jorgensundberg.net

How Can Personal Branding Serve You?

Jorgen Sundberg — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:41:37 PST

Malcolm Levene and I ran our Personal Branding from the Inside Out workshop again last month in central London. It was a success and judging by the feedback it was very valuable and enjoyable for everyone in the room.

This time around we had a more corporate audience than last time, with a number of managers from City of London financial institutions, law firms and property companies.

The question

When we started in the morning, Malcolm and I introduced ourselves and the day as per normal. Then when the turn came to the attendees to introduce themselves, I asked them all this question: How Can Personal Branding Serve You?

What I wanted to drill down to was the real purpose for everyone to think about their personal brand. It's all well and good to work on it but I say it's vital to define exactly what the end result will be. What is the purpose of all of this for you, in other words. As you can guess, this wasn't entirely straightforward for everyone but we helped each other to get to each person's main objective.

Personal branding for corporate employees

Corporate citizens tended to want to achieve career boosting effects such as gaining more gravitas internally (with colleagues) and externally (with customers). Having worked in large and small companies myself, I know the importance of office culture in big organisations and of market reputation for smaller ones. Not to mention office politics of course.

Personal branding for company owners

Company owners and entrepreneurs wanted to grow their business by turnover and employees. By having a strong personal brand they can get more word-of-mouth referrals and ultimately more clients. Recruitment is easier when a company is run by a strong personal brand - it attracts talent.

And for workshop presenters?

I have to admit that I stole my line from Malcolm that day, only because he went before me of course! The end result of personal branding for Malcolm is that it allows him to get paid for doing what he loves. I couldn't agree more, I love the work I do (both social media and personal branding) and to make a good living out of it is fantastic. I would say that I get money for it as a result of working on my personal brand every day, so I'm living proof of the power of personal branding - and so is Malcolm.

How does personal branding serve you? What is the end result of your personal brand activities?

A great way of branding yourself is blogging, more at How To Blog for Your Personal Brand.

Social Media Marketing for Gluten Free Delices at Apero Entrepreneurs

Jorgen Sundberg — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:56:26 PST

Last night I was invited to Apero Entrepreneurs which is an Anglo-French networking group for aspiring entrepreneurs in London. I held a series of short 1-2-1 coaching sessions on my favourite topic of social media.

Apero Entrepreneurs basically offer their members the chance to speak to an 'expert' in a chosen field at their monthly meetups and this time the turn had come to social networking and for the Swedish non-French speaker (that would be me) to help out as best possible.

I had five 'patients' at my surgery last night, the one I wanted to mention is Christelle who runs a small business making gluten-free cakes, the company is called Gluten Free Delices. She is operating on a tight budget and is already doing a few things on social media which was a great start. Her objectives are to get more customers (B2C and B2B), increase brand awareness and build up an online community of fans. And yes you guessed it, some of the cakes are featured at the top of this post.

Christelle has a website and a blog, on top of that she has a Facebook Page and a Twitter presence. Reviewing what she is doing currently, I came up with a few ideas.

First off, she is very fortunate in that she makes something that's visual. Unlike strategy consulting, cakes are perfect for pictures and videos - the stuff that people love to see on Facebook. Second, she works with varied customers around London and sees many offices and people. This is perfect for storytelling on her blog and Facebook page, along with pictures again. Third, she has a market stall at Kingston Market every last Sunday of the month. This market has a Twitter hashtag that she can use, as well as jumping onto other hashtags that are relevant for gluten-free foods around the world.

Somebody asked me what the most important part to a successful social media marketin strategy is. My answer was 'creativity'. If you look at the most succesful campaigns in any type of marketing they are typically very original and different to the competition. The good news is that a tiny company like Gluten Free Delices can be very effective on social networks as it only takes an investment in time, not money. So a bakery with 10,000 employees might have one community manager, not necessarily better than what one person can in their micro-business. By doing something differen and telling human stories I believe social media is just the ticket for small companies.

Recommendations for Gluten Free Delices

Create content on the blog, tell stories of products (the cakes), who they are being delivered to, what type of customers buy them and anything else that seems like a story worth telling. By creating fresh content on the blog, Google will rank the site better and it gives visitors a reason to come back.
When people are on the site and/or blog, ask them to opt-in to a newsletter offering an ethical bribe in the shape of a cake recipe or 'Top 10 tips'. This will build up a list of prospects interested in gluten-free cakes.
Share the content from the blog to Facebook and Twitter, not just broadcasting but also asking additional questions that work on those platforms. The more engagement on these both platforms, the more likelihood that friends of followers will see the activity.
Run promotions on the Facebook page, perhaps asking customers from Kingston market to take a photo of when they are munching away a their cakes and upload it to the page. Whoever does this gets a free cake next time, or they get 10% off their next order.
Another good way of getting brand awareness and promotion is to contact food bloggers. Most bloggers are very happy to receive free products in return for writing up a review. Target the top 20 food bloggers (or even cake bloggers if they exist) in the London region and don't give up until everyone has been sent their cakes.
Finally, LinkedIn can also be useful for targeting B2B (business-to-business) buyers. By using the advanced search function on LinkedIn, it's possible to find the people who are responsible for catering within large organisations.

More ideas welcome

Those were my ideas in our 15-minute session, if you can think of any others please let me and Christelle know. I will of course keep you updated on her progress here on the blog.

More on business blogging at 7 Reasons Your Company Should Write a Blog.

Personal Branding at the Nordic Career Forum in London

Jorgen Sundberg — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:01:19 PST

The Nordic Career Forum is taking place on the 15th of March this year and the focus is on personal branding. I am a speaker together with Mandy Lehto, Martin Falch, Per Wimmer and the guys from Wildfire. My talk will be on social media and how you can use it to manage your brand. Here's the official description of the event:

The Nordic Career Forum is an annual career fair organised for the 4th time by the four Nordic Chambers of Commerce in London [that includes Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark]. The event is primarily targeting young professionals and people who are looking to build their own personal brand.

The event will give corporate members and associates of the organising chambers a unique opportunity to gain understanding of, and access to a highly regarded work force from the Nordic countries and the UK.

The topic of the Nordic Career Forum 2012 will be “Discover and Build Your Personal Brand” with the aim of creating an understanding for what a personal brand is, and how each individual can benefit from it. By arranging a forum for professionals and companies to meet, the Nordic Chambers aim at providing an opportunity for dialog and a platform for networking.

Hope to see you on the 15th! And if you're still not convinced, here's an ad that was run in the London daily City AM today.

January 2012 Blog Posts You May Have Missed

Jorgen Sundberg — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:34:25 PST

Happy February to you! Hope you have had a good start to the year and been keeping as busy as I have. Here is a wrap-up of January's most popular posts and upcoming events in February.

January blog posts

How Emails are Still the Killer App of the Internet

All we hear about is social media but I say emails are still more important than social and mustn't be neglected.

Personal Brand Statement Examples and Templates

Inspiration for anyone looking to construct their brand statement, templates for different industries and examples from experts.

How Did 30% of My LinkedIn Network Change Jobs Last Year?

The annual job change email from LinkedIn got me thinking about what people were up to last year.

The Top 25 Oneliner Jokes According to My Twitter Followers

An Apple a day keeps Windows away and other micro-jokes that got lots of retweets.

How I'm Tweaking My Blogging Strategies this Year

Find out what my blogging plans are for 2012, across all the blogs that I write for.

How a Cosmetics Company Use Facebook to Recruit [Case Study]

A case study about Sephora's social recruiting strategy at the Link Humans blog.

What To Write in Your LinkedIn Invitations [Templates]

A few ideas on how to contact new people on LinkedIn over at The Undercover Recruiter.

Global LinkedIn Demographics and Statistics [Slides]

Fresh LinkedIn stats as of January 2012 at The Undercover Recruiter.

Upcoming events in February

Personal Branding from the Inside Out, 8th of February at St John Hotel in London.

truParis, 9th of February at Adecco HQ in Paris.

Advanced LinkedIn Training for Recruiters & HR, 15th of February at Covent Garden, London.

LinkedIn Training Workshop, 21st of February at Covent Garden, London

Your turn

Any feedback or questions, just let me know by leaving a comment on this post or tweet me at @JorgenSundberg.

