Dancing at My Desk

Blissdom 2010: Personal Branding – Defining “You” Online

This session was led by Alli Worthington (@alliworthington), Shelly Kramer (@shellykramer) and Liz Strauss (@lizstrauss).

Description: Your blog and social media presences are a digital representation of you, so make sure you are putting your best foot (or most gorgeous shoe) forward whenever you are leaving a social media footprint. Focus on building a stellar personal brand for yourself, your blog and your career and how to most successfully promote yourself with social media.

We start off with the obligatory introductions although these women hardly really need them. Alli says that one of the best things about planning her own conference is that you can put yourself in a panel and surround yourself with people who are way smarter than you.

When you think about branding, there are two things to keep in mind:

• “Who” do people THINK we are?
• Who are we REALLY

This session is very interactive and conversation-based. When we are talking about brand, there is a huge chasm between the two bullet points above. Liz talks about the evolution of relationships and how her life went from a very reciprocal-based relationship (she knew people and they knew her in real life) and has moved into a state where people know her and (to coin someone else’s phrase) “revere” her, but she doesn’t know them.

The floor opens up to questions for people who are struggling with the whole concept and process of branding. The question arose about “what or who do you lean on for inspiration on defining who you are?”

Alli: Does her best to adhere to the philosophy of “do the most good for the most people.” She says she tries to be very transparent and admits when she is wrong.

Liz: Says she tries to remember the phrase “The whole world didn’t get together to decide that I don’t belong here.”

Shelly: Recommends using Twitter to find people that you respect and model your path after theirs.

Question: I want to start blogging more about certain topics of my life but it doesn’t fit the current theme of my blog. Should I start a new one or do I risk alienating readers by interjecting things into my blog?

Alli: Talked about her personal experiences and highlighted that if you’re not happy or passionate, then you shouldn’t be doing it.

Liz: Questioned on whether or not “alienate” was the right word. She said “I’d rather be me, because then I know for sure that people who like me, really like me.”

Alli: (Jumping back in) If you are truly blogging about yourself, it’s going to change and evolve just like you do.

Shelly: She says that she has a very transparent personality that has some rough edges. Shelly struggled with her blogging voice because she didn’t want to offend people or lose potential clients. But then she realized that if people didn’t like her blog, they’re probably not going to like her in real life so they shouldn’t be working together anyway.

Liz: Being who you are doesn’t mean saying everything you think. Be consistently who you are. (Liz then goes on to discuss her personal branding story.) In the early days, things were happening where Liz felt she needed to brand herself. She had made a huge mistake and her community rallied around her. She had been signing blog posts and emails with “Liz, The Nice One.” This is the line her community used to defend her. But she found she wanted to be branded as intelligent too (not just nice) and she had to push to make that happen.

Shelly: There are things that you love to write about and things you hate to write about. So figure out what fits into your brand and go from there. Don’t just rely on what you like or don’t like.

Liz: What is your differentiator? What is your message? Are you the nice one? Decide what your message is. You can change it later, but you should have one because then people know what to say about you. Our lives are getting more and more seamless. We’re meeting more online friends in offline situations and we’re seeing our offline friends get online. Stay out of the pedestal mentality because then others are defining you.

Question: How do you insert yourself as an expert in an industry?

Alli: Tell people. Be everywhere, help other people and watch things happen.

Liz: Reminds us how much Madonna’s image has changed and how her brand has evolved. If you put yourself in the center of the Universe, it will be unbalanced. Make your Universe about the people around you. Know where you want to go  because that is irresistibly attractive to people because everyone wants to know where they are going.

Question: How do I get more comments without sounding like I’m begging.

Alli: Admits that she is building a new blog and won’t allow comments; she will ask people to talk to her on Twitter. We’re all needy at heart and comments can mess with a blogger.

Liz: Don’t write things that are so beautifully written that all I can say is “gosh, that was beautiful.” If you have a list of 10 points, only write about 5 of them and ask for more. Don’t write “what do you think?” That’s too big of a question. Ask additional questions in the comments rather than just saying thank you.

Shelly: There are great resources available on blog comments, how to get them, and what to do with them. Comments are an art and every blogger struggles with that.

Other highlights:

Liz: I’m not the same person on Twitter that I am on my blog. On Twitter I go wide, on my blog I go deep. Use Twitter to peak curiosity to drive traffic to my blog.

Alli: Twitter killed my blog. I’m lazy and love Twitter but it really killed my blog.