Strong Online Personal Branding

Your Personal Brand is YOU online

Online, you can find out something about anyone. Even if nothing comes up when you search on a name, that says something about the person. It says they are either out of touch with today's trends or they do not care about their personal image. (Kind of like not taking a bath)

You do not want that to be the message you send to the world.

You also do not want to have a weak online brand image because one person can come along and trash your name.

Want proof? Look at U-haul in Google. This is the top 6 sites about this company as of May 2008.

Number 4 is Don't Use Uhaul and Number 6 is U-Haul Sucks.

Now you would think that a big company like Uhaul would protect it's brand image a little better. The fact is, if you are only protecting one search result in online search, you are leaving the other nine for other people to fill in. Do you want strangers to be in charge of 90% of your online profile? NO

Any business should try their best to control these returns and the image they present. Individuals should also do this. Otherwise, one bad date could effect your image for the long haul.

The fact is, the same things we are teaching in this document to help you strengthen your online image can also be used to destroy someone's image. While we would never suggest using it for that, someone that is angry and has too much time on their hands can quickly do serious damage to your credibility, your employability and your reputation.

The best way to defend your online image is a good offense. Webpages that have been around longer and have more links to them are considered more credible than those obscure pages that no one links to. This is a bit of an over-simplification, but if you use the techniques in this document to build a good image, it will be harder for someone later on to come and damage it.

If you are unlucky enough to have already some bad stuff published about you, don't worry. These same tools and some effort over time can strengthen the good stories about you and push the bad results down.

Who Should Manage Their Online Personal Brand?

The short answer to this question is YES. Yes, everyone should manage their online image.

I don't care if you are 10 or 100 years old. Big company or small. Individual just starting out or famous author.

But let's be realistic. While it is a good idea for everyone to manage their personal brand, who needs to do it the most?

C Level Executives - While executives may not want to be actively building their myspace pages right along with their teenage kids, they will want to use some of these tools to develop a voice and connection with the companies target audience.
Consultants - These people are selling their expertise. Before I spend big consulting fees with someone, I want to use Google to get to know them.
Authors and Speakers - Having more positive online visibility will result in more book sales and speaking opportunities.
Business Owners - People that meet you will be more likely to do business with your company after they feel like they get to know you a bit.
Upwardly-mobile Professionals - Are you trying to grow your career opportunities? Then nothing boosts your chances like a solid online image.
Job Seekers - Only the most inexperienced of employers does not Google candidates in todays job search.
Sales and Marketing Professionals - A better online presence will lead to more leads and marketers will be able to use their personal brand to launch visibility for their marketing efforts.
Professional Search - Whether you are in HR for a company or doing placement, your online involvement in professional directories will increase your access to people.
Celebrity - Even Minor Celebrity - If you are on TV, writing for a magazine, or in any other way visible via traditional media, you will want to protect your image. It only takes one person to disagree with something you say or write and they can have a very negative impact on your image.

This is just a small list of some of the people that need to start managing their online brand. They have the biggest benefit, but everyone can benefit in the future.

In fact, if you have young kids you may want to start investing in their online image just like you are saving for college. Why not buy their name.com today?

Before You Start

There are some things you should do first.

Reserve your own domain name. Yourname.com

This is important because when people search on your name, the top rated site will be the domain name that has those words in it, if the site has been around for a while. It will not happen on day one, but if you reserve it and put up at least a one page info page about yourself, it will eventually be #1.
For simple hosting, I like BlueHost.com. They will host multiple websites for one monthly fee and they make it really easy to set up a Wordpress blog, which is a great tool for non-tech people to create content rich sites.
Set up a personal email account

If you are setting up these accounts yourself, then you should use an email account that you can take with you if you leave where you work. If you have set up your own domain, you will get email via that account. Another option is a free email such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo mail.
Know what your employer expects

You may be doing this for yourself or your employer may be asking you to do it. No matter what, make sure you know the guidelines. Is it something you have to do in off hours? Is it something that your workplace encourages? Are you permitted to reference work? What topics are forbidden?

Obvious bad behavior has gotten people fired. Discussing clients, your boss or co-workers could also. Know what your organization's guidelines are and if you are in charge, consider writing up guidelines for all of your staff.
Have a great picture ready

Many of the tools are going to give you the opportunity to upload your picture. I have tried my distinctive beehive logo and I have posted my professional photo, and in the end I think I like using a real picture of me best.

While some people may want to have a professional picture done, there is something very nice about using candid pictures that make people feel like they know you.

