About 90% of my work day is consumed by writing — one of my favorite things to do. Along with creating my executive clients’ personal brand communications and career marketing documents, I’m busy maintaining two blogs, contributing content to a number of blogs and websites (including here at Brand-yourself), and keeping up with my own business and career marketing materials.

In my spare time, one of my passions is working on NY Times Sunday crossword puzzles.

All of this is driven by my love of words. I’m always looking for resources that will help me find the right words and improve my writing.  If these resources make word-searching and learning fun, so much the better!

I readily admit that, although grammatical errors can drive me up the wall, I’m certainly no expert. I’m sure my blog posts contain mistakes that have my readers tsking.  That being said, I always try to make my writing as professional as possible.  The bottom line is, the way you write says a lot about you and your personal brand.

Here are two websites I’ve turned to recently to sharpen my writing:

Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips

Mignon Fogarty (@GrammarGirl on Twitter) offers daily grammar tips, to which you can subscribe. Some topics she’s covered that plague me:

Ending a Sentence With a Preposition

Who Versus Whom

Lay Versus Lie

#8 in her Top Ten Grammar Myths, honoring National Grammar Day (March 4), is:

“Irregardless” is not a word. Wrong! “Irregardless” is a bad word and a word you shouldn’t use, but it is a word. “Floogetyflop” isn’t a word—I just made it up and you have no idea what it means.  “Irregardless,” on the other hand, is in almost every dictionary labeled as nonstandard. You shouldn’t use it if you want to be taken seriously, but it has gained wide enough use to qualify as a word.

Wordnik

According to their site, Wordnik (@wordnik on Twitter) is billions of words, 423 million example sentences, 4.7 million unique words, and over 185,000 comments, 95,000 tags, 74,000 pronunciations, 24,518 favorites and 728,464 words in 23,583 lists created by 39,849 Wordniks.

In a NY Times Sunday Magazine “On Language” article in December, Erin McKean, chief executive and founder of Wordnik, explained what the online dictionary is trying to accomplish:

“We’re using text-mining techniques and the unlimited space of the Internet to show as many real examples of word use as we can, as fast as we can.

A word is so much more than its meaning: it’s also who uses it, when it was used, what words appear alongside it and what kinds of texts it appears in.”

Wordnik includes definitions, examples, pronounciations, etymologies, and statistics.

The Word of the Day on March 10 was “shuckish”. Think you know what it means? Here’s the definition.

Related post:

65 Power Personal Branding Verbs to Nail Your Executive Value Proposition

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials, both gold standards.

“I love my work collaborating with savvy senior executives and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically c-suite, senior-level executives and rising stars.”

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter.

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Sorry, there’s no excuse. If you can use email, you can blog. And if you use Word 2007, you can use it to post articles to your own hosted blog.

Why blog?

Because if you can demonstrate your subject matter expertise, you’re going to get that job, promotion, or consulting gig you’re looking for. Last week I talked about doing things that are in your control – and top of the list is your blog.

Let’s get past the technical hurdles first. There are many ways you can blog, but to make your decision easier, I’m going to recommend three platforms.

1. Posterous – this is the simplest blogging platform there is. Your first email to them creates your account, and every subsequent email posts an article. You can include pictures, audio, and video, and Posterous figures out what to do with your content. More on this in a moment.
2. WordPress.com – this is the free WordPress site. Create an account, and WordPress will host it for you. It’s also free. WordPress is the most widely used blogging platform, which means there’s lots of online support – and if you need it, there are lots of consultants who can help you. They host over 300,000 blogs!
3. YourOwnDomain.com, using WordPress software. This is what I recommend if you’re going to be serious about blogging. It gives you the greatest flexibility, and you totally control everything you do. WordPress is still free, and there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of free templates. Templates dictate the layout and features of your blog. (In case you didn’t know it, this blog uses WordPress.)

Word 2007 allows you to write your post for WordPress and post it automatically. The first time you do it, you have to provide some basic setup information (URL of your blog, user name and password). When you finish a post, you hit the Publish icon and either post the article as a finished post or as a draft. I write all my posts this way now – the Word editor is way better than the WordPress editor, and almost everyone knows how to use Word.     

