Personal Visibility – The Power of You! | A First Impression Guide & Visibility Resource

Engage Maverick!

Posted: April 11, 2023 in Personal Branding
Tags: linkedin, personal branding, personal branding blog, personal branding definition, personal branding example, personal branding for dummies, personal branding statement, personal branding strategy, personal branding tips, personal branding website

In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is essential for professional success. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, or job seeker, making yourself highly visible online can help you attract the right opportunities and connect with potential clients, partners, and employers.

Here are some tips to help you increase your online visibility and make yourself discoverable to people who might be looking for someone like you:

Define Your Personal Brand

The first step in making yourself highly visible online is to define your personal brand. Your personal brand is a combination of your unique skills, experiences, values, and personality traits that make you stand out from others in your industry. Defining
your personal brand will help you create a consistent image across all your online platforms, such as your website, social media profiles, and online portfolio. To define your personal brand, start by identifying your unique strengths and skills. What are you good at? What sets you apart from others in your industry? Next, think about your values and personality traits. What are your core beliefs and values? What kind of personality do you have? Finally, create a personal mission statement that summarizes your personal brand and what you have to offer to others.

Build A Professional Website

One of the most important tools for increasing your online visibility is a professional website. Your website serves as your online portfolio, where you can showcase your work, skills, and achievements. It’s also the first place people will go when they search
for you online. To build a professional website, start by choosing a domain name that’s easy to remember and reflects your personal brand. Next, choose a website platform that’s easy to use, such as WordPress or Squarespace. Use high-quality images and well-written content to showcase your work, skills, and achievements. Make sure your website is easy to navigate and mobile-friendly.

Optimize Your Social Media Profiles

Social media is a powerful tool for increasing your online visibility and connecting with potential clients, partners, and employers. However, to make the most of social media, you need to optimize your profiles. Start by choosing a professional profile photo that reflects your personal brand. Write a clear and concise bio that highlights your skills and achievements. Use keywords that are relevant to your industry to make it easier for people to find you. Finally, make sure your social media profiles are up-to-date and consistent with your personal brand.

Publish High-Quality Content

Another way to increase your online visibility is to publish high-quality content on your website and social media profiles. This can include blog posts, articles, videos, and podcasts. When creating content, make sure it’s relevant to your industry and reflects your personal brand. Use keywords that are relevant to your industry to make it easier for people to find your content. Finally, share your content on social media and other online platforms to increase its reach.

Network Online

Networking is essential for professional success, and the internet has made it easier than ever to connect with others in your industry. Use social media, professional networking sites, and online forums to connect with other professionals and build relationships. When networking online, be authentic and genuine. Don’t just focus on promoting yourself; instead, focus on building relationships and helping others. Share valuable content, offer advice, and engage in conversations with others in your industry.

In conclusion, making yourself highly visible online and discoverable by people who might be looking for someone like you requires a combination of personal branding, website optimization, social media optimization, content creation, and online networking. By following these tips, you can increase your online visibility and attract the right opportunities to advance your career or grow your business. Remember to be authentic, consistent, and value-driven in all your online interactions, and you’ll be well on your way to achieving professional success.

Well, what are you waiting for Maverick?

How’s Your Online Ego?

Posted: June 28, 2022 in Personal Branding

How is your online ego? it better be good if you want to stand out in the sea of online sameness. You might wear humility well in your face-to-face life but online, being humble just won’t get it done.

The entire professional world is lurking online––searching, parsing and taking advantage of search engine efficiencies offered by the latest technologies to help them find the right person for a myriad of opportunities––social and professional. Face-to-face interaction has mostly been relegated to some later date when one passes the first impression gauntlet in the virtual world.

Are you one of those people that stand out in person but sort of blend into the vast sea of digital sameness that comprises the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter? With the explosion of social media and connections being more plentiful, does anyone outside of your immediate sphere of influence really know that much about you? What type of impression does your profile leave with a first time viewer? Do you deserve a second look?

Don’t Be So Damned Modest.

The internet is a powerful megaphone and your virtual presence is a phone book, a business card, a resume, a CV, a publicist and your agent, all rolled into one. It represents you on a 24/7 basis and is available to anyone, anywhere in the world. Maybe it’s a old friend checking up on you, a nosy neighbor, a competitor, a business associate, the person you’re meeting with next, a recruiter, a committee member or a whole host of other opportunity givers… and takers.

Press Play.

Tell your own story or leave it to my imagination.