Studies have shown that we all respond to human faces well. Since you are trying to make people feel like they have a connection to you, using your picture is a big plus.

How to look Smart, Attractive and Important Online

If you want to really stand out online, you not only need to create these resources about you, you also have to get other people to link to you, talk about you and reference you.

This can be achieved by putting out quality information that is interesting and by making yourself available to people to link to and network with.

For example, we will discuss LinkedIn.com a little later on. In that site, you can build a big network and also get testimonials from people that are publicly displayed on your profile.

When you publish an article that is especially useful, interesting or important in your area of expertise, you can email some of the big bloggers in your field and they will often link to your information.

Things like Twitter make it even easier. When you have a good following of like minded people on Twitter, you can often drive awareness about a new blog post or article in seconds.

We will get into all of these tools individually further on. For now, I just wanted to encourage you to think about how people will help enhance your image.

Google Basics

There are several things that are important if you want to have a web page of any type rank well in Google. Here are some important facts that will help you understand why we are doing the things we are recommending in this eBook.

#1 Your domain counts once.

If you have set up www.yourname.com and put 1,000 pages on it about yourself, it is probably going to be near the top when people search for your name. However, unless you have set up sub domains (soemthingelse.yourname.com) then your domain should only fill one slot in the top 10 that are returned about you.

Companies and individuals alike should strive to control as many of the top 20 results in all the major search engines as possible.

#2 Domain keywords rank better

It is important that your keywords (yourname) is in the domain name. This ranks much better than a more generic domain name.

#3 URL keywords are good too

Even if your keyword (name) is not in the domain itself, it still carries a lot of weight if it is part of the URL for the webpage. For example, www.squidoo.com/ronmcdaniel is my Squidoo Lens and while my name is not in the domain name (squidoo.com) it is in the address of the page about me - which helps it rank better.

Many of the tools we are going to review will put your account or name as part of the URL automatically. For that reason, it is important to use your name, as someone would search for you, when setting them up.

#4 Linking strengthens pages

Pages rank higher if more good sites link to them. They also get indexed in the search engines quicker. Luckily, there are sites that will let you publish articles on them and link out to other sites. So if you are trying to make your main website or blog rank well, you can get quicker results by writing articles on some of the sites we will be covering, like Hubpages and Gather.

It is also important to link as many different profiles, resources and websites together as possible to help them boost each other's ranking. However, do not link everything to everything as Google may decide you are trying to cheat the system and knock down your ranking.

#5 It takes time

In some cases, you can post an article on a site and be #1 in 5 minutes. But more often, it takes time to climb up the ranking. If you set up a web page with a new domain, you should expect it to take months to start really appearing in search results beyond your exact domain name.

There is a myth that Google has something called the Sandbox and for the first 9 months it does not allow new websites to rank well. There must be some truth to this, because it does appear that things improve after a while with little explanation.

#6 You do not have to submit your site to search engines

Some people are not aware of the fact that you do not need to submit your pages to search engines anymore. If you link to your site from another site that is indexed, the search engines will follow the link to the new site and schedule it to be indexed.

Online Tools and How They Impact Your Image

Different tools have different advantages. All of these tools will help you in at least one of the following areas:

Search Engine Visibility
Networking
Linking

While there are 1,000's of additional places you can get these kinds of benefits, we have tried to narrow it down to twenty tools that can help you make fast progress and are accepted by a large audience (and have good credibility with search engines.)

Each tool gets a one page overview so you can see how and why to use it. Remember that these tools are always changing, so they may look differently or act differently than described. Some things we were recommending years ago have dried up, while other things that were unknown have become powerful opportunities.

Important Notes:

Mass Emails

Do not use the "Find a Friend" option on these tools. They may be called different things, but most of these online tools will be very helpful in asking you for your address book and then sending emails to everyone in it. This can get very annoying for your network and if people keep getting these kinds of requests from you they may just start ignoring your emails. Be very selective and never let the systems mass email your address book.

Passwords & Identity Theft

You should always be careful not to put up any information that could help someone steal your identity or gain access to your accounts. For example:

Do not use the same passwords for everything and never use your important passwords in more than one place. (For example, passwords to bank accounts or your email address)
Do not publish information that could easily be a security question (mother's maiden name)
Do not share account information.

Online Tools

FaceBook | www.facebook.com

FaceBook Usage

Facebook is an excellent site for building a network and integrating information. The one drawback is the limited exposure to search engines. To see most of the information you need an account and need to be logged in.