Personal Brand Statement Examples and Templates

Jorgen Sundberg — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:59:06 PST

In my branding workshops I sometimes get asked what a good personal brand statement looks like. The truth is that we are of course unique and only you will ultimately know what is 'good'. Yes we can get inspiration from others and even steal a word or two, but your statement is only effective when you are comfortable with it - and your target audience understands it. I have compiled a few example statements just to get you going a bit and here goes:

A few personal brand statement templates for your inspiration

I help companies make the most of talent. I marry the sublime with the systematic — allowing for change with a focus on implementation. – Business Consultant

I energize, focus and align manufacturing organizations, resulting in sustainable acceleration of processes, reduction in waste, and growth of profits. - Consultant

I am a high-end service provider giving the sophisticated traveller a stylish and tailor-made experience at my Marrakech boutique hotel. - Hotel Owner

Using my holistic insight and innovative Total Performance Scorecard principles, I promise to help my customers to realize their financial dreams. – Financial Consultant

Inspirational CEO/CFO turned positive-psychologist resiliently transforming businesses & financial performance. – Consultant

I love collaborating with forward-focused corporate leaders who know where they’re going. – Executive Coach

I use my quirky nature, confidence and passion for fun to motivate creative teams in ad agencies and marketing departments to work together more effectively to drive greater value for their organizations. - Coach / Trainer

A citizen of the world and a natural networker, I connect with senior leaders in all areas of the company (sales, marketing, R&D) and throughout all regions to deliver truly global marketing campaigns. I do this through constant collaboration and valuing of different ideas and insights. - Marketing Consultant

With a passion for wine and a natural, open approach I inspire others to appreciate the pleasure of good wines in a fun way. - Wine Tasting Host

Through my natural enthusiasm and my empathy for others, I inspire research and development professionals to develop innovative products in biotechnology. - Biotech Manager

I use my 25 years of experience in - and passion for - marketing to help senior marketing executives in large organizations succeed by making marketing valued inside the organization - Marketing Trainer

Through my intuition and genuine concern for- and interest in - others, I build long-lasting, fruitful relationships with my team, my business partners and clients to drive consistent, recurring revenue for my company. - Business Owner

[Your Name Here] is defined as one of the most innovative and bottom line focused marketers and CEO’s in the world. His string of dramatic firsts have followed every position he has held. His passion gives off a light that he carries wherever he goes. - CEO

And a few example statements from the professionals

I help individuals and companies make the most of talent. I work as a part of the team. I am a straight shooter who isn’t afraid to have the tough conversations. I also believe that people are more capable and valuable than they often give/get credit for. My method marries the sublime with the systematic — allowing for creativity and change with a strong focus on foundation and implementation. - Kristi Daeda

I energize, focus and align manufacturing organizations, resulting in sustainable acceleration of processes, reduction in waste, and growth of profits. - Kent Blumberg

As a personal branding strategist and cycling enthusiast, I combine my passion for bicycling and mu drive for success to empower on-the-move careerists in global companies in Japan to believe, become, and be their brands. - Peter Sterlacci

Passionate and compassionate to inspire learning individuals to unlock their potential and dedicated to energize innovative organizations within the service and manufacturing industry. Using my holistic insight and innovative Total Performance Scorecard principles, I promise to help my customers to realize their financial dreams. - Hubert Rampersad

Through a unique combination of caring communication and collaboration, I inspire Fortune 500 professionals and executives not to leave their personalities at the door but to clearly communicate their unique value, raise their visibility by connecting with their true selves and successfully realise their career and personal goals. - Paul Copcutt

Career/Life Strategist: I use my enthusiasm, forward thinking, and passion for self-direction to help clients identify their uniqueness and use it to and take control of their careers and lives. - Walter Akana

Helps thought leaders write great books in just 90 days. 300 satisfied clients so far... - Mindy Gibbins-Klein

I love collaborating with revved up, forward-focused corporate leaders who know where they’re going next. Together we create and strategically position vibrant career marketing communications that differentiate their unique value proposition from their competition. - Meg Guiseppi

I love helping people to develop a unique Personal Brand. A brand that represents who they are on the inside and expresses itself authentically on the outside. - Malcolm Levene

I help people to transform their businesses, their careers and their lives. – John Purkiss

I am a social media trainer and consultant, specialising in LinkedIn, branding and recruitment. - Jorgen Sundberg (that would be me)

Got any to add to these list? Let me know in the comments below!

If you need more help to construct yours, have a look at How To Write Your Personal Brand Statement.

Image credit Astragony

How Did 30% of my LinkedIn Network Change Jobs Last Year?

Jorgen Sundberg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:43:30 PST

I got this email from LinkedIn today and was rather surprised to see that 2,188 people in my network changed jobs in 2011. My network is roughly 7.5k strong so this works out at about 30% job hoppers - a very interesting figure.

But before we start thinking about how on earth all these people found new jobs in a recession, we have to remember that this report is generated based on people updating their job titles. Merely updating your profile doesn't necessarily mean you are in a new position. Lots of people tinker with their profiles for various reasons. Not to mention everyone who is a freelancer or business owner, these users certainly change their profiles but don't actually move anywhere.

The purpose of this email from LinkedIn is of course to drive more activity to their network. The idea is that you will a.) want to see who has moved where, b.) compare their profile to yours and look to improve it and c.) think about new opportunities for yourself. It's funny how emails are still the killer app of the Internet, even in this social world that we live in.

And by the way, if you know people looking to move jobs have them check out the LinkedIn Resume Builder which is a very handy tool that automatically generates a neat resume from your LinkedIn profile.

And as if that tool weren't enough, if you want to keep a real time eye on what your network is up to and who's moving jobs when, you can use the Job Change Notifier which scans your connections and tells you when somebody moves on.

How many people shifted gigs in your LinkedIn network last year? Please let me know!

How Trade Associations Can Use Social Media [Seminar Slides]

Jorgen Sundberg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:37:09 PST

Yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering a social media seminar to The Trade Association Forum, part of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in London. We were supposed to do it at our offices but due to a big demand it was moved to Centre Point which is a skyscraper (kind of) in central London. This made the whole experience more interesting for me as my presentation had to compete with a nice view of the royal capital as per my iPhone image above.

This is the first time I have ever trained trade associations and their management teams. Their marketing efforts on social media and online in general aren't that straightforward as you would think. Yes they have to recruit new members and tell existing member about how useful the association is, basically what value they can add to the member companies' business. Then they also want to communicate with the press, basically putting out stories about the industry and hopefully getting some good write-ups in traditional media (which is where most of the end-customers consume news still). Finally, they want to use social media as a lead generation tool for their member companies. This means they can pick up leads and enquiries from social media and distribute to relevant companies perhaps based on location. To sum up, trade associations have a three-pronged approach to social networking and we addressed a number of their challenges and how to overcome these.

We recognised that the most relevant social network for most of the associations is LinkedIn, as their their target audience consists of professionals. Some also use Twitter and very few use Facebook. LinkedIn is useful for community building with the members, LinkedIn groups are of course a great place to have industry discussions and to facilitate partnerships in the trade. Twitter does come in handy for reaching out to press, it's no secret journalists are all over Twitter. Finally, Facebook could be useful for lead generation in terms of creating communities around a topic area and attracting end-customers to it. This of course depends on the nature of the trade.

Here is a summary of the presentation I used yesterday, any questions just let me know.

More about the Philips case study at How Philips Built a Community on LinkedIn.

What's Better for My Blog's Top Level Domain Suffix: .com or .net?

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:53:25 PST

When you set up a blog or website you naturally pick a domain name which ends with .com, mainly because it’s become the de facto standard on the internet. I run a few blogs and they all end with .com with the notable exception of this blog, which is jorgensundberg dot net.

Why did I go with .net?

First of all, the reason for setting up this blog was to claim my personal brand on search engines once and for all. There is nothing that gives you more link juice than running your own blog on your own name. And nothing that can steal more Google ranking than your namesake doing it first!

When I did set it up it was natural to go for jorgensundberg.com. This was unfortunately taken already, I was only about 7 years late apparently. After many weeks and months on the fence I had to go with another one out of .net, .info, .org etc. In the end the .net was the best option. More on this terrible ordeal in this post over at Ryan Rancatore’s blog Personal Branding 101.

How's that .net working out for you?

The good news is that blogging on a .net domain name has worked absolutely fine and I haven't encountered any users getting lost looking for me. The only person that got a bit confused in the beginning was myself, I sometimes entered my URL here and there with the .com suffix just out of habit I suppose. So all in all, it’s worked out really well and I forgot about the domain suffix question altogether, until…

The .com is now available!

Some eight months after starting this blog, I receive an email from a domain registrar saying that jorgensundberg.com is coming available in a few days. These guys wanted money for ‘reserving’ it and making sure I got it first. I didn’t bite on that offer but I did keep an eye on the domain name and sure enough the .com did come available and snapped it up in a flash. I guess this doesn’t happen very often, my cyber twin in Sweden probably went Luddite or just couldn’t be bothered to maintain his site any longer.

Do I now stick with .net or go with .com?

Feels like I’m back at square one, should I now migrate my site to the preferred .com URL or keep it at .net? As much as I am sick of any more techy tasks for my blogging I can’t deny that having a .com blog looks better.

Option 1: Change to .com

Changing the domain suffix will require a bit of work but will make it all look very neat and once it’s done I can sleep better. Not exactly sure how it would work with backlinks though. And what about redirections?

Option 2: People don’t enter the URL anymore, they search

Let's face it, less and less people actually tap in a full URL address in the browser field; it's a lot easier to simply search for what you want. This is probably why one of Google's top searches is for the word "Google".

In my case it’s people searching for my name “jorgen sundberg” and not having the slightest interested in the domain suffix. In fact, some people just tap in "jorgen" and they seem to find me.

Option 3: Forget search, they’ll find you on social media

The social aspect on the Interwebs has also relaxed things; less people actually use search nowadays as opposed to clicking through from my profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Chances are most people that have read this blog once will connect with me on one of these networks or perhaps even Google Plus, FourSquare or Meetup. Wherever they connect, they can easily click their way back to this blog without having to tap in a URL or do a search.

What did I go with?

Well, as you are reading this on my .net blog you'll know that I never changed it. For a combination of option 2 & 3 I believe the domain suffix isn't really that important, a .com might look neater but it's not really an issue. Hope I made the right decision here, if you disagree please let me know!

More blogging tips at How To Get 20 High Ranking Backlinks of the Non-Turkey variety.

