It's a new day in America. With economic cutbacks mixing with technology advancing at light speed, most people are wondering how to keep up. Throw in an exodus of jobs and people only working at companies for 2 to 3 years instead of 20 and we see a totally different job market than ever before in history. Like it or not, everyone is a marketer now, even kids.
In the first three weeks of this school year my house was presented with fundraisers from schools and PTA's for coupon books, a jog-a-thon and selling mattresses. That's not a joke, the high school had a mattress selling fundraiser which included pimping out kids to go door to door with flyers and post yard signs announcing "Up to 60% off" of mattresses. This is how far our country has fallen.
I spoke with teachers about this and they hate it, but said "what can we do?" Remember when teachers taught school? Now they are forced to be sales managers directing kids from Kindergarten up to 12th grade to sell crap in order to buy school supplies. Your kid is forced to do this after you've already spent money buying your own kids school supplies and paying taxes that were initially allocated for education. Teachers and kids are now marketers and salespeople who have quotas to strive for, though they aren't held accountable for missing them.
Do you remember when the police were mostly fighting crime? You know, protecting and serving? Have you noticed that your town feels more like you're under surveillance than ever before? Many cities have seen cutbacks lead to laying off police officers. The result has been that cops have increased ticket quotas to hit like sales goals. They are threatened with losing their jobs because of cutbacks in their departments if they don't make their quotas. These days you are a potential revenue source, a customer, before you are a citizen.
Though I don't know how to help police officers and school teachers out of their delimma without reallocating federal funds from the defense budget to education and police departments, I know what workers can do. Employees need to realize that even when you don't own a business, you are now an entrepreneur who must market her services.
If you go to a job interview with the same exact skills as another candidate who has online profiles and content showing off her expertise and you don't, who do you think is going to get hired? The other person will land the job simply because they are showing their value in the industry 24/7 online for any recruiter or HR person to review while you are only telling a job history on a resume.
The good news is that there are more ways than ever to build your personal brand to market yourself. Here are the top three personal branding techniques that every person needs to use:
1. Have an optimized LinkedIn profile. Just because you're on LinkedIn doesn't mean you're in good shape. Is your bio full of searchable keywords for recruiters? Do you have a video? Do you have recommendations? Have you recommended others? Do you have a Twitter feed adding real time content tpo your profile page? Are you answering questions in the Q&A area? Are you participating in conversations happening in the Groups aligned with your industry? If you need help with this look no further than Mike O'Neill and Lori Ruff's book, "Rock the World with Your Online Presence."
2. Start a blog. Blogs are where people share their interests, their passions and their expertise. If you like to write, then use WordPress. If you prefer short snippets of writing, photos and videos, you can blog on Posterous or Tumblr easier than you can dial a phone.
3. Comment on the blogs that are the most popular in your industry. Search AllTop or BlogSearch.Google.com with keywords used in your industry to find the best blogs. Leave comments on articles where you have something of value to add to the conversation. This can help you to build a relationship with experts in your field and it leaves a permanent comment that is like a sales person working 24/7 to share the fact that you have valuable skills with the world.
The 21st century is a time when you will lose ground in your career if you do not create a personal brand and market yourself. Like it or not, it's time to be the best marketer of you that you can imagine.