Posterous

So let’s talk about Posterous… Take a look at the Posterous FAQ (frequently asked questions) to get started. “Posterous lets you post things online fast using email. You email us at post@posterous.com and we reply instantly with your new Posterous blog.” It just don’t get any easier than that.

Multimedia? Posterous understands Word and PowerPoint file formats, PDF, JPG, GIF, PNG, MP3, AVI and MPG. If you don’t understand all those TLAs (three-letter acronyms), just understand that Posterous will intelligently handle most files you’re going to generate. And you don’t have to worry about photo size, because their software will automatically, and intelligently, resize your photos. If you’re posting a link to a YouTube video, Posterous will automatically embed a player for the post so your reader can simply start watching it.

Here’s another great feature they do automatically: when you post to your blog, it can automatically create updates to your Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr accounts. Blogging pros have been doing this for years – I do it with plugins for WordPress, but here it’s all nicely wrapped up for you. This gives you great Google Juice! And it should be an integral part of your personal branding efforts.

Are you wondering if this is a serious blogging platform? You bet it is – two of the most important bloggers in the world use it (Michael Arrington – TechCrunch, and Robert Scoble).

The route to getting that job you want is to get known as a subject matter expert. First be sure people can find you if they type your name in a Google search. Then start writing on your topic, and keep doing it until people can find you when they type a search for what you do. That’s what recruiters do – especially for higher-level positions. They are always looking for people who have distinguished themselves in their field. And today, and with Posterous, that’s under your control.

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You’ve defined your personal brand and created your career marketing materials, designed to resonate with your target audience.

And you know that, in job search, you’re in a sales and marketing campaign for your corporation of one – Brand You.

How are you going to market your unique promise of value to potential employers?

You’ll need a well-rounded brand communications plan that incorporates real-life and online personal marketing to capture the attention of recruiters and hiring decision makers.

If you think your online presence doesn’t factor much into hiring decision-making, see my post Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”? All other things being equal, a strong online footprint can tip the scales in your favor.

I safeguard the integrity and vitality of my own plan and keep it humming with personal brand health insurance – the 3 Cs – clarity, consistency, constancy.

Here’s a good part of what’s in my brand plan:

Online Profiles/Presence:

• 2 blog-based websites, Executive Career Brand and Executive Resume Branding, and one static website.

-Both blogs are included on several other blogrolls

• LinkedIn – 100% complete, branded, searchable profile
• Job-Hunt.org Personal Branding Expert bio
• Brand-Yourself blog weekly columnist bio
• Google Profile
• ZoomInfo
• Business Week’s Business Exchange
• Business VisualCV
• Personal VisualCV
• Amazon – I need to update this.
• Facebook
• Careers industry professional associations

Social Media:

• LinkedIn. Network updates 2-3 times a week. Active with 20+ Groups. Manage Job-Hunt.org’s new LinkedIn Personal Branding Help sub-group. Come join us!
• Active Twitter user, post several times a day. RT my tweeps regularly. Drive traffic to blogs through Twitter network
• Post at least twice a week to my 2 blogs
• Guest blog regularly at various other relevant blogs
• Comment regularly on relevant blogs (I try to be the first responder so my comments sit at the top of the list.)
• Weekly columns (Mondays) here on the Brand-Yourself.com blog
• Personal Branding Expert at Job-Hunt.org, contributing articles once a month
• E-list/online forum sharing and discussion through personal branding and careers industry professional associations
• Contribute articles and content to executive networking/job agent/job boards
• Contribute content and document samples to numerous job search/personal branding e-books and print books each year
• Press releases to various publications several times a year
• Branded email signature, with links to blog, LinkedIn profile and VisualCV
• Self-Google several times a week to monitor how I’m doing

Networking / Continuing Education

• Keep up with my professional network, virtually and in real-life. That means actually speaking by phone frequently. Emailing alone just doesn’t cut it
• Attend numerous professional webinars/teleseminars each year
• Put faces to names by attending at least one professional conference each year

WHEW!!! I think that pretty well covers it. That’s what keeps me busy marketing-wise. It can be a challenge fitting all this in with working my job, which is helping senior executives build their personal brand communications plans.

So, what’s in your communications plan? What are you doing that I should be doing?

Related posts:

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

How NOT to Build Your Executive Personal Brand

Digital Distinction: Does Your Executive Brand Pack a Punch Online?

