Strong Employer Brands Pay Attention to Corporate Social Responsibility

December 26, 2008 at 4:14 am | In Book Reviews, Employer Branding, Interview, People, Personal Branding, Success Methodologies, gen-y | 2 Comments

Today, I spoke with Kellie A. McElhaney, who is a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and one of the main brains behind the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative that is spreading all over the world.  When it comes to employer branding, successful corporations are able to bridge their brand and that of a noble cause together.  Kellie talks about what CSR is, why most company’s fail to do a good job with CSR, how company’s and their employee can get involved today and the impact all of this has on Gen-Y.

How do you define corporate social responsibility?

I define CSR as a business strategy linked to two things:  1) a company’s core business objectives and 2) a companies’ core competencies, designed to both provide positive financial return to the company, as well as positive social/ environmental return to society.

Why do most companies fail to pay attention to social responsibility and what are the drawbacks when they don’t incorporate it into their corporate strategy?

Companies fail to engage in CSR because they do not see the inherent business value in CSR as part of their overall corporate strategy (reputation enhancement, operational cost savings, talent attraction/ retention, brand differentiation, access to new markets, customer loyalty, license to operate in new countries/ communities.  When CSR is not integrated in to or linked with corporate strategy, it is one of the first things to get cut when profits are down or new leadership comes on board.  It is viewed as extraneous to the business.

What are your 7 Principles of Branding & CSR?

  • Know thyself (link to your business objectives and competencies.
  • Get a good fit (select an issue/ cause for which you own part of the solution)
  • Be consistent (one deep cause throughout the company over a long period of time)
  • Simplify (simple easy messaging, like Pedigree’s Help Us Help Dogs)
  • Work from the Inside Out (engage employees throughout the company)
  • Know Your Customer (some segments are much more ready for this, ie Millennials, Women, LOHAS)
  • Tell Your Story (stories trump facts 10 times out of 10)

What are your top 3 tips for branding your company as great place to work?

  • Engage employees in developing your CSR strategy, have CSR Councils, Committees, subgroups, etc.
  • Tell one good story of one example of how your employees have harnassed the power of your business to make the world a better place.
  • Let your employees act as brand ambassadors and tell why you are a great place to work.

What impact does CSR have on millennials?

  • 79% want to work for a company heavily engaged in CSR
  • 56% will refuse to work for a company who is not at all committed to and engaged in CSR.
  • Over 80% will switch brands if no CSR.

But more importantly, Millennials will blog, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook about YOUR company and why you are or are not engaged in CSR- they spread their views on CSR virally.  They can make or break youyr brand in this space.

——
Kellie A. McElhaney is the John C. Whitehead Adjunct Professor and the Founding Director of the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She’s also the author of  Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand.  In 2003, she launched the center, which has helped place corporate responsibility squarely as one of the core competencies and competitive advantages of the Haas School. McElhaney teaches courses on Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and was named a “Faculty Pioneer” by the Aspen Institute in 2005. She consults to several Global 1000 companies in developing integrated CSR strategy, bridging her academic focus with the practitioner world.

An Introduction into the World of Personal Branding

December 22, 2008 at 11:55 am | In Career Development, Personal Branding, Success Methodologies, eBrand, social media | 11 Comments

I’ve been asked by a lot of people for an article that introduces personal branding. I went searching through my archives and found that I really didn’t have an up-to-date article that goes over personal branding at a high level. More and more educators are interested in this space and most of my posts are for someone with basic knowledge and skills. Before we step into 2009, I’d like to go over the basics of what you need to know to get started on your brand for next year. “Building my personal brand” should be on all of your new years resolution lists.

The history of personal branding

Tom Peters crafted an article for the August 1st, 1997 issue of Fast Company Magazine, entitled “The Brand Called You,” which explored the evolution of career development, and exposed a new mindset for the new millennium. Basically, instead of relying on a company for career guidance, it’s up to you to take ownership of the brand called you. Personal branding called for everyone to become a “free agent,” which not everyone bought into back then. Now there are tools available for you to grasp your brand and shape it (social media).

Web 2.0’s impact on personal branding

Before web 2.0 changed our world, it was really hard to get enough press to really stand out. There weren’t blogs, so you’d have to get your local newspaper, or mainstream media to write about you. You could go to a networking event and meet five to ten people each time. You could sit in your college class and meet ten new people. Web 2.0 amplified how we network, first impressions and personal visibility and self-promotion forever.

Me 1.0 was hidden behind a corporate brand, without an outside voice and not being able to afford excessive promotion (PR & advertising). Me 2.0, as I call it, is when you get to stand in front of your company, at the cost of your time and with the ability to carry your voice across the world in a matter of seconds (think Twitter). I’ve captured this change in my new book, rightfully called, Me 2.0.