For that reason, it is important to use the system to form friendships. Facebook will update itself every time you post a blog post, use twitter, etc. if you configure it to. Your friends will then see these updates if they are visiting regularly.

Facebook also allows for integration of lots of apps. This is a fancy word for the fact that they allow people to write little programs that run in the FaceBook environment. You can use many of these apps to share interests, links, etc.

As you can see from this screen shot of my profile on Facebook, it pulls in blog posts (Mini Feeds and Notes) as well as provides links to other sites where people can see my bookmarks, join me on LinkedIn and find me in other ways.

The best way we have found to use FaceBook is to build a network and be able to quickly let people know about new things, such as upcoming events, new products, etc.

It has also been a very effective way to keep in touch with past employees. Each person has a �Wall� where people can write stuff � and it seems to work very well with people who used to have good relationships at work and still want to banter back and forth occasionally.

Here is a comprehensive summary of FaceBook and the challenges of using it professionally: http://internetducttape.com/2007/03/08/how-to-use-facebook-without-losing-your-job-over-it/ - I do not agree with hiding so much, as this author suggests, but it gives you another perspective.

LinkedIn | www.LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn Usage

LinkedIn is a professional directory that helps business professionals connect with other business professionals. Your profile will eventually rank well for your name, and it allows people to give you testimonials. Unfortunately, people set up LinkedIn accounts and forget about them. The real value of this tool is to have a detailed profile that you point to from other resources and to use it for networking.

Unlike FaceBook, LinkedIn is most effective when you have built a good network and then have a target. If you want to meet someone at a particular company or find experts in a specific industry, LinkedIn will help you.

Two Types of LinkedIn Networkers

1) Build a strong network
LinkedIn's terms of service say you should know the people you connect to. If you follow this rule, you are going to have a small but strong network. You will probably get more responses when you make a request.

2) LION � Linked In Open Networker
If you put LION in your profile and your email listed someplace as well, you will grow a network of strangers with very little effort. You can still have your friends in there as well, but you will not know most of the people on your list. This gives you access to more people, but they are not as responsive.

3) Take a look at www.toplinked.com if you want to grow your network agressively.

Either of these approaches are valid and can help you generate leads and visibility. I prefer open networking because I can later use the Q&A feature to reach more people.

To help your profile rank a little better, try to use your name a few times in the summary. Instead of "I", you could write in the third person.

l Read about how big companies are using LinkedIn - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html

Twitter | www.twitter.com/

Twitter Usage

Twitter is a tool that can be very intrusive if you let it be. Minute by minute you know what the people you are following are doing. It is something called micro-blogging and you can post only short notes. Very short. And they can have a link.

This can be very distracting, but also it can be a great resource. If you just post things that people will respond to quickly, then you can promote lots of new things at any time.

The key with Twitter is to have people that care about your topic follow you. For example, I follow other people in my field because then I am finding out about new things as they find them and twitter about them.

Some good usages for Twitter, assuming you have a decent amount of people following you:

Promote live webinar
Let people know about new blog post
Ask questions
Promote an event
New product launch
Share interesting article or website

People on Twitter that use it regularly really get connected and feel like they know each other. Be sure to use your real picture and make sure your profile has links to your website or blog.

To grow your following there are two tips:

1) Publish interesting stuff regularly

2) Follow other people. When people see you are following them, they often decide to follow you as well.

Here is a good blog post on many different Twitter usages: http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-you-can-use-twitter/

Yahoo Answers | answers.yahoo.com/

Yahoo Answers Usage

Yahoo Answers is a tool that you may not have heard about, but it is a good tool for some people to build traffic, develop more search engine visibility and position yourself as an expert.

Saying that, 90% of the questions are not all that serious or professional. But if you take a few moments and find good questions, and give good answers, this tool can be effective - and addictive.

Here is why you want to consider participating.

1. Search Engine Visibility
Each question becomes a webpage with the question at the top and the responses below. These pages are optimized for the question and they are on Yahoo, so they rank very well very quickly. If you have answered a question and it contains a link to your website, you could be getting traffic for years to come. If your answer is selected as the best answer, it is moved to the top.

2. Traffic
Each time you answer a good question, other people are checking it out as well. You could see steady traffic from a good and interesting answer.

3. Expert Status
Yahoo will not make you an expert by itself, but it is a good place to hone your Q&A. Plus, you could always point to your expert site as a part of your answer. If people like your answer and you have a link like: Need more information about buzz marketing? Sign up for my newsletter�.

You cannot do this every time as it is rather spammy, but if it is relevant to the question, you should do it.

