I love the springtime! And, I especially enjoy it because it heralds the beginning of 
warmer weather, beautiful blooming gardens and more daylight, For me, this time of year is all about a fresh, clean start — and my favorite activity — Spring Cleaning!
I love cleaning and organizing both home and office. Spring is the perfect time to do the same for your personal brand. So what does this mean and how might it look for you? Here’s how you can get started:
Visit all of your online properties. Hopefully you have a handy list of all your properties as well as your username and passwords so you can quickly and easily login and check each one. Your online real estate might include:
- Your website
- YouTube Channel
- Podcast / iTunes
- Slideshare
- Your telephone message
… and more!
Review each property and do the following:
- Review your professional photo. Is your photo up-to-date? If not, it might be the perfect time to get a new one. People want to know you — so make sure your picture reflects the current you! Also, be careful about allowing too much photoshopping. With the appropriate makeup application and lighting you can create a beautiful, natural and authentic view of you! At a recent event in Las Vegas, someone commented that I actually looked like my Facebook picture (because so many people don’t).
. - Review all of your content to make sure it’s accurate. For sites with summary information, consider re-writing it even if you’re rewriting basically the same material. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
. - For your website, read through every static page and make updates to the material. Add additional images and pull quotes. If appropriate, add more material, including more pages. Update your biography, testimonials and media mentions. Add new information and remove dated material. Refresh and renew your content so that it reflects the latest and greatest things about you, your business, and your brand.
. - Double check all links. Just because it looks like a link doesn’t mean that it works! Test them all. You can use online tools to locate links that don’t work.
. - Engage the services of a friend or colleague to have them review your online properties for grammar and spelling issues. A second set of eyes can be helpful!
. - And, for your telephone greeting? Update it with a new and inviting message.
Give people a listen to your brand by recording a memorable message!.
Next Steps: We’re all busy with our lives and careers. It’s easy to get distracted and forget about taking care of ourselves and especially our online brand presence. Don’t wait until next Spring to update your properties. Grab your calendar now and schedule dates to review and refresh your content on a regular basis. A quarterly review is a great place to start.
For more tips about your personal brand, stay tuned for my next article! Visit Personal Brand Essentials for more information!
Thinking about starting a podcast …For those of you who are thinking about building your brand through producing your own podcast, you may want to check out Podcast Prodigy from Rachel Rofe. I purchased this course and found it to be excellent. Easy-to-follow and easy-to-understand, this is a great overview on how to get started. To find out more, visit http://taraloves.me/podcastprodigy to watch her videos and to review the steps.
To Your Success!
Tara Kachaturoff