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials, both gold standards.

“I love my work collaborating with savvy senior executives and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically c-suite, senior-level executives and rising stars.”

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter.

Support me by sharing this post:

Did last week’s post convince you to start blogging? It’s the only method of getting found for that job you want in which you control 100%. If you blog long enough and strong enough, you will be found. 

Just to reiterate, here’s my simple recipe for your success: 

1. Get your “placeholder” sites done – and done right. You’re probably already on LinkedIn, but don’t overlook ZoomInfo (which is still used by many recruiters), and your Google Profile. Ryan Rancatore, a fellow Brand-Yourself contributing blogger, had an excellent post on this topic a couple of days ago (here).
2. After you feel comfortable about your subject matter expertise, start writing. Comment on other blogs or write articles (check out Jacob Share’s great post about freelance marketplaces here.)
3. When you’re ready, start publishing posts for your own blog.
4. Repeat step 3 until you get really good at it. Get feedback from other writers and industry veterans so you know you’re doing it right. Then repeat it until you’re accepted as a thought leader in your subject area. 

Photo by Kevin Lim

OK, step 4 may sound hard to you, and I’ll grant that it takes some time and effort to keep coming up with new things to say. There are many writers’ techniques you can use; for example, carry around index cards and jot down a subject whenever you think of one. You’d be surprised at how many ideas you will come up with every day. 

Here’s another idea, and this is based on actual data. Most blogging software platforms give you some feedback about your users. I always install dedicated WordPress installations for my clients, because it’s the most widely used blogging platform. That means lots of support on the internet, many great authors giving templates and utilities to you free, and pretty good statistics. You can even add Google Analytics to your blog. 

Over time, I’ve found that articles I write about how to do things get the most traffic. Some of these articles are like Energizer bunnies – they just keep on producing. Every day, I get stats about how many people visited my blog, my top posts, referring sites, and the search terms people use to get to my site. I also see the links people click on to visit other sites. 

You can learn some pretty interesting things by watching these stats. Here are the five most common search terms for my blog: 

1. LinkedIn photo size
2. 3 variations of my name
3. LinkedIn picture size
4. Sandwich board (!)
5. Zoho cloud

What that tells me is that there is a real need for more information about LinkedIn profile pictures! (It appears in several other forms in the most popular search terms). My second most popular search, in aggregate, is a post I did about how to do multiple emails using Word and Excel. I get traffic to that article every day. 

What’s really interesting about this is that my personal branding articles don’t show up at the top of the list, even though that’s the main topic of my blog! In fact, I wrote the LinkedIn photo article, and the email article, at the request of people who wanted more information about these topics. Ah, but there’s a rub… 

My top posts are not the same as my top search terms! My five top posts are 

1. How to use Microsoft Excel and Word to send multiple emails
2. The proper way to send and accept a LinkedIn invitation (I wish everyone would read this)
3. How to add your picture to LinkedIn
4. How to complete your LinkedIn profile
5. Create a PDF of your LinkedIn recommendations

So what does all this tell me? 

• Write about things you’re passionate about. Almost every one of the 10 items above are poorly covered elsewhere. Why should it be hard to put your picture on LinkedIn? That’s simple: if you’re too dumb to do it, maybe you shouldn’t be using LinkedIn. Sorry, not my attitude, but it does make you wonder about LinkedIn help and support.
• Content is king! Don’t fill your blogs with nonsense. People come to blogs to learn. Give your readers something to take away.
• Use your statistics to help you fine tune your messages. In general, more readership means better (or at least more popular) content.

A small side note: I’ve also found that taking a somewhat controversial standpoint can lead to higher readership. Anybody who’s heard of Rush Limbaugh knows controversy sells. But you’d better decide who and what you want to be on the Internet. Some people think any news is good news, but I don’t subscribe to that. I want to be known for quality contributions. My personal belief is that I’d rather reach fewer people with better content than the inverse. 

Oh yeah… I always advise people to write about their passion(s). I have a client who’s a real estate broker. He writes about real estate topics, but he’s also a great violinist, and he writes a lot about fiddles. I just love his posts, and I have to admit I read the violin articles first. Part of your objective in publishing is to let prospective recruiters, hiring managers, and clients know you before they contact you. And it really works.

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