Build Your Personal Brand by Ryan Rhoten

At WordCamp Dayton, I made the decision to walk out of a presentation that was a bit too basic for my skill level & attend Ryan Rhoten’s “Build Your Personal Brand” & I’m certainly glad I did. Please find my notes & overview of Ryan’s presentation below.

Reasons to Manage What Comes Up When You Google Your Name

• 93% of recruiters check your online profile BEFORE they give you a call.(based on a survey conducted on Jobvite)
• 70% of employers have rejected a job candidate because of information they found about that person online.(based on a survey conducted on LinkedIn)
• 85% of employers say that a positive online reputation influences their hiring decisions. (based on a survey conducted on LinkedIn)

Social Media
About the time I walked into Ryan’s presentation, he was discussing how we should secure our own name as a URL (e.g. elisemccabe.com – in my case – which is on this year’s bucket list to morph into a resume site), as well as, grabbing whichever social media platforms that your name is available on. To see which social media platforms your name is available on; go to: Know Em? & Name Check (which at the time of writing this post appears to be down).

In order to effectively engage with your audience, it’s better to boil the milk, be present on a few social media platforms & ignore the rest. So acquire your name on platforms that you’ll regularly use & leave the rest for another Elise McCabe to use as they please. To determine which social media platform is right for what purpose, Ryan recommends reading Jab Jab Right Hook.

In order to maximize your social media endeavors, it’s important to both create & curate content. Following this method lightens your load as far as writing goes & gives your readers a well rounded view of the issue at hand.

Social media is a conversation not a conversion. Instead of your posts being “me, me, me,me” they should be “you, you, you, me.”

Blogging
How do you figure out what to blog about? Ask yourself:

• What are your hobbies?
• What do people ask you about?
• What do you want to be known for?

Your goal is the become the google of your niche.

Both Blogging & Social Media

• Position yourself as a resource. Be where people go to find out about your niche.
• Be focused & consistent. Ignore all platforms & focus on a few.
• Take help from an app like Buffer to manage your social media presence. It allows you to schedule posts at various times throughout the day.
• Set up rules on Buffer to automate processes: if this then that. If this happens then I want this action to take place.
• Curate. Share posts/content others have created – of course, always give due credit.

When you share content from multiple sources you are sharing from a place of abundance.

That’s about it for my notes from Ryan’s presentation. Click here to view his presentation slides.