Why personal branding was inevitable

There are two main reasons why personal branding is becoming a core part of our culture. Sadly, it’s nothing revolutionary! First, we are all being judged all the time, even when we’re sleeping (our online profiles are still up!). Second, we have to constantly sell our ideas to teachers, managers, venture capitalists, our friends and family, to make things happen in our lives. We have to convince them to take action.

Personal branding defined

In 2007, I gathered a group of international brand and career experts to collaborate on a single definition for personal branding. After analyzing the definition and reciting it in a few presentations back then, I felt it was too long, thus no one could remember it. For 2008, I shortened it to “how we market ourselves to others.” Personal branding is a process.

Personal branding: how we market ourselves to others.

The personal branding process (DCCM)

1. Discover: The first thing you need to do is to figure out who you are, what you want to do in life, while focusing on your strengths, passions and goals. After that, you should create a development plan that aligns your short-term and long-term goals and, finally, a personal marketing plan.

2. Create: There are traditional and non-traditional ways to create your personal brand. The traditional ways include a business card, professional portfolio, resume, cover letter and references document. The non-traditional ways include, a video resume, LinkedIn profile, blog, Twitter and your existence on the various other social networks. While you create your brand, ensure that the content, including pictures and text, are concise, compelling and consistent with how you want to represent yourself.

3. Communicate: After you’ve created your brand, it is only natural (and human instinct) that you want people to see what you’ve done. Depending on your audience (hiring manager, teacher, clients), you may want to tweek your materials accordingly. To properly communicate your brand, through self-promotion, you need to have your story down pat and find the right sources that would be interested in what you have to say. I would recommend promoting others before you promote yourself as well. Communication consists of guest posting on blogs, writing articles for magazines, becoming your own personal PR person (pitch to the media), attending networking events and speaking.

4. Maintain: As you grow, the brand people see has to grow at the same time. For every new job, award, press article, and client victory (to name a few), everything you have created has to reflect that. The reason is simple:

You want to use what you did in the past to get what you want in the future.

Also, as you become more popular, your reputation will be knocked around and tossed throughout the web, from blog post, to tweet, to video, and more. You’ll want to keep a close eye on where your name is. To do this, I have created a post giving you free tools to do so.

Personal branding depends on your career status

High school student: If you’re in high school, personal branding still applies to you because getting into a top college is very competitive. Your goal is to position yourself as worth of a top school, so getting good grades, good SAT’s, interviewing at schools, networking with alumni who can endorse you, writing a compelling essay and all things social media, will help you.

College student: A college student is interested in either getting an internship, starting a business or getting a corporate job upon graduation. They have to compete on experience and network extremely hard in order to get a job. They need to position themselves as superior relative to their peers. This means, becoming a leader in college organizations, meeting as many people as you can, forming a personal branding toolkit and starting when you’re a freshman are critical to your success.

Corporate employee: If you work for a company, and enjoy doing so, then personal branding becomes the cornerstone for how you move up the hierarchy and become recognized as a leader.

Entrepreneur: An entrepreneur needs to think about branding his or her company, as well as him or herself in the process of establishing a business. The entrepreneurs brand must reflect the company, yet be set apart from it simultaneously. The entrepreneurs brand is VERY important in securing venture capital. For instance, if Jason Calanis wanted seed money, he has a better chance of getting it than someone without a track record of success (he sold Weblogs Inc for millions).

Consultant: These individuals are obviously all about personal branding because it’s all they got. Many consultants brand themselves as masters of a specific trade (at least the good ones). They are able to track value and attribute it to the work they provide for clients.

3 laws of personal branding

Authenticity: You need to be yourself because everyone else is taken and replicas don’t sell for as much. Furthermore, you need to define your brand before someone else does for you!

Transparency: It’s better to be straightforward and honest, then lie, and have your actions work against you.

Visibility: The notion that if you aren’t known, you don’t exist.

5 benefits of personal branding

Promotions: Anyone who is ambitious and works at a company will want to move up. By building your personal brand, you become the best choice for a promotion.

Happiness: By aligning who you are with what you do and appending goals to it, you can turn “work” into a “hobby.” You can position yourself on a topic you love, so you get paid to do what you would count as a hobby.

Compensation: Personal brands command premium prices. Just like Apple and Gillette can charge more for products you can get for less, you can do the same.

Business: People want to purchase from other people who they know, like, trust. When you make those people happy that they chose you, by giving them great results, they will refer you to even more people.

Perks: Strong brands get perks. For instance, I get free books from authors and other bloggers get free products, such as limited edition Pepsi cans. Celebrities, like Halley Berry, don’t have to pay for anything because of who they are.

Each Content Posting Reminds People Your Brand Exists

December 15, 2008 at 12:29 pm | In Misc, Personal Branding, Success Methodologies, social media | 7 Comments

A lot of my friends, colleagues, ex-classmates and family wonder why I post ten times a week on this blog, in addition to filming podcasts, tweeting roughly fifty times or so per week and more. There are a lot of reason to be a content producer, not just a consumer, but today I want to go over the branding aspect that might be overlooked.

