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Why Strong Personal Brands Matter to Your Company

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Imagine this: You're a marketing vp at a Fortune 500 company and you find out from your PR department that a product marketer just out of college has a personal blog with thousands of subscribers that's been written up in Fast Company and many other popular publications.

What do you do?

Do you worry about conflicts of interest and distractions -- or do you embrace his work?

That's exactly the question somebody at EMC Corporation faced when they found out about Dan Schawbel, a blogger and author of the upcoming book, Me 2.0.

EMC decided to embrace Dan's work.

They hired him to be their first "social media expert" and have been benefiting from his writing and speaking about personal branding ever since.

Dan stopped by HubSpot last week to explain why he thinks companies should encourage their employees to develop their personal brands the way he did.

A video recording of my conversation with Dan is posted below. Here are a few highlights:

Why It Makes Sense to Have Employees With Strong Personal Brands

"Visibility creates opportunities ... what would you rather have? A company that has no one on social networks or any blogs, or a company that has at least a hundred people on? You'd want the hundred people because those people will help you market for free." 

On How to Be Successful in Social Media

"The key is that you need commitment ... you can't blog once or tweet once every six month and think you're going to get results." 

 

 

TweetIt from HubSpot

Webinar: Blogging for Business


Want to learn more about publishing a blog on your business website?

Download the free webinar to learn how to create a thriving inbound marketing blog.


Posted by Rick Burnes on Tue, Dec 30, 2008 @ 08:08 AM

COMMENTS

This is spot on the money. The web is a conversation. The more people you have participating the better off your business will be. 
 
 
 
I just had this exact same conversation with an executive from a large cable TV company. I'll be sure to point this out.

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 10:51 AM by Matt Howard


Bingo! Too many large companies are panicking about lack of control over messaging, conversations, security, etc. in the social media arena, when they should be encouraging and fostering it. In this case, fear is definitely the result of ignorance.

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:15 PM by Tommy Landry


I'm going through the exact same transition with my company, creating a position. Getting compensated for your passion, too right. Roll on 1st Jan. 
 
Thanks for this. 
 
Matt

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:15 PM by matt lambert


this is a great post I just have a few questions 
 
1) So you do not have a social media expert in place, of course, you use Dan Schwabel if you hired him anyway to be your voice 
 
2) But what if you have a Dan Schwabel already, what do you do then and, finally, 
 
3) what if you have 20 or 30 or a 100 of them, do you embrace them all and if so, how do you deal with when they change employers and write about it.... sit back and relax? 
 
This is an interesting case from which we cannot draw conclusions can we?  
 
See one post where this is addressed 
 
Fortune 500 corporate blogging - why Linkedin might have a problem with some personal brands

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:21 PM by WebUrs


Spot on! I saw Dan speak a few months back at an event. He knows his stuff. All companies, large and small, should be finding someone like Dan to lead their online marketing efforts.

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:24 PM by Pete Caputa


Thanks for writing this. Been readiing a lot on this subject recently and am realizing that there are lots of opinions, perspectives, and things to consider as companies develop their strategy. Here's a link to a related article on the subject which generated a lot of debate and commentary.  
 
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2008/11/why-you-need-to.html

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 1:56 PM by Michelle


Would love to see the length of the video listed prominently somewhere.

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 2:34 PM by Amy Abascal


@Amy This is the full-length video. Did it get cut off for you? It should be about 16 mins.

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 3:00 PM by Rick Burnes


This is a great webinar - thanks. The value of business blogging is phenomenal. Do you know of any studies that quantify the return on investment?

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 4:48 PM by Ken Kaufman


Personal brands help people put a face on a company and associate an individual relationship. Relationships foster trust and trust build corporate brand. Good stuff.

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 6:18 PM by Kyle James


Spot on! I will use this info. Thanks for posting

posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 12:51 AM by Shashank


Comments have been closed for this article.