Be Active

It goes to show how being out of the game for a couple of weeks can set you back a couple of light years. And yes this applies to physical activity, but what I’m talking about is your online presence, of course. A colleague and myself are in a bit of a competition for the ‘top-spot’ on LinkedIn. This all began because I knocked him off his long-standing top ranking position and kept myself at number one for quite some time – until a million job bags took over and my attention was diverted…leaving me at a pretty dismal ranking.

So, as obvious as it sounds, it proves that the more active you are in any form of social media, the more you get noticed. It’s not called social ‘networking’ for nothing. The bigger your presence, the more your opinions and work gets shared and the opportunity you have to influence and promote your brand, (or brand ‘You’).

So whether you have more work experience than Warren Buffett, awards and accolades that could rival NASA, or you have absolutely diddly-squat, here are some tips to rock your LinkedIn:

1. Get a really good profile pic. Regardless of your industry, a good head-shot is fail proof. If you don’t have any that are professionally done, that’s fine for now, but then just make sure your photo is actually of your face.

2. Background Image! Who knew? I must say I only saw this now. You should upload a “brand reflecting” image that relates to your business, or your interests regarding your career. Let’s limit selfies to Facebook cover photo’s.

3. Always personalise your URL (right there under your picture on your home screen). This way, when you need to attach your LinkedIn URL to a CV or email, it isn’t gibberish. It looks neat and professional!

4. Use the summary section to tell your story about who you are, what your aspirations are and why. The “why” part is important. It shows that you’ve thought about your career choices and know where it’s taking you.

5. Showcase your work. Don’t be shy now!

6. Post as much as you can – given that it’s a worthwhile post. It’s a way to let your interests, intelligence and opinion shine through.

7. Network! Engage in conversations on LinkedIn and celebrate other people’s achievements!

8. Endorse, endorse, endorse. We are all out here and we’ve all started at the bottom at some stage of our life. Endorse people for the things you know they’re good at and they’ll most likely endorse you back.

Becoming a Social Power

This documentary takes a look at how traditional marketing tools no longer hold the relevance that they once did. Why? Because the world evolves, which means that businesses evolve with it – because there is infinite potential to reach millions of people across the world in super interesting ways, and those perfecting that art, are the most noteworthy marketers of all.

The world is interconnected and we can now influence and impact on demand. The beauty of Social Media is that it will encourage more and more ‘Makers’ and ‘Doers’. It will inspire a greater influx of self start-ups and hungry youngsters who realize that even if they are passionate about selling funky looking socks, they can be the very best funky-looking-socks seller if they only realize how to market themselves correctly.

Social Media has inadvertently sparked an age of job creation. And that is something very beautiful.

SEO to CEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a way of cleverly communicating to all those little binary combinations of 1’s and 0’s in the digital world, to recommend your website and hopefully, bring it out somewhere near the top. (My boyfriend thinks I never listen when he talks about his BSc Computer Science degree, but there you go).

But that’s the computers language – we don’t speak in 1’s and 0’s. We communicate with keywords, meta, popular search terms and consistency.

So in the very necessary process of improving your websites visibility in the search engines results, there are a few things to consider:

• You need to identify what people search for (the actual terms or keywords) as well as which search engine they prefer so that you can optomise accordingly. Content is king! Make sure its useful and valuable so that people can keep returning to your site. Make them look forward to the next post.
• Make sure you have a keyword focused tag/headline in your postings or on every page of your site. So, for example I’ve used “SEO” which makes it more relevant to what people search for, than if I had used something like “How to get your websites noticed”.
• FRESH Content is a great one. The search engines can establish which content is brand new, and which is re-purposed. This will definitely take you up a notch. So get creative and insightful.
• Use keywords in your phrases – if you have a little bakery, don’t just say “Our little bakery”. Rather use your location as a key word to get found in local searches, like “Our little Sandton Bakery”.
• SHARING IS CARING. Add viral components, such as reviews, comments, sharing functions and ratings. Make people want to engage and provide information they’d want to share.
• Make sure your range of services are broad. Include video, news, music, podcasts, cross marketed social media etc. Don’t just have words and pictures – the internet is for so much more than that, and so is your brand!
• Create internal links – it doesn’t happen overnight. If you have a blog post that achieved a good Google page ranking position, then use it to build a couple of other links into pages on your site.

This is just a basic look at SEO. There are so many more tips to help catapult your website’s popularity. I’ll get into these and explore some of the points already covered here, within the next week.

In conclusion, SEO is content, keywords, links and reputation. Succesful brands happen when you understand the nature of the digital world we live in.

Social (Media) Experiment

In one of my previous post, I mentioned how important it is, even as a non-famous-brand, to promote interesting and relevant content. I think most of us ‘regular’ human-beings try and copy what we see from celebrities, thinking that if we constantly tweet photos of ourselves it’s going to get the same number of likes and catapault you to stardom. Yes sure, you might get a few and be recognised for your beauty, scouted by a model agency, or followed by people because your life seems interesting, but it can also be receieved as superficial. So as your own brand, you need to find out what works and what doesn’t. If the above is truly doing a great job in promoting yourself, then that’s fantastic – but if not, then change your strategy.

