I spent a fun and insightful day last week at Nick Tadd’s Social Media Workshop. Altogether a very useful and thought-and-action-provoking day!

One of the questions I raised with Nick was the desirability of using corporate versus personal branding and accounts when using the social media.

Nick has since posted a very interesting blog post examining the issue of Social Media Schizophrenia on the Ecademy Social Media Club (SMUDGE) Forum.

Nick concludes that “…The answer is to simply be YOU…you should focus on one core business, the one that you feel most passionate about. Build your on-line brand, personality, and profile around that one business. Once people LIKE and TRUST you, you can then expose them to your other business activities, even if they are totally un-related.”

As I noted in my response to Nick’s post, I believe the choices are not necessarily straightforward, and will depend on the individual, the business, target market and the industry.

And, as the social media and the way they are driving business strategy are here to stay, it’s well worth thinking through the issues as they affect YOU and YOUR BUSINESS…

As Nick (and Penny and Thomas Power, the founders of Ecademy) point out, the mediums available for promotion of one’s business are rapidly changing as we go into the 21st Century - largely due to the changes social media have brought, as well as the ‘information overload’ that we now have thanks to the internet as a whole.

As a result, we’re well into the ‘age of recommendation’ and the tendency to follow people, rather than brands (viz Penny’s KnowMe-LikeMe-FollowMe analysis).

There are many big corporates who use the social media - especially Facebook and Twitter - very successfully to promote the brand (Dell, etc) , rather than individuals - and this is an appropriate approach where the brand already has global or growing recognition.

Many senior executives do, of course, also have a personal Facebook and/or Twitter account, as this allows the corporate to put a more human face on the brand and plays to the above factors.

Many senior executives do, of course, also have a personal SM account, as this allows the corporate to put a more human face on the brand and plays to the above factors.

There’s an interesting TechCrunch blog post on how Charities are using Twitter very successfully to raise funds - this of course is using a corporate branding…

Celebrities are the prime example of using the social media to great effect on a personal branding basis, as people follow them (or their stage name personas) as ‘fans’.

There are also those who use the social media both with a ’sober business persona’ and also with a zanier ‘ the real me’ persona - eg Simon Leung (of Adwords List Building) - @SimonLeung has 39,900 followers, while @CoolSi has 43,600.

Using a personal brand on the social media may also be less easy for smaller businesses, eg the local hairdresser/cake shop or online graphic designer, unless the proprietors have ‘big personalities’ and/or are already well known in their business/area.

For the smaller start-up business/entrepreneur, social media are inevitably going to be a necessary part of core strategy for the future – it’s more and more a question of making the product fit the media, rather than vice-versa.

However, as they may not already be known by their persona, whether to use a corporate or personal branding will depend on a range of factors, including the business, the industry, the target market, personality, etc…

So thanks Nick for a timely post - all good ‘grist to the mill’…

…and I’ll include some questions on these aspects in my Free Tele-Interview with Thomas Power on Wednesday 8th July on “How To Use Social Media For Business Promotion”.

Details at: www.ThePowerNetworker.com

I look forward to you joining us on Wednesday!

Cheers!

John Thornely

I caught a Twitter and blog post from John Haydon about a video tutorial on feeding your Twitter stream with your Flickr activity by Ian Wilker that you may find helpful.

This is a great approach for posting images that tell a story or update your Twitter followers - especially for businesses or non-profits organisations that communicate their impact with images, but have limited time for social media marketing.

As John noted, this process seemed so easythat he’s done a screencast while he connected his own Flickr and Twitter accounts.

So, my thanks to John Haydon and Ian Wilker. Follow John on Twitter.

Here’s your invitation to a Tele-Interview I’m doing on July 8th with Thomas Power, Chairman of Ecademy, on how to find buyers and network using Facebook and Twitter…

“Can you afford to not to be in a market with 300 million Prospective Buyers?”

That’s the question that THOMAS POWER, Chairman of ECADEMY, asked us at the first #Twalk Twitter workshop recently hosted by Ecademy.

And that’s the question he’s going to answer in a Tele-Interview on Wednesday 8^th July…

Twitter and Facebook are the two KEY markets that are HOT right now and dwarf all the other Social Media sites as the place to win new prospects and build sales.

As Thomas says: “Twitter is growing beyond exponentially, with 1000% growth in the past year and 100% in the past couple of months alone! Projected use should reach 100 million by Christmas and it’s set to explode in the next year, once the school-age generation really catches on.”

And, with 200 million users, Thomas says “Facebook is a huge and active marketplace. So any serious entrepreneur is missing out badly if you’re not using it!

“You need to get into Twitter and Facebook NOW.”

As on-the-pulse entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki says: “Twitter and Facebook are the best way to market your product today - and both are free”.

Only 200 lines are available and are likely to be snapped up fast, so REGISTER NOW at www.ThePowerNetworker.com if you don’t want to be left behind…! It’s FREE!

Talk with you then!