by Scott Howard | Sep 22, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World
Creating an online personal brand is a mystery to many people. That includes me. Except after 10+ years I have some insight that I can share. 
First off, each of us has a personal brand. A personal brand is simply an identity, not necessarily one that you create for yourself, but what people think of when they think of you.
Take a second and read that again: A personal brand is simply an identity, not necessarily one that you create for yourself, but what people think of when they think of you.
For those of us who are old enough to have had a life before the internet, we had very little control of this. Do something crazy, something stupid, something heroic, and someone labels you with a nickname. That nickname became your personal brand, among those that knew you at the time.
Online you have more control because you get to decide what to share. You can even create a new nickname. That’s how ScLoHo began.
Actually ScLoHo started as an alternative to my given name, Scott Howard when I was setting up an email account on Yahoo! years ago. I started using ScLoHo also when I began blogging and carried it over to all my online accounts.
Enough history, on to what I do now.
5 days a week, I publish an article on my own website which is where you are reading this right now.
I have the wordpress plugin Jetpack that will autopost these daily updates to my Twitter account and to my personal Facebook page. I also have them autoposting to my two Google+ Accounts. This is the primary method I am currently using to share content that I write.
But there is more.
I hand select certain updates from this site to share on LinkedIn.
However, (and this is important): I share more than just my stuff on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
My Facebook account also has stuff from others and personal stuff that is original.
I fill my Twitter feed with all kinds of stuff from others including articles and stories that may be controversial. I am tweeting at least 10 times daily, but I use the buffer app to autotweet most of these Tweets. That way I have a real life that is not tied to the computer or my phone. I subscribe to a few newsletters that send me links to stories that I am often interested it and those are often the links that get buffered.
I avoid political talk on social media. Too much risk of offending others for no good reason. I will not shy away from my Christian beliefs. But I would rather live them then preach them. There is a verse in James that I try and follow regarding this.
I listen, at least I try to.
Responding is critical.
If someone comments on something you have posted, shared or said online, please reply.
Also comment and share with others on their stuff too.
A few more random but important thoughts:
- I still believe in blogging. At one time I was posting over 30 articles a week. Now I do 5. That’s 5 articles every week, 52 weeks a year. Some of the people who read what I post are not in the United States and don’t observe the same holidays we do.
- I do not write articles every day. I write in batches. I schedule in advance. I wrote this article while sitting in a coffee shop on Labor Day weekend a couple weeks ago. I have some articles scheduled months ahead of time. (There will probably be fresh articles appear after I die, which is weird.)
- Share more than once on Twitter. I follow around 1000 people on Twitter and have 3700 following me. I don’t see every tweet because I have a life that doesn’t involve staring at my Twitter feed. Share your content on Twitter at different times on different days to get more exposure to more people. Unless you only have 30 followers.
- Join Groups. Facebook and LinkedIn has groups you can join. Or create your own and invite others to join you. A friend of mine started a Facebook group in Fort Wayne to match employers with career and job seekers. In less than 6 months he has over 6,000 members. And it is helping people get jobs that need work.
- Be yourself but filter yourself too. You should know what this means but let me help. If you would not want your minister, mom or grandpa to see or hear what you share, then think twice before you share.
Even though I was honored this year again with an award for blogging, I didn’t jump online a dozen years ago to become an expert in any of this. Yet there are some who think of me as an expert. (I reply to them that an expert is a former pert). I just started doing this and never stopped. I learned from others and continue to learn. I know there are somethings I could do better but this is just a portion of my life. Have any thoughts or questions? Tell or ask.
by Scott Howard | Mar 2, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights
Can you describe what you do in a matter of seconds that compels someone else to be impressed?
Impressed enough to want to know more about what you do?
or why you do it?
or how you do it?
That’s the basic concept behind the elevator speech idea. The name comes from the idea that if you were to take a short elevator ride and on the elevator a stranger hops on, you have a few seconds to make a lasting impression with someone who could be your next big client, or employer, etc. 
This is the same concept I apply to crafting your advertising message.
It is not always easy. Because we have to find the right message that is uniquely you. Sometimes the message is unique to you with certain qualifiers, “The only board certified podiatrist in New Haven”, for example.
But it also needs to have a compelling call to action. That’s what motivates the right person to do something. At the very least, remember you.
Coming up in a future series, we’ll dig deeper into crafting a message for your advertising and marketing, but for now, see if you can answer those questions and improve them too.
by Scott Howard | Mar 20, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
Some folks think you just need a Facebook page.
Sure, join the other 845 million on Facebook.
Others think you need a website.
Duh.
Twitter account?
LinkedIn Profile?
Blog?
Which one?