Image credit myself at Stoneage Reclamation

Top 25 Oneliner Jokes According to My Twitter Followers

Jorgen Sundberg — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:07:01 PST

I love a short joke, oneliners are to jokes what haiku is to poetry. I like to tweet oneliners every now and then, if you follow me on Twitter you know this. Some of these tweets go down well and others get the tumbleweed response. This list is based on the oneliners that fared best on Twitter for me (most retweets and comments), so they have been tried and tested. Feel free to steal them and use yourself, just like I have stolen them from other people on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and everywhere else on the internet.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
If at first you don' succeed, skydiving is not for you.
My most frequent lie: I've read and agree to the Terms and Conditions.
Nobody's a virgin... Life screws us all.
Don't marry a tennis player - love means nothing to them.
A jury consists of 12 people who determine which client has the better lawyer.
Late night TV is very educational. It teaches you that you should have gone to bed earlier.
If at first you don't succeed, you'll get a lot of free advice from folks who didn't succeed either.
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
Did you know that age is an issue of mind over matter? If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.
A résumé should be like a skirt, long enough to cover the basics, short enough to keep them interested…
I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
A gym is not designed to make you feel instantly better about yourself. If it wanted to, it would be a bar.
An Apple a day keeps Windows away.
What do you call a chav in a box? Innit.
What do you call an eskimo chav? Innuit.
What the average man wants to get out of his new car is the kids.
Never go to bed angry, stay awake and plot your revenge.
Warning: Dates in calendar are closer than they appear.
Girls are like roads, more the curves, more the dangerous they are.
Before you insult a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you insult him, you'll be a mile away, and have his shoes.
Did you ever notice that the evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice.
Give a man a fish and he has food for a day. Teach him how to fish and you can get rid of him for the entire weekend.

Do you have more oneliners to add to the list? Please let me know in the comments or just tweet me!

More wisdom over at the Top 10 Personal Branding Quotes from People Who Made It.

How Emails are Still the Killer App of the Internet

Jorgen Sundberg — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:20:57 PST

Do you remember sending your first email? It was a pretty cool feeling. I am sure you remember receiving your first email as well, an even better feeling. Emails were one of the keys to the success of the internet I would say. Some providers tried to charge their customers for every email sent but in the end it became completely free and it's heavily reduced our reliance on sending post (or snail mail if you will). So far so good, for a while (well 10 years or so) email marketing was the future of the web and building an email list of subscribers was a top priority for savvy online operators.

Then social came along

A few years later we started using social media channels to communicate. It started with blogs (and comments), moved on to social bookmarking and finally social networks like Facebook and thousands of others. Marketeers jumped on the bandwaggon and we now have branded Pages, feeds, profiles and what have you. I must admit that Facebook have done very well in terms of driving traffic, activity and repeat visitors to their social network. They seem to be faring well on social. But what about the others...?

Google Plus (or was it Gmail)

Have you signed up for Google Plus yet? If not, I'm sure you have received numerous emails about it. Do you have a Gmail account? You are probably bombarded with Google Plus messages from your contacts and Google themselves. The big G's whole business model here is built around pimping their email service, and then emailing everyone ad nauseum about it. You could ask whether this is social media or email media. Hopefully Google Plus will grow in to something with a life of its own and not having to rely on 20 year old technology (emails) to promote a cutting edge social network.

One of the big challenges for LinkedIn is to drive engagement amongst its members. The stats say that the average user only logs into LinkedIn 2.9 times per month - the site is not exactly addictive in other words. So what does the LinkedIn Corporation do to keep you coming back to the site? Yes you guessed it, they send us plenty of emails. Whether it's a daily or weekly network digest, group updates, regular messages being forwarded to your email inbox or anything you commented on somewhere - emails are the driving force here. The demographic on LinkedIn are probably slightly more prone to emailing, many have BlackBerrys instead of iPhones so I can see how this works. Having said that, if there is one complaint people that I train have with LinkedIn, it's the number of emails they receieve (I then show them how to turn these off).

Groupon, LastMinute.com, Blogs

What is the business model of Groupon? Daily emails to a huge database. How do LastMinute.com get me to check London West End theatre tickets every week? Emails.

I have also noticed that bloggers who are very savvy on social media are pushing their email newsletters instead. Recently, Chris Brogan who is probably the world's most successful one-man blogging band has launched a new email initiative which I've subscribed to. He is trying to put the social back into emails by saying he actually replies to any questions and wants a conversation going. I haven't replied so don't know but I believe he woudl. Dan Schawbel and his personal branding blog is another example where he started pushing a newsletter recently, although the blog is very popular in itself and on social networks.

What's the appeal of emails?

Don't know about you, but I still trust an email more than I do a message on social somewhere. That 'somewhere' is just the point, I feel like social is sometimes a full on hurricane and switch from one network to another, whereas I only have one email inbox and it feels like a safe haven. If that's the case for others, surely marketeers will want to get email subscribers before followers on social.

That's two kronor on the power of emails, please let me know what you think?

And whilst we're on the topic, check out How To Declutter Your Emails with Gmail.

Image credit Tim Morgan

How I'm Tweaking My Blogging Strategies This Year

Jorgen Sundberg — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:38:07 PST

Last year was a very successful year in terms of my own brand and the brands that I represent. Because I have got to a stage where the brands are known (at least to my target audience), I will shake things up a bit and change how I go about the online marketing. This includes how my blogs will run in the next 12 months.

jorgensundberg.net (that would be this blog!)

Last year, I put a lot of effort into writing useful and practical blog posts about personal branding, social media, LinkedIn and some other stuff. This paid off and I had just shy of 100,000 pageviews on this blog from Jan 2011 - Dec 2011. This blog has some 1,700 subscribers and gets a fair bit of commenters.

In terms of content for this year I will be shifting away from just social media and branding topics and write go a bit more genreal. Hang on you say, no more social media and branding content coming our way? Yes there will be, but not exclusively. Instead I will use this blog to publish more personal content, the things that I would like to read and the things that really interest me. I realise that from a marketing perspective this might just alienate some of the readers here. I hope some will find the new content of interest, and other people will find the blog through search and social media and hopefully engage with me.

Furthermore, I'm going to stop promoting this blog heavily on social media and rely on the old adage 'build it and they will come' (if it worked for Kevin Costner, surely it will work here...). This in my book means, I produce content that is of interest to me and if others find it interesting they will find it - I will not shove it down anybody's throat. And on that note, the content I will create will not only be blog posts but increasingly video, presentations and podcasts. I guess I will test all different forms of content creation and see what I enjoy producing and what seems to be working. So that's the scoop for this blog for the next year, hope you'll stick around but don't blame you if you don't of course.

The Undercover Recruiter (my first blog)

The Undercover Recruiter is the first blog I ever created, it's now two and a half years old which doesn't sound like much but in this context it is! It's recently achieved a Page Rank of 5 which is pretty good and means that it will be prioritised in Google searches and that advertisers start sniffing around it. The traffic numbers are terrific, the blog got about 500,000 page views in 2011 and has some 4,000 subscribers. I publish about 4 or 5 post per week on that blog which requires a great deal of time and effort of course but luckily there are a few great guest contributors that help out.

With the fact that this blog is so popular, I am henceforth going to focus on this one and when publishing my usual practical hands-on social media tips it will be there jorgensundberg.net which has been the case previously (provided it's related to careers or recruitment of course). Or I might just post it at both places, in slightly different versions. The way I see it, The Undercover Recruiter is where I can reach the masses and people who have never heard of me, which can be very useful. If they are interested, they will find my personal blog and hopefully think this is of value as well.

Link Humans (the company blog)

The blog at my company Link Humans is a different kettle of fish to the other two. It is designed to attract business, almost exclusively business to business (B2B). This means the regular 'How-To' blog posts are of limited use, my experience of clients in our industry is that they want to read case studies and success stories of competitors. And indeed, the most popular posts on that blog are case studies about Deloitte, Philips, CH2M Hill etc. This will be the focus on that blog moving forwards, we will focus on well researched, storytelling and inspirational content. In fact, B2B clients don't care whether you post once per day or once per quarter. What they are concerned about is quality information and that's what we aim for here.

Writing for other blogs on the interwebs

I regularly get asked to write posts for other blogs, to contribute to bigger and smaller blogs. Some of these offers come with money and others don't. In any case, I am rather blogged out and usually decline offers unless it's a really good opportunity for me to create value to that blog's audience. If you ever want me to feature on your blog, I suggest an interview type of piece as it's a little bit simpler to write up (at least the story is already there!).

So that's the plan for this year, do let me know what you think of this strategy - will it work you think?

Image credit: myself at Waitrose's butter shelf

How a Vacation to Sri Lanka Puts a Smile on Your Face

Jorgen Sundberg — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:35:03 PST

After a lovely two week vacation to Sri Lanka, I am now accustomed to smiling at people completely at random. Sri Lanka is a very smile-friendly place (even the monkeys smile there as per above!) and I think it has something to do with Buddhism being the predominant religion there, very much like Thailand is also a land of smiles and Buddha.

So in Sri Lanka, whenever you speak to someone, see them on the street or just walk past them - you smile and the other person smiles back. It's a bit weird at first but when you get used to it, smiling becomes a natural state for you. And when smiling constantly you feel happier overall, it's a physiological thing researchers claim (I can only claim that it works for me).

Does smiling work in London?

