I recently worked with a dynamic entrepreneur who had turned around his declining family-owned company, revitalized its deflated brand presence, expanded operations into China, and impacted impressive financial success. He was ready to move on and anticipated a career move around mid-year in 2009.
Since he was practically invisible online and knew he’d miss out on golden business and job opportunities if he couldn’t be found online, he had to build a strong, branded web presence. His online footprint had to reinforce and position him as an expert in turning around distressed businesses and getting them profitable.
We collaborated on a powerful LinkedIn profile for him, but he needed to go further.
He had a gift and passion for business writing, had written several relevant white papers that weren’t published online, and had a raft of ideas for articles that would translate to great blog posts.
I suggested he get his feet wet by guest blogging, and led him to my post, A CEO Entrepreneur Turns to Guest Blogging to Build Google Results and Her Personal Brand Online
But he was confident and willing to devote the time and effort needed to build his own blog, so he decided to make the leap.
To get him on the right track, I passed along these posts I’ve been compiling from blogging experts who shared their experiences, secrets, and advice on the do’s and don’t’s:
→ Chris Brogan’s 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write
Here’s just a tease of his thoroughly creative ideas of things to write about:
- A Community I Love
- Somebody Has to Say It
- After the Event- Carrying the Conversation Forward
- Books I Want to Write
- Ten Guilty Pleasures
- My Day Job Versus My Passion
→ Jason Alba’s 5-part series, My Blogging Secrets
I come back to this time and again. His topics posted over 5 days are:
- Day 1 – relationships
- Day 2 – branding
- Day 3 – abundance mentality
- Day 4 – build community
- Day 5 – be wary of technology
→ Dan Schawbel’s Step Beginners Guide to Blogging Your Personal Brand
His 10 tips:
- Learn about blogging
- Listen to current conversations
- Take a niche
- Get your equipment ready
- Pick your logo and theme
- Create your “personal brand page”
- Get an RSS feed
- Claim your blog on Technorati
- Widgetize your blog
- Write 5 remarkable posts
→ And Dan’s follow-up, 10 Step Intermediate Guide to Blogging Your Personal Brand
→ A compendium from Duncan Riley highlighting the evolution of blogging, The Changing Blogosphere and Blogging 2.0
→ Darren Rowse’s 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky
→ And Darren’s How to Craft a Blog Post – 10 Crucial Points to Pause
→ An excellent monster list on how to start and promote a blog from Rajesh Setty, Blogging Starter Checklist
→ Two from Chris Brogan, Ten Secrets to Better Blogging
→ and Etiquette for blogging and email, etc.
→ Mark Cummuta’s real life chronicle of his blogging’s impact on his CIO job search, Web 2.0’s Impact On Your Job Search – Name Recognition? Or A Transition?
Whew!!! After tapping into this in depth list, my client told me he was all fired up and had all the information he would need. I hope you find the posts helpful too.
For more about why top executives need to get blogging, see my posts:
Executive Job Search: Blogging Attracts Recruiters to Your eBrand
