Does Your Presence Look Expert to You?
People speak and write a lot about personal branding. Online that breaks down to presence which in simple terms is reputation and focus. Both become enhanced when we highlight our expertise in a strategic and consistent fashion.
7 Tweaks to Your Social Presence to Reflect Your Expertise
Experts have authentic skills, knowledge, and experience. But some of us with those exact traits have more insight to making sure those traits shine through. Here are 7 ways to manage your online presence to be seen as the expert you are.
- Walk your own path. Be the expert you are, not the expert someone else is. You can’t be compared. You’re not a fanboy or a fangirl. Differentiate what you offer from the start. Play to your strengths. Check your social networking profiles — at Facebook, SU, Twitter, etc. –to see that they underscore the same differentiated traits.
- Focus on ONE thing Make that one thing particularly suited to you. Be a ââ¬Ågo toââ¬Â person for a specific problem. Then find a way to meet that need that no one else can do the same way you do.
- Write expert answers and content — LinkedIn question and answers are a great place to do this. Seek out questions about your chosen point of expertise throughout the Internet and write thought, precise, actionable answers to them. Give information, examples, AND analysis. Occasionally offer evaluation, synthesis, or predictions.
- Always know what’s happening with folks who need what you do. Join the sites and the offline groups where your potential customers and clients hang out. Refer and promote customers and clients whenever you can. Sometimes they’ll need a helping hand and they’ll remember the expert who helped them out.
- Know your niche in detail. Get to be friends with Google Alerts and discovery services. Follow key terms around the Internet.
- Be an expert at helping colleagues. Don’t be shy about sharing information. Talk with them. Visit and comment on their blogs. Ask them for an interview. Guest post now and then. Help others in visible ways — on your blog, on Twitter, through Facebook groups.
- Go deep. (Don’t be shallow.) Find out what researchers are thinking so that you can offer the highest quality, relevant information and analysis. Add information to the conversation that no one has found.
An expert to most people is someone who more knowledge, skills, and experience than we do . . . never discount how much expertise you’ve gained or it’s value.
What else might we do to let our expertise show through?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Tahnks for the tips, but mostly the Google Alerts tip. I use alerts for other things but I never thought about using it to track my niche (it’s so obvious, not sure why I missed it). Your timing is great, I’ve been looking for more info relating to my site. Thank you!
I’d add in “build on-line relationships.” One of the finest gifts I’ve had while I have had my own sites is the relationships I’ve built with people I now know.
These seven, by the way, are spot on.
Excellent overview of the importance of establishing your social presence or online brand that clearly and consistently identifies you and your expertise.
Too often many lose their focus and fail to engage fully with others or demonstrate an ability or willingness to follow their own teachings and preachings.
I’d love to have the opportunity to chat with you in further detail about the role of blogging in the social marketing process and a project that is being developed to address some of these very issues.
Dr. Ron the NicheProf
Great stuff here! Thanks!
Hi Scot!
Thanks for the addition! Online relationships, such as the one I have with you and those you have over at Cube Rules are the foundation of our life and reputation online. 🙂
Thanks, Miz Liz!
Great list, reading industry research can be dull at times but it’s important to keep up on. I made myself read a fairly boring report on email marketing this morning, but I now feel more confident in my knowledge of that topic.
I would second the importance of building on-line relationships. One of the benefits is the conversation that happens with comments on our blogs. Personally, being a “hugger,” I would say on-off-line relationships.
I would also add keeping up with the context and technology of social media. It’s a huge task to cover it all but fortunately we are surrounded (especially on Twitter) by experts doing that for us. In my own career, I have gone from high tech to consumer products and have now thrown myself back into work that requires me to taste that hectic pace of change that accompanies social media. We can choose how much of technology shifts in social media we need to absorb based on what we are trying to accomplish. But since we are in it, we can’t ignore it.
Hi Laura,
I know what you mean. I watched an hour long video last night and learned so much that I’m going back to watch it again. Inside it, books were mentioned that I want to read. 🙂
Yeah, Linda,
Actually I would say that everything is to keep the relationships going forward and the conversation working right. 🙂
Hey Liz
Great post – I think this has a broader application for all one-person service providers offline as well as online.
Have you read Michael Port’s book: ‘Book Yourself Solid’? Based on this post alone, I think you’d like it.
Nice to find some things in the list I’m doing and some new things to explore.
Any advice on the time demands of social media?
When I first started reading blogs just a few months ago, it treated it like a guilty distraction.
With the great people I’m meeting, and cross-pollination of ideas, I’m realising it’s an important part of growing my business, my knowledge, and me.
Need to stop hiding, and feel ok about allocating a significant block of time to the *productive* parts of social media every day.
It’s not just writing, but commenting, connecting and conversing that’s equally important.
And with so many people out there, the more you can be you, and in your niche, the better.
Made me think – AGAIN!
Hi Andrew!
So much of what we do seems to be what we are used to. Something new has to find a way to fit into our lives.
Every month or so, I try to sit back to find the value in what I’m doing. it helps a lot to help me keep track of my time. 🙂
The more I read about Social Marketing and development of my online presence- the more I feel this is who I am. I love to help people, research and ask why. Everything I read says to shine, be helpful and just get to know people. Awesome.
My career path is an Administrative Assistant, but I am also a marketer and a “helper”, researcher, problem solver. I am looking to take my career to the virtual level and this has lead me to research social marketing. I can’t get enough info.
Hi Liz,
Great thoughts..! I was just browsing and got this valuable ideas of yours. Its blessing for us young to have such expert people publishing their ideas and pathways for future and to achieve our potential peaks.
Social networking is the best tool to be connected and informed where ever you be.
I am providing help for my friends and other unknowns in uplifting their weak areas thus it makes me happy to help other homo sapiens.
Cheers..!
Lasitha Silva
Hi Liz,
this is a great post. Clearly written, not jargony and helpful. Thank you!
To add to the 5th point, I’ve become a big fan of search tag/keyword RSS feeds. There’s a great post on making a ‘social media cheatsheet’ to stay on top of your knowledge specialty here:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_build_a_social_media_cheat_sheet.php
I also use http://www.search.twitter.com to generate RSS feeds of the latest mentions of my keywords/fields of interest on Twitter. I then feed these into my Google Reader.