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Soulati-'TUDE!

12 Most Do Now Online Reputation Punch List Items

01/07/2014 By Jayme Soulati

When you sell, buy or build a home, there is a punch list of items on the to-do list to close or complete the deal. Bet you didn’t know social media had one, too? When you engage on social channels, you are building online reputation. You want it to remain pristine. That’s why these punch list items to uphold your personal brand are so important. You should take care of your online self just as you do your vehicle (5,000-mile oil change), your HVAC unit (annual inspection), teeth cleaning every six to nine months, or annual doctor visit.

Every six months or so, consider these online reputation punch list items for your social media presence:

1. Your Avatar Had A Birthday. The little picture you post in all your profiles is called an avatar. If you never change it, you stay forever young. That feels really good as you gaze at a gorgeous you, but what happens when you meet someone IRL (in real life) and they say, “My, you look nothing like your avatar!” What they’re really saying is, “You’re so much older!”

2. Delete Old Photos. While nothing is ever gone from the Internet, you should try to control which personal image you want captured on websites. When you update profile images, ensure the image you’re deleting is nowhere in use on other social media channels. Basically, you’re trying to limit the number of online photos people get to use.

3. Consider Using Gravatar. When you sign up with , a WordPress.com tool, you upload a photo and brief bio. This photo and personal info populate automatically across the Interwebz (all the online social channels). If someone needs your photo for a blog post or other marketing, they can grab it from Gravatar.

4. Update Your Bio. As you grow professionally, you accomplish more and the list of achievements grows. Every single bio sketch you have ever written must be updated on a consistent basis. If you’re at all like me, I update my bio sketch every few months. This means when you update it in one place you have to keep going and update it everywhere.

5. Delete The Year Of Your Birth. Facebook recently informed me a friend was having a 62nd birthday the next day. Shocked, I posted in my news feed that Facebook was infringing on privacy! No, actually, when you set up your Facebook profile you can elect not to include the year of your birth. That means people can wish you a happy birthday, but they won’t know how young you’re getting! Go to your Facebook settings and delete the year of your birth.

6. Check Privacy Settings. On every social media channel with which you engage, click on settings and carefully review the boxes you’ve checked for privacy. Do you want only “friends” to see your profile and share with you? Do you want to receive third-party junk mail (spam)? Do you want to block the ex-husband or stalker girlfriend from your stream? Be very aware of privacy settings although we all know sharing/living online is nowhere near private (right?).

7. Check Third-Party Apps. When you sign in to a new app or online tool using Twitter or Facebook, you’ve essentially given permission for that app to crawl personal information, friends’ lists and liking behavior. Click the settings buttons on Facebook and Twitter until you find third-party apps or permissions settings. Delete the apps you’re no longer using or engaging with. This is important to pay attention to, and few do.

8. Google Yourself. Everyone should Google themselves! When was the last time you did? You need to see what’s popping up under your name and whether you need to kick into high gear and fix anything negative. If your name is the same as a serial killers, well, that’s going to be a problematic for your online reputation. There are things to do to ensure your reputation remains stellar, and the steps what to do require an entirely new blog post!

9. Update Your Website. Never forget to update your “About” page on your website. You can be a maker of artisanal jewelry or the CMO of a mid-tier company. The information about you is critical, and it cascades across all social media profiles beginning with LinkedIn.

10. Add Personal Info To Comment Systems. When you blog, you get to use a comment system like CommentLuv, Disqus or Livefyre. For each of these, you also can add an avatar (typically automatically taken from an existing photo on Twitter or Gravatar) as well as a tagline describing what you do. Here’s my example to help clarify. I use Livefyre as my blog’s comment system, and I used to have “B2B Social Media Marketing with PR” as my descriptor. It appeared next to my name and avatar. Because I recently updated my professional tagline, this now says “Hybrid PR” with my name and avatar. Do take advantage of things like this; it helps you build your professional brand.

11.Add Your To Social Sharing.Add Your Twitter ID To Social Sharing. For bloggers who use social sharing buttons from AddThis, AddToAny, Shareaholic and others, you are able to customize the retweet content of that blog post share. Let’s say someone wants to share your blog post and they click on the Twitter sharing icon. When it pops up, they see 1) @Wordpress.com 2) @AddToAny or @Shareaholic 3) no personal branding at all. What you want instead is your Twitter ID on every retweet so you can see who’s retweeting your content at various levels of sharing. You’re not owning your content without this type of personal customization; you’re allowing the share bar vendors to capitalize on your content marketing.

12.Use This is the most fun and easiest way to develop an online reputation. See Number 8! If my name was the same as a serial killer’s name, I would run to this website and immediately engage. You add positive links about yourself, your bio, your avatar, and this site tells you how to boost each link for maximum search engine exposure. If you lead a highly professional online life, like me, then privacy is out and working daily to keep a positive online reputation is in.

July 17, 2013 (and it’s still relevant!).

Filed Under: Branding Tagged With: 12Most.com, Avatar, brandyourself.com, Facebook, gravatar, online reputation, personal branding, privacy settings, social marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Three Tips To Stay The Course

07/11/2012 By Jayme Soulati

It was about time for a bit of video; I so love this medium, but stink at any of the editing. So, you get me raw and in one take. I’m trying to figure out how to import this into iMovie on the Big Mac, but if I can’t do it in five minutes, then time to move on.

What’s the message today? Three tips to stay the course in two minutes. I’m sensing a bunch of animosity, uncertainty and doubt; this summer hello may put you back on course…I hope so! See what you think!

Filed Under: On The Street, Thinking Tagged With: Blogging, personal branding, Tips

How To Write Twitter Profiles With 10 Tips

05/23/2012 By Jayme Soulati

I was drawn to Twitter.com last week for something I don’t recall and decided to follow a bunch of peeps who had kindly followed me. I can really only do this en masse via Twitter’s platform and not via HootSuite, my app of choice.

