Rock Your Career

6 Tips to Create a Networking Plan that Works

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Would you like to get more results when you network? Here’s how to create a networking plan that works:

1. Schedule a regular time each week to network. Without a plan, we all get busy, and suddenly, when we need it most, our network is outdated or scattered. By scheduling regular time in your calendar to network, it not only gets done, but you’ll feel more confident and comfortable in networking situations, avoid binge-watching your fave show, and meet people who want to help you propel your career. People want to help you and see you succeed.

Think about how you feel when you help others, whether it’s recommending a favorite restaurant or referring someone to your preferred service provider, like a financial advisor, lawyer, career coach, or other service.

2. Schedule 10 minutes each day to use social media. I say 10 minutes or you’ll end up down the internet rabbit hole. Determine what actions you’ll take online. Here are a few to try: status updates, relevant links that demonstrate your thought leadership, and quick emails to those who’ve updated their statuses with wins. For example, if you read your LinkedIn notifications and a friend has landed a new position or received an award, send her a brief congratulatory note.

3. Determine which offline, in-person groups you will join and how often they meet. Take an active role in the organization, such serving as the chapter ambassador. This helps you meet more people and overcome some of the jitters of being in a new group. Click here for ideas on which groups to join.

4. Set networking goals for yourself. For example, when attending a new group, set a goal to meet three new people. Three people who need to know about you based on your career or business goals. Write this goal in your calendar where you’ve scheduled the meeting.

5. Prepare and rehearse your sound bite. Networking can take place any time, any where. Be prepared.

6. Update your network regularly with the action steps you’ve taken. If a friend referred you to a contact and you set up an informational interview, let your friend know that you made the connection and got results.

You’ve got to fuel your network to fire it up! Scheduling networking activities makes your network thrive. And regular contact with those in your network will help you achieve your career goals much faster.

Want more networking tips? Check out Rock Your Network®, the book.

Copyright 1998-2019 Wendy Terwelp | All rights reserved.

Wendy Terwelp, author of Rock Your Network®, writes, speaks, and coaches on career management, networking, social media, and personal branding. Need a speaker for your association, company or private coaching to rock your career? Let’s talk!

How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Personal Brand

Wendy Terwelp 4 Comments

Personal branding on social media is an intimidating topic for some professionals and consultants. Maybe you’ve struggled with it, too. You want to be warm and approachable, but you don’t want to cross the line into oversharing. You want to be professional and polished, but you don’t want to be thought of as the boring guest at the cocktail party.

Choose Your Networks

The first thing to do when using social media to uplevel your personal brand is to decide how you want to be known. Pick one to three subjects you’d like to focus on, so you become THE Expert in those subject areas. And they should be things you’re excited about, because you’ll be sharing and writing about these topics for some time in order to become known as Subject Matter Expert.

You can have a profile on every social network if you want. But most professionals and consultants find their clients and cohorts stick to one or two social networks, depending on their industry or profession. If you’re in the training and development field, you’ll find Twitter and LinkedIn are traction builders. For someone in leadership at a design firm, you might find Facebook and Instagram are where your best clients hang out.

If you’re in a tech related field, you might find that your community prefers Twitter or Reddit instead. Don’t stress about this. Simply pick the two social networks where you get the most traction. These two social networks are ones to update daily.

Keep Your Social Media Profiles Consistent

Review your profiles on all your social media channels. Would someone who’s not familiar with your brand be able to tell you’re the same person? If not, it’s time to align your social media accounts. You’ll want to use the same profile picture, bio, and header image across all your social platforms. This makes it easy for visitors to recognize your brand, regardless of the social network they’re using.

Post Frequently

Maintain an active profile on the most popular social networks in your industry – and your target audience, those people who need to know about you. Some networks are better for posting multiple times a day (like Twitter), while for others posting only 2-3 times a day (or week) works better. This is another reason you want to choose only one to three platforms; activity helps you gain traction with your target audience. And you want to be able to effectively manage the social media channels you choose.

A dormant account can negatively impact your online brand.

To determine the best posting frequency, run a few short experiments. This will help you discover how frequently you should post and what times work best for your followers.