As Dale Carnegie famously wrote in "How To Make Friends and Influence People" that everybody likes a smile. Everyone from Ron Gutman to the Dalai Lama talks about the power of the smile. But the big city isn't renowned for its smiling inhabitants. How does smiling work on the London tube in the morning? Well, some folks probably think I'm a yokel or still intoxicated from last night's drinks but most people actually either smile back or give me a nice little nod - very British that.

Does a vacation smile last?

Well when I was in Thailand many years ago I remember the same smile thing a few weeks afterwards and then it fizzled out. England is not a country accustomed to strangers smiling at each other and therefore I am making the most of it now until I probably return into the fold. I will do my best to keep it going, afterall why shouldn't it last?

A smile prevents bad thoughts: you try it!

My workshop co-presenter Malcolm Levene says that "when you're smiling, you can't think of anything bad". This actually works, try putting on a big smile and see if you can think any bad thoughts. Again, it's the physiology of the smile that makes it hard for the brain to process any bad news.

For more smiles, try watching an episode of The Simpsons or come to one of our Personal Branding workshops where we discuss how smiling, humor and positive psychology affects our personal brands.

Your 10 Favorite Blog Posts of 2011 [And Bonus Stuff]

Jorgen Sundberg — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:30:14 PST

As the year draws to a close and people have pretty much downed tools for the Christmas break, it's of course time for an annual blog recap. I've compiled the ten most read articles of 2011, just in case you might have missed them. Happy Christmas and New Year now to you and yours!

The Top 10 Posts of 2011 on this Blog

1. 21 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

My list of tips and tricks for anyone using LinkedIn for business and/or career.

2. How To Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media [Workshop Slides]

A summary of the slides I used for a workshop in London in November.

3. How To Speak with Complete Strangers

I was interviewed on this topc for a newspaper and thought I'd share my ideas on a blog post as well.

4. How To Write Your Killer LinkedIn Headline

Your Headline is the most imporant bit of your LinkedIn profile, this post is all about how to craft it.

5. INFOGRAPHIC: The Way of Personal Branding

Enrico Bisetto's cool infographic about personal branding adapted in English.

6. How To Increase Your LinkedIn Reach by Getting Likes

I wrote this after Shiraz Bashir showed me how to extend your reach beyond your network on LinkedIn.

7. Three Ways to Work the Room Like a Networking Expert

My ideas on effective networking, based on what's worked for me.

8. Ten Personal Branding Ideas for Google Plus

Everybody's talking about it, nobody's really doing it yet... Here are my ideas for your brand on Google Plus.

9. Top 20 Tips to Simplify Your Digital Life

There's too much information coming our way online, here's how I try to manage things.

10. So We Got Married {Wedding Dance Video Inside]

A personal update from my biggest event of 2011!

And a couple of bonus posts: The Decline and Fall of Blogging & Top 10 Personal Branding Quotes from People that Made It

Top 15 at The Undercover Recruiter

15 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2011

So many posts going up on this site we had to make it a list of fifteen in the end, have a look - I know you will find them interesting.

Upcoming Events January 2012

London LinkedIn Training Workshop, 17th of January

This is our very popular monthly LinkedIn workshop professionals held at our London Covent Garden offices.

Personal Branding from the Inside Out, 11th of January

In case you have missed mine and Malcolm Levene's full day workshop in central London.

Questions or Comments?

I'm always looking for feedback so please leave a comment here or tweet me at @JorgenSundberg.

Image credit kevin dooley

How To Start a Consultancy Company [Simply Business Video Interview]

Jorgen Sundberg — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:47:13 PST

The good folks at Simply Business recently did a video interview with me about Link Humans, myself and what it's like to start a new consulting company in the middle of a recession. I got this interview request through the LinkedIn group that Simply Business run. I like their approach to community buidling and use of social media, perhaps I'll interview them soon as well... Anyway, this is what they wrote:

"Employees make a business. Without the right people, any organisation will struggle to fulfil its potential. But finding those perfect candidates can be a difficult task. Recruitment is a notoriously difficult process – and one with which many businesses never truly get to grips. Technology has an increasingly important role to play in the recruitment process. Social media has rapidly become a vital tool in any recruiter’s arsenal – but many businesses are struggling to utilise it efficiently.

Link Humans arms recruiters and individuals with the knowledge they need to leverage social media effectively, in order to find either the perfect job or the perfect candidate. In this exclusive video, Link Humans’ Jorgen Sundberg tells Simply Business about the recruitment benefits of social media, and the realities of starting a recession-beating business."

I welcome any feedback on this video, please let me know what you think in the comment section below!

How To Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media [Workshop Slides]

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:27:13 PST

I had the pleasure of running a personal branding workshop last week at our fine offices in Covent Garden, London. This one focuses on social media and online tools and is aptly named How To Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media and covers the usual suspects of blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter as well as other useful niche tools and networks.

I really enjoy running these type of workshops as in a way I share the strategy and tactics which have worked for me and success stories of others. I also mention the approaches that haven't worked for me but could well work for attendees.

Thought I'd post up a summary of the workshop on SlideShare (great personal branding tactic by the way) and it got almost a thousand views in a few days, this prompted me to post it here as well. If you have any questions on this workshop or indeed any other branding or social media queries just fire away in the comments below (or tweet me @jorgensundberg).

Check out more workshops at the Link Humans training page.

How Running a Marathon Can Boost Your Personal Brand

Jorgen Sundberg — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:11:19 PST

The downside to strengthening your your personal brand is that you may come across as conceited, as you will be telling the world about how great you are. What if there was a way to boost your personal brand absolutely free by simply keeping in shape and doing some good for the world (raise some moeny for charity)?

Answer: Easy. Just run a marathon race for charity! This is what I did last year and it was a great experience.

What on earth is a marathon?

It’s a big old organized race with shed loads of runners. There are thousands of marathon races taking place in the world every year, all of which are at a set distance - 26 miles long. The most famous ones are probably the New York, Boston, Paris and London marathons and these races will have tens of thousands of participants.

Lay on the etymology please

The word marathon comes from Greek mythology. Legend has it that a soldier with the tongue twisting name of Pheidippides was a messenger (this was before Twitter) that ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, a distance exactly 26 miles. He delivered his message, which was that the Greeks had beaten the Persians, and then promptly collapsed and died. This is obviously not the most encouraging story for any first time marathon runners, let’s just assume he hadn’t trained properly.

Can anyone run a marathon?

The answer is yes - all you really need is a pair of running shoes and the time to prepare properly. As a marathon typically takes about 4-6 hours to run, you’ll have to do a fair bit of training before your big day. It’s advised to start training at least six months before the race, by running 3-4 times per week. The runs you do are a combination of long distance runs, up to about 20 miles, taking about 3hrs, speed training and the dreaded hill training which leave your legs feeling like spaghetti. Is this hard work you ask? Yes but mainly time consuming I found, it can be hard to set aside time for training every week - you really have to prioritize.

What exactly are the personal brand benefits?

If you are struggling to see the connection, here are five personal branding benefits to running a marathon for charity:

1. You have the perfect excuse to catch up with people

We will assume that you run the race for a charity of your choice. The charity will set up a fundraiser site for you that you can forward on to your network. You now have a great excuse to catch up with anyone you have ever known. Go ahead and blitz everyone including colleagues, customers, friends and family. Unleash a social media campaign, create events on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter so people know when you are running and how they can donate money. Some folks will contribute, some won’t. The point is that everyone will take notice– and your personal brand goes up in value as a result.

2. Increase and strengthen your fan base

People know what a commitment running a marathon is and they will respect you for it. Anyone that manages to do it demonstrates exceptional determination, and when you run for charity you’ll score even more brownie points. Just think of how you will be positioned with your customers and stakeholders in your business, I would venture to say that your credibility will skyrocket. You have now turned into a force for good in the eyes of others.

3. You will have the perfect story to tell

The next dinner party or networking event you find yourself at, you’ll be the center of attention with your compelling marathon story. After almost a year of training, you’ll be bursting with tales of progress, setbacks, success and adversity – all full of emotion that people tend to lap up. Use the story of your big race freely and make it your signature dish as it were. Give a speech on it, or why not write a blog post. I guess I've done all of the above...

4. It is a confidence booster

One of the main ingredients of a really strong personal brand is confidence. When you finish a marathon race, you’ll be oozing with confidence and you’ll feel like you can take on any challenge. Next stop the Ironman challenge? (Not for me, but don't let that stop you.)

5. Great return on investment

Your race will be almost free in monetary terms; you will however pay with sweat equity and your time. However way you look at it, the return on investment is unbeatable. The results are all beneficial: you keep very fit, you raise money for charity and your personal brand gets a boost in the process – everyone’s a winner.

Let’s get going

If you are ready for the challenge, look up a marathon going in your area at Runners World. Sign up for a race taking place 6-12 months time from now and this will give you plenty of time to train and mentally prepare.

If you're not rot ready to get running, find out other great ways of boosting your personal brand at our London workshops!

Image credit lululemon athletica

What Thomas Pink Can Teach Us About Brand Storytelling

Jorgen Sundberg — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:15:58 PST

Before my wedding earlier this year I went down to London's Jermyn Street to get a few items for my big day. Jermyn Street is specialized in shirts, very much what Savile Row is to the world of bespoke suits. The shops are all next door so it's a very handy destination for comparing some of the best shirtmakers in the world. After about an hour I strolled into Thomas Pink's shop and found the perfect formal white shirt to go with my morning suit. It wasn't cheap but hey you only get married once (hopefully!) so I splashed out a bit.

