Ok so you spent all this time and quite possibly money on branding yourself, building your website and making your profiles. You have a good solid foundation set up now comes the hard part. How do you get people talking about you? Searching your name on the top search engines? Looking you up on social media? And best of all; following you!

Here are a few helpful tools that will get you noticed in the cyber world, promote your new brand, and bring in traffic and potential revenue.

• About.me – This site will be so helpful, you will set up a personal homepage that will be the central location that ties together all your websites such as personal and/or company websites, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and a blog.
• Social Mention – This handy tool will send alerts based on your keywords. It is basically a social media search engine, analyzing who is mentioning you and the importance of those mentions. It searches blogs, bookmarks, comments and videos anything that is user generated.
• Who’s Talkin? – This tool is similar to Social Mention it too alerts you to any mentions about you but it narrows the scope to only the ones that are important to you.
• NameChk – This tool will help you to determine if your brand name is available on a social network, helps secure your domain and won’t let anyone steal your name on social networks. It will let you know if your name/url is available on those networks.
• HootSuite – This tool allows you to manage and measure your presence on those social media sites all in one handy dashboard. You can manage multiple social media profiles, schedule messages and tweets, track mentions of your name and analyze social media traffic.

With more and more people using the internet for day to day tasks it is now important to have a cyber-presence and after spending so much time crafting and honing that presence make sure you use the right tools to get those people talking about you.

The post Got my personal brand; Now what? appeared first on Katy Caroan.

Over the last 2 years, I’ve seen colleagues and clients get stuck in limiting thinking patterns when taking on LinkedIn.

This pattern is disabling some of them from expanding their number of contacts, asking for recommendations as well as moving into a more proactive, influential mode.

As a result, they are not in a position to leverage the great collaboration and business intelligence features within LinkedIn.

I’m currently facilitating a LifeVille group coaching game on the topic of effective use of LinkedIn to position the personal brand. 4 days into the game, I observe the majority of the players challenge themselves, share insights and inspire each other. As the coach, it’s my role to facilitate the game and encourage everyone to build skills, explore new territory and get the results they are playing for. A new community is emerging out of the team’s total effort.

Why they decided to join a game and not simply complete a long list of TO DOs when taking on LinkedIn? The gamification of real life challenges seems attractive to more and more people: We like getting inspired. We love getting insights. And we feel great when an opportunity is given to share our knowledge with others. So, instead of ticking off your TO DO list, think about what you can do to turn your current real life challenge into a game and involve your different environments to succeed.

The post Stop doing, start playing: Gamify your real life challenge! appeared first on Katy Caroan.

Are you among those waiting for other people to step forward and ask you to act, or are you positioning yourself towards opportunities on short as well as long term?

Today’s social media tools enable us to listen to the market and communicate with potential employers, customers and business partners in a new way:

You can tell your story, share your passion and demonstrate your professional reputation as perceived by others when leveraging social media effectively.

Social media, such as LinkedIn, is increasingly becoming your arena to attract your next professional opportunity. It takes some initial investment in time to shape up the profile and learn the specific DOs and DON’Ts with the various tools.

The investment pays off very quickly when other people start finding you and you may get introduced to opportunities you never knew existed.

So, by whom do you want to be found, and what is your next step to get started?

The post Are You an Opportunity Magnet? appeared first on Katy Caroan.

The answers might be easy at hand…or require a longer period to emerge as a result of our dialogue.

One of my most effective questions is: “How do You want to be perceived by others?”.

This question brings us to the key values and beliefs we live by in our daily lives, consciously and unconsciously.  This provides tremendous insights on which alternatives and decisions You in fact have at hand upon ANY challenge in life.

To many of my clients, the pattern language , the “self-talk”, on what is possible and not has taken precedence unchallenged for a long time. One of my clients recently stated “…I didn’t realize that I had an option to decide differently”.

This week I’m kicking off my very first LifeVille coaching game coaching my players to leverage LinkedIn strategically. This has nothing to do with how to push which button in the tool. It has all to do with mobilizing their network, challenging their visibility comfort zone, building their professional reputation and making a bold decision on how they would like to be perceived, by potential employers, clients and business partners.

Which pattern language is limiting Your opportunities in life?

The post Time to ask Yourself a powerful question appeared first on Katy Caroan.

When asked about their strategy and plan for using the tools as part of their pursuit of a new career or getting new clients to their business, very few can provide a crisp reply.

My next question reveals the truth: Most of them are just keeping their profile above water, staying in touch with people they already know and there seems to be little effort put into a solid description of who they are, what they love doing and whom they would like to interact with in the future when looking for a new career or new clients.

In summary, there seems to be a huge potential for boosting their personal brand and positioning themselves as a unique candidate for a job…or why not as the obvious service provider to future clients.

Reflecting back on 2010, I was astonished to see that in fact 20 out of my first 25 coaching clients were the results of my LinkedIn efforts.  I had the best selling force available there is: My connections! They know me, they know their own connections, and this resulted in the numbers above over a period of 3 months. My effort? I built my LinkedIn network based on my own criteria and then carefully selected among my connections. I sent 1 mail to all of them, and told them what I was offering. That’s it! In fact, some of my connections returned themselves and hired me as their coach after listening to the experience of their connections.