Traditional brand reminders

For a brand to be recollected, relative to a certain brand set (company, product, person), it has to be shown multiple times within a specific time period.

When you overload people’s senses, especially the ones in your target audience, they have no choice but to remember your name and what you stand for, at a minimum. For example, some celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lil Wayne and Brad Pitt, are making the covers of major magazines like US Magazine and People Magazine.

You can’t even leave a convenience store without seeing their face! Product brands like Gillette Razors and iPods are remembered because of TV commercials, subway advertising, print advertising and more. After a long history of advertising and PR, things begin to resonate quicker.

Let’s say the press stops caring about a celebrity or brands stop advertising altogether for a year. Would you remember it? I would say, depending on the strength of the brand (equity), some brands would lose a lot of mindshare.

Why you have to produce content regularly

Every single time you post on your blog, upload a YouTube video, or tweet using Twitter, you are reminding people of your existence and your promise of value. Your readers or visitors will make a mental note that you are still in the conversation, actively participating by providing them (hopefully) something useful or entertaining or both.

Over time, people start paying a lot of attention to those who contribute content regularly and consistently. These individuals, possibly yourself, reap extraordinary rewards, such as a possible job offer, speaker opportunity, consulting gig and more.

The opportunity cost for being a “light producer”

If you did a blog post once every month, and you weren’t a celebrity, I think people would forget about you. They would just move onto the next blog that could provide the same or greater value. Since there are over 133 million blogs, it’s pretty easy to unsubscribe and subscribe to a different one. When people don’t see your name after a while they forget about you, but if you choose to produce content constantly, they won’t have a choice but to remember you.

The 2 P’s and 4 C’s of Personal Branding

October 14, 2008 at 11:12 am | In Personal Branding, Success Methodologies | 5 Comments

Today, I wanted to touch on what I’m calling the 2 P’s and 4 C’s of personal branding. A lot of people have their own lists, but I felt the need to share mine with all of you. When I think of personal branding, most of my messaging revolves around protection and promotion. It’s important to note that someone can steal “your identity” as we speak. Also, a lot of people think blogging and social networks are going to just get you attention, when it really takes hardcore promotion of these pages to become successful. The 4 C’s of personal branding revolve around how you build relationships with people in your network that fill up your world.

2 P’s of personal branding

Protection: In today’s wired web 2.0 world, you have to reserve your domain name, as well as your name on the leading social networks, in order to protect yourself. Your competitors could take your name in a heartbeat. Also, people who share the same name can take it for their own. The end result is that they will own your Google results and you will go undetected! In order to be successful building your personal brand, ensure that you protect your identity and control your results because that is how the world will see you.

To protect your online brand you must be a content producer, not just a consumer.

By generating content, you are filling spots in the top results for your name, so even if you get bad press, it won’t show up.

Promotion: Aside from protecting your personal brand, you need to get it out there. No one will know you exist until you start actively marketing and pitching your brand to others, either online or offline. Social media tools are obvious ways to get your name out there for no money, at the cost of your time. The problem that most people have is that they think that “if you build it they will come.” Listen, the only way people are going to see your content is if you show it to them! By actively promoting your brand, you are, in effect, creating a snowball effect. Things might start slow, but the more people who you about you, the better because they will tell even more people.

4 C’s of personal branding

Content: A blog is not a blog without the content. Your content is the talking piece by which you can communicate with others. Think about it—how are you supposed to meet someone and strike a conversation if there is no material there? Ensure that your content is appealing, original, controversial, and open for comments. View other blogs related to your subject, summarize them, link to them and formulate a digest post. Also, you can engage your community by offering “series” posts, where you give them information little by little. The best blogs are the ones that have access to information others do not, such as research reports or thought leadership.

Comments: There’s no better way to attract new readers, brand yourself on other blogs and network than commenting. It is also a way of demonstrating genuine interest in other people and your interpersonal communication skills. By commenting on other blogs you are helping furthering topics that may just be dropped based on lack of comments. When other’s comment on your posts, comment back and use the @therename to make it direct. This is how you continue the conversation.

Conversation: You may engage in on-blog conversations with other bloggers or readers, but the real power lies in off-blog conversations. As people list their email address, phone number and other modes of contact on their blog, it gives you the opportunity to further a conversation with them. That off-blog conversation may turn into a blog post or even a hiring opportunity.

Community: With many comments and conversations, you are in fact establishing a community. If your blog is perceived to have a community that regularly adds comments, then you won’t just reap the traffic rewards, but you’ll have various word-of-mouth marketers under your wing. Community members help each other out, whether it is through blogging, content, or overall brand advice.

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