REACHING FOR STARPOWER: Freebies, Newbies and Success

Reaching For Starpower with Barbara Marynowski

Today’s opportunities for online social networking are more plentiful than ever. MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Friendster, Bakespace, Bebo, hi5, Orkut, Perfspot, Yahoo! 360, Netlog and Zorpia – these just name a few of the main contenders. Toptenreviws.com recently released their “2009 Social Networking Websites Product Comparisons” rating the pros and cons of many of the sites previously mentioned – a great resource when deciding what site can help you market your business, yourself and grow your network most efficiently to suit your needs and desires.

So what does this have to do with celebrity networking, you ask? For starters, they are great places to learn more about your desired celebrity and conduct some basic research on whether or not they are truly a fit for what you are seeking to market. Their basic stats and most recent projects are usually easy to identify in a quick, concise manner – there are few things more irritating than wasting time trying to piece together information just to get through the initial question of “is this a match?” Secondly, these sites are free. They are chock full of information, opportunities and potential without any financial risk. Knowing how to take full advantage of these is another issue, but as raw resources they’re hard to beat. (TNNW is a great place to search for tutorials, tips and tricks.) Invest as much or as little time as you want, experiment with various approaches and methods all without having to spend a dime. This is especially appealing to new and small business owners with much more limited budgets.

Thirdly, social networking sites are the perfect places to seek out up-and-comers. While attracting the attention of an already established star is always preferable, it is usually less likely right off the bat. However, newer celebrities tend to be much more approachable and willing to open lines of communication, plus they, too, have the desire to market themselves and network to grow their recognition so they are willing to do more one-on-one chatting. Although this method requires commitment and work to grow the relationship, it can prove fruitful with the right relationships. For example – my friend Patrick starting talking with a new musician from Norway, who happens to be on a record label pioneered by one of the members of Motley Crue; after months of conversation on Twitter and Facebook, he is now enjoying a position on their marketing team and connecting with professionals in the US market, a feat that would otherwise have been nearly impossible without already having an “in” in the business. And all he really did was some online socializing – something most of us do regularly anyway!

There’s really no reason not to take full advantage of social networking sites, especially as they continue to grow in popularity and successful marketing potential.

To your success,

Barbara H. Marynowski

Barbara H. Marynowski is the owner of Fempowerment Unlimited and an active member of Juko Kai International, training at White Crane Michigan. Contact her directly at barbmarynowski (at) aol.com.

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REACHING FOR STARPOWER: Freebies, Newbies and Success

CAREER MANAGEMENT: Your Career Management Toolbox

Career Management with Jason Alba

Job search is important, but one purpose of career management is to keep the length of job searches down. I can't say that doing all of these things will guarantee your job searches go faster, but you should be in more control. I'm amazed at the number of professionals who come to JibberJobber, or read my LinkedIn book, who have been excellent at doing their job but have no idea what to do in a job search.

I understand - I assumed my job search tactics would lean heavily on job boards and recruiters. I spent hundreds of hours spinning the wrong wheels - it's no wonder I wasn't getting anywhere! And the thought of doing a job search every three to five years was petrifying!

As I learned more about Career Management I became more empowered. Here's is the key to career management: relationships.

Not "collecting business cards," or "growing your network on LinkedIn." I'm talking about real networking. Once I read Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone I started to understand what real relationships and networking was all about - not me, but how I could help others. There are multiple benefits of helping others, but the key is that it helps your relationship go beyond typical superficial networking, and it puts you into a completely different league.

Everything in career management revolves around relationships. Consider "target companies." You've heard you should network your way into companies, right? No matter where you find them, you need to figure out how to get in... what if you had a strong, nurtured network you could tap into easily and quickly.

So, considering this, what do YOU think belongs in your career management toolbox? Here are some ideas... I'm not saying whether they should be in yours or not, but think about how each of these tools helps (or doesn't help) you nurture relationships:

• Job boards
• classified ads
• business cards
• JibberJobber (a website to organize your job search)
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• resume(s)
• cell phone
• email account (not sexylegs@____.com)

What else is in your toolbox? Are there tools in there that are not really helping with anything? Are they helping you manage and nurture professional relationships - longterm?

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Jason Alba developed JibberJobber.com to replace the job search spreadsheet. He recently created LinkedIn for Job Seekers - the DVD. He is the author I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What??? and author of I'm on Facebook -- Now What???, both of which are designed to help professionals get more value out of these social networking tools. Learn more about Jason at http://twitter.com/jasonalba.

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THE CONNECTED BRAND: Offline Rules Still Apply to Online Networking

The Connected Brand with Maria Elena Duron

On a recent call, someone recommended that you join every group possible to get your name out there in the online world. I respectfully disagree.

To join every group is like the social butterfly who walks into the networking event collecting every card imaginable with the intent to spam or stalk them to the point of a pressured sale or a pissed off person. Or, it’s like the person you see at the networking even wreaking of ‘commission breath’ hungry for the next sale and hoping that they’ll make it right there at that event.

The first rule of networking still applies, “be interested in order to be interesting”. It’s more important to be interested in the people you are making a connection with.

No, I don’t have “the most” Twitter followers but I know my Twitter followers. I read their bios, visit their websites and engage in conversation with them. I’m re-tweeted, recommended as a person to follow and re-tweet those who say something that would be helpful to my network. We are networking just not racking up Twitter follower points.

No, I’m not this mega LinkedIn link who has thousands of connections yet I do know my connections. I answer questions, help make connections, deliver knowledge and engage.

And, on Facebook and my blog, I comment back to people who make comments or post on my wall. I engage in conversation which is important for people to have the opportunity to sample who you are.

So, why do people think that online and offline networking require different rules. After all, online is just a “tool” to communication…nothing more.

I get frustrated when I hear people talk of their Twitter strategy, their LinkedIn or Facebook strategy. Why? Because how many of us knew of these sites, terms or used them five years ago? Twitter didn’t even exist five years ago and tweeting and our tweeple were not ever terms used in any of our conversations two years ago.

While the tools will change (who knows what 2010 will hold), the fact that we are engaging and connecting with people remains the same. How we do it and the time and place we do that will inevitably evolve. Yet, people are still people connecting, doing business with, working and communicating with people.

Really, would you ever create a “hammer strategy” or would you rather have a strategy as to how you would repair your fence and maybe a “hammer” is one of the tools you use (or maybe even a staple gun for that matter) – is it really the tool you are strategizing about?

Author:
Maria Elena Duron is chief buzz agent & identity coach of buzz2bucks | a personal branding + word of mouth firm. and blogs about connecting your personal brand and SMART Connections. She is also the creator and moderator of brandchat: a live streaming branding discussion on twitter. Follow her on Twitter for daily updates or connect with her on Facebook.

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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. All rights reserved.
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To subscribe for your free TNNW Newsletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com.

You are also invited to click our buttons:




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THE CONNECTED BRAND: Offline Rules Still Apply to Online Networking