The truth is, the personal and business relationship landscape is changing rapidly and the way we interact with others is making a profound evolution. Person-to-person intimacy and contact continues to give way to the efficiency of online relationships and interactions. Virtual networks are expanding our reach, availability and efficacy and with a little time and effort, we are able to promote our personal marquees around-the-clock with effective placement, high visibility indexes––tagged and key worded for maximum discoverability, all without looking like arrogant self-promoters.

All based on a snap judgment, formed in the instant, without deliberation.

Isn’t it time for your online image to match your offline persona? Seriously.

Stand out––don’t blend in.

What’s Your DQ?

Posted: October 1, 2015 in business, career, First Impression, Job Search, linkedin, Networking, online, Personal Brand, Personal Branding, personal development, personal improvement, popular, search engine, Self Help, Self Improvement, trending, visibility
Tags: Bing, Facebook, google, Instagram, Klout, linkedin, Twitter, Web search engine, you wouldn't go out looking like that

Just because you have a LinkedIn profile doesn’t mean your personal branding and visibility efforts are complete, however, you’re off to a great start! A great start because of LinkedIn’s 380 million strong membership base, visibility, ease-of-use and maybe the most important reason: the embedded search features that facilitate your discoverability. Having a completed profile and professional headshot on LinkedIn is a giant step toward bridging the gap between your “virtual” or online presence and your offline persona. However, the important question is this: What is your discoverability quotient?

If you’re like many people, you’re probably on Facebook , Twitter, Google+ (really?), Pinterest, Instagram and a handful of other networking-related sites. You may not be as active as some people you know, but odds are you’ve at least set up a profile to see what all the noise is about. If you are reasonably active, you may have created a Klout account to measure your so-called “social influence” or even uploaded your headshot to Gravatar and registered on Google Profiles to make yourself more “discoverable” by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo? If you’re really on top of your game, you’ve created a account with GoDaddy and purchased your name as a dot com (or .net, .me, or all of the available extensions).

The truth is, you probably have a little bit of yourself spread around in several different places on the web with the result being a very fragmented digital footprint. Odds are, most of your personal profiles are not as complete as they could be, your information is inconsistent and this lack of a coordinated effort is suppressing your visibility. This makes for something less-than-optimal in terms of results when someone searches for you online. News flash! More people than you might think are searching your name: friends, co-workers, new acquaintances, business associates (before, during or after the meeting), vendors, a prospective employer, a committee member, a recruiter, and so forth and so on. Remember, passive recruiting is rampant today and with the internet being the new first impression, you’ll likely have one just chance to make a quality impression and you should be the best version of your online self. More and more its the first step in meeting someone.

With an ever expanding digital footprint, how do you coordinate your overall presence, improve your search engine discoverability and maximize your personal branding and visibility efforts? The most efficient way to accomplish this is by using one of several personal branding sites to help coordinate and amplify your visibility. BrandYourself and About are two of the more popular platforms. These sites allow you to create a comprehensive profile and once completed, either has the appearance of a personalized website. If you happen to own your name as a dot com, all the better as that adds a high level of personalization.

Here’s the really cool part––the purpose of these personal branding sites is to link all of your online activities together under a hub and spoke type of approach in order to maximize your visibility with the various search engines. These sites allow you to link all of your online activities and profiles for the purpose of optimizing your visibility. Your discoverability quotient will improve significantly.

Who doesn’t want to be discovered?

You Wouldn’t Go Out Looking Like That Would You?

We all have an old but favorite pair of sweat pants and a not-for-public tattered shirt we lounge around the house in, right? Particularly when we know that no one is around and the likelihood of being face-to-face with anyone other than an immediate family member is a minimal risk. You have that look don’t you? No shower, maybe a little pillow-hair and looking pretty scary versus your normal “together” self. You’d never leave the house in that condition, would you?

In terms of image, there’s one thing we all have in common: When we have an important social event, a business meeting or client interaction we put our best foot forward in terms of appearance. And on those really special occasions we might even get a fresh haircut and purchase something new to wear, all in an effort to make a quality impression. We hedge our chances of success by carefully controlling the image that we portray to others. While we might all have different looks for different occasions, one thing’s for certain, if we know someone important is looking at or evaluating us we go out of our way to be on our best behavior and make certain we look our best. We naturally want to impress as it seems to be both common sense as well as an intelligent act of self-promotion.

