How to Create and Maintain a Personal Brand Online

Personal branding is the process of creating and marketing a certain image for yourself online. Basically, your personal brand is your impression and reputation in the minds of others. With the rise of social media, crafting a personal branding has never been easier. Your online presence and personal branding are closely intertwined and work together to create an image of yourself for fellow colleagues and professionals.

In order to cultivate your personal brand, you should have a presence online. In today’s day in age having a presence online is the easiest and most effective way to build a personal brand. Everyone can create an online presence simply by creating social media accounts for themselves. Making yourself a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn is an easy and free way to create an online image for yourself. By keeping these social media profiles active and updated, you are contributing to your online presence and therefore creating a platform to build your personal brand. Be sure to post appropriate content for each social media platform. For example, you wouldn’t want to post a picture of your dog with his or her new toy on LinkedIn. That content is more appropriate for Facebook or Instagram. Another great personal branding tip is to give all your social media profiles a consistent look and feel.

So how do we create and maintain our personal brand? The first step to perfecting a personal brand is to express who you are. Having your education, professional experience, skills and specializations available for others shows people who you are, what you are capable of, and what you plan to do in the future.  Be sure to highlight your strengths, this is what will help you encompass who you are while emphasizing your most important features. In addition to this, showing your personality and interests will really diversify and personalize your brand. This is arguably the most important aspect of your personal brand since it helps you stand out and differentiate yourself from everyone else. Be sure to be as honest and authentic in this component.

Your personal brand is also built off of personal and professional relationships. This includes who you are connected with online and what these people say about you. Your personal brand is also built off of who and what you follow. Following influencers and communities online can really help you encompass who you are, what you are interested in and knowledgeable about, and what you stand for.

If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’ll be able to craft a personal brand for yourself online that will positively portray yourself to your colleagues and professionals.

Written by Emma Bevilacqua from Rebecca Adele PR & Events

Do You Know Who You are Talking to??? Know Your Audience!

Momma always said, “don’t talk to strangers!” Well, don’t be a stranger to your audience, get to know them! To reach your audience, you must be able to speak their language. This requires research. Audiences can be broken down by demographics, geographics, psychographics and behaviors segmentations.

Demographics:

These include, family size, gender, marital status, income, and occupation but the most common demographic is age. Communicating to different generation cohorts will require tailored messages and various media outlets to get your audience’s attention. For example; The Gen X community is more likely to read the newspaper than Millennials and you would be less likely to promote anything is “lit.”

Geographics:  

Yes, location plays a significant role in the language used to reach your audience. For example; Soft Drinks, you’re going to say Pop in Ohio, and Soda in Florida. Making that adjust makes all the difference if your soft drink is going to be excepted in that location.

Psychographics:

Psychographics are more personal to the audience. These include segmenting people based on social class, personal characteristics, lifestyles, and values. In a case for promoting environmental health, you will find that marketing toward values will be more efficient than using an age demographic approach. 

Behavior:

Behavior segmenting divides people based on attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors about your promotion. An example of this is promoting a brand based on the belief of its benefit, basically what they want from using the product. If you are promoting dandruff shampoo, create your message based on their belief that having a flaky, itchy scalp can be soothed and remedied by your product.

These are just a few tips on breaking down your audience into segments and creating the message that you give to them. Remember, this includes the slang terms and hashtags you use; if it does not resonate with them, then it will not work. When you learn what motivates your audience, you can successfully reach them and increase your team's efficiency!

Written by Marisha Daniels from Rebecca Adele PR & Events

Must Read Books for PR Professionals!

Public Relations is a complex and tactical area of professionalism. Because of this countless books have been written on the subject of PR. These books are great resources for PR professionals that will give insight, advice, and strategies from high esteemed professionals. Here are some of the best PR books in my opinion that are must-reads for every PR professional!

1. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie is a classic read for PR professionals and has sold over 15million copies since first being published in 1937. It provides valuable tips on how to communicate and persuade others in a professional and personal setting. Carnegie also includes a lot of personal stories proving his principles, which make the book a more entertaining read. Not only is this book a classic, but it’s also a good read!

