Executive’s communication
The Gallup Management Journal website has an interesting interview with Blaise James, Gallup’s global brand strategist and principal. “It’s Time to Brand Yourself” explores why now, in this challenging economic climate, personal brand is more critical than ever to your career. Countless articles and how-to books have been written about personal brand, peddling simple prescriptions for turning anyone into a personal power brand overnight, or sooner. Mr. James offers a common sense explanation on what a personal brand is, including the critical fact that no one’s brand starts with a blank page: “You already are a brand, whether you know it or not. Your bio, experience, skills, behaviors, appearance, even your name -they all express your brand.”
A personal brand has many elements and reputation is key to a strong personal brand. I like this anonymous quote regarding reputation: “A person’s reputation is a mixture of what his friends, enemies, and relatives say behind his back.” You can add employees, ex-employees, co-workers and classmates. Thanks to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, ZoomInfo and whatever else you use to network, there’s a mother lode of information about you to remind your friends and enemies what you were like way back when… LinkedIn became a new and a far more effective way to check references or to get information about prospective candidates from former colleagues and bosses than the obligatory list of candidate-supplied references of yesterday.
The most critical driver of a personal brand is communication: how well an executive can put into words his or her experience, achievements and personal strengths. Presentation skills matter, but content matters even more. And yet, few executives invest the time to develop a personal portfolio that can make the difference between getting a dream job or accepting second best.
“You’re every bit as much a brand as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop,” wrote Tom Peters in his ground-breaking article on personal brand, published in Fast Company almost two years ago. Mr. Peters is right when he says that your brand is your responsibility, not your company’s corporate communications. What counts is your communication on every social networking site and everything you do above and beyond your everyday job – from training your daughter’s soccer team to helping at a food bank.
Social Media for Executives
You wouldn’t believe who is on Twitter these days. According to an article in today’s Economist, members of the US Congress are now twittering happily to each other and their constituents.
Everybody and his neighbour is blogging and one hears complaints about too many professional social networking websites like LinkedIn. Even the most skeptical naysayers agree, social media are now ubiquitous and an integral part of business communication channels. Frankly, I’m glad we’re past the acceptance stage when evangelists hyped social media almost as much as they did the Internet in the late 90s.
I recently asked a social media-savvy corporate lawyer, “Would you let your CEO write his own blog?” “About as much as we would let him write his own speeches and press releases,” she answered. You may argue that the need for disclosure would make CEOs’ blogs less “personal,” but the same argument may apply to their speeches. Most CEOs spend time with their speechwriters to make sure that they actually talk their walk.
What is even more critical for businesses is social media monitoring. Nothing can organize your customers and adversaries as effectively and quickly as social media. Company boards should be especially advised of any changes in the online chatter because they have been increasingly targeted for perceived transgressions.
By the way, the Economist article also notes that Republicans twitter more than Democrats. I called my friend in California to get her take: “Twitter can only take 140 characters. When they expand it to two pages, dems will take over.” Right.