So, what about your online persona––your so-called digital footprint? The ubiquitious presence you now have with all of your online profiles, activities and interactions? And those profiles are visible 24/7 to anyone in the ~~world~~ galaxy that decides to look. And yet many choose to have a crappy photo or no photograph at all, complete with sketchy background information including grammar that could use some serious wordsmithing. You’re on display to the world around-the-clock and you’re presenting yourself in the equivalent of that old pair of sweats and tattered shirt. Really? We can probably all agree that an incomplete and poorly worded profile won’t provoke much confidence with an opportunity giver looking at your profile. People with these types of profiles should rein in their expectations as there’s very little chance of an offer––of any kind.

Search engine functionality has improved to the point that anything and everyone can be found. If your profile is constructed properly, positioned strategically and coordinated with the proper keywords and phrases, you will be found so, you might want to be looking the digital equivalent of professionally-polished. Passive recruiting has always been popular among search firms but the transparency caused by today’s search functionality has given worldwide access to anyone interested in performing a search. That includes the larger search firms all the way down to the one person HR department. It could even be a start-up looking for advisors or a board looking for expertise. Someone, somewhere is attempting to match people with opportunities. Are you discoverable? Moreover, are you presentable? Meaningful people with meaningful opportunities are looking for people just like you. That means you might want to be the most presentable virtual version of yourself when they do look your way…

Take a digital shower, comb your online hair and put on your best virtual outfit.

Be the best version of you!

You Look Nothing Like Yourself!

Its true. I’ve looked at most of your online profiles and you appear to be nothing like yourself in person. The pictures you’re using aren’t very flattering––you’re much more attractive in person! And the background and accomplishments you’ve listed make modest look a bit egocentric. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were making a concerted effort to be as unimpressive as possible. In the for-what-its-worth category, I’m afraid an opportunity giver wouldn’t give you a second look. You can only hope that the people looking at you online know your attributes better than your profile would suggest. Guess what? Fat chance––casual relationships as well as complete strangers are looking and evaluating and some may have an offer you wouldn’t want to miss out on… at least not on purpose! In today’s world of virtual relationships, you can’t afford to be modest. If you don’t promote you, who will?

Person-to-person contact continues to give way to the efficiency of online interactions and it’s become very simple, if not preferred, to access profiles on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Qnary, Brand Yourself, About Me or a host of other platforms to learn more about a person. Frankly, with search engine functionality being what it is, you will be found and the question is this: Will your profile merit a second look? Whether it’s a passive recruiting effort, a social opportunity or someone simply checking you out prior to or after a meeting, the digital version of yourself might just be the first and only chance you have to make that important first impression. It doesn’t matter if you occupy the corner office or you’re a stay-at-home-mom, people are looking––you can count on that! Maybe it’s a neighbor, a supervisor, the HR department, a recruiter, the person you’re meeting with next, the person you just met with or a start-up parsing through profiles for a particular expertise.

Unfortunately, many people stand out in person but simply blend in online. Here’s the challenge: Can you bridge the gap between your offline persona and your online profile? Can you properly portray the dressed-up digital version of yourself? You have an expanding virtual network of online relationships and if you don’t make your profile(s) a bit stickier, you will continue to be part of that vast sea of sameness––both anonymous and irrelevant in the online sense. In today’s digital world and just a small step beyond your immediate person-to-person sphere of influence, visibility and opportunity go hand in hand.

Don’t be unimpressive––it doesn’t look good on you.

What You Say May Not Matter Anyway!

“What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

In today’s environment, Emerson’s words might be interpreted this way: The behavioral algorithms are so good it may not matter what your profile or social resume says about you––your behavior trumps everything! Your ever-expanding digital DNA is a reflection of you and everyone from investigative agencies to marketing and research companies are getting better and better at figuring out exactly who you are and what you like or don’t like, no matter who you say you are. A simple set of algorithms applied to your Facebook page for instance can determine your ethnicity, political affiliation, socio-economic level, sexuality, drug-use habits and even if your parents separated when you were young. These same algorithms are capable of predicting personality types and emotional stability… or the lack thereof. Early efforts at this science have even shown a correlation with people liking certain foods having higher IQ’s while liking a particular page on Facebook might be an indicator for drug use––pages that don’t have anything whatsoever to do with drugs or the related culture.

Personal data is big business and with the effort being put into psychometrics, it’s only a matter of time before our personal data is routinely being exploited for commercial gain and more. The truth is, it’s already happening. Take Facebook’s own EdgeRank system, which is their proprietary scoring system based on algorithms they use to determine which objects show up in your News Feed. In other words, it is their attempt to optimize the news feed to show relevant content predicated on your previous activities on Facebook. Any chance the ads you’re seeing are a result of those same algorithms? Count on it. Whether Facebook was the first or not really doesn’t matter––they positively won’t be the last! More and more companies are employing similar technology and in spite of your best efforts with privacy settings and careful online interactions: people are looking, will find you and already know more about you than you might think! And as the science improves, those same people will know even more. Scary, huh?