The time came to pay up and next to the till I noticed these A5 cards saying THE PINK STORY. I was so impressed with this that I had to take a few cards and even write a blog post about it. We hear so much about storytelling these days and here is a company that has actually done it, they tell their story in less than 30 seconds. I don't know about you but I immediately bought into the heritage of Thomas Pink and was of course happier with the premium pricing.

As consumers we buy into a story, an experience and an association with a brand just as much as the actual product. This can of course be translated into personal branding, where people buy into you and who you are just as much as what you do. Whatever it is you're selling, remember that Story Telling is Story Selling.

As it happens, the company was only set up in the 1980s by three Irish brothers. They were clever enough to name the brand after a well-known taylor from the 19th century and thus inject some history. Most people aren't as anal as myself and won't check Wikipedia and dig stuff like this out, most will be very happy with the story and buy into the whole concept just like I did in the store.

What do you think of the Pink Story? I still like Pink eventhough I know it's not really the classic brand it makes out to be (and because I have a nicely overpriced dress shirt in my wardrobe).

In our Personal Branding workshops, we cover storytelling as a vital component to your successful brand.

What Happens To Your Klout Score When You Go On Vacation?

Jorgen Sundberg — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:42:05 PST

I just got back from a two week break to Sri Lanka (yes, that's the view from our hotel room!). I was curious to see what would happen to my Klout score when I spent most of my time on the beach instead of in front of the computer screen. Much to my surprise I found that my Klout score had stayed solid and actually gone up one point over 30 days! How could this possibly be?

My only activity online was done on my iPhone (via the hotel WiFi) and I probably spent about 15-20 minutes online every day, mainly looking at Tripadvisor and other travel sites to decide what excursions to do. Yes I did check my emails and replied to urgent ones, I did read a few blog posts in my RSS reader (Feedly on the iPhone) and sent a few of these to Buffer. And of course I had to check LinkedIn but I only really accepted invites.

So all in all, not very much social media activity from my side but still the Klout score held steady. Could this be due to the new scores that Klout launched a few weeks ago? Perhaps they are not as sensitive to 'temporary' outages from social networking, or perhaps they are more based around what connections you have as opposed to your level of activity. If you have any ideas here, please let me know!

Further reading: Mark Schaefer's holidaying experience at Twitter, Klout and the Vacation Effect (which I believe was written before Klout changed their scoring algorithm).

How To Talk To Complete Strangers

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:16:16 PST

I was interviewed in the Mail on Sunday newspaper today, on the off-piste topic of talking to total strangers. Because I'm the organizer of three meetups here in London and run a few workshops on personal branding I guess I'm somewhat qualified on the subject of speaking to complete strangers. These are some of the ideas I shared in the interview, for the full story you'll have to get the newspaper in January (or I'll just link to the article once it's up).

Why speak to strangers in the first place?

You might wonder why on earth you should speak to strangers. I mean afterall, we're taught by our parents never to speak to strangers and the only folks that do seem to be the village idiot and local yokels. I guess the reason I speak to strangers is to network, by running events you get to know very useful and interesting people - and the only way to do this is by talking to them.

In business, the ability to small talk with (and get on with) anyone is very useful. If you want to be seen as an all-rounder that can get on with multi-national and cross-sector teams, you'd have to have the ability to speak to strangers. Here are the stranger talking tips that I came up with for the interview today:

Get introduced if possible

This is the simplest way of speaking to strangers and it will work when you're at a well-organized event. Ask the host of the event you are at who you should speak to and get an introduction - this is of course much more powerful and cuts through the chit chat. It saves you having to think about an icebreaker as well. The host should know what people are happy to chat with someone like you and vice versa.

The big city question that always works

In London you can get away with the easiest question of them all: Where are you from? Very few people are actually from London and most folks have a great story about how they got there. I would think this one applies to any major city which has an influx/outflux of people.

Talking points allow strangers to speak

Whenever something unexpected (especially something less-than-great) happens, people get talking. If you get stuck in the lift, if the service is really slow at the bar, someone stinks on the tube, if the weather suddenly shifts - it's ok to speak to strangers all of a sudden. This is because you now have a talking point and you have an experience to discuss.

Got a joke? Deliver it!

Humor always works, crack a clever joke and it's now acceptable to laugh and comment on your wit. You have to be a little bit careful with jokes when dealing with strangers, you don't want to slate a restaurant and then find out that the owner is the stranger's brother.

Learn from pick up artists

If you look at the world of chat-ups, it usually starts with a genuine question like 'do you have a light' or 'do you know what DJ is on tonight?' - and take it from there. You'll know whether someone wants to have a conversation with you or if they quickly answer your question and turns away. Don't forget to smile when using this approach by the way!

Fancy dressing up a bit?

Another observation I've made is that fancy dress tends to encourage people talking, if you're wearing a chicken suit people think it's normal to have a chat for some reason. If that's too extreme for you, try wearing a peacock item like a hat, a scarf or a loud shirt - all of which are great conversation starters.

Bring an icebreaker

People in parks don't tend to speak to strangers. People on buses don't speak to strangers. There is an exception however, this is when someone has brought their baby or dog, suddenly it's ok to smile and ask 'how old is she' or 'what's his name'? So if you want people to speak to you, bring an icebreaker of some kind.

Have a drink

Alcohol is another obvious icebreaker, people that work in the same office and never speak will suddenly be best pals at the Christmas do thanks to a few drinks. Trouble is they go back to not speaking in January again... Alcohol works but it's not a great strategy in my book, I know I'm not the best networker when I've had a few drinks!

When you do speak, find out what they are passionate about

Find out what people are passionate about if you want to stand out. Everyone asks what's your name, what do you do, what company etc - you have the same conversation with everyone. Instead ask what they did on the weekend, what holidays they have planned etc and get them talking - everyone wants to speak about their passions. The following day this person will definitely remember speaking to you and you can take it from there - now that you know each other a little bit it's time to see how you could possibly help each other.

More on this at How To Work The Room Like a Networking Expert.

Bottom line

When attempting to talk to strangers you have to accept that the first few moments will be awkward sometimes, that some people will blank you - that's just life. My experience tells me most people are very happy to have a chat and nobody will bite you! Your only challenge is breaking the ice and the conversation will flow from there.

Do you have any hot tips for talking to strangers? Or how to avoid strangers talking to you? Or how not to be strange? Please let us know in the comments!

More on networking and talking to strangers at our Personal Branding from the Inside Out workshops in the UK - would love to see you there!

Interview with the Chuck Norris of Personal Branding [John Morgan]

Jorgen Sundberg — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:16:37 PST

John Morgan is one of my favorite people in the personal branding world. He calls himself the 'Chuck Norris of Personal Branding' and he is one of the most original thinkers out there in my opinion. I had a chat with him the other day and this is what he had to say about his work, himself and his new book. It went a little bit like this:

What exactly do you do John?

I’m a branding and marketing consultant who helps entrepreneurs create a tribe of raving fans around their brand. When I was teenager I began studying branding & marketing. This didn’t make me popular with the ladies but it’s paid off since then.

What is your approach to Personal Branding?

My approach is to be myself and always remember people want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. Marketing is about relationships and conversation. It’s not about spending thousands of dollars to push your message on people.

Who are your typical clients?

My clients are literally across the globe. I have clients in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Dubai, and China. Typically they are entrepreneurs who know what their passion is and know what where they want to take their business. They just need me to help them get there.

What are the frequently questions from your clients?

The most frequent questions involve building their brand. Everyone wants to increase their audience size and their platform. You can’t do that by implementing just one strategy. It’s a combination of efforts. Other common questions are about what to do if you have more than one interest. How does that affect your brand? You are your brand. If you’ve got a lot of passions then great! Own that and let the world know about them.

Tell us about your new book?

I’m very excited about Brand Against the Machine and not just because I wrote it. I’m excited because Wiley let me write a book that isn’t full of fluff or B.S. The way we brand ourselves is broken. It’s been broken for a long time. This book sets out to fix that by not just telling people that it’s broken but telling them how to fix it.

What’s the 20/60/20 Rule all about?

In general 20% of people will love what you do. You can make a living off of those people. They are your raving fans who you can count on. 60% either don’t know you exist or don’t care. The last 20% will hate you. It doesn’t sound like fun but the people who hate cause the people who love you to come to your defense. Take the Twilight series for example. Lots of people hate it and that just makes the 20% who love it fight that much harder for it. You don’t want people in the 60%. Get them off of the fence one way or the other.

How does your Instant Positioning Method work?

The Instant Positioning Method is about aligning yourself with brands that are already established. For example, if you interview 7 of the worlds best fitness experts for your blog then people will begin to look at you as an authority in fitness as well. Your position increases by aligning yourself with respectable and established brands.

What are your best words of advice to Personal Branding explorers?

Understand that everything you do is branding. How you answer the phone, how you dress, what you tweet. It all has an affect. Your brand either works for you or against but it always works.

How do you make sure your own personal brand stands out?

Don’t be afraid to break the rules. Falling in line with industry norms is deadly to your business. Go against what your competition is doing. Challenge the status quo.

Tell us about your blogging and how it fits into your business?

