ThePodcastSisters

Ego Surf To Check The Health Of Your Personal Brand Online

One of the strategies I advise my clients is to ensure that they "ego surf" - in other words check what others will find when and if someone looks for them in the search engines.

I recommend that you check this each month and make sure that you check your name and your company name both with and without the "" around your name.

A great reason fo doing so is you just never know what you might find when checking the visibility of your personal brand online.

Today I checked against my name and to my suprise there was a wonderful testimonial posted by someone about the assistance I had given them about branding, blogging and social media.

Many times people may link back to you if you have a business blog and it's easy to check incoming links especially if you are blogging using Wordpress.org as the links are clearly there for you to check in the Wordpress dashboard.

In this particular case the person had linked to my profile on LinkedIn a social netowrking site used by professionals. I'd never have known that they had written such a great testimonial which has in fact led to another business opportunity if I had not checked my search results in Google.

So if you are worried that Googling yourself is vanity, get over it! You just may be suprised with the wonderful testimonials about you online. Go go one "Google Yourself" today - it may give you a great boost and is far better than a chocolate Easter Egg - and will have much longer lasting results!

Create a branded Facebook ID

Have you wondered how to make sure that you recall your Facebook ID?

Well Faceto.us is a new online free tool to help you customise and brand your Facebook ID.

As an example, my Facebook ID has been shortened to www.faceto.us/krishna and I also registered www.faceto.us/krishnade which is easy to remember and easy to understand when speaking it out loud to people.

I highly recommend you go and register your shortened Facebook ID today with a branded Faceto.us URL to help you build your personal brand online. Oh and don't forget you can connect with me at Facebook too!

And if you would like to know about 4 other online tools I recommend for creating shorter URL's you will find all the details here in this Biz Growth News article.

How to make money podcasting...

... was the question a journalist asked me today. Karen Coleman is a friend who has a radio show on Newstalk, one of the national radio shows in Ireland and I was speaking to her about whether she would like to join us at PodCamp Ireland next week as I know she had expressed an interest some time ago to start podcasting and blogging.

Like many people in business, they often think about how they can spend time creating a podcast which then turns into immediate profit. Karen was concerned that podcasting would not be a financially interesting option for her.

How to monetise and profit from podcasting is a conversation that Paul Colligan and I have had a number of times and Paul is great at getting you to think about developing a strategy for your podcast.

If you are in a situation where you are just getting started podcasting, if you do not have a specific brand or great reputation with a solid following (ideally having build your list) then to be frank, it's highly unlikely that you will be able to monetise your podcast immediately. Podcasting however, just as blogging, is a great way to build your reputation, express your expertise and build your personal brand, from which many opportunties will flow as we have covered on recent shows.

This week I had the opportunity to speak to Leesa Barnes, who I first got to know of via my good friend Andy Wibbels when Leesa was a coach. Leesa is now an author - her new book "Podcasting for Profit" will be formally launched next week and we recorded a podcast for The PodCast Sisters - we'll broadcast it when I'm here left on my own and Heather and Anna are off on their foreign tour!

We had a great conversation and covered a lot of great tips and strategies about profitable podcasting.

However if you can not wait for the show, you can mouse over to get a couple of chapters of Leesa's book and if you do so before the 25 September 2007, she will invite you to a live 75 minute teleclass about podcasting for profit. Leesa has declared the 25 September podcasting for profit day so if you are wondering how you can take your podcast to the next level, do make sure you join her.

Why it's important to edit your podcast

There is a current trend on the web for business leaders to make themselves and their businesses more accessible and real. That is one of the reasons that podcasting and video podcasting is becoming popular as they enable to to connect to the people behind the company.

As we have covered in the show podcasting is becoming ever more accessible and you can even create a podcast over your phone.

However that does not mean that we should take less time and attention over editing our podcast.

Just yesterday I was directed to a recording of a teleseminar which had been held with three business leaders I really trust and respect - it was a preview of an upcoming programme they are leading and as it's in the US and I won't be able to attend it I thought I would listen to the preview call.

The problem was that the person hosting the call had put the content on the web but without editing their general chit chat at the begining of the call.

