I recently had the pleasure of speaking to HelmsBriscoe, the world’s largest meeting planning organization, in San Francisco with Branding & Generations Speaker Karen McCullough. This was an awesome “full circle” moment for me because, prior to my starting my own marketing firm, I worked in the hospitality industry and often partnered with HelmsBriscoe.
Karen spoke in the morning, helping the planners develop their own unique brands. I directed the evening workshop, showing the planners how to leverage LinkedIn and create dynamic profiles that would draw their target market to them via keywords and special formatting. Working with Karen really highlighted three key lessons for creating effective social media profiles.
1. Having a strong brand in place first is key to creating amazing and effective social media profiles. Know who you are, what you do and who you do it for. Understanding what makes you, well you, is key to creating a truly great profile.
2. When in doubt, and when you are not, ask others how they see you. This one exercise can have a great impact on how to develop your social media brand and persona.
3. Keywords really are key. When you have a clear idea of your brand and who you are serving, you can leverage popular, but very specific keywords, allowing clients to find you.
The end result- our HelmsBriscoe reps now have rock star LinkedIn profiles. One new user received a connection request via LinkedIn from a potential client whom she had never met, but was a perfect fit for her- by the end of the class!