4. Ask Questions

You can also ask your own questions. This helps you capture all of the stuff above and keep it at the top.

Note of Caution: I have found that the less complex a question is the more it will get responses.

l More Info: http://www.dailyseoblog.com/2008/03/how-to-generate-traffic-from-yahoo-answers/

Wink | www.wink.com/

Wink Usage

Wink is special because it helps you create a great profile of yourself and integrate all your other web accounts and profiles together. If you have the feed from your blog, twitter account or other kind of RSS driven account, you can actually tell wink to display your last few updates as well.

Chances are you are already in Wink. Do a search before you sign up, as they may have imported your information from another source. You will be able to claim the profile once you find it.

One downside of wink is that there is more advertising than I like on a site like that.

Another downside is that it defaults to allow anyone to edit your profile. If you are going to take the time to set up a profile, you want to lock it down so only you can update it.

To lock your profile, follow these steps:

Choose My Home at the top right.
On the lower right under dashboard, choose profile settings.
Under permissions, change the edit permissions to only yourself.

One other problem we ran into is that it works better with the Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer.

To be more effective, use tags and link to some friends in order to get your profile indexed better.

Also be sure to add lots of websites under �Where I am online.� As your wink profile ranks better, it will also help those pages rank better and drive some traffic.

Blogger | www.Blogger.com

Blogger Usage

Blogger is a great place to set up a free blog. It takes seconds to set up and over time can have a very high page rank if you use it and link to it. Since it is owned by Google, that makes sense.

What if you have a company blog?

Many people will have a main blog that uses Wordpress and is an important marketing tool for the organization or individual. Even if that is the case, you can use Blogger to build a blog that you update occasionally. Over time, this blogger blog will have the power to boost your other sites rankings and help you promote.

Here are some ideas on how to use blogger to create a good blog that ranks well, even if you do not need a business blog:

Industry notes and links - as you learn about things you organize them on this blog.
Personal achievement - keep track of successes.
Education - Set up a blog and write how-to articles to help other people.
Hobby - If you have a hobby that does not conflict with your professional image, why not start a hobby blog.
Book Reviews - Why not write a review of each business book you read?
Sports Fan - Follow and report on your favorite teams.

Of course, writing a personal blog like this should be done on your own time, not while at work.

In order to help the blog enhance your image, be sure to name it with your name included, put up a nice profile in the profile bar and include ways to contact you and links to your other websites, profiles, eNewletter signups, etc.

Squidoo | www.squidoo.com

Squidoo Usage

Squidoo, and it's sister site squidwho.com create one page resources on topics. They build something they call a Lens that is basically a one page expert resource on any topic.

Squidwho allows you to put in a name and it will go out and build a lens on that person, based on information it finds. It is a good way to jump start building a lens if you have information published about you in other areas and you have a fairly uncommon name.

After Squidoo Lenses are around for a while and get linked to, they do rank well in search engines. So this is a good long term option to lock up your online image and can become one of the top 10 hits for your name.

Success with Squidoo

As with most of these tools, the better quality of content, the better results. That means you cannot just add a paragraph and a link and expect to get big results.

Squidoo actually does not even add you to the search engine and listing unless you put in several of their widgets and a good amount of content. Don't bother using this tool unless you can at least do that.

You will also want to set up your Squidoo lens after you have some blogs and other things set up, because Squidoo can incorporate your feeds and such, creating more content and links for you. You can always add to it later, but having some of these things in advance will make it easier.

Tip: Plan for the future

One thing about Squidoo is that new lenses take a while to rank. Existing lenses that are updated rank much better. If you are developing resources in a particular industry, you may want to quickly build some good lenses with those keywords. Even if you do not have something to promote right away, the lens can be updated later and will carry more weight.

MySpace | www.myspace.com

MySpace Usage

The first thing to know about MySpace is that it is unlikely to help you with linking or search engine results. The links in your profile go through an intermediary page, which kills results. And the profile does not rank well from our experience.

So why would you want to have a MySpace page?

MySpace does have a huge audience and a lot of tools. If you want to reach a younger demographic, you can use MySpace to build an audience and to interact with them. This is very common for musicians, for example. Frequently a location, such as a bar or club, will also have a MySpace page to give the regulars a place to interact and to comment.

Businesses that want to reach a broad, young demographic frequently want to have a MySpace page, but it really is about using it regularly to create a sense of community.

The key with MySpace is to keep participating if you find the audience worth while.