If you’re not sure what to post, follow the 4 out of 5 rule. This rule means posting 4 pieces of content that are useful to your audience to every 1 piece of promotional content. Don’t be afraid to promote great content to your followers, even if you didn’t write it. When you’re the one that shares the latest news in your industry, followers will view you as the go-to source on trends and news in your industry. Curating great content counts.

Join Communities

Once you gain some traction on social media with your personal brand, look for communities of like-minded professionals or your ideal client tribe. Facebook and LinkedIn have groups. Twitter has lists and chats, like #lrnchat for learning pros and #TwitterSmarter and #SocialROI for social media fans. But they all mean pretty much the same thing – they’re an online gathering of people around one central subject, whether that subject is learning and development, social media, HR, healthcare, etc.

The great thing about groups is that they give you a chance to form connections with other members and give them value. It’s also an easy way to do customer research and create your own professional learning network. You can discover what questions your audience frequently asks, what they struggle with, and what they would love to know more about.

Using social media to brand yourself and enhance your online reputation is a smart idea. Just remember to post and share valuable content that benefits your target audience.

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© Wendy Terwelp / www.knocks.com / All rights reserved.

Wendy Terwelp is an award-winning career expert and personal branding strategist who works with high-performing leaders and organizations who want to advance careers, rock networks, and up-level their brands online and off. Click the link to get your free personal brand self-assessment.

We are an affiliate partner of Postoplan.

Owning Your Personal Brand Starts with YOU

Wendy Terwelp 3 Comments

When it comes to designing your personal brand, it’s essential to understand yourself. If you don’t, you can’t possibly represent your best self to your ideal clients and others who need to know about you, like colleagues, cohorts, and coworkers. You need to know how you’re wired and be able to communicate this effectively. From there, people will choose whether to work with you or not based on what you’ve shared about yourself.

Understand how others see you.

Do you know how others see you and how you come across at work? If not, take a survey. Ask friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, managers and others whom you trust what they think your top five skills are and the top three words that come to mind when they think of you.  

By knowing who you are, what you want, and what makes you unique, you will be able to clearly communicate your goals and unique value to people in your network, whether they’re internal people from other departments, potential clients or potential employers.

Consider your top priorities.

Your top priorities can help you design your personal brand and attract your ideal client or other professionals who need to know about you to help you advance your career. One healthcare executive regularly posts photos of her marathons, family, and speaking engagements. This shows she has a solid work/life balance with a focus on health, and can easily wow an audience. Ideal positioning to attract leadership opportunities in healthcare, her target audience. She landed a senior leadership role with a major healthcare organization and was also elected to a board role with her professional association.

By sharing her interests and values online and off, she’s attracted people and organizations with similar values, which helped advance her career. (That and a stellar work history with bottom-line results.)

Choose your career goals.

Choosing your career focus is an important part of your personal brand. When you love what you do, that enthusiasm is going to shine through to your potential clients and other professionals in alignment with your brand – and your career – and attract them to you. As a result, people will be eager to work with you.

Before you decide on your career focus, it can be helpful to consider other jobs you’ve worked. What did you enjoy doing—presentations, leading others, teaching, etc.? What did you hate doing—researching, administrative tasks, etc.? When you know what you enjoy, you can fill your business and career with more of those tasks. As for the tasks you hate, consider delegating or outsourcing them to someone who enjoys them.

Own your experience.

There are many ways you can show your expertise. Maybe you’ve been quoted in a popular trade magazine, news media or well-known website. Maybe you’ve been thanked for your insight or your help with a difficult project. Ask for recommendations about your work on LinkedIn or, with permission, display your recommendations and testimonials on your website or blog.

Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through your work. Enhancing and owning your personal brand can help you create a career you’ll love for years to come.

For more help up-leveling your personal brand to attract right-fit opportunities to you, book a complementary Clarity Call with me and we’ll discuss your career, goals, and next steps. If your organization want’s to up-level career mobility with your personnel and attract top talent, check out my online and in-person programs.

© Wendy Terwelp / www.knocks.com / All rights reserved.

