readings in social media and pr for 5 January 2012

Here we are, my mother and myself, off to the NITOP Convention in Florida!

Here is what I am reading today:

• building your personal brand in 2012

“Today, professionals in all job functions view personal branding as a proven technique for enabling career successand personal fulfillment. The philosophy has remained the same, but the way we build our brands and the workplace trends related to personal branding are evolving. Each year, I compile those trends for you early-adopter marketers so you can stay ahead of your peers as you build and express your brand.”

• facebook posts deport Australian from Bahrain

“Writing a series of articles for The Atlantic, Australian national Tony Mitchell’s latest account of living in Bahrain reveals that he was deported from the country for posting on Facebook about the ongoing unrest in the country. Teaching English at Bahrain’s Polytechnic University, an institution which recently came under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Mitchell not only lost his job, but was told in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome in the Middle Eastern kingdom.”

• building your social media team

“Social media is increasingly touted as a crucial part of the marketing mix, but things can go terribly wrong if campaigns are poorly executed. If you want your company to engage in social media, you need to put together a team of outgoing, passionate people to act as the digital face of your company.

You must choose this team carefully, as it will represent your business. You must make sure they work as a team, as a tight-knit team will always outperform superstars acting