In proving my point, even just to myself, I conducted a little experiment:

I first tweeted about my latest blog (this one. The Social Wolf) with hashtags as well as the link. Even though it wasn’t a resounding response to most, it sparked a lot more action on Twitter than I’ve ever had. People who I didn’t know were liking and sharing it… some were recruitment companies, others were high-powered people with their own companies, and others were social media experts. My friend-count grew overnight, I had 10 visits to my site within a few hours AND from my site, I had people clicking on my LinkedIn icon, (which to my dismay, wasn’t linked properly when I checked it again – shit.)

But why did I get a response across three different social media platforms from one twitter post? Because I had somewhat interesting content, that people were interested in and that could ultimately benefit them too. Obviously the hashtags help to promote it to people you don’t even know, but the point is that it was still a hot topic.

And more than posting a selfie, everybody loves a young startup!

But to conclude the experiment,

I tweeted about something that was important to me – my cocker spaniel, Truffle. And over the last few weeks, I’ve also learned that a great way to get response, is to pose your tweet as a question. (Because it invites a discussion).

So I played it out: I wrote a tweet that’s pretty nonchalant to most and posed it in the form of a question. I even added a photo of her adorable face – because I’ve heard that’s also a good trick, and obviously hash-tagged it.

As you can see, even following the previous successful tweet, my personal thought about my tireless love for my pooch, fell very flat.

Not. One. Like.

As much as I wish dogs and animals were the most popular topic on the net, people aren’t as interested in your dedication tweet to your dog, as they are in something that’s truly beneficial to them.

So, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t post personal thoughts, pictures of your holiday and possibly even a selfie even now and then. Emphasis on the now and then. But make sure that first and foremost, you build your brand. Whatever it is you’re interested in, whatever you stand for… build yourself up in an interesting way, with relevant content! Because the networks you create from it will be top quality.

When Parents Inspire

Isn’t it fantastic when your parents are the inspiration behind your all of your goals? I’ve been blessed to have an incredibly successful and gracious father who loves me unconditionally, and an inspirational mother that amazes me more every day. Last night was my mom’s book launch of Standing Tall in a Falling World, that has gone into bookstores across the world. This book is for everyone who grabs the bull by the horns when it comes to life. It’s about making the right life choices, the limitless possibilities of success and building yourself up, even if your circumstances have landed you flat on the ground. As she says in her book, “Your future is a place you get to create.”

Last night was such a proud moment for us all, and of course it never goes down without a little celebration! Well done mom, you are beyond incredible! I’ve got some big shoes to fill.

Find Standing Tall at a bookstore near you, on Amazon.com or on her website: http://www.angeliquedutoit.co.za

  

Twit

I’ll admit that I’d never really gotten into the Twitter thing. I understood the platform for freedom of speech, opinions and the chance to interact with people you admired. But it kind of ended there for me. I just thought that I didn’t have an audience and people probably couldn’t give a hoot about my opinion. It felt like I was chatting to myself, kind of like this blog does right now, but that’s beyond the point.

When I realised the importance of marketing yourself, I realised what all twitter guru’s have been doing all along – Creating networks, targeting their unique markets and providing interesting content.

Sounds simple, right? But it takes a lot of love. A lot of seeking out certain people who have the same interests, building relationships with thought leaders and maintaining an active and always interesting account. Obviously, there is more to it than that, but let’s start there for now.

So yes, I was a bit of a twit before, but I’m well on my way now…

Follow me: @bayley_jones

People are brands too

As an industry creative, it’s always been crucial to know your stuff when it comes to the digital world, because after all – the world, people and companies revolve around it. I’ve always enjoyed social media, but up until recently I’ve seen it only from the surface. “58 likes – yes!” “Someone shared my witty comment.” or “Someone remotely famous sent me a request.” In the world of marketing and advertising though, “knowing-your-stuff” and staying on top of the latest trends allows you to benefit your client immensely. So, you’d go ahead and be as social-media savvy as possible because you were promoting this brand that people already knew and (hopefully) loved. It was already established – all you had to do was advertise the crap out of it, and cleverly! But, those brands didn’t get established without having to start as a complete unknown. People are the same. We all start as a complete unknown (unless your princess Charlotte of course), but the simple fact is that people are brands too. Whether you’re Richard Branson or little Bayley Jones from Jo’burg – you are your own brand – so make it count. Realise the power in marketing yourself, because every single one of us has something to offer the world. So, in my promise to never stop learning and never stop improving, I’m using this as a platform to educate myself in every aspect of the digital world, social media, SEO’s and even in the creation of a brand new idea. So, I’ll keep you posted, and it’d be really cool if you kept me on my toes.