Most of us recognize the influence that corporate brands such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Zappos, Google, Microsoft, Nike or Starbucks have on our buying decisions. But how much focus do most of us put on the most important brand of all – our own?

Wikipedia defines personal branding “as the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging.”

Just a few short years ago, personal branding wasn’t really such a big topic of discussion. These days, however, it has everything to do with succeeding, especially in the social selling space. According to William Arruda, a personal branding guru, personal branding is a revolution in the way we manage our careers or businesses. It’s a way of clarifying and communicating what makes you different and using those qualities to separate yourself from your competitors.

You are the CEO of Brand U

Some years ago, in a Fast Company article, business guru Tom Peters advises individuals to follow the lead of the corporate world and do what they have been doing for years: create your own personal brand. Peters says that no matter what your career title, you are really the CEO of your own personal service company: Me, Incorporated. He says each of us is “a free agent in an economy of free agents” and that we all must establish our own “micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh.”

How does this fit social media?

Your personal brand is the firm impression or image that comes to mind when people think about you. It’s a mental picture someone forms about you when your name is mentioned. Whether we like it or not, prospective buyers Google our name, check out our website and look us up on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. In addition to our actions, words, clothes and behavior making a statement about who we are and what we offer, our online presence does the same thing. When you have seconds to create a lasting impression, one that contributes to achieving your revenue goals, it is important to honestly evaluate how your personal brand stacks up. Once you do, you can develop strategies to minimize those things that are detracting from the message you mean to convey.

Consistent branding based on authenticity can help you improve partnering and cultivate loyalty. –David Cohen, Creative Start-Up Veteran and Brand Strategist at Equation Arts.

Starting today – YOU are a brand!

Social media provides everyone the chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of something remarkable and memorable. Take the time to ask yourself the same question that brand managers at top companies ask themselves: What is it that my product or service does that makes it different? Challenge yourself to shrink it down to 15-words-or-less. Write down your answer. Then take the time to read it – several times. Think about…

• The qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors or your peers.
• How you have made yourself stand out today, this week or this month.
• What others would say is your greatest and clearest strength?

Shelve your biased thinking that a personal brand doesn’t matter when it comes to being successful selling your products or services. In today’s world, it is everything! If you want to achieve your goals, developing your brand is a must not a luxury.

Remember, even if you choose not to proactively define your personal brand, others are certain to do it for you. Will you like what they say?

Today, I spent lunchtime listening to a very informative webinar hosted by the folks at Marketing Profs. I signed up because I was intrigued by the title: How to Be a Social Media Strategist, Not the Social Help Desk. It was 90-minutes well spent. Jeremiah Owyang was the guest presenter, and I learned quite a lot from his session, as I always do.

Frankly, there was enough great information in today’s session to keep me busy blogging for several days, and what really caught my attention was when Jeremiah talked about a framework for social media measurement. I have often said that you can get started with tracking by setting specific and measureable objectives – upfront – as a component of your social media strategy. Truth be told, this works as a starting point, but the larger the organization the more important it is to have a measurement framework in place. In other words, companies need something more formal with which to evaluate their social media success.  In fact, Altimeter’s report on the Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist, notes that 48% of corporations said that their top priority is in creating a solid measurement process for evaluating social ROI.

Cool…how do you do it?

“The novice provide executives with engagement data –causing themselves to be stuck in the churn of obtaining more followers and fans –without a clear business goal.” –Jeremiah Owyang

While Altimeter’s research underscores the importance of measurement, the question businesses executives need to be asking is are you measuring the right things? Too much emphasis these days is placed on number of followers and fans and Altimeter’s own research discovered that some 65% of companies are measuring “engagement” with only 22% using “product revenue” as a metric. Hum. From a sales perspective it seems to me that you want to be tracking product and services sales and not just “engagement”.  Ironically, the focus on engagement means that it’s darn hard to tie the effects of “awareness” to physical sales, so it’s probably time to think about how to move beyond strictly looking at followers and fans and what nice (or not so nice) things they have to say about your brand.

The Social ROI Pyramid

“The seasoned professional provides executives with business metrics first. They know fans and followers aren’t a business goal, but what you do with them is.” –Jeremiah Owyang

5 Elements were referenced in Jeremiah’s presentation with respect to “standardizing” an approach for measuring social success across the organization. They are:

1. Start with a business goal in mind. No argument here, because it is something that I whole heartedly believe in and preach.
2. Provide the right data to the right people. Not everyone in your org needs the same information. Take the time to break it down and make it applicable to the respective roles within the company.
3. Vary the frequency and quantity of the data that you provide. As an example, top execs don’t need to be subjected to nauseating levels of detail that some social strategist’s feel compelled to provide. Similar to public speaking – know your audience and provide the information to them accordingly.
4. Customize your formulas. Industry standards don’t exist at this point and they might not for some time. You don’t need to wait though. Create the analytics that best support your business goals now and plan to adapt and refine them as you move forward.
5. Benchmark over time. According to Jeremiah, specific numbers are not as important as watching for the trend lines over time. In order to determine those monthly, quarterly and annual trends, you must start measuring now in order to gain the insight that you and your social media teams will need going forward.

The message that came through loud and clear today is that anyone responsible for social media strategy must have an organized process and measurement approach nailed down before they dive head first into that next glitzy Facebook campaign! To do otherwise means you’ll probably bomb out.

It’s common in the world of sales to talk about “calling high” in the organization. The idea being that getting to the higher levels means access to bigger budgets, as the execs at the top have the view from the top so to speak. At lower levels of the organization, budgets are smaller and competition can be tight for those dollars. But at the executive level, budgets can be moved around and combined for the right types of opportunities.

This is the new world of social sales where it should be much easier to get to the right decision makers at the right time. So I find it curious that most sales reps still tend to start their sales activities at the lower levels of the company versus getting to the relevant senior executive. I wondered why and decided to ask members of my favorite LinkedIn group - Sales Playbook – this question, “What are the top reasons that most sales people can’t seem to get a foot in the door to the C-Suite?” Reasons like fear, feeling “less than” and inexperience showed up. I happen to like how fellow Sales Playbook member @JerryVoltero summed it up. He said…

1. Lack of preparation to know who the true decision maker is that they should be talking to.

2. They do a lousy job of building rapport with the gatekeeper and don’t give them a strong enough argument for them to be the one who gets to come in and utilize some of that exec’s valuable time. Remember the gatekeeper’s job is to not waste the exec’s time.

3. If you are using a bottom up approach to get there, you have to get your champion to advocate with both the exec and the gatekeeper to get that proverbial foot in the door.

4. And once you get there, you better know what to ask them to figure out whether or not what you are selling will solve the business problem he/she has. Preparation is the key for sure.

And to Jerry’s point #4, preparation is not only key, it is critical! You may have a great product, perhaps even the best in your field, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore preparation. You may have the best product or service, but if you enter the sales process at the wrong time OR you don’t have the buy-in from the relevant senior executive, you have a big problem.

In today’s world of instantaneous access to information there is no excuse for lack of planning. Authors Nicholas Read and Stephen Bistritz remind us that…

“If you don’ take the time to stay current on your customers and prospects, the information won’t pop into your head by itself.” –Selling to the C-Suite.

I think that about sums it up!