You might say that's great you get a chance to hear what is going on behind the scenes. The impact to me however was that I found it detracted from why I had gone over to listen to them. They were talking about who had mailed the invitation to their list, the links of the the website and what wasn't working etc etc.

Now some people might think that is wonderful, but frankly if you are looking to make a great impression with your potential clients I highly recommend editing that out. After all, on TV other than the Friday Night With Jonathan Ross Show, you never see the experts in the green room - and on Jonathan's show the guests are well aware that they will be caught on camera at any time. They probably have a green room for the green room!

So take a little time to edit the begining and end of your podcast - you can be sure that it will reflect a much more professional personal brand. But do let the authentic you come across in the main body of your podcast.

Oh and when looking for links for this post, I find Jonathan's has his own podcast too.

Making money through podcasting

Though we have not had this question from any of our Podcast Sisters community as yet, I know I often get asked questions about how you can make money through podcasting.

If you are using podcasting in your business, one of the key reasons that many business leaders invest in podcasting is to build a community and engage with specific stakeholder groups from clients to employees.

We can refer to products and services in our podcasts so that we encourage people to purchase and invest in them.

We can also look at sponsorship deals where people will pay you for sponsoring segments, again promoting their brand to your podcast listeners.

It all depends on the strategy you want to follow and what is appropriate and on-brand for your business.

I was interested to read about a different take on how to profit from podcasting today from Mike Southon of Beermat fame.

Mike offers his Beermat community access to podcasts with people he interviews - you can subscribe to get the shortened versions on his website if you are not a member of his Beermat club.

Mike has been building the Beermat brand and has a strategic alliance with The Daily Telegraph in the UK so his podcasts also available on their website.

The opportunity he is now exploring is offering to interview other people for podcasts that they can post on their own site. He is offering to do an interview for an hour in your office or in a London studio and then his podcast production company will edit the audio and create:

• A ten-minute ‘Beermat podcast
• A 30-minute podcast
• A transcript of the podcast
• access to ‘Podcasting on a Beermat’, how to make the most of your interviews.

And the cost of your investment for this would be £1,490 + VAT (approx US$3000 plus VAT).

I wonder if Leesa Barnes has other examples such as this in her new book "Podcasting for Profit"? I hope I get the chance to ask her if she agrees to be interviewed on "The Podcast Sisters". Only one thing Leesa - we don't pay our guests US$3000 or even US$3. We will buy you a coffee the next time we see you though!

The W list: aka women who blog

One of the reason Anna, Heather and I started "The Podcast Sisters" was the fact that we wanted to encourage those of us, and especially women, who are not so comfortable with technology to venture into the world of Web 2.0 and new media to grow your business, based on our own journeys and experiences.

Yesterday I came a across a blog post from Valeria Maltoni the author of the Conversation Agent  who has started a “W list” - a list of women who write great blogs.

I posted about the list over at Biz Growth News and referenced a list that had been compiled in 2006 of women bloggers in Ireland created by Mary Gilmartin prior to the 2007 Irish Blog Awards.

So here is the list as it currently stands - and of course I had to add Kate one of our "Podcast Sisters" listeners whose blog we featured recently and Claire and Heidi who have both been recent guests at "The Podcast Sisters".

Come on "Podcast Sisters" listeners - if you are a woman who has a great blog or know a woman with a great blog, leave a message in our comments with the name of the female blogger and the URL of their blog. Or if you prefer, send us an email. We will update the master list at the end of the month. We can't wait to hear from you and add you to our growing list of women who author great blogs!

You know how great blogging has been to help you express your personal brand - so enough of being shy - make August the month for shameless self promotion! And of course lets also share a little link love!

For the meantime, here is the list as it stands today:

• advergirl Leigh Householder
• Back in Skinny Jeans by Stephanie Quilao
• BlogWrite for CEOs Debbie Weil
• Biz Growth News by Krishna De
• Brand Sizzle Anne Simons
• Branding & Marketing Chris Brown
• CK’s Blog CK (Christina Kerley)
• Communication Overtones Kami Huyse
• Conscious Business by Anne Libby
• Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni
• Corporate PR Elizabeth Albrycht
• Customers Rock! Becky Carroll
• Deborah Schultz by Deborah Schultz
• Diva Marketing Blog Toby Bloomberg
• Email Marketing Best Practices Tamara Gielen
• eSoup by Sharon Sarmiento
• Flooring The Consumer CB Whittemore
• Forrester’s Marketing Blog Shar, Charlene, Chloe, Christine Elana, Laura and Lisa
• Get Fresh Minds by Katie Konrath
• Get Shouty by Katie Chatfield
• Inspired Business Growth by Wendy Piersall
• Kinetic Ideas Wendy Maynard
• Learned on Women by Andrea Learned
• Liz Strauss at Successful Blog by Liz Strauss
• Lorelle on WordPress by Lorelle VanFossen
• Manage to Change by Ann Michael
• Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg
• Marketing Roadmaps Susan Getgood
• Moda di Magno by Lori Magno
• Modite by Rebecca Thorman
• Narrative Assets by Karen Hegman
• Presto Vivace Blog Alice Marshall
• Productivity Goal by Carolyn Manning
• Spare Change Nedra Kline Weinreich
• Talk It Up Heidi Miller
• Tech Kitten by Trisha Miller
• The Copywriting Maven Roberta Rosenberg
• The Blog Angel by Claire Raikes
• The Engaging Brand by Anna Farmery
• The Floozy Blog by Kate Coote
• The Origin of Brands Laura Ries 
• The Podcast Sisters by Krishna De, Anna Farmery and Heather Gorringe
• Wealth Strategy Secrets by Nicola Cairncross
• What’s Next Blog B L Ochman
• Widows Quest A L Farmery
• Wiggly Wigglers by Heather Gorringe

Myspace or Facebook - which one to choose?

If you have been joining us for our recent podcasts you will know we have been exploring new social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

I recently wrote an article titled "Which Social Networking Site Should You Use?" and proposed that given that many of these networks are available at no cost, I take the approach that why not ensure that you build a profile to reflect your personal brand on-line in all the different online communities, so that if someone looks for you they will be sure to find you.

Today I was reading an interesting article that covered MySpace and Facebook and did an analysis on them both. If you listened to our recent podcast about Facebook you will know that we are fast becoming fans of Facebook and you will see that the author of the article, Mark Sullivan, is also predicting that Facebook will be king.

What do you think? If you are on Facebook already, be sure to introduce yourself as a friend of the PodCast Sisters won't you?

PodCamp Ireland organisers collaborate through Jaiku

As we have been talking about social networking on The Podcast Sisters recently, I thought I would check in with you on whether you have joined any of the new social networks we have been talking about?

What would encourage you to join a social network?

Now some of us are really into high tech and would be at the bleeding edge of Web 2.0 tools.

Some of may be at the leading edge and some of us may be training behind and that is just OK.

Just like networking off-line, we often join an on-line social network as our high tech friends invite and encourage us to do so.

This week, we have been meeting to plan the first ever PodCamp Ireland event - I am definately the non techy amongst the PodCamp Irish team of Bernie, Conn, Ken and Brian!

PodCamp Ireland is a no-cost conference about social  and going to be taking place on the 29 September 2007 in kilkenny, Ireland.

For us to keep in contact, we are using Jaiku - a social network similar to Twitter (we covered Twitter on the Podcast Sisters Show 8 - what is Twitter?)

Bernie has set up a podcamp channel that you will find at #podcamp on Jaiku. We will be posting our updates through Jaiku, so we get them in real time in email or on our mobile phones for free. If you want to find out what's happening with the planning of PodCamp Ireland, why not head over to Jaiku and sign up today - and remember this is a no cost tool.

You can even take the HTML code and add it to your blog as I have done on Talking Coaching and Todays Women in Business.

Another thing about Twitter and Jaiku is that they both show up in Google - take a look for example just by putting "podcamp Ireland" into Google and you will see the Jaiku podcamp channel show-up on the front page.

This is great for building your personal brand on-line but do take care in managing your digital footprint! Remember when you are in Google you are in Google - and it can happen very fast, so be careful what you write. For example, I posted an article today on Todays Women in Business and it showed up in Google alerts in less than 30 minutes.

So who would you like to encourage to join you in a social network - friends, family, colleagues, clients?

Why not try out what you are learning about social networking and set up your own community and then invite others ? And if you do so, make sure you let us know here what social media tool you are trying out and your learnings and experience.