A blog should be your homebase online. It’s where people can get familiar with your content and style and find out about what you do. I’m not the most consistent blogger in the world. I want each post to be awesome. I can’t achieve that by blogging daily. So when I do blog, I try to make it count. My blog will play a big role in the future of my business.

What gives you the best results on social media?

Consistency. Putting out great content. And always remembering that social media is about the reader not the writer.

What are your best-kept secrets?

I read about 2-3 books a week. Mostly on mindset, focus, and things like that. I also like to pay attention to what celebrity chefs are doing. They are excellent marketers and great at branding.

What's next for Personal Branding?

More people will be aware of the power of building a strong personal brand. Competition will be tougher which is why now is a great time to start. Marketing will continue to be about communicating WITH people and not AT them.

What are three things you’ve told yourself that kept you going during your darkest hour?

I can do all things through Christ who strengthen me, I’ve lived through worse, and what’s the positive I can take from this.

What are three life memories you recall most frequently and why?

The first 2 are the days my children were born. Those were the best days of my life and I think about them often. The third would have to be a trip to Disney World me and my wife took. We’ve been there more times than we can count but I think back on those memories a lot.

Your favourite quote?

“Get busy living or get busy dying” from Shawshank Redemption.

Best oneliner?

Whoever coined the phrase ‘quiet as a mouse’ has clearly never stepped on one.

Tell us what it’s like to live in Nashville?

Being born and raised in Nashville it’s hard for some to believe I hate country music. You won’t ever find me in cowboy boots! Nashville is an amazing place that rocks way more than people would ever expect. We’re not all rednecks.

What’s the one thing people can do to help you?

Buy a copy of the book. Read it. Take action on what you read.

Happy Halloween & Top Articles of October 2011

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:43:01 PDT

The last day of October also happens to be Halloween! Which means it's time for another round-up of monthly blog posts. Here are the spookiest stories of the month:

jorgensundberg.net

21 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

My 21 tips and tricks for anyone using LinkedIn for business and/or career.

4 Pirate Personal Branding Tips by Glenn Lesanto

4 useful personal branding gems by the straight-talking Glenn Lesanto who gave a talk in London.

How To Increase Your LinkedIn Reach by Getting Likes

I wrote this after Shiraz Bashir showed me how to extend your reach beyond your network on LinkedIn.

Link Humans

Social Recruiting Interview with Lars Schmidt at National Public Radio

My video interview with Lars Schmidt who is the talent acquisition director of NPR in Washington, D.C.

How Students and Graduates Can Find Jobs with LinkedIn

Very few students actually use this powerful platform for job searches, read all about the hidden gem here!

The Undercover Recruiter

INFOGRAPHIC: How Employers Screen Candidates on Social Media

We all know employers check your Facebook account, read all about it here.

Why Do Recruitment Consultants Ask Such Crazy Questions?

A recruiter explains why their questions are sometimes a bit off-piste.

INFOGRAPHIC: How Londoners Use Social Media to Find Jobs

A nice breakdown on how people in London use social media for career purposes.

Interviewing? 5 Sure Signs the Job is Yours!

There are a few signals that can give away your chances of getting the offer, see them here.

Upcoming London Events in November

Advanced LinkedIn Training for Recruiters & HR, 17th of Nov

This is our monthly LinkedIn workshop for recruitment professionals held at our London Covent Garden offices.

Personal Branding from the Inside Out, 16th of Nov

In case you have missed mine and Malcolm Levene's full day workshop in central London.

Questions or Comments?

I'm always looking for feedback so please leave a comment here or tweet me at @JorgenSundberg.

How To Increase Your LinkedIn Reach by Getting Likes

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:13:28 PDT

So you're looking for a job. People tell you to use LinkedIn as it's the professional network and full 'o recruiters and vacancies. But if you have a limited network and you have exhausted it, what do you?

I got a LinkedIn message last night from a connection who is looking for a a new job. Shiraz Bashir is actively looking for a new role in the Cloud and to get his message to reach out on LinkedIn, he cleverly asks people to click 'like' on his current status update. When I click 'like' on his update, my entire network will be notified about Shiraz' job search through me. If he gets 10 people clicking 'like' you're looking at a potential reach of about 2,000 LinkedIn users (as most LinkedIn users have around 200 connections).

Is this what they mean by going viral'? Well, this is how viral starts. If clicks carry on you get the snowball effect of free advertising.

I asked Shiraz what the response has been like and he says the response he gets is reflective of who is in his network. Traditionally when his network was just of existing and former work colleagues the stream of updates and content was pretty poor, mainly because most were busy with their 9-5 jobs. He has now added more recruiters and managers to his network and his homefeed of data is a lot more useful.

As for results - lately it's managed to about 50 'likes' which I think is a good start. The odd thing is that as Shiraz puts it: "I find people far more willing to 'like' to those other crazy threads like .... My boss will give me $1 for every click I get so I will get myself an iPad etc". I think we have all seen those updates although I never click on them.

The most interesting finding I think is that Shiraz says new connections are far more willing to help him than his legacy contacts. I think this has to do with the fact that people we tend to connect with on LinkedIn are active on social media and want to help, 'old' contacts have grown organically over the years and they have possibly not seen the benefit of social yet.

I clicked the 'like' button as it's a very simple way of helping someone in your network, if any of my contacts are looking for someone then I'm actually helping them as well.

Thinking beyond job search, anyone can go a bit viral on LinkedIn if they get enough clicks and comments on their status update. The typical updates that get reactions will be humor, controversy, useful information and asking questions. If you do try this yourself, let me know and I'll be there to click your 'like' button!

Another useful LinkedIn tool for job seekers is the LinkedIn Resume Builder.

4 Pirate Personal Branding Tips by Glenn @Lesanto

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:30:44 PDT

My good buddy Glenn Lesanto was kind enough to give a talk at my Personal Branding UK Meetup last month. His background as a journalist, live reporter and social media conversation catalyst made for a very interesting session. Here are my greatest takeaways from the evening.

1. We are all looking for some kind of advancement with personal branding

Whether you're looking to manage your career, find new clients, get speaking engagements or finding an investor - we should all have a purpose with our personal brand. In Glenn's case it's about being visible and in the conversation (could be Twitter, could be a conference) to be on the radar screen of commissioning editors and anyone that needs a writer/reporter. In my own case, I use personal branding to attract more clients for social recruiting projects as well as LinkedIn training sessions. Most of the people that come to this particular meetup are either career changers or have started up a business, they understand the need to be seen in their markets.

2. Your personality and actions equal your personal brand

Anyone can talk a good game but it's our actions that verify our brands. We have all seen the 'social media experts' who haven't tweeted since July 09, or the 'SEO guru' that you simply can't find on Google... These guys have a serious disparity issue and nobody will buy into their personal brands, let alone buy their products or services. By actually doing it (whatever it may be), you can become an expert in your field but only when others say you are one.

[Spellbound audience listening to Glenn Lesanto]

3. Your personal brand won't help you unless it's authentic

When you define your brand you have to be honest with others and more importantly, yourself. Glenn recommends you simply brainstorm and ask yourself "who am I?" enough times for it to come out. This is in my opinion the hardest part to personal branding, most people I know aren't too interested in introspection but this is the most important process. Once you come up with your true, authentic brand you'll notice that the other pieces will fall into place a lot easier.

4. Tell your story

Once you have got your brand defined and you're happy with it, it's time to start communicating. Glenn is a master storyteller and when I asked him to come and speak to the Meetup group he said "Sure, could be in London in a month's time, just need to get down from Lincoln on my canal boat". Excellent, we put the date in the diary. Now, Glenn didn't just cruise down the canals of England without telling the story.

Check out his Posterous blog containing pictures from his journey. These pictures all went up on Twitter so that Glenn's followers could track his progress. So now we know Glenn has a passion for boating and his brand just got even more interesting in my book. The lesson we can learn is to share interesting things happening to us, it's called personal branding because it's about what happens to you, not your company or products.

Many thanks to Glenn for speaking at the Meetup! To get more of Glenn's wisdom, I recommend you follow him on Twitter @lesanto. And what's with the 'Pirate' in the title? Ask Glenn and he'll tell you!

21 Ways To Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

Jorgen Sundberg — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:13:59 PDT

As both a Personal Branding and LinkedIn trainer, I get a few recurring questions in my workshops and seminars. I thought I would compile a little list with questions and answers here, hopefully they will be useful to you. Most questions are related to sales, marketing and recruitment which is basically the type of professionals I tend to train.

Here goes the 21 LinkedIn questions and answers:

1. How do you boost your LinkedIn profile SEO?

LinkedIn operates a bit like Google did 10 years ago, the more keywords the better ranking you will get for a while. The algorithm of the search rankings are that you will be bumped up and if people actually take action – click on your profile in the search results – that tells LinkedIn you are relevant for those search terms. IF users don’t click on you, you will be sent down to page 16 in no time and classed a spammer by the LinkedIn search engine.

To get better ranking make sure to insert relevant keywords in your headline, in your job title and in your summary. Use keywords such as industry, location, company names (if that’s allowed), and even names of people. Bring it down to a micro level with versions of software and even post codes.

See more at How to Make Google Love Your LinkedIn Profile.

2. How to use advanced X-Ray searches to find anyone on LinkedIn?

On LinkedIn, you can only see the people that are three degrees away from you or members of the same group.

