your documents in the same way you brand promotional materials ensures consistency. If these files are misplaced, the client only has to look at the logo to see who sent them.

Avatars. Our social media avatars are usually the first impressions that new contacts have about us. Having a strong image in your avatar makes the branding happen earlier than, say, waiting for them to look at your blog or web site. Last year, Aliza wrote an extensive post on this subject.

Which of these branding opportunities do you already use? Are there other uncommon ways you brand yourself online?

Image by bury-osiol from sxc.hu

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What point? The point at which social networks have become sufficiently popular for entrepreneurs to recognize the potential of this as a market space not just for showing advertisements in well-defined sidebars, but through which they can actively generate sales by using and participating in the social medium itself.

Just as email became a forum for unsolicited sales pitches (spam), web sites for graphical ads, online article comments for the positing of promotional links (comment spam) and blogs for paid reviews and promotions, now paid and sales-centric tweets are on the agenda.

In each of these cases, users felt a certain cynical inevitability as a communications channel that was previously free of promotions — a source of pure information — became yet another forum for selling. But it didn’t stop us using those vehicles.

In the interim, though, confusion and disenchantment reign on both sides of the equation. Today, just as some people ask the question, “Would I tweet if somebody paid me to?”, Aliza and others ask “When is ‘free’ too much of a good thing?” It seems that those of us using social media to brand-build and self-market face real challenges in making social media pay. Perhaps the likely solutions to these problems are as much about our approach and philosophy as they are about the practicalities of using social media to sell.

The Challenge

Nathan Hangen, in “Your Dream is Under Attack”, bemoans the fact that when entrepreneurs break with their self-built tradition of giving away free content by using the same channels to actively promote a product they want to sell, their followers get shirty.

While in “When Is “Free” Too Much of a Good Thing?”, Aliza proposes ways to get around the uneasy feeling that arises when her followers try to take advantage of her professional generosity — the kind of generosity on which millions of online brands, corporate and personal, have been built.

To my mind, underlying these two anecdotes is a single question: Can we harness the enormous potential of social media as a direct sales vehicle?

Social Media in Principle

In his article, Hangen asks, “What is it that makes one place acceptable for commerce, and another ‘sacred’?” Nathan is obviously one of those entrepreneurs who’s at the front of the proverbial wave, and has already perceived the sales-related possibilities of social media.

The thing is that most non-entrepreneurial users see social media as, well, a social forum. Yes, maybe they find your offerings interesting, informational and educational, but most people I speak to see social networks primarily as interesting and entertaining.

From the perspective of the consuming (rather than selling) world, the thing that makes one place acceptable for commerce and another “sacred” — or unacceptable for commerce — is its underlying purpose.

The first place — an online store, your company’s web site, your professional blog — is clearly and primarily built for commerce; the other — a social networking site, a friendship, a weekend barbeque — has fun, interest and enjoyment as its underlying premise. We don’t go to a BBQ hoping to buy a TV, nor do we go to a department store to make friends.

Trust is central to this differentiation. In a commercial forum, the consumer knows that you’ll be trying to obtain their trust so you can sell to them. They’re ready for it. In the second forum, their guard is down: no one’s expected to be actively trying to convince anyone else of their moral credentials. At the same time, though, the other factor that differentiates a social network from a commercial forum is that in a social medium, the user knows they have some control: they have a voice.

So in a real or virtual social network, the development of trust is more organic and more of a two-way street than it is in a commercial forum, since no one has a conscious, vested interest in being seen as trustworthy. People engaged in these networks take a more personal risk in trusting another individual, and invest themselves more heavily in the relationship in the process. They also have the power to make it known if someone in that forum does something to damage that sense of trust.

Is this too touchy-feely a way to think of your Twitter followers or your Facebook fans? If you’re the kind of entrepreneur who talks about your personal branding efforts as “giving back to the community you love”, and “fulfilling your passion”, some would say you’re using the same kind of rhetoric, but in a different field.

The issue of trust is ultimately the reason why, as Nathan testily observes, “when a passionate entrepreneur uses social media to create relationships and ask for money, that’s over the line.” Few of us believe that social relationships should be financial. In the real world, and currently online, these concepts do not usually go together. This may also help to explain the ream of responses to Aliza’s post from entrepreneurs hounded by followers who want usually costly advice for free.