When relying on Google just won't do

As we continue to live in an ever fast paced world and information and research seems to date quicker than ever, it's not surprising that we turn to the ease of the Internet and sites we find in the search engines to provide us with relevant content to quote in articles, in proposals and even in books that we write.

However, when quoting in our writing, we need to make sure that the source we are using is trusted. This is especially true when quoting other peoples articles and referencing them in our own blog posts or writing.

Today I saw an example of where an "expert" in their field was profiled in a highly respected on-line newsletter in which they write a column.

The subject of the article was about whether to write UK English or US English in your writing of articles and papers for lead generation.

In the article they gave examples of words spelled in US English and UK English  - the only problem was that the spellings in UK English were incorrect and incomplete.

So what was the impact of this? Well their espoused expertise and personal brand took a bit of a hammering. They were being positioned as an expert in the publication, but as their facts were incorrect, anyone reading the article who knew the difference between the UK and US spellings and examples of grammar quoted would immediately discredit the article. In other words, the "expert" was not going to be seen as being credible.

So what's the learning in this for us? Here are seven tips to apply when quoting on-line research:

1. If we are going to use on-line sources for information, make sure that the resource is trusted and has accurate content
2. Check your on-line source out against other points of reference - both on-line or off line
3. If you are going to make a definitive statement make sure hat you are happy to stand by it in terms of it's accuracy if questioned
4. If you are expressing your opinion alongside the research based on your experience and expertise rather then be transparent
5. If you have some questions about the source, check back for clarification with the person who was the originator
6. Make sure that you have a link back to the source of the research in your writing, whether that be on-line or offline so that it is easy for you or others to refer to for clarification
7. And of course, if you are in any doubt about the accuracy of the research, don't use that source material.

Follow these seven steps when quoting information from on-line sources and you will be sure to keep your reputation and personal brand in your writing  as the expert in your field in tact.

Express your personal brand through your blogging voice

Earier this week Anna and I hosted the third an final in our "Summer Teleseminar Series" about business blogging.

This week we talked about personal branding and how to build your personal brand through your business blog.

One of the subjects we covered that we both believe in passionately is that through our blog our own personal style needs to shine forth. Our voice needs to be clear and distinctive - so that as people read your blog it as if they are talking to you.

Yes this does take a little time to find your "blogging voice" - we both know as we used to have responsibility for writing terms of reference, processes and procedures for large organisations in our previous lives in the corporate world.

That was a very different tone of voice than our usual style of conversation as you will probably have heard if you have listened in to our Podcast Sisters shows.

So how can you ensure that your "blogging voice is clear, distinctive and reflects your personal brand and expertise? Here are three tips to help you on your way:

1. write as you speak - when you write your blog post, do so as if you were speaking to a friend or colleague
2. read your post outloud - if you are not sure of the flow of your blog post, read it outloud to check if it makes sense - does it reflect how you speak?
3. write what you know about - in other words, showcase the best of yourself and be remarkable and are "fully self expressed" as my good friend Michael Port describes it. If you are not the expert in the subject you are writing about, then be open and share that you are not the expert but are learning the subject yourself and want to share what you are learning.

You see in business, your clients and potential clients will come to you and refer others to you if you are an expert in your field.

I get rather concerned when I see in some online networks that people are writing articles or have secured clients and speaking gigs when they clearly do not know their subject. Just today I saw a post from a member of an online network stating:

"I am doing research for a talk on Mentorship. Are any of you able to share information in this regard, especially with reference to what ought to be included in a mentorship programme."

Gosh - if I were a paying client for this person to speak I would be really worried if I was paying them for their expertise and they were not able to share real life examples of mentoring programmes.

Remember if you do not have the expertise in a subject it will only be a matter of time before your clients recognise this.

What other suggestions do you have for expressing your unique personal brand through your "blogging voice"?

If you are interested in learning more about writing for the web from website to business blogs so that you discover how to engage with your readers through the power of your online copy, I hope you will register for my next Biz Growth Live teleseminar which you can join at no cost. Just head over to "Biz Growth Live" and register for the call that takes place on the 9 July 2007 at 1pm ET/6pm Ireland and the UK.