One of the worst kept secrets on LinkedIn is that you are able to see every public profile via search engines such as Google. LinkedIn make sure these profiles are indexed in Google as they want to be the first search results for people’s names.

You can use this by entering a Boolean search string searching every LinkedIn user, this typically renders quite a lot of results so throw in more keywords in the search to narrow it down to a nice shortlist.

See Glen Cathey's post to get the lowdown on the X-Ray strings.

3. How do you advertise for free on LinkedIn?

Anyone can advertise on LinkedIn but it comes at a price.

One way of doing it for free is of course your status update; another way is to post it into groups. These are in theory good ways but the trouble is that most people see those updates as adverts and tend to ignore them.

One more creative way is to use a SlideShare or Google presentation where you put your presentation on, integrate this on your LinkedIn profile and share it with your network. This will actually get clicks and if it’s done well it could go viral.

Check out Slideshare on LinkedIn for more details.

4. How do you use the events section on LinkedIn?

The events section is one of the most underutilized sections of LinkedIn. We all attend events, and so do your customers. Search for these events on LinkedIn and you’ll be able to see who is coming, so that you can plan your conversations way ahead of the event. The attendee list is sometimes a great place for identifying buyers, if ten people are attending a LinkedIn meetup – I would expect a few of them to be interested in some training.

Whether it’s your breakfast briefing on new regulations or networking drinks you are hosting – be sure to list these in the LinkedIn Events section.

When you list an event, your entire network gets notified. You can then share it again to anyone in your network by LinkedIn messages. Every time someone clicks ‘attending’ or ‘interested’ – their networks get notified as well.

Events is one of the best places to build up some buzz around your company.

Also check out How To Use LinkedIn Events To Promote Your Meetup, Workshop or Seminar.

5. How to categorize connections and send group emails?

Another very underutilized feature of LinkedIn is the ability to tag people. This means you can categorize your connections according to company, position, location, where you met or whatever you choose.

When doing some sales calls, you can tag everyone you speak to. When your next sales session comes up you’ll have an instant shortlist and you are able to send a group email to everyone in that category (let's say HR managers in Liverpool) to get it out quickly.

More about tagging at Managing Your Connections By Using Tags.

6. How do you connect with people in Groups?

Another worst kept secret on LinkedIn is that Groups normally allow you contact and connect with anyone direct on LinkedIn. Sometimes you find a perfect prospect but have no way of contacting them, what you can do is see what groups they are a member of and join one of these. From there you can either invite the person to your network direct or you can look them up in the group and send a message.

Note that users are able to turn this off, it’s enabled by default but if someone gets spammed they are likely to opt out of these contact settings.

7. Who should you connect with on LinkedIn (and who shouldn’t you)?

LinkedIn is all about connections, the more you have the better visibility your profile will have and more people you will be able to search for. But it’s also about quality connections, it’s worth identifying the so called ‘super connectors’ in your field and start connecting with them – if they have 1000 relevant connections that will save you a lot of leg work.

In general, connect with business contacts of all levels. Juniors become seniors within companies, they move companies and remember you…

Don’t connect with your competitors unless you know they have more useful connections than you do. Yes you can hide them from browsing your connections but your connections will still come up in search results so be wary of connecting with competitors.

See more about Super Connectors on LinkedIn.

8. How do you integrate Twitter and LinkedIn?

If you tweet, or if your company tweets, you might want to integrate Twitter and LinkedIn. This is done through an application called Tweets. It’s fairly straightforward to install (see how here) but the important thing here are the settings.

We have all seen users with more than ten updates on LinkedIn per day, these updates typically come from Twitter and probably do more harm to your brand than anything else. The setting you want to use is to only share tweets on LinkedIn when you use the hashtag #in inside Twitter. This allows you to selectively share on LinkedIn as opposed to blanket bombing your network with conversational updates.

For more on this pet peeve of mine, see Dear Tweeters, Stop Cluttering My LinkedIn Homefeed!

9. Recommendations - do's and don'ts

The recommendation engine on LinkedIn is one of the keys to LinkedIn’s success. Whereas you used to get recommendations on a CV or a website, these recommendations are fully transparent and people can click their way through to actually scrutinize who wrote the recommendation (and event check that person’s recommendations).

Given that people check out the recommender, don’t get recommendations from your mates, don’t do back-to-back recommendations and don’t get recommendations from people who are obviously indebted to you (that graduate candidate you placed on an internship). Instead focus on quality recommendations from C-level executives and former bosses. Just get one from each company and don’t get more that 5-10 recommendations in total – any more defeats the purpose. If you are in the US, the norm is to have double that.

Check out How To Get More LinkedIn Recommendations as well.

10. How do you detect that a friend is on the job hunt?

Recruiters are very keen on finding out when anyone goes from being a 'passive' to an 'active' candidate on LinkedIn. If you are a bit nosy and or want to help your network you can do what they do and look out for the signs. We all know the very obvious people who actually post “I’m looking for a job” in their status updates. But how can you figure out the stealth job seekers who might just need your help?

Look for any of these signs: a number of new recommendations on the profile, tinkering with the headline, the summary or even a new picture. Contact details in the open and crucially, the LinkedIn email address changed to their webmail from work email.

Go ahead an contact these people but do it in a subtle way, as they are obviously a bit jumpy and wouldn’t want anyone to know they are on the hunt. See how you can help them and they will remember your kind assistance when your turn comes to explore opportunities.

11. How do I remove annoying users from my homefeed?

Whether someone is plugging their own services every day or tweet on LinkedIn a bit too much, you can easily hide these people from your home feed. Just to the right of their update there is a little grey text reading “Hide” – click that and you won’t see this person on your feed again. You can un-hide them later if you so please.

If someone is even more annoying, you can remove them as a connection altogether on the My Contacts page and click ‘remove connections’. They will not be notified that you have deleted them from your network.

See this post for more about removing connections on LinkedIn.

12. Why is LinkedIn the best job search tool on social media?

LinkedIn is the place where you can find professionals on social media. Yes, Facebook can be great for graduates and Twitter for media recruitment but LinkedIn reaches people who haven’t got time for every social network under the sun. A lawyer, banker or accountant will check their LinkedIn profile periodically but very seldom would they even have a Twitter account. So from a mere reach perspective LinkedIn is your best bet.

This means most recruiters and HR departments are using LinkedIn to find candidates already. So you can actually be found via one of their searches, or you can actively network your way to opportunities within companies. And you can of course have a look at the Jobs section to make it really easy on yourself.

13. How can you scan what anyone on LinkedIn is saying about a company or topic?

Another virtually unknown feature of LinkedIn is what’s called LinkedIn Signal. It’s basically a search tool for status updates on LinkedIn. You can search for your company name, your field or location or even a combination of them all. LinkedIn will tell you who is talking about the keyword, including people up to 3 degrees away from you. If someone is talking about Java programming on LinkedIn but the profile says ‘consultant’ – chances are they are actually a Java developer with a misleading profile.

Check out this post from LinkedIn about how Signal works.

14. How can you stand out against the other millions of [insert job title here] on LinkedIn?

By being useful to your network, by sharing interesting and valuable information and by not selling your products and services at any given moment. Your network probably knows what you do and they are likely to let you know when they have a referral for you, so it’s better to get mindshare – creating daily awareness and staying visible.

15. What's a good daily LinkedIn routine?

Most active LinkedIn users I know have a LinkedIn browser window open all day but they mainly use LinkedIn as a database. I would make a habit of sharing an interesting piece of content every day, checking out the events section for relevant networking dos, engaging with other users in Groups and generally keeping an eye on the homefeed to keep my finger on the pulse. This only takes 15 minutes per day but it’s easy to get sidetracked and lose the bigger picture.

16. How do you run a successful group on LinkedIn?

There are over a million groups on LinkedIn, many of these were set up by recruiters. If you look at what makes a group successful it’s all about creating a strong community. When it’s set up it’s ideal to make it ‘exclusive’ in some way – i.e. only open to Java developer in Manchester, this just makes more of them want to join. Assign a team to run the group and to seed conversation, moderate discussions and sharing interesting content.

The number one gripe people have with groups is that they get too much spam emails so make sure you vet all members, only ever send relevant email updates and do not tolerate any blatant promotions from members.

More on Groups at How To Run a Successful LinkedIn Group.

17. How to use your company page to attract customers?

The LinkedIn company page is your company’s number one branding tool on LinkedIn. There are lots of things you can do here such as write up a proper description of the company, add contact details, insert your Twitter feed, link your blog posts to the page, add your products and services, ask for company recommendations and check out the visitor statistics.

Prospective clients are likely to check out your company page so make sure it represents your brand fully.

For employer branding, check out How To Build a LinkedIn Company and Careers Page.

18. What are the essentials on your LinkedIn profile?

There are four essentials on an individual’s LinkedIn profile; they are the picture, the headline, the summary and the keywords.

Your picture should look professional and reflect your brand, people like dealing with faces as opposed to just text – studies show you get 30% more clicks in search results when you have a picture (see more at How To Choose a Picture for Your Personal Brand).

The headline (along with your name and picture) is what comes up in search results and based on this the user will decide whether to click on you or the competitor. Make sure the headline talks about what you do and not who you are, i.e. you recruit Java developers to top tier consultancies in Manchester and not Consultant and Recruiter X – which means very little (more on headlines at How To Write Your Killer LinkedIn Headline).

