My Personal Brand Plan

As per requirement, I had to construct an online personal brand plan for myself and execute it in full within a time frame of 5 weeks. My plan will focus on both my personal and professional interests and will draw upon the social media tools I am currently using. I find the project both challenging and interesting. As I still have an unclear picture of what I want my personal brand to ultimately be, I feel as if I am heading in the right direction.

Below is my online personal brand plan:

BACKGROUND:

My name is Matthew Ventura. I am a public relations student at Humber College who has an affinity for travel and a penchant for film and music. I am a driven, hard working and creative person whose professional interests lie in event planning, media relations and social networking. I am a slight perfectionist with a fine attention to detail. Social, friendly and resourceful, I am a person on whom you can rely. I enjoy being challenged, will always get the job done, and I am not afraid to ask for help when I need it. My goal is to further immerse myself in the new and exciting world of social media and learn how to effectively use it as a professional branding tool.

MY APPLICATIONS:

Humber PR Profile

Link: click here

I am a semi-active user on the ning website. I have posted content in my blog section as well as in some discussion forums. As the semester continues, I plan to add more relevant content to my page and engage myself on the website more often. The ning website is an interesting online community where all of the Public Relations students at Humber College can connect and share content. Important information about the PR programs and even general interest information are made readily available for all.

Action Plan:

• Frequent use of ning website for posting of assignments and any relevant information that students might want to know about (i.e. interesting blog posts, upcoming events, CPRS related events, etc.)
• Interact with other members of the ning website, including both professors and students
• Linking more of my personal blog posts to my ning page so that they are available to all
• Link my ning webpage to all other social media applications

Facebook

Link: click here

I am a very active user on Facebook, and I understand its value and potential in terms of social networking. I am active on a daily basis and post quite frequently. I plan to clean up and polish my page so that it is positioned to be a little more professional and a little less personal. However, I still plan to use Facebook as an outlet for my own personal interests apart from school and work. My Facebook page will be a truer reflection of myself both personally and professionally.

Action Plan:

• Clean up and edit photo/comment/posting sections in profile
• Polish my “Info” section; gear it toward my personal and professional interests (i.e. film, travel, music, event planning, etc.)
• Make my profile public and available to all in order to increase transparency
• Link my Facebook account to all other social media applications
• Create a profile statement. I will use the one I have created for my personal brand plan
• Join interesting and relevant groups – expand my social network

Twitter

Link: click here

I use Twitter solely for educational and professional purposes, and I am a semi-active user. I am already following 60 relevant and interesting “Twitterers,” and I am always searching for new and like-minded thinkers. I am up to 30 tweets and I have retweeted some valuable information in the #humberpr and #CPRS forums. I plan to become a more active user and post at least 100 relevant tweets by the end of the semester. Twitter is an excellent tool for networking with leaders in the industry, and information is spread with relative ease and speed. I think Twitter is a very valuable tool for positioning your online identity and the identity of your organization. Twitter is also a means through which you can connect with your audience(s) on a personal and professional level.

Action Plan:

• Post at least 100 relevant tweets by the end of the semester
• Tweet about assignment #3 – evaluation of an organization’s use of social media
• Follow between 90 – 100 social media experts and expand my network so that I have access to a broad wealth of valuable information
• Provide links to my three best Twitter updates
• Tweet about guest speakers and assignments I am working on in class
• Suggest people who I am following to the class, so they have access to some of the valuable information that I have access to
• Link my Twitter account to all other social media applications

Personal Blog

Link: click here

Blogspot is a creative and simple blogging website which, I find, has many uses. I am not yet an active user, and I only have one blog post (social media application review) thus far. I plan to enrich my personal blog with posts about school, my interests, work and life, in an attempt to help establish my own personal brand and online identity. Links to my blog posts will be provided on the ning website in my blog section. Blogs are valuable tools for communications professionals because they offer further transparency and can help readers identify with an individual according to their shared interests. Blogs provide a wealth of information on an infinite number of special interests and are excellent for linking to other relevant content.

