Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

We’ve spoken about how your network will soon be a job qualification back in October. I think it’s even more than that now, taking the economic climate and the rise of social media as a mainstream vehicle into account. Your network, which is naked online and seen by employers and your management, will become one of the most important promotional items for your company or prospective company.

We should all have a marketing mindset now.  If you don’t, it’s time to start reading this blog and acquire one!

3 different perspectives

The corporate perspective

Company’s are going to be cutting back on marketing budgets for 2009. Most company’s already have set their budgets and they are significantly lower than a year ago this time. Also, marketing departments are being downsized, which means there are less people to get the message out. The problem is that they still need to get their brand out there, in order for people to 1) remember them 2) think positively of them 3) have them in their evoked set (a top-of-mind product/service).

The employee perspective

Employees, especially in the marketing department, are in desperate need of support. With a slim budget, they are still forced to see a return on each dollar they invest in their marketing programs. Many employees aren’t accustomed to social media yet and are still resorting to investing every dollar they have into interrupting random people, hoping they decide to, at a minimum, visit their website. Employees are going to be very irritated and shocked that proving ROI next year is going to be difficult. Most have not taken the past year or two to build out their online network by developing lists that they can market to themselves.

The potential hire perspective

Over a million people have laid off, but how many have taken the time to build up their social lists? I bet very few. Most job seekers are still convinced that the old way of job seeking (how to get a job through social media) is the way to go and, sadly, most fail as a result. Sure, they create a LinkedIn profile and submit their resumes to corporate websites and traditional job banks, such as Monster and Careerbuilder, but they don’t understand that we’re almost in 2009! Attraction-based (or inbound) marketing is the best long-term strategy for never applying for jobs and getting job offers on your doorstep. The few potential hires that are socially-connected should be rewarded with job offers.  They do have to fulfill the job requirements and be exceptional.  That will never change.

Employees MUST BE the brand in 2009

There’s no doubt it my mind that each and every employee is a brand ambassador. There aren’t sign-up forms for employees. The second you accept your job offer, you hold the corporate brand for life. Management has to push their vision at you and make you love your work, despite economic uncertainties. If you meet someone for the first time and tell them you work for XYZ company, you better be able to articulate what the company does, what your role is and smile at the same time. If you commit a crime and do something dumb, at some level, it can hurt your corporate brand. This is the reason why company’s don’t like hiring people that have criminal records.

In 2009, you and your company can only succeed if you live and breath the corporate brand.

Benefits of hiring socially-connected employees

• Marketing from the inside out for free
• More connections equals higher productivity
• Stay ontop of trends
• Save money on hiring employees with quick and trusted referrals
• Free consulting, tips and resources from people in their network

Layoff marketers who aren’t socially-connected

This might sound harsh and many of you might get upset, but the reality is that there are many more job seekers (3.3) for every job now.  That being said, it’s easy for a company, especially a small company, to add and remove workers on-demand.  Unless the marketer has provided exceptional ROI over a long period of time, their job is in already in jeopardy.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve put in 10 years or even 25 at your company either.

Marketers that are socially-connected can help you market for free, when you have almost no money.  Wouldn’t you rather hire these individuals, than keep those who can’t help you do this?

Are you socially-connected?