Your summary is where people go to see what you are all about and what your track record in the industry is. If you get someone to take their time to check this out you will want to add you contact details at the end and not leave them hanging.

Finally, you have to get the right keywords on your profile or you will not come up in any searches. Yes you might come up in searches for your name but let’s face it if someone already knows your name you already have a foot in the door. It’s better to come up in the search for “Java recruiter Manchester”.

19. How do you connect with people outside of your network?

There are lots of ways of connecting with people outside of your network. You can join the same group as this person which allows you to connect direct (most of the time). You can do an introduction through a common connection, this can take a bit of time but usually works. If you have a premium account you can send an inMail or you can actually buy inMail credits on a free account.

But let's forget the online world for a while, I think the best way to connect is actually outside of LinkedIn. Pick up the phone and ring the person up, or if you don’t have the number you can probably guess the email address and try that. It’s all about being creative and just because you found someone on LinkedIn doesn’t mean you have to approach them through LinkedIn.

20. Do you need to upgrade your LinkedIn account?

It really depends on how you are using LinkedIn, most people don’t use inMails, Profile organizer and require additional search results. If you do pay for an account make sure you make the most of it, paying a monthly fee is not a silver bullet to success - you actually have to understand what you're doing first.

See more at LinkedIn Job Search Premium, Worth the Dollar or Not?

21. What applications should you use to attract business?

You can use SlideShare to share presentations of your company or about specials or promotions you have on at the moment, you can use the Amazon Reading list to show off your extra-curricular interests, use TripIt if you travel a lot and actually want people to contact you to have a coffee in various locations. You can use Google Docs to get video going on your profile and if you blog you should definitely integrate the Blog Link application. Remember that every time you make any changes to your application, your network gets notified which is usually a good thing.

That's it for today, do let me know what other tips and tricks you have!

And please check out our LinkedIn training as well if your company is interested in harnessing the power of LinkedIn!

How UK Teenagers are Managing their Personal Brand Online [INFOGRAPHIC]

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 01:42:43 PDT

New research released by insurance giant AXA suggests that children as young as eleven are actively managing their personal brands when they are online. I don't know about you but to me the idea of personal branding is more about your professional profile than a marketing technique that children should be using to look more popular online.

Anyway, the results of the study reveal a few interesting statistics:

- 75% of 11 to 18-year olds in the UK use social media sites to manage their online presence, the most common ones being Facebook, Bebo and Twitter.

- 11-year olds use social media to make thmeselve look good to others, only 14% doubted that it's useful.

- The majority of 17 and 18-year olds rated social media as being 'very important' to their lives

- A professional headshot is the most popular way of enhancing one's personal image online according to 18% of 11 to 12-year olds.

- 21% of 11 to 12-year olds make friends with people they don't know so they appear to have more friends, 18% even exaggerate their social activities

See more stats at the infographic compiled by AXA:

Personal Branding Workshop, London Oct 12th [Your Discount Inside]

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:00:04 PDT

Scroll down for your 20% discount!

Yes you guessed it, Malcolm Levene and myself are up to it again; our full day workshop Personal Branding from the Inside Out is happening on the 12th of October at the Langham Court hotel in central London. If you are looking to boost your own brand, whether you are an entrepreneur, in a career or own a business - this is the workshop for you.

Previous attendees say they enjoy how Malcolm and I complement each other, his approach is more from a personal development perspective and mine is more about marketing and strategy (see the events page for more testimonials).

Our 10 steps training programme will cover your Personal Brand from A to Z (or from the Inside Out!). The 10 steps are:

1. Authenticity

The dictionary meaning we’re attaching to authenticity is ‘undisputed credibility’. Being known as someone who has undisputed credibility is vital to gain a top-notch following. Passion, intention, purpose and integrity are pivotal. We will demonstrate how you can tell whether you are considered as someone who’s authentic. Moreover, you’ll discover your purpose and attributes, so that communicating authentically will be easier and more effective.

2. EQ / Awareness and Empathy

With these 3 qualities in place, you can improve relationships measurably. You’ll also be able to convey charisma. In addition, you will increase your happiness levels and enhance your reputation. We will demonstrate through an exercise how you can test these qualities, and how you can improve/enhance each of them.

3. Happiness/Flourishing

With generosity, optimism, gratitude and courage, we become more joyful, we flourish. We will explain through an interactive conversation that will show you clearly how anyone can be more joyful and learn to flourish. A huge benefit to being happier and flourishing is that your behaviours become infectious. Therefore, internal and external associates want to be around you and are influenced by you.

4. Be a Great Communicator

Great communicators know how to make people feel great in their company. They have an ability to influence outcomes and encourage followership. In addition, they convey superb manners at all times. We will ask each of the group to communicate as they do normally, and with 3 steps, help them to raise their communication levels by several notches.

5. Positive Psychology

In order to be able to ‘bounce back’ from adversity, we need the skills and techniques to do so. Research done in the USA and the UK supports the fact that through very simple, easy-to-use, tried and tested exercises in resilience, we can transcend fear, emotional disruptions and disappointment. We will provide exercises/information that will help you to improve levels of positivity, optimism and that will strengthen your emotional resilience.

6. First Impressions

We make an impression within the first ten seconds of meeting somebody. We will show you how you can make a first positive impression every time. This includes your Inner and Outer Brand: body language, appearance, verbal communication and overall demeanour.

7. 360 Degrees Assessment

Our brand may be not be perceived by others the way we think. By getting feedback from people around you, it will be easy to establish which message is working and where there is room for improvement. We will put this to the test and compare your internal attributes from the morning session to how you project who you are.

8. Storytelling

The ability to tell stories that create an emotional connection with people is pivotal in business. Salespeople, politicians and speakers tell stories all the time to bring their message to life. We will show you how to tell the compelling story of your brand and to practise this with the rest of the group.

9. Personal Brand Statement

Every story needs a headline, and every personal brand needs a clear value statement. Your personal brand statement is used across all your communications and is critical online. We will take you through the steps to produce a punchy and memorable statement, and then deliver it to the group for feedback.

10. Personal Marketing Plan

We will go through the ways you can market your brand to your target audience. This will cover networking, giving presentations, writing and social media techniques and work out what is right for your brand. You will be equipped with a powerful action plan for your personal brand at the end of this session.

Details

This event will be held on Wednesday the 12th of October 2011 from 9am to 5pm. The venue is the Langham Court Hotel near Regent Street in central London. Workshop tickets (with the discount) are £240 plus VAT. The discount code is 'blog_discount'.

Book Now

Head on over to Personal Branding from the Inside Out to book your seat now - see you on the 12th!

Personal Branding Talk at Edelman London and IgnitePR

Jorgen Sundberg — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 04:48:44 PDT

Last week I gave a personal branding presentation at Edelman in London, for IgnitePR which is an association that promotes diversity in the PR industry. I only had twenty minutes so had to pack in a lot of content and thought I would share not only the slide deck but also the Audioboo clip (there's a first for everything).

I would like to thank Bienosa Ebite and Lee Edwards for inviting me and making it a great event. I would also like to thank the other presenter, Sarah Stimson from the Taylor Bennett Foundation who is doing great work helping young graduates find their feet in the very competitive PR field.

Here is the audio:

And here are the slides:

Would love to get your feedback, please let me know what you think!

Why Should Anyone Care About Personal Branding?

Jorgen Sundberg — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 06:39:01 PDT

At #trulondon last week I was interviewed by Martin Couzins about Personal Branding. This is what I came up with..

Do you agree/disagree? Please let me know!

The Best Blog Posts of August 2011

Jorgen Sundberg — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:27:29 PDT

Hope you had a good August? I managed to move house and cut my teeth in home improvement, lots of fun. As a result of the house move I haven't blogged as much as I'd liked to so will make up for it in September.

And yes, that's of course August Strindberg, the famous Swedish author in the picture. Here are the hottest stories from August:

JorgenSundberg.net

How To Make Your Personal Brand More Enchanting (INFOGRAPHIC)

Guy Kawasaki released this infographic along with his new book Enchantment (worth a read by the way).

Personal Branding Tips from the Expat Expert

My blogging and Twitter buddy John Falchetto is an expat coach and in this interview he gives some great tips for expats and tell us more about himself.

How I Got Interviewed in The Times Newspaper

A couple of tips from myself on how to get a nice mention in traditional media.

The Undercover Recruiter

Is Google Plus the Personal Branding Tool of the Future?

It's very topical at the moment, but nobody knows how useful Google Plus will become - here's one prediction.

Nervous Wreck? How To Shake Off Job Interview Anxiety

Nerves affect the best of us, here are some tips to prepare better for that big interview.

The Two-Dimensional You: Creating a Successful Personal Brand

Some would say you can't create a brand, others disagree - what do you think?

Link Humans blog

LinkedIn Stats and Facts Presentation 2011

This is the current state of LinkedIn, useful for anyone in recruitment or business development.

My Graduate Job Hunt: The Finale!

Our intern Cristina Dresch writes about her successful job search and how she used online tools to secure her new position.

Upcoming Events in September

How To Use Social Media for Your Career & Job Seach

James Mayes from Brave New Talent is giving a talk about the social job search on the 13th of September.

LinkedIn Training for Recruiters, 14th of September

This is our flagship training for recruiters, headhunters & HR people held at our London Covent Garden offices.

Questions or Comments?

I'm always looking for feedback so please leave a comment here or tweet me at @JorgenSundberg.