Social Media in Practice

In the frustration of Hangen’s and Aliza’s posts, we’re reminded of that essential truth about social media: we don’t own it, and we can’t control it. Social media is a two-way exchange, so entrepreneurs will always be at the mercy of the crowd. Unlike traditional forms of promotion, social media talks.

Yes, this does mean that the more demanding of your followers can seem mightily demanding. But it also means that as we’re carried along on the inevitable swell of social media’s viral commercialization, we have to accept that the boundaries for those promoting themselves, as well as those hungry for information and advice, won’t always be clear. We need to consciously look for and observe them.

The concept of personal branding has done a lot to blur these lines. So perhaps one of the most important elements is for the entrepreneur to identify the boundaries for themselves before they start trying to sell through social media.

If you decide, for example, that you’re going to use social media to build your professional reputation, you may automatically assume that you’ll disseminate relevant information a way to demonstrate your expertise and passion in your field. Great.

But perhaps you should also ensure that you make it clear from the outset that you’re a business person who has something to sell, to help set the right tone for the relationships you build through your social networking efforts, and possibly keep the number of followers you upset when you promote a special offer, or draw the line on giving further advice, to a minimum.

The techniques entrepreneurs use to navigate the largely unchartered waters of casually dispensing professional wisdom in 140 characters, expressing their personal and professional integrity in posts on a company blog, and telling people about the products and services they’re selling will be as individual as each personal brand. Whatever the case, the entrepreneur must ensure that their approach to social media aligns with the way their audience sees and expects to use it. Once they understand this, if they wish, they can devise appropriate ways to push the envelope toward making social media pay.

Have you used social media to direct-sell your products and services?

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What is Content Strategy?

Kristina Halvorson sums it up nicely in her superb article “The Discipline of Content Strategy” on A List Apart:

“Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”

If you’re tweeting or updating on Facebook or elsewhere, you’ve got creation and publication of content down. But what about all the other keywords in that definition?

Developing a Content Strategy For Your Social Media Presence

Putting together a content strategy for your social media presence can be a real challenge, especially when you mix business with pleasure; my Facebook friends include relatives, old friends, new pals and purely professional contacts, some of whom I’ve never met personally. You can’t please all the people all the time when you have such a mixed audience, and the privacy settings are too global to adequately address this issue. (My only strategy for Facebook is not to publish things that are too personal. Content strategy is as much about what you shouldn’t publish as it is about what you should.)

But Twitter, for example, is a different story. It’s easy to have separate “personal” and “pro” Twitter accounts. And if you have a pro Twitter account, it’s also easy to apply a content strategy to it. The same is true of professional networks like LinkedIn.

Planning and Governance of Useful, Usable Content

Here are some ideas that might help you get started on a strategy:

• Planning: Define your mission (what you want to achieve with your content). Define your audience. Define what you want your content to do for your audience (inform, persuade, entertain). Define the nature of your content (what it should consist of and the tone of the content). Decide how often to produce it. Decide how you will interact with your audience.
• Governance: In this context, I interpret this to mean managing and monitoring your content and its impact, as well as your own role. Are you meeting your audience’s needs? What’s working and what’s not, and why? Is the quality of your content consistently high? Are you responsive and available?
• Useful and usable: Most of the blogs and Twitter accounts of small businesses I see need a content strategy. They tend to be too inwardly focused, all about their own updates and services (boring), or else they are too much about the owner/founder. These businesses generally need to figure out how to provide some real value to their audiences in order to keep them coming back and turn them into real fans, or even evangelists.

Here’s an example: I discovered a nice app the other day called Memory-Life. It’s a site where you can store media and other files in a virtual “box of memories.” (It’s still only available in French, but hopefully not for long. You can see a demo by clicking “Voir la démo.“)

It has a Twitter account, but it could be doing a lot more. Its audience is interested in preserving memories, so in addition to the occasional updates about upgrades and features, it could share links to articles about repairing old photos, or compressing large video files. It could provide creative suggestions, like “Upload pictures of all your grandmother’s jewelry to your box of memories” or “Create your own art gallery with Memory-Life.” It could suggest alternative uses for the app; designers could use it to create inspiration boards, for example.