Action Plan:

• Guest speaker blog posts (at least 3 speakers I found interesting)
• Links to my three best blog comments
• Series of blogs entitled Word of the Day / Word of the Week – which will feature a word that I may have heard and not known the meaning of and its definition. The posts are meant to help improve my writing skills and will touch upon my interest in creative writing.
• Blog post for assignment #3 – evaluation of an organization’s use of social media
• Blog post about people to follow on Twitter
• Blog post for my Current Events presentation (Nov 30)
• Blog post about my personal brand plan
• Link my personal blog to all other social media applications

LinkedIn

Link: click here

LinkedIn is a social networking website geared toward professionals who have work experience in the industry. While it is not very useful for a student with little work experience, I find it valuable for networking and connecting with some of the guest speakers I have booked for our CPRS events. It is a great starting point for meeting professional contacts, and as I get closer to my placement opportunity my profile will be a great item to have on my resume. I have only just created my profile, and much work needs to be done to tailor it to my professional interests, abilities and experience.

Action Plan:

• Create a profile statement for my webpage. I will use the one I have created for my personal brand plan.
• Fill in the “specialties” section of the profile and ensure I am highlighting all my strengths
• Connect with more professionals in the industry (currently at 14 connections)
• Fill in any other background information to enrich my profile and give it depth
• Link my LinkedIn profile to all other social media applications

Google Reader/RSS feeds

Link: click here

I enjoy Google Reader and RSS feeds because they make information so readily available without the cumbersome work of visiting multiple websites. All of the blogs that I am following are organized either on one webpage or in my tool bar, and I am directed to information immediately at the click of my mouse. I am currently only following one blog in Google Reader and have subscribed to three RSS feeds.

Action Plan:

• Discover and follow new and interesting blogs on a variety of topics
• Subscribe to more RRS feeds on various topics to develop a broad range of flowing information
• Comment frequently on blogs I find interesting to help build my network and online identity

TweetDeck

Link: N/A

TweetDeck is a great tool for combining my Facebook and Twitter accounts into one easy to use interface. TweetDeck also incorporates MySpace, but I do not own an account. I am able to stay on top of all my tweets and updates using this tool, and it is great for keeping up with these fast-paced social networking tools.

REJECTED APPLICATIONS

AIM Express

AIM Express is an instant messaging tool akin to MSN messenger, Skype or TweetDeck. It is designed to combine instant messaging with your other social networks (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Delicious) all into one feed. The application provides you with up to date profiles, tweets, links, and instant messages from within your network. I originally thought that the application would take a new and unique approach to combining various social networking tools, but I soon realized that it does everything but. The application is pointless because there are so many others (MSN and Yahoo) that are just like it, and they are doing a much better job at branding themselves as leaders in social media. This is just another example of an over saturation in social networking tools that all do basically the same thing.

BingTweets

In a failed attempt, BingTweets.com incorporates Bing.com’s search results with Twitter’s trending features to create a pile of amalgamated garbage. I tested the application because I thought the idea of using an optimizing search engine alongside Twitter was new and interesting, but I found the application to be a complete disaster. It only works when using broad search terms, and even then most of the information it gathers is useless or irrelevant. The application is certainly not useful for searching for something specific (i.e. a report on Canada’s Health Care Reform), and I think it really adds no value to the already cluttered world of search engines.

Skype

Here is yet another useless chat client with relatively few features other than being an online telephone. Users can voice and video conference one another using Skype, and users can also pay a steep fee to conference someone’s mobile device directly. I had originally thought that Skype was this amazing and innovative chat client with all these incredible new features, but it was a big bust. I downloaded the application and found that all it did was freeze my computer. It is not convenient to use when you have other things open on your desktop, and the only people who would find use out of this chat client are people who live overseas and do not want to pay their hefty service provider charges. I quickly deleted the application because I found no use for it. All of my friends live within my area code.

Social Media Application Review: Twitter

Twitter: "a short burst of inconsequential information"

Before I begin this blog post I quickly want to review the definition of the word Twitter, which in my opinion, sums up the concept of the application quite neatly.

I am sure that many, if not all of us, have sat in a class or in a library wondering what our friends were up to. Calling them in either of these situations, however, would not only be disruptive to those around you but it would be downright rude! What if I told you that there was a way to find out what these people were up to, what they were talking about and what they were thinking - all without the laborious conversation or disruptive phone call? And what if I told you that you could connect with virtually anyone, anywhere in the world, all at the tips of your fingers?

Here's the pitch - you can do all this in 140 characters or less.

Fellow bloggers, I am here to blog to you about the social media PHENOMENON known as only as Twitter.
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A Brief History

Twitter's modest beginnings started in sunny San Fransisco, California as the brainchild of Chairman Jack Dorsey. He and the board of directors for the podcasting company Odeo first conceptualized the idea of the application in 2006. At first, Twitter was just a simplified SMS text-based "status updating" application. Since then, Twitter has exploded into the world of social media, introducing the world to the craze known as "micro-blogging" and is now ranked as third amongst the most used social networks.