Reviewing about a few hundred profiles all at once to determine if someone was fit to follow was a cringeful (yep, that’s a word) experience. I was taken aback that peeps still aren’t writing Twitter profiles with substance.

Here’s what I saw that I didn’t like:

  • Locked profiles. Why do this when were all trying to engage? If you’re afraid, maybe you shouldn’t be on Twitter anyway? If someone is stalking you, then just delete that individual profile instead of turning away everyone else.
  • I Love My Wife. Are you so sexy that women are asking for your phone number, Guys? Should I say “single and seeking” on my profile and should my friend say “In love with my hubby?” I wonder if this is a statement to appease the wives who wonder what the heck their husbands are doing online all the time and with whom? Too much personal for me.
  • Nothing. For goodness sakes, add something to your profile. Add some key words that describe your job, who you want to follow, your hobbies, where you live, if you’re a student, or something descriptive.
  • Wacked avatar. I’ve written about this in the past; you need an avatar someone can align to, can feel comfortable about, that is not an animal or a building. We’re communicating on a very social platform; show me your face!
  • Caps. Please don’t scream at me. I don’t need to see your profile in all caps, especially when you’re spouting off about yourself, too.
  • Sales Pitch. Folks selling products? Fine, I respect that, but please be more creative with the profile. Rather than carry on about the product features, tell my why I should engage with you? I’m gonna pass you by because you’re a product and not a person.

What else have you seen that I didn’t add above?

10 Tips

So, here are 10 tips for how to write a Twitter profile (just short of turning all the above around into positives):

1. Be personable and show me who you are with key words that give me a sense of your profession and interests.

2. Limit family talk but not all the time. If you want to talk about your family, please do, but don’t ever assume you have to add the number of children in your household (unless you’re a mommy blogger or mom seeking same and then you’re probably not going to follow me anyway?) or whether you’re in love with your spouse. This goes into your goals (see below) for Twitter — personal or business?

3. Keep politics out of your profile unless you’re running for election. That will be the death of your brand. The U.S. is too divided today to accept either side of the aisle in casual tweets.

4. Share something about your aptitude. Maybe you work for a living as a professional? Maybe you teach? Maybe you’re a pro boxer? Musician? Whatever, Share that as it gives someone an opportunity to follow you with a common thread.

5. Always provide your . I seek that often in someone’s profile and am disappointed when I can’t find it. Hmm, I better to ensure it’s there!

6. Please add an avatar of your face? It is so frustrating not being able to visualize someone on the other side of a tweet after so many years of tweeting together. (I’ve been told people hide for various personal reasons.)

7. Can you show me some personality? You’ve got a short space to describe who you are, but challenge yourself to be creative and show as many sides of yourself as you can.

8. Take your profile to Twellow and We Follow; register yourself to connect with like-minded Tweeps. When you synch your Twitter account, your profile is how you attract new followers.

9. Write a profile with the goal of attaining something – new business, a job, a guest blog post, or something. If you’re seeking a spouse, head to Match.com.

10. Set goals for your Twitter experience (different than a goal for your profile). Are you on Twitter for business or personal reasons? Write content in alignment with  your goals. A profile is a mirror of that ultimate strategy.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Branding, Social Media Tagged With: personal branding, Twitter, Twitter profiles

Personal Branding CeeLo Green Style

05/18/2012 By Jayme Soulati

I am always inspired with blog fodder in my numero-uno favorite ‘zine, . This month’s edition just graced my kitchen table (yes, it’s always cluttered with reading material I never read), and on the cover is my new fave “hyphenate, a strung-together mash up of titles made mandatory when no single job description suffices.” His hyphenate is ~singer-writer-producer-personality-actor-entrepreneur-mentor-freak.

, aka Thomas DeCarlo Calloway, age 37, graces the cover with Purrfect the Persian (that’s why I like CeeLo, he has great taste in felines) ranked number five in Fast Company’s List of the . What an amazing accolade, and when you read the story , you’ll nod in agreement.

Did you watch ? I DVR’d the entire season (first time ever). This man absolutely cracked me up with his sultry, sexy lady-killer approach alongside his serious appreciation and compassion for his final two contestants on The Voice.  He felt like big brother and big daddy all in one – such a many-faceted hyphenate.

Here is the second reason I was interested enough to write about him today:

“It’s all strategy, a careful cultivation of image through massive exposure, but at its core is a sense of purpose.”

Read that again! How powerful, how spot-on for someone creating a personal brand within the most hotly cluttered industry in the world – Hollywood and the U. S. music scene.

  • Hyphenate. I’ve never seen this word used as a noun, but it goes. Maybe one of the reasons I was compelled to write about is because I feel like a bit of a hyphenate myself; let me try:

PR professional-social media leader-brand marketer-professional blogger-strategist-business coach-writer-creative idea generator-mentor-blahblahblah

Please add yours in comments!

  • . So many years ago, I recognized I was the brand. Companieshired me, regardless of where I worked and what I named my companies (I’ve had two other formal companies).

Reading this piece about CeeLo (I never knew of him prior to watching The Voice) is affirmation that a personal brand must be cultivated every day on all mediums, channels and in a variety of methods.

How do you promote your personal brand? There’s a ton written on this topic; I’ve not read their articles. Taking pointers from CeeLo, I’d suggest a purposeful mix of intelligence, zany fun, sophistication, and professionalism work quite well. For sure, personal branding is not a cake walk. Perseverance helps, and well, making $20 million a year might be somewhat effective, too.

Filed Under: Branding Tagged With: CeeLo Green, Fast Company, personal branding

ALT="Jayme Soulati"

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