Personal branding introduced me to myself

Personal branding has been a foreign concept to me. Previously I thought of branding as a way for a business to either promote themselves or their products. Through a college marketing course I was given the opportunity to learn about personal branding and how to successfully implement it. I learned a lot about myself as to what is important to me and what I am good at, even what I am not so good at or comfortable with. In order to build your brand you have to be willing to put yourself out there. The way that we learned to do so is to be active on various social media platforms, like this blog for example. I also learned how to be comfortable outside of my comfort zone, if that makes any sense at all.

One thing that we didn’t cover and I would like to have the opportunity to learn more about is how to build the brand of a business. Now, many of the principles we learned about personal branding can be applied to a business as well, but I think you have to be extra careful and diligent when you are commenting online for a business. Anything you say or do will be viewed as the thoughts or ideals of the entire business, not just your own. I would have liked to have learned a little bit about how to handle this and learn some key do’s and don’ts.

Well, my coursework is coming to an end I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these blogs. I had the the opportunity to also do a couple podcasts, which I doubt I ever do again and make a YouTube video, which much to my surprise I could actually see myself doing that again. But, writing this blog is something that I can see myself continuing. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but there is something calming about it. It’s a great opportunity to take time away from the busy world that we live in and just write about what is on my mind.

Well friends, I am signing off for now. I appreciate those who have taken interest in my blogs and I look forward to the opportunity of continuing to write and grow it. Have a blessed day.

First Podcast

Check out my first podcast. It is for testing purposes only.

My First Podcast

Professional Social Media

In order to build your brand in the 21st century, you are probably going to have a presence on different social media platforms. This can either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how well you manage it. Social media gives people the opportunity to reach a large amount of people at one single time. This is a great opportunity to share your brand with the world. On the flip side, this also creates the opportunity to tarnish your brand very quickly. We see it all the time where some famous person puts something on social media that is either distasteful or inappropriate and it has a lasting effect on their brand.

I always try to keep my social media interactions to a minimum and I try to be as consistent as possible with the different social media sites that I use. For example, while using LinkedIn it is really easy to stay in the business mind frame and to make sure that you are being careful with your interactions. However, a site like Facebook or Twitter can be a little easier to lose focus when using and say or do something that doesn’t correlate with your personal brand. Basically, just be careful with what you are doing on social media and always keep your personal brand in your mind when you are being active on these sites. As Coach Herm Edwards would say to NFL rookies, “Don’t Press Send”!

Interesting Vlog

A vlog that I am very interested in is called “Demolition Ranch” on YouTube. I won’t go into extreme amounts of detail, but it essentially focuses around a guy blowing stuff up with really cool guns. The guy who runs the vlog is named Matt Caricker. The thing I like about him is that he has 3 separate vlogs that he maintains. I think the way he is presenting his personal brand is pretty cool and unique. Like I said, he has one vlog that is about blowing stuff up and shooting cool guns, but he also has another vlog about his family and another about his work as a veterinarian. I like that he has broken up his personal brand to market different aspects of his life to different markets. This is a great way to make sure people stay interested in what he is doing as they are able to only follow the channel they are interested in or all of them if they wish.

Check out one of his videos below! As you can tell, he’s from Texas.

Learning From Fellow Bloggers

A large majority of blogging consist of promoting your own personal brand. The things that you enjoy talking about and sharing with your followers give them a sense of who you are and what you are all about. Sure, some people blog for work, but even in that case I think it is pretty safe to say that they are genuinely interested in the things they are blogging about. I searched and took a look at several different blogs that touch on areas that I am interested in.

The first blog I looked at was a Christianity blog by Matthew Winters. I really enjoyed his blog and took some time to read some of his posts. I think that Matthew and I have a lot in common and his blog could potentially help me in my own blog.

The second blog I looked at was also a Christianity blog, called Kingdom Christianity. This blog was a little different in that it mainly consists of short blog posts made up of quotes and scriptures. This made me realize that not everything you blog has to be a long essay. I know feel like it is just fine to write short, thought provoking blogs.

