Personal Branding isn’t just for “Business” People
Whether you realize it or not, if you have a job, you work for a business. If you’re a clown, a nurse, or a social worker, you participate in a line of work that will make you money. From time to time you may have to change jobs or evolve into an entrepreneur in order to support yourself and in both cases, having a personal brand is a major asset.
As some of you know I’m t-minus 6 months (and counting) from graduation at the University of Washington. I’ve been very lucky in my college career to earn credits by doing things I love like starting a business and write a book. I’ve been aching for an excuse to get a solid film project under my belt and decided to do a documentary for my graduation project. The documentary will explore the long-term viability of social media as a business strategy.
Because this is a one-man production and I’m on a tight schedule (the documentary must be submitted in ten weeks!) - any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m looking to film interviews in-person with the following types of people:
1). Brand managers or individuals from large companies in charge of social media initiatives
2). CEOs/CMOs of large companies using social media.
3). Entrepreneurs/Startups using social media.
4). Individuals from companies with social media success stories.
5). Individuals from companies with social media horror stories.
6). Individuals from companies that are opposed to using social media.
If you can connect me to someone that would be open for an interview, please send me their contact info via email (DerekMerdinyan [at] gmail [dot] com) or @Reply me on Twitter (@DerekMerdinyan). As a modest way of saying thanks, I set aside a few copies of my book to give away to people that help me establish connections with awesome people to interview.
Again, thank you for your help!
Thought I’d get a little creative with my resume. Definitely unconventional but HR Reps are looking to learn what it would be like to work with you as much as they’re looking into your skills. I think this provides a good balance of the two.
Many of the people I talk with about creating audio or video content for their personal brands are concerned about how their voice sounds when recorded. While many of these individuals are very confident when interacting with other people, they’re surprisingly insecure when they listen or watch any recordings of themselves. I was was one of these people a few years ago until Justin Robert Young and Andrew Mayne encouraged me to podcast for www.iTricks.com. Without their guidance and encouragement, I never would have worked on developing a voice and delivery style I was comfortable sharing with other people. It used to be that listening to my voice after recording a podcast was like thinking about people seeing me naked on a beach - I wasn’t comfortable with putting myself in such an ‘exposing’ position.
The rest of this article is an excerpt from Owning YOU where I talk about how nervous I was about creating a 30-second audio recording for iTricks.com - the first piece of content I created for the Internet.