If you want to connect with and engage an audience, your content has to provoke thought and action. You know you’re adding value if your content is being retweeted, liked and shared. It takes work, but it’s worth it.

You Too Could Be a Content Strategist!

Content strayegy is a relatively new career field. Large corporations are beginning to have in-house content strategists, but there is no reason why this job shouldn’t be done by consultants, which is where you come in. It could be an ideal occupation for a web worker.

If you’d like to learn ore about content strategy, in April, several chapters of the Society for Technical Communication are putting on “Content Strategy Forum 2010,” a two-day conference on content strategy in Paris. The conference is intended for:

“…anyone who develops, manages, or delivers content within their own organization or for their clients: user experience designers, information architects, business analysts, technical writers, web project managers, documentation managers, translators, web marketers, practicing content strategists, and those looking to break into the field.”

Learn more about the conference program and register here (tickets are very affordable).

Here’s some additional recommended reading on content strategy:

• “Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data,” a great article by Rachel Lovinger
• There are several good articles on A List Apart about content strategy.

Have you implemented a content strategy for your social media presence?

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A good bio shares your experience, builds your credibility, makes a first impression and displays your personality. Having a great Twitter bio is important as it can make or break a person’s decision whether to follow you or not.

Not only do you need to pay attention to what your bio says about you, but also the other fields in your profile including “Web” and “Location.” The Twitter bio may be small, but it’s powerful. Here is a checklist to ensure you your bio passes muster.

Does your bio include relevant keywords? Do you want people to find you by your career, company, industry, location? Why are you using Twitter? Who are the people you want to connect with? Use these to figure out what keywords to use.

The keywords for me include “writer,” “editor” and “games” (I do game reviews.) I built my bio around those and added a personal touch at the end: “Content maven aka writer, editor and bookwormette who plays with words and games (www.thegamezen.com) in between PTA work and refereeing the kids.” Yes, I snuck in a URL, even though it’s not clickable.

Does your bio cover what you do? People who use Twitter for networking and business tend to follow people based on what they do and their topics of interest. The “what you do” part can also get you on people’s lists. For instance, I have lists for writers, marketers, PR peeps and so on; and it’s the bios that helped me with building my Twitter lists.

What do you have under “Location”? While many of us can work with people all over the world, our locations can lead to surprising opportunities. In fact, I had lunch with someone I met in Twitter. Within just a few tweets, we found out that we live within a mile of each other! Again, this can get you on location-based Twitter lists like mine, which covers Dallas-Fort Worth.

Have you seen nonsense numbers for location such as UT: 12.345678, -234.5678? This comes from Twitter applications like Ubertwitter, but these mean nothing to most people. (FYI: you can enter these coordinates in Google Maps to find the person’s location.) Originally, I had “Plano, Texas” and changed it to “Plano, Texas, north of Dallas” so those searching for “Dallas” will find me.

What does your web link look like? This might seem like a strange question, but some people put in short URLs (tinyurl, bit.ly, ow.ly, is.gd, etc.) in this field. Most of us have learned the hard way not to trust this. Twitter doesn’t shorten the links in this field, so don’t use a shortened URL link. It reeks of spam. “Hidden URLs are usually spam sites or MLM marketing,” tweets Suzanne (aka ZeroCattle.)

Where does your web link go? There’s no one single obvious answer. Often I want to go straight to a person’s blog, if they have one. Sometimes I just want to read more about the person. Some people create a landing page specifically for Twitter, which is where my link goes. However, I wonder if pointing to my blog would be a better idea.

Suzanne suggests linking to your business’ web site or to a profile on a social network site, if you don’t have your own site. While it’s easy to set up your own site, not everyone has the need for one especially those in corporate careers. Peggy Dolane (aka FreeRangeMom) likes to see a person’s web link take her where she can learn more about them or their passions.

Don’t worry too much about having the perfect bio. Many of us have tweaked our bios over time while becoming more comfortable and familiar with Twitter. Even my own is probably version 3.3. Remember, be yourself. That’s what makes you stand out.

What do you look for in a Twitter profile?

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