An early sketch of the application, it was originally
known only as "Status"

What is truly remarkable is not only the application itself, but the speed at which it has reached so many in such a short period of time. Here are some stats, in just three short years Twitter now has:

• An average of 55 million monthly visits
• A monthly growth of 1,382 per cent
• A projection of 1 billion users by 2013
• Been ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide

WOW. In terms of website growth, those numbers are pretty impressive.
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¿Did You Know?

Twitter was used repeatedly as part of the Canadian and U.S. election campaigns. Notably, Democratic Party nominee and now U.S. President Barack Obama used it for publicity. Twitter also facilitated real-time updates during terrorist attacks (the Mumbai bombings), near-airplane disasters (the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River) and the H1N1 health scare.

Are celebrities your thing? Why not find out what they are up to? Now more than ever, we have the opportunity to get up close and personal with celebrities and influentials alike. We can follow their every move, find out what they like, where they are and we can even talk to them if we want. Gone are the days when you need to "befriend" someone before you can learn about them, now all you have to do is follow them on Twitter!

Fun Fact

One of Twitter's biggest growths came when Ashton Kutcher and CNN competed in a friendly race to hit one million Twitter followers first. The actor beat the news network and now ranks as Twitter's most popular celebrity with over three million people tuning in for his updates.

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Twitter: Craze or Phase?

To be quite honest, before I began this course I had formed a very biased opinion about Twitter. I looked at it only as another application that would govern my life. Facebook was a chore to manage in itself, and I simply could not keep up with yet another social networking tool. The fact that the only people who seemed to be using it in the media were Disney tweens also added fuel to the fire.

Reluctantly, I signed up for an account as per requirement for the course.

Today I can sit here and say that I truly am glad that I am now a member of the Twitter family, and I am under the thrall of the craze. Upon my extensive research into the application I soon realized that Twitter was not only a tool for tech-savvy tweens or communications gurus. Certainly public relations practitioners will find great use out of Twitter in terms of positioning their own personal and their organization's online identities. But anyone with a basic inclination to communicate and share information will find great use out of the application. With user age demographics all over the board, Twitter truly has something for everybody.

Because the application is so versatile and the interface is simple to use, Twitter appeals to people of all ages - even your grandmother could use it! Features like Twitter Mobile make "tweeting" from virtually any mobile device simple, without incurring any of those nasty data fees.

I personally found the application appealing because it is in constant flux. It is not static. No longer must you open up the browser on your phone, load your profile, update your status and constantly re-open your browser to check if anyone has commented on it. No longer are you sitting and reading a long, winded paragraph about your friend's favourite quotes and why they are so inspiring. Twitter makes vital and useful information available on a global scale.

Perhaps the greatest appeal is the fact that you are able to tailor your account to suit you and your interests. Simply put, you follow who you think is interesting and those who think you are interesting follow you. Information is spread globally by sharing or "retweeting" it to your followers and they will retweet it, and so on and so forth. With an accumulating number of sister sites like Twitpic and Notepub that are hosts to many different types of multimedia, even more information is made readily available via one simple tweet.

Screen shot of TwitPic


Screen shot of NotePub

But will it last?

Given its widespread success and phenomenal growth, I think we are only seeing the beginnings of Twitter. The application has much potential and with plans to enhance system uptime and add search engine capabilities, Twitter will become a force not to be reckoned with. Future goals also include increasing the overall revenue stream through the use of add-on features. While Twitter may not be going anywhere anytime soon, what I do suspect is that we will see an over saturation of copycat micro-blogging websites just like it. When there is one, there will always be another - but Twitter will stand the test of time.
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Reflections...

The speed dating assignment was truly a great learning experience. Not only did I learn about this blogging website, which is free and simple to use. I learned that many other applications incorporate Twitter into their interfaces to create cohesive and powerful social networking tools. Examples include: AIM Express, Bingtweets, Google Reader and Flikr. This further proves that Twitter is certainly a versatile application and can be applied in so many different ways. So get creative!




TwitTip

Have you ever wanted to tweet a link to a website or blog but found that the link took up most of your 140 character limit? Avoid those long, cumbersome URLs by simply copying and pasting them into websites designed to shorten links, like tinyurl or bit.ly.

I would like to end this blog post with the above video. Instead of defining Twitter like I did at the start of the blog, this video captures the true essence of how social networking applications connect us all. Through tools like Twitter we can now work collectively to reach organizational goals, no matter how large or small the scale.