The power of relationship building when leveraging social media such as LinkedIn is incredible, but in order to succeed You need a strategy and a plan. When listening to my clients, I know that the real challenge has little to do with understanding LinkedIn functionality. The real challenges lie within the area of visibility and limiting beliefs. I found that my clients’ challenges were so similar, that I decided to turn my experiences into a LifeVille group coaching game. In LifeVille, all participants are playing their game, supported by me as a coach as well as by their co-players. From playing other coaching games in the past myself, I know there will be excitement, resistance, insights…and FUN. All the typcial requirements of any great game in life.

What would it mean to You, if You could boost Your personal brand in 28 days?

The post Why Linking In matters for Boosting Your Personal Brand appeared first on Katy Caroan.

Just a few days ago, I was invited by a friend to an event hosted by a government sponsored organisation supporting upcoming entrepreneurs. The event marked “the grand finale”  of  a 6 weeks workshop, allowing entrepreneurs to present and sell their ideas to an audience in 5 minutes only, followed by 3 minutes feedback. It was indeed a diversified and interesting collection of people and ideas. At the end of the event, the entrepreneurs seemed happy about their performances and the takeaways from the audience.

Now, 5 days later, which ideas do I, as an observer remember…and why?

Another friend of mine is an expert in the field of rhetorics. She is constantly challenging me and others to ask ourselves:  “What is your key message? What does it accomplish? And what’s in it for me?” And then she reminds me that communicating is so much more than words, it’s how you present it, how you are perceived, how you build trust…and not at least, how you manage to create emotions among your listeners.

So the simple answer to the above question is the following:

I recall the ideas where the presenter managed to create emotions supporting the facts and standard selling points.

I remember the presenters who demonstrated passion about their ideas and used more than words and facts to support their presentation.

My first employer taught me that the most effective presentation was one visual…one visual only. It takes courage to actually do so, but I’m finally convinced: There is no stronger selling point than talking passionately from your heart about something that’s important to you without disturbing elements. As a receiver, you might not agree with the idea, but it’s almost impossible to not get affected. And…you’ll remember it longer.

You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to benefit from this. What do You do differently next time You want somebody else to like your idea? How well do You know your strengths as others perceive them and how do you leverage this when selling your idea? I’d like to inspire You to reflect more about this through an e-book issued by my partners Per Frykman & Karin Sandin: “You-a Brand”. By signing up for my newsletter at the bottom right corner, You will get Your own free copy and might dive into this topic further.

Imagine what You would be able to do if You actually had the knowledge about Your strengths and use this knowledge when selling Your ideas.  Let me know Your thoughts by commenting this post!

The post What makes other people remember Your idea among others? appeared first on Katy Caroan.

Act in order to transform thoughts into brave, bold and beautiful actions leading to a successful business of their own.

It often strikes me that there are so many people thinking of dedicating their professional life to their area of passion, but fewer are able to actually make the bold steps to do so. What are the triggers, the keys, the motivational drivers bringing some people the results they are playing for whilst others remain thinking?

When I look around I can certainly recognize some of the characteristics of the brave ones…because it shows! The bravest and most successful entrepreneurs share their idéas widely, they talk about their passion using more than words and they involve people around them to help them succeed. So, a simple answer to the question above might be:

“They know what they want, they communicate clearly and they mobilize their environments in terms of family, friends, networks, role models…and suddenly they find themselves role modelling others. And…they have insights about their true, personal brand, their professional reputation as perceived by others.”

As a coach, it is a true privilege to be seen as a partner when the client is visualizing the goal, unleashing the potential, nailing the niche, brainstorming the way forward, experimenting and learning from inner resistance until progress is perceived as firm results. From my own experience, I know what it means to have knowledge about my personal brand in terms of niching my services,  communicating boldly and asking other people for support. That’s why I’ve made a decision to offer my clients the same opportunity by holding a license in the conceptual tool “You – A Brand” by Per Frykman & Karin Sandin.

What would it mean to YOU if YOU had explicit knowledge about YOUR professional reputation and could make reality to YOUR professional ambitions within YOUR area of passion?

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“After 21 years in the same company, I have taken a bold step and made my decision to resign and start a new career within another company. I am full of excitement, looking forward to new job responsibilities, new facilities, new colleagues and a new (and higher!) salary level than in the past. I feel confident and inspired because …”

This client has made a very bold and brave step, moving from a safe, well known environment into a new environment characterized by opportunities but also risks.

So, what does it take for a person to challenge his or her comfort zone in this way? In understanding what you’re passionate about and why, you will have a solid base for pursuing the results you want for yourself.

It should be joyable to go to work, to be at work and to think about what you do for a living. How many of us can truthfully say “I love what I do for a living”?. I can recognize some of you because it shows!!!

Imagine you were able to embrace new insights and knowledge about how you are perceived by others in terms of your professional reputation or your personal brand? Which opportunties would open up if you felt confident in what your true strengths are, as perceived by others? Personal branding should be considered a supportive tool for anyone looking to make bold steps towards a more joyable way of making a living.

Click here if you’d like to read more about why my client feels confident and inspired.

The post Why I love working with bold and brave people appeared first on Katy Caroan.