In the meantime, you should be hyper-vigilant about your privacy settings and make certain that you are in control of the controllables. Algorithms notwithstanding, personal visibility remains crucial on both a personal and professional level––every effort should be made to control your personal narrative. Marketing companies aside, your friends, neighbors, co-workers, customers and damn near everyone you encounter on a professional level are looking at and for you online. What kind of impression do you make? Given that your online visibility is available around-the-clock to anyone choosing to look, you should be making the same online effort that you make in your face-to-face life in terms of presentibility. In other words, your online profile should be the equivalent of that all important meeting or social event that you have to attend. You know the one… you put on your best looking outfit, you’re on your best behavior and you make your best effort to impress. We all do it!

Isn’t it time for your online image to match your offline persona?

Seriously.

Quit Hiding In Plain Sight!

With the economy on the mend and passive recruiting running rampant, ask yourself this simple question: Are you positioned squarely in the path of discovery? Quit hiding–even if it’s unintentional. You may not be trying to hide but your lack of visibility is making you virtually transparent with potential opportunity givers. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a new career opportunity that finds you––maybe you have zero interest in making a job or career change. However, it could be a long-awaited social opportunity, a chance to share your expertise, a committee role or a board position. Maybe it’s even a new client looking for a specific product provider or skill set, so stand out and be found! One things for certain in today’s attention-deficit world: out of sight, out of mind! In this rapidly evolving environment of connectivity platforms and related start-ups, you likely have an expanding network of contacts including friends, colleagues and customers. Like it or not, intimacy is giving way to efficiency, so nurturing this expanding group is both key and central to your discoverability!

There are a myriad of utilities to help your visibility but the first order of business is constructing your social resume and LinkedIn is probably the best place to start. The format is conducive to telling a complete and compelling story about you (read: resume). LinkedIn is a virtual-professional-gathering and it’s important to understand that the de facto rules of engagement are different than other social networking sites like Facebook. Look at it this way, Facebook is akin to a neighborhood cocktail party (with family members in attendance) and meant for more intimate conversations and the sharing of birthday wishes and photographs and such. While plenty of businesses are using Facebook to communicate their products and services, it’s just not the place for a professional resume nor should it be the anchor of your more serious visibility efforts. LinkedIn is all about business and networking and with a little effort, you can not only make yourself very visible but importantly, you can differentiate YOU in this vast sea-of-sameness. You have a great product––just make sure others know about it! And, there’s no one more qualified to tell your story, promote your skills, talents and accomplishments than you, right?

Visibility promotes opportunity.

Don’t miss out!

Cattle Have It Easy!

What if someone else decided on your behalf what brand you should wear? And what if you had no choice in being identified as part of a particular herd?

And what if your sphere of influence was a relatively small area where you spent your days and nights and maybe a contiguous field or two in case you decided to stray for a evening (read: work, home and play)? Imagine a few people on the ponderosa getting together one day and searing an indelible mark onto your rear end and voila!, you have your own not-so-unique personal brand and you’re stuck with it! No thinking, no scheming and no effort required on your part. A passive branding victim as it were. Actually, come to think of it, that almost perfectly describes what many people do when it comes to their own branding and visibility efforts. No thinking. No scheming. No effort. And you guessed it, it shows! These are people that have decided not to take an active role in establishing and communicating their own brands. They simply allow those around them to silently develop their own opinions and thoughts as to brand and reputation attributes. They allow those throughout their digital network to make their own interpretations based on various online activities or the lack of, with the latter being potentially just as harmful. And contrary to what some believe, brand and reputation are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, most people don’t take an active role in managing either, particularly in this age of ubiquitous social media and a personal digital footprint that expands by the day.

Don’t you think it’s time you grabbed this particular bull by the horns and took control of both your brand and visibility? Just being part of the herd doesn’t cut it any more. You have a personal megaphone (I could have said bullhorn) at your fingertips whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, WordPress, Brand Yourself, About Me, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or a whole host of other platforms to promote your most important product… YOU.

How will others know if you don’t tell them? Are you willing to leave it up to interpretation? If you’re not in control of your digital footprint, do you think all the pieces will add up to a correct representation of who you actually are? Are you willing to take that chance? Like it or not, search engine functionality brings world-wide visibility and opportunity-givers are combing the web looking for people just like you. Your friends, co-workers and neighbors are looking too. Separate yourself from the herd and stand out if you want to be considered. People are looking and you will be found. It might be a social opportunity, a new job offer, a promotion, a board seat consideration, a consulting role or any number of other life opportunities. With intimacy (person-to-person) giving way to technology, more and more discovery is taking place online and your reach and visibility is greater than ever! Are you positioned to take advantage of this powerful new medium?

