Using Inbound Marketing for Personal Branding

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Welcome to our Step 2 class, Getting Found Through Blogging. I’ll show you how to take the knowledge you have about your business and industry, and easily turn it into a traffic generating blog post. Pretty cool, huh?

My name is SarahBedrick, an inbound marketing consultant here at HubSpot. You can connect with me on Twitter at @sbedrick or on Linkedin here: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sarah-bedrick/a/755/9b9For my full bio, visit our Meet the Team page here.

So instead of pushing in their face – we’re making marketing that people love!

And we make marketing that people love – by transforming our marketing to be online. We make this online because that is how people are looking for their information. And inbound marketing is important – and making marketing that people love is important – because When you guys need something for class – what is the first thing you do – Google it. When you need the best sushi restaurant while on vacation in boston – what do you do – you google it (or ask friends in social media).

So Instead of Advertising like traditional means of marketing – we’re publishing valuable content that gets found and helps someone who was conducting that Google search.

Why do companies care about inbound marketing - because the Internet is taking over.They know that they should be on facebook because 80% of consumers connect with them there.

If you don’t take control of your brand – someone else will.Take the new definition of Santorum for example. Rick Santorum didn’t take control of his online presence and didn’t have it on lock with SEO and content – and someone who was offended by one of his remarks – coined the new term Santorum as this. Fortunately, for me there aren’t that many other Sarah Bedricks out there. However, depending on your name – your online presence might already be claimed. Do a Google search to see where you’ll stack up with others in your brand. This – during the Republican primaries – was showing up at the stop result in a google search. How badly did this hurt his brand – not only for not being found at the top of Google but this horrible new definition of “Santorum” really tainted his image.

How do you plan to stand out in a sea of other potential hires?Most companies will Google you to find out as much as than can about you. Having control of your own brand, having a Twitter feed, website and a fully stacked LinkedIn profile will help show that you care about your brand – and can also work to show off your accomplishments and passions.

It opens up a world of opportunities.Find out about networking events.Find out about new companies. Get invited to fun focus groupsNetwork with those you idolize

This is a no brainer that costs 7 dollars a year.Hosting is rather cheap too at 6 dollars a month. Can you spend 151 dollars a year for a leg up against the competition? I think so.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and whatever is relevant to your industry

And make sure your biography is descriptive. What do you want people to know about you – are you a student, a graduate student, a new employee of a company. What are your passions – why should people follow you?

Upload resumes to LinkedIn. Include resume on your personal website. However, instead of just updating your resume – create content about your passions, experience, education and accomplishments. Instead of just adding it to your resume – create a piece of content about how you learned about a new biography. For example, I do Toastmasters which is a public speaking program – instead of just saying I’m a competent communicator – I have someone record each presentation and post it to my blog along with the content of my speech with a review. That – is way more impressive than just adding it to my resume.

Next once you have your presence settled online – find your passion. You may know – you may not, but it is important in making you happy.

Take your passion and become one with your industry.Find the top industry blogs and subscribe to them.-Postsummaries of what your thoughts on the topics were. -Comment on the posts-Share the information through your social networksThis will show potential employers that you care about your industry enough to keep up with trends and the thought-leaders in the industry.

Next – start creating content for your own site. It can be whatever you’d like. Presentations for class. Papers you’re proud of. Things that make you think.

What do you do if your name is too popular to get found in a google search?

Tons of tools out there to help you search Twitter. Followerwonk.com – search twitter.com

It’s easy to get hung up on a few things that don’t matter too much:Performance - Again, remember that blogging takes time and patience and that a true leads lift generally comes around the 51st blog article.Being Hemingway - Spellcheck and Proofreading are key. Even Hemingway wasn’t Hemingway when he started writing.Meta Keywords, Meta Descriptions - Meta description is the 175 characters that describe your page for potential visitors on search engines. Neither it nor meta keywords matter much from an SEO perspective anymore.Now lets take a look at some examples. What’s theory without practice, anyway?

Thanks for attending today’s class. I hoped you learned all you need to become a blogging superstar. Next up is the Promote Your Content call, which you can register for here: http://academy.hubspot.com/webinars/step-3-promote-your-content/For Technical Questions - Contact SupportInbound Marketing/General Questions - Customer Forums or email us.

Above is the roadmap of where we’re going today.In this class, you will learn:Why it is important to blog,The different ways prospects can find your blog articlesHow to begin conceptualizing what to right aboutHow to write articles that get you maximum returns in the form of traffic and leadsThe key takeaways you need to know before the call ends