I think all of the above.
It’s what I did, and then some.
But don’t just take my word.
Here’s advice from Matt Straz and Mediapost:
Last year I resolved to become more active in online networking. While I had worked in digital media for over a decade, I had neglected to build my own brand online. Sure, I was on Facebook and also on LinkedIn, but I didn’t have a Twitter account and had rarely found time to write about the industry. I was a good marketer for my clients, but I had neglected to fully market myself.
Apparently my efforts at brand building over the past six months have been productive. Assuming that a Klout score actually matters, I now have a rating of 55. While I’m far from a top score of 100 (unattainable Justin Bieber territory), my rating does put me in the general neighborhood of such New York media and technology luminaries as Dave Morgan (56), Fred Wilson (65) and Mike Lazerow (68).
Here are the four steps I took that seem to have improved my personal brand value:
I started writing. The most important first step I took to raise my profile was to begin writing the weekly column that you’re thankfully reading. The column forced me to think seriously about the industry. What is the future of media, advertising and technology? Will media agencies still be around in 10 years? Where do the best agencies and publishers go to drink after work? Attempting to answer these serious questions has greatly expanded my knowledge of the industry.
It should be said that writing a weekly column is a significant investment in time and energy. Occasionally, it can be difficult to come up with an original idea at all. And even if I have a good idea for column it can take a couple of days, on and off, to get it to the point where it is hopefully interesting. Writing six hundred coherent words every week is harder than it looks, at least for me.
I started a blog. Once I knew I was going to publish a column every week for MediaPost, I set up a blog called The Makegood, where I could republish my articles and present them as news. If Arianna Huffington could do it, why not me? Thanks to free blogging services like WordPress, I was able to start publishing immediately.
But rather than just publish my own articles, I also used the blog as a platform to interview other professionals that I knew. This enabled me to learn more about the people and companies that were changing the face of media advertising. By highlighting these folks, the blog served as a way to not only raise my profile but theirs as well.
I joined Twitter. Twitter means different things to different people, but for me it mostly serves as an important professional networking tool. Through Twitter, I’ve met industry CEOs, journalists, agency executives, salespeople and basically a whole group of people who would have otherwise been inaccessible. It’s amazing what people will do for you if you just ask nicely.
Twitter has also provided a means of content distribution for my blog. Each time I post a new article, the links are pushed out through Twitter. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook now drive over 40% of the traffic to my blog, twice as much as search.
I attended industry events. Ironically, building your brand online still requires showing your face at offline events. No matter how much I stay in touch with people via Twitter and Facebook, it’s also important to physically meet and socialize with other professionals. Plus, they may even buy you a drink. That’s why I make a concerted effort to attend events like the IAB annual meeting, the 4A’s Transformation, and New York’s Advertising Week.
While it’s not a requirement (yet) for getting a good position in media advertising, building a strong personal brand online can be a very worthwhile investment.
Matt Straz was a senior partner at MEC from 2002-2008. He is currently the CEO of Namely.
by Scott Howard | Feb 6, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
Let’s kick off the week with a little discussion about Branding.
I’ll focus on Personal Branding, Image and Social Media.
But let’s talk about the big boys first.
A few years ago I read an excellent book about the history of McDonalds and how it was Ray Kroc who created the empire, not the McDonald brothers who started the business in Califorina.
One of the hallmarks of McDonalds is brand consistency mixed with regional variety.
Golden arches in the shape of an M means McDonalds.
Now let’s relate that to your personal brand image on Social Media.
I am active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and FourSquare, plus a few hundred other accounts.
Most of these accounts let you use an image or avatar to help folks idenitfy you visually.
I was messing this part up and finally started cleaning up my mess last week.
I was using different pictures on different accounts. Oh sure they were all me, but they were not all the same picture.
Some were 4 years old, some were 2 years old and some were from last year.
These were mostly headshots but each a little different.
A summer shot from the beach at Lake Erie, a pic from Indianapolis, even a shot from me in a tux from my daughter’s wedding last year.
And then the real crazy part, for a few weeks I was updating my Facebook Profile picture everyday with a fresh shot each morning.
This flies smack dab in the face of what I know about creating a memorable brand.
Just like McDonalds would never allow any of their stores to abandon their Golden Arches, you and I need to build consistency too.
My advice, for your personal brand is to use a recent headshot, one that looks like you so if folks see you face to face, they will recognize you.
We want to connect with those we know on social media and if your Facebook Profile Picture or Twitter avatar don’t match the real you, we all lose out.
I’m sure you want folks to recognize you instead of wondering, “who is that?”
Now excuse me while I go tackle those other hundred or so social media sites I’m on and post the right picture.
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