Read: http://myspace.wetpaint.com/page/Conducting+Business+on+MySpace?t=anon for more information on ideas for using Myspace for business.

43 Things | www.43things.com

43 Things Usage

43 Things is tricky to use. It is a place where people can post goals, but if your goals are clearly commercial, they will ban your account. 43 Things lists are very good at ranking well in search engines.

The trick is to have goals that allow you to mention what you want to rank for well without selling or promoting.

Here are some steps:

Set up an account with your real first name and last name.
Add professional things you want to do. Be specific.
Periodically add entries on the goals as you make progress.
Connect with people and cheer them on when they have the same goals.

This could be a site that works best when used for it's real purpose � to list goals, make comments on your progress and help other people make progress on their goals.

Be sure to add your website on your profile. Even if you are not promoting anything in the goals and comments you are making, if you seem interesting, people will click on your link and check you out on your website or blog.

Adding an image will also help make your account more inviting and people will stay on the page longer.

The company that built this website also built www.43places.com and www.listsofbests.com , which have similar limitations and advantages. One account allows you into all the systems, which is nice.

Tumblr | www.Tumblr.com

Tumblr Usage

Tumblr is a micro-blogging solution. It is a place you can publish smaller comments, links, pictures, etc. It is very nice because of it's ease of use and as a place to quickly add links to your other sites and articles.

One way to set it up and forget it is to have it import your feed from your blog (up to 5 blogs.)

You just go to your dashboard, choose customize and choose feeds. Enter your feed (RSS) link from your blog or other syndicated information source.

This is very useful because now your Tumblr page will be updated regularly without visiting all the time and you can always add additional links and information manually.

Be sure to update your information in the directory and allow access in all areas that will generate exposure. Also, it is helpful to link to your tumblr site from other sites to help it rank better in search engines. Be sure to use your name as the text in the link (instead of "My Tumblr" or some such thing.

Ezinearticles.com | Ezinearticles.com

EzineArticles.com Usage

Ezine Articles has been around for a long time and has very high credibility. They provide a place for you to publish articles that you are allowing other people to use.

They also have very high standards of publishing. You cannot publish on eZine Articles is you have already published the article someplace else. This should be the first place you post your article if you plan to put it here and in other places.

The reason you publish to ezine is to create great back links. In your author signature, you can link back to your website or blog. When someone uses your article, they are required to keep your signature in tact. I have seen where people have killed the link in the past, but overall it is a good way to generate links.

Keep in mind that the content you are publishing there is free to be used by other people. If you are concerned about where your article will end up, this may not be the best option for you.

However, it is not hard to put together a top ten ways to ...... article that you do not feel a close affinity with. Doing this periodically will generate more back links and better website ranking over time.

This site provides free email training and a blog that can help you be successful with the site. There are many other article repositories out there, but this one is where you start, then use the others if you would like to.

Hubpages & Gather

www.hubpages.com | www.gather.com

These two sites are put together because they have very similar usages and outcomes. Both are excellent places to publish articles and have very high page rank quickly. They also both allow you to post links.

This means that if you would like to generate more website traffic for your website on a particular topic, you can go to these two sites, write articles with your keywords and links to your website with those keywords.

Your article must be of good quality. If it is, it will rank high in search engines quickly and capture spots that your own website could not quickly capture.

Once you have those articles posted, it is helpful to put some links to them as well. Social bookmarks like Del.icio.us (covered later in this ebook) and links from your blog, tumblr site and other resources will all help them rank better.

You will also want to connect to some people in both communities. This shows that you did not just sign up to do a one-off promotion and it helps interlink your postings and get them found in more ways.

Tips to be successful

Writing one resource will get you a little bit of visibility. Writing lots of articles that are easy to read and have great images can get you a lot of visibility.

Try writing how to articles, such as seven steps to creating ... people love to read things that they can quickly skim and act upon.

These sites can also generate more traffic for you if you comment and participate in the sites. Each comment or post you make could generate more visitors to your profile and then to your articles, and then to your main website.

Ning | www.ning.com

Ning Usage

Ning is a free place to create a great community. You can use this site to create a group of your own, and also to participate in other online groups.

The first thing to keep in mind is that it is hard to create a community from scratch. If you are looking to quickly get other people to know you, join existing communities, set up a great profile and participate regularly.

Make sure you do the following:

Use a good picture
Link to your main website
Post interesting comments on the networks you join
Link as a friend to people regularly

Ning is just one example of networks that can help you gain visibility.

Some sites, such as groups.google.com and yahoo groups can also be a very effective way to participate in online groups.