From there I wanted to start looking into some things that I enjoy doing for hobbies. I found a blog called Hunting and Outdoors and really enjoyed it. This blog focuses on a lot of product reviews that can potentially help people make decisions on products. They do a good job of understanding who their market is and the content that their market is interested in.

The fourth blog I look at was GolfWRX. I looked into this blog for a couple of different reason, the first being that I enjoy golfing and the second being that I follow a couple PGA teaching professionals on YouTube who occasionally write for GolfWRX. The thing I like they taught me is that you can use several different social media platforms to promote your personal brand. I have seen several different YouTube videos that they have done where they talk about their writings for GolfWRX.

The last blog I viewed was another blog focusing on golf, but this one is by a single person who seems to just be a golf fan. This one was pretty cool to me because this blog showed me that a person can successfully create a personal brand that focuses on something that they enjoy and you don’t have to get too personal if you don’t want to.

Personal branding is something that is very important for everyone, but especially for those who want to be active in social media. I enjoyed researching these different blogs and I look forward to following them in the future.

Introduction

My name is Jeff Matheson and I am a follower of Christ, husband, father, employee and a student. I try to make sure that everything I do in my life exemplifies who I am as a believer. I am currently in my final few classes that I need to take to obtain my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. It has been a long and difficult road to obtain this degree, but I guess that’s what happens when you drop out for four years and then add a change of major in there as well, but I am almost done now and couldn’t be any more happy to be able to say that. I have been lucky enough to work for my current company for eight years now and have been moved into a supervisor role before actually obtaining my degree. For fun, my favorite hobby is golfing, but I also enjoy hunting, fishing, bowling and competing with friends in various sports and activities.

Potluck Friday 13, 2015 at 11:45 a.m.- Signup Requested

Hello fellow employees,

I am happy to announce that on Friday the 13th of this month, we will have a company wide potluck for all employees! The potluck will be held in the showroom.

For this event, we ask that all employees who wish to participate, indicate so on the sign up sheet. Sign up sheets are posted on the bulletin boards in both break rooms. Please sign up by Wednesday the 11th.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Email Practices

Effective Email Practices

One of the more effective email practices I have noticed is writing for scanners. This is very important because as we all know, not everyone always has the time or the patients to sit and read a lengthy email. Since people will tend to scan through emails, all important information must be clear and direct. Some people at my work have started sending emails that are more of short statements than actual sentences. I don’t have a problem with this at all.

Creating a readable flow is also very important. This starts with the subject line. The subject line should directly reflect the meaning of the email and not waiver whatsoever. Creating a readable flow means cutting out filler words and sometimes entire sentences. If you can’t speak out an email clearly and neatly, it probably needs adjusted to create better flow. I think we have all received emails that do not flow well and we all know how annoying it can be to try to read them. Don’t be that guy…make sure your email flows correctly.

This one seems kind of obvious but, proof reading your email is very important. You should never send an email without proof reading it first. I hate getting emails with misspelled words and obvious errors in grammar, especially in the workplace. Using spell check can be the most effective way to proof read your email. Taking just an extra few seconds to read over your email can be more than the time spent.

Ineffective Email Practices

One email practice that is easy to do and can lead to trouble is trying to be funny. If you are sending an email to a particular person that you know very well, this isn’t a problem. However, when you are sending an email to a large group, different people may take your email differently, which can lead to being misunderstood. This happens to me and probable everyone all the time. It can be hard to avoid this practice.

The second bad email practice is sending an email when you are emotional. I have received an email from someone who I disagreed with on a school manor. In this email, the person was very rude and just unprofessional. If I would have responded immediately to the email that I had received, it would have done more harm than good. Instead, I waited a couple of hours until I cooled down and wrote an appropriate email that was able to solve our problems and get the job done.

One email practice that I think don’t necessarily think is “bad” is including too many people in emails. Sometimes it just seems like people try to involve others in an email discussion who really don’t need to be involved. This leads to more emails be sent out and more information that needs to be read and processed. I would recommend considering who needs to see the email and who doesn’t. This can be as important as what the email actually contains.