Don’t be a cow.

Don’t Kid Yourself!

Contrary to what we would all like to believe, even people that know us don’t think about us nearly as often as we might think! Ask yourself this question: Other than those in your immediate sphere-of-influence does anyone really know who you are and what you’re capable of? Probably not. However, when it comes to personal visibility it’s not really about those that know you well enough that they might be prone to think about you. It’s about those that don’t know you at all or all that well. It’s this group that you must learn to nurture and develop. It’s this group that can produce unexpected but extraordinary opportunities. Opportunities that you’re likely missing out on and you don’t even know it. The funny thing is, the opportunity givers don’t know they’re missing you anymore than you know what you’re missing. Let’s bridge that gap, huh?

You’ll get around to it, you say? You’ll start soon? You’ve been meaning to do it? A personal visibility campaign can be just like diets and exercise––you’ll start tomorrow, right? Yes, it is a lot of work. And no, it won’t be as bad as you think in terms of getting started. It never is. And just like every diet and every exercise program, you’ll be glad you did and the end result will likely be worth it.

You’re on an inexorable path to a more and more comprehensive relationship with technology and it’s not so much a matter of IF you’ll adapt or not. It’s really a matter of how far behind you’ll be before you finally choose to get started. It can either be a proactive decision to get engaged now or you can wait until the decision gets made for you. The latter being the drag-along option.

Before you know it, your profile and social resume will be complete and properly displayed on a number of connectivity platforms. With these platforms working together your visibility will be significantly enhanced, your name will rank high with the various search engines and if you play your cards just right, your name might show up on the first page when someone googles your profession or principal skill set. That would be the pinnacle of personal visibility! The visibility platforms at your disposal like LinkedIn, AboutMe and Brand Yourself are significant and very effective at telling your story in a compelling and meaningful way. Establish a presence on all, perfect your social and professional resume content and optimize your visibility… the sooner the better.

Be assured of one very compelling fact: There are important people out there looking for the right person to match with current opportunities. Make sure they have the best odds and opportunity to find you––you’ll both be better for it.

Don’t get left behind!

Are You a Well Kept Secret?

You’re a real talent with significant skills. You’re a good decision maker, ethical and of high character. You’re the teammate everyone wants; with a work ethic second-to-none. You’re creative, insightful, articulate and pretty darn good with the written word. Maybe you even have the “it” factor that bosses and boards look for. However, outside of your immediate circle, no one really knows much about you. Your parents taught you that humility was an important trait and you believed them, and rightfully so. You are, in fact, too humble to self-promote. As it turns out, you may be a well kept secret…

O.K., seriously, do you think those closest to you (much less your expanding network of colleagues) really know just how good you are? Do they know how much you care? How hard you work? Do they know why you shouldn’t be considered part of the vast sea-of-sameness that includes the run-of-the-mill crowd? You probably don’t want to waltz around proclaiming just “how good you are” at the top of your lungs, however, you can and should put certain tools to work on your behalf. Tools like LinkedIn, Brand Yourself, About Me and a myriad of others that promote your visibility and competency without you having to look like an arrogant self-promoter. Use these tools to tell your story around the clock and anytime someone decides they want to learn a bit more about you, you’ve got a valuable utility working on your behalf––even when you’re not paying attention. And these tools are capable of telling your story very well, particularly when they’re constructed properly. You never know when opportunity is going to come along and maximizing your visibility is both key and central to your discoverability. You deserve it, right?

This is 2014 and technology has moved so quickly (and not slowing down) that it’s left many in it’s wake and thinking that they would eventually get around to learning this or that. Are you one of them? At the sake of pointing out the obvious, if you give this technology train an inch it will take a quick foot and before you know it, you’ll be just like that “older” person you already know that just doesn’t get it. You know the one––poor thing. The point is, the tools and technology available to help you become more visible are worth the time and effort. Don’t get left behind.

Somebody’s probably looking for someone just like you! Since you occupy the big corner office at Y.O.U., there’s not a more qualified person when it comes to promoting your number one product. Be self-aware and remember a cardinal rule: Your image is shaped by what you share (and in some cases what you don’t!).

Engage, get visible and stop being such a secret!

Personal Visibility – The Power of You!

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Engage Maverick!

How’s Your Online Ego?

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