2. “Crystallizing Public Opinion” was written by Edward Bernays, the father of public relations. It explains the psychology behind public relations. In this book, Bernays shares how ideas are spread, why they are spread, and why ideas either thrive or die out. The most fascinating thing about this book is that Bernays was well ahead of his time and seemed to have predicted the future of PR. If you can look past Bernays arrogant tone throughout the book, it is a very interesting read!

3. “Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage” was written by Michael S. Sitrick, the founder of a major crisis PR firm. This book gives you an inside look into the world of crisis communications. It’s basically a crisis PR handbook! It’s an important read that will give you the tools to successfully prepare you to deal with any crisis that the PR world could possibly throw at you.

4. “Reputation Rules: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset” is written by Daniel Diermeier, a professor from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Diermeier covers the importance of reputation and how the digital age has made maintaining a good reputation harder than ever. It’s a captivating read that will open your eyes up to the importance of reputation.

5. “Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World” by Michal Hyatt gives you a step-by-step guide to build your own presence in a cluttered world. Hyatt gives insight on how to make your brand stand out by telling you how to be different, relevant, and noticeable. He gives advice on how to do this on various platforms such as blogging, social media, media kits, and more! Definitely read give this book a read and check out Michael Hyatt’s renowned blog and podcasts too!

Do you have any favorite PR oriented books? Share with us in the comment section below!

Written by Emma Bevilacqua of Rebecca Adele PR & Events

Halloween Clown Craze Scare!

Clowns are a hot topic of conversation this past month. No longer are people laughing at clowns—they are running at the mention of them! Whether they used to make you giggle as a child, or send chills down your spine, they are now scarier than ever before thanks to social media and the news. 

Let's rewind.. It all began with the first clown sighting in Greenville, South Carolina, where two clowns were seen trying to lure a little boy into the woods. Once this news story hit national news, clown sightings began to spread like wildfire.

Clown sightings have blown up social media including Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook. It was even brought to attention at a White House briefing with Press Secretary Josh Earnest! So how has this become a topic of interest so quickly? The answer is social media.

Twitter has been has become the main news outlet for clown sightings and other clown activates. Twitter profiles such as @ClownSightings have been created to help people stay posted about recent sightings.

Further more, college students have been joining forces to hunt down the clowns. A video of a shirtless Penn State student leading a manhunt of 6,000 students went viral shortly after it was posted. The students were notified of the hunt through Twitter. Not too mention, the Penn State Clown has his own twitter account @PennStateClown. 

On Monday, October 3^rd, Twitter blew up for Kent State students due to a clown sighting on Kent State’s campus. Students were tweeting comments such as, “The circus is in Kent, how exciting!” Or “Join the hunt! #KentStateClown” Similarly, the Kent State Clown also has a Twitter account @KentStateClown.

Whether these clowns are dangerous or pranksters, I think we can all agree that it’s a little frightening! My advice to you—Don’t trust anyone with a clown outfit, you don’t know who is hiding behind it! Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Written by Lindsay Pizzurro of Rebecca Adele PR & Events

OH MY GOP?! Don’t Ignore Crisis Communications!

Planning ahead of time is a convenient way to manage your time. It’s also never a bad thing to get things done ahead of time. However, it is not good to declare the winner of the Vice-Presidential debate 90 minutes before the event’s salutations.

It comes to question how one could make such proclamations before the event unfolds because as we see with this premature announcement, things do not always go as planned.

The text of the story, posted at the Republican website, reads:

Americans from all across the country tuned in to watch the one and only Vice Presidential debate. During the debate we helped fact check and monitor the conversation in real time @GOP. The consensus was clear after the dust settled, 

Mike Pence was the clear winner of the debate.

Mike Pence’s top moments from the debate:

- Economy

- Highlighting Hillary’s scandals

Mike Pence made the most of his opportunity to debate Hillary’s VP pick Tim Kaine. The other clear winner from tonight’s debate was Donald Trump. His running mate perfectly shared Trump’s vision to make America great again and that message is resonating with Americans all across the country.

An unusual yet “usual” way the GOP addressed the mistake was as if it never happened. The GOP replaced the page with this:

That’s it? Sweep it under the rug?? Where is the crisis communication???

A vital step in crisis communication is to be open and never deny responsibility when it is clearly your fault. Not addressing the crisis is the same as denying it and in the age of social media of course it was caught! Not doing this can damage credibility.

Own your error and “save face” with the public.

Written by Marisha Daniels of Rebecca Adele PR & Events