Wendy Terwelp is an award-winning career expert and personal branding strategist who works with high-performing leaders and organizations who want to advance careers, rock networks, and up-level their brands online and off. Follow her @wendyterwelp.

3 Benefits of Personal Branding

Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Think of your favorite brands. They all stand out for one reason or another. For example, Apple is known for its sleek product designs and cutting-edge technology. Nike is not just about athletic apparel – it’s a lifestyle brand. Their tagline, “Just Do It,” resonates with their target audience.

Just as businesses can become known for their brand, so can professionals. Developing and enhancing your personal brand is a smart way to position yourself and stand out on the job and with your clients.

  1. Branding Makes You Memorable

But first, you’ll need to set aside time and energy to reflect on who you want to be and how you wish to be known. Doing this will save you energy in the long run because you’ll be able to focus on your strengths and minimize (or delegate!) your weaknesses.

Another benefit of developing your personal brand is that it becomes easier to present yourself consistently, in any environment. Imagine being able to create a memorable experience so colleagues, coworkers, and potential clients know exactly who you are, what it’s like to work with you, and how your work will benefit their goals. This picture you create will help them remember you.

2. Branding Makes You an Authority

Not only will potential clients remember you better, it’ll also be easier for them to tell others about you. The same occurs when up-leveling your brand on the job. Looking for a promotion? You’ll want to raise the bar on your career brand.

By providing thought leadership, connecting others, and communicating your value, you’ll raise your brand – and your visibility. You’ll be viewed as an authority in your field, all because you took the time to work on your branding.

But this is only the beginning. As you become more well known, you’ll attract ideal opportunities and clients.

3. Branding Makes You More Money

As a result of increasing demand for your work, you’ll also be able to raise your rates or get a raise. Think about being well paid for work you love. With smart branding, this is a real possibility.

Of course, higher rates or salaries aren’t the only reason to build your personal brand. You can also expect to get more attention from others in your network who could make personal introductions on your behalf or create strategic alliances throughout your organization or your industry. Imagine getting to work on projects that you love with other business leaders you’ve admired for years.

All of these things and more can happen when you’re willing to stand up and own your brand. You were made to shine, so embrace your personal brand with gusto.

Want to talk about YOUR brand and what you can do to take it to the next level for career advancement? Let’s talk! Book your complementary, confidential strategy session today.

Five Moves to Rock Your Network® Online

Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Editor’s note: updated May 2019

How do you leverage social media to network effectively and stay top of mind? Check out these five rock star moves to get connected, get known, and make your network thrive:

1. Pick Three: With so many social media networks to choose from, I recommend picking three so you can manage them well. For career and business development, I recommend: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. As of 2019, LinkedIn has more than 610 million members, Twitter has more than 326 million users, and Facebook topped 2.38 billion.

2. Create a branded bio: Tell a story in your social networking bios. Let your personality pop. Don’t regurgitate your resume information or company bio. Know that chemistry helps you land and KEEP new clients and jobs. Likability counts, be interesting.

3. Know what you want: When you start networking online, it’s important to know what you want from the activity. If you want new clients, be sure your profile is on brand, up to date, professional, personal, and communicates your value and scope of practice. Have a professional, current headshot. For #LinkedIn, add a custom background image or color as well.

4. Join a group: Know that in order to make the most of an online group, you’ve got to take an active role. If you’ve got a business, join groups where your ideal clients will be, including niche and specialty groups. For job seekers, find out where your ideal employers hang out and join those groups. People like to do business with those having similar values, backgrounds, and experiences.

5. Be relevant and add value: Social networking gives you a chance to demonstrate your thought leadership and set yourself apart from your competition. As an executive and leader in your profession, it is even more critical to demonstrate your expertise online.

Take Action: Review your current social networks and identify at least three action items from the above list you can implement immediately. Schedule time to effectively manage your online network and communicate with your contacts regularly. It only takes minutes a day to fuel your network and fire it up!™ That way, your network is there for you when you need it.

Grab your free social media action plan here!

© 2006 – 2019 | Wendy J. Terwelp | All rights reserved.