The key is to find active groups that have the people you want to meet. Here are some tips for assessing on online group before you join.

How may comments are being made weekly? Groups should have activity.
How many members are there?
Are the comments thoughtful? Don't join a network full of spam.
Is the group a good target for you? Will they be interested in what you have to say?

There are 1,000's of online group tools. It is less about the technology/website and more about defining the audience you want to reach and finding where they congregate. Then you need to interact with them regularly.

Del.icio.us | del.icio.us

del.icio.us Usage

del.icio.us is one of the first social bookmark sites. These sites let you share your bookmarks with others. The reason these sites are important it because they provide links to your blog posts, web pages, etc. That helps those sites get ranked better, get more traffic and get found by more people.

One place to get a list of these kinds of sites is at http://www.addthis.com � The provide one button that will help your visitors bookmark your page � and it gives you a good list of where it is worth creating an account.

To effectively use del.icio.us or any of the similar sites do the following:

l Use a good keyword when setting up your account.

l Point to your public bookmarks/profile from some of your sites.

l Don't just bookmark your sites. Mix it up and use it to index other interesting resources.

l Use buttons like addthis.com to encourage your visitors to also bookmark pages.

These kinds of sites are not going to generate huge traffic right away, but they can lead to a steady increase of visibility and ranking if you use multiple accounts and sites on a regular basis.

Tip of the Iceberg

This list is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many different ways to create buzz and visibility for yourself or your company that they cannot all be listed. And different sites work better or worse for different companies and individuals.

Your success depends on regular attention to enhancing this visibility and committing to building more and more resources online with the proper links and keywords. The good news is that once you create many of these resources, they keep working for you well into the future, via search engine visibility, linking, etc.

The bad news is that you cannot set up a few things and forget about it. Even if you create high ranked resources today, if left unattended they will eventually get replaced by newer, fresher and more popular materials.

To do this successfully, you can either set aside time to work on your visibility every day, or you can do what so many other busy people do. You build a team to help.

How to Build a Buzz Team

Virtual Assistant - This has been left in so you can see what clients are reading before they request a proposal.

Anyone that is trying to build a great presence online needs to have a buzz team. This could be one part time Virtual Buzz Assistant, or a group of Virtual Buzz Assistants, all completing the tasks necessary to create more buzz and visibility online.

They key to building a team to help you increase your visibility is to define the tasks you would like done on your behalf, the outcomes you hope to achieve and the frequency you would like them done.

For example, you could hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant to take some bullet points you send via email and write them into a longer article and post them on your blog, in article repositories, on your other sites like those mentioned in this eBook. The bullet points may take you 20 minutes to do, and an organized Virtual Buzz Assistant can then write and post your resource more broadly for you for a flat monthly rate.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant is going to be organized and know exactly what needs done each month to get a lot of visibility without needing to spend a lot of time hunting around for passwords, site addresses, etc. They have been trained and work every day at helping people complete these kinds of tasks. And they have learned what tools are best, which new tools are on the horizon and they participate in online communities to keep up to date on the latest trends.

What else could you use Virtual Buzz Assistants for?

Building networks of friends and connections on sites like LinkedIn or FaceBook.
Writing regularly for your blog.
Assembling and publishing your eNewsletter.
Research and contact online PR opportunities.
Manage your online community and grow your audience.
Distribute your eBook and grow your email list.
Participate in online groups and promote you and your organization (In a transparent and honest way)

Many Virtual Assistants are affordable and easy to find on the web. If you would like a Virtual Buzz Assistant that has been trained in the ethical use of these kinds of tools and is familiar with their uses, then visit http://virtualbuzzassistant.com and submit a request to have Virtual Buzz Assistants contact you for your project.

Why does a Virtual Assistant Work Well?

The biggest reason a Virtual Assistant works well for this is because of priority. Time after time, busy professionals play around with online marketing when they have some free time but then let the effort slip as soon as they get busy.

Do companies only advertise when sales are down? Not the good ones that understand marketing.

For the same reason, if you have a regular monthly commitment to marketing yourself online and building your brand, you will have a more potent image in the future. An assistant that's job is exclusively to create higher visibility for you is not going to drop the ball and let the effort slip just because you got a new customer that is keeping you busy.

How to look SMART, ATTRACTVIE & IMPORTANT online

So if you want to look smart, attractive and important online, start using the many tools that are out there to increase your visibility, or get some assistance to help you get going and keep going. People are already searching for you and for people with your expertise, the question is, can they find you?