New Business Site for Personal Branding and Social Media Aggregation

Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Promoting Yourself, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 13 Comments

Larry Brauner People often ask me to have a look at brand new social networking sites. I typically decline, as I prefer to invest my time checking out social sites that have already gained acceptance.

However, this week, when my blogging friend John from EZGreatLife.com sent me to a social media site that might help me brand myself and tie together Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites, I decided to investigate.

Accounting for my motivation was an expectation that the aggregation of social websites will be a major focus of 2010, as enabling technologies like semantic web come to the forefront. Don’t we all wish it would be easier to organize and streamline our many social networking sites?

The landing page provided little information. It did however indicate that I could become a beta tester if I joined by noon my time on the 13th, and I joined. John had told me that there would be gifts for the beta testers, but I’d have signed up right away in any case.

Last night I attended a webinar to learn some details. I’m far from an expert, but this is what I learned:

Moneza is the name of the website, and membership is free.
Membership includes your MeCard (which resembles Card.ly but is substantially more powerful). This online business card provides your contact information, links to your active social sites and displays your live update feed (pretty much like Friend Feed does). The MeCard also displays how many people you are tracking (following) and how many you are tracked by (followed by), an indication of your social influence and clout.
The MeCard is viral, as viewers are encouraged to get their own. When they do, they become part of your growing network, which expands outward from you at its center. This helps to grow your brand virally, but exactly how that works, I don’t yet understand.
There will be a back office from which you’ll manage your MeCard and from which you’ll post updates to all your social sites at once (much as if you were using Friend Feed or ping.fm).

Please join me, and let’s build our networks. Coming in on the ground floor (as I did with Twitter and Ning) will facilitate the building process — and the gift for becoming a beta tester will be a plus.

Then watch for the next webinar which will provide us with more details.

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Tags: me card, moneza, Social Media, social networking sites

Jan

18

8 Reasons Why You Might NOT Be Promoting Yourself Enough

Filed Under Announcements, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Promoting Yourself, Public Relations | 27 Comments

Larry Brauner Our website promotion event and social media party was an enormous success. Hundreds actively participated, introducing their web sites, engaging in dialog and making new connections.

Fortunately, the time frame for the networking phase of the event is open-ended, so drop by my Facebook page any time to meet some new people and check out what they’re up to. I’ll be busy working on the page for a few more days, reviewing web sites I haven’t yet visited.

Our four-day event was in part an experiment, as Tom Woolf pointed out. A key takeaway for me is that many people are promoting their products, services, companies interests and causes but not sufficiently promoting them- selves.

Keeping a low profile may occasionally be appropriate. However, in general, self-promotion is integral to social media marketing and public relations.

These are eight reasons why self-promotion and injecting yourself into your content are very important:

You transcend your interests. No interest or group of interests, no matter how passionate you are about them, can fully define you as a person. Admittedly, this point is too existential, so…
Your subject matter might lose relevance. For example, your product can be discontinued or your company can go out of business. Your content will become irrelevant with no residual benefit from the effort you put into creating and promoting it. However…
You’re always relevant as a person. You have inherent value, and you’re completely portable from one venue to another.
You and I are unique. People aren’t interchangeable, but products, services and organizations tend to be.
You and I are memorable. People will come to remember us and our faces once they see us a few times.
People prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust. It has always been that way, even before Al Gore allegedly invented the Internet. You and I can relate to people and build solid social capital.
Synergy. Our diverse interests and content work to build a bigger and more insightful picture of us.
Social media is uhh, social. You and I are social. Our jewelry and weight loss products merely facilitate social interaction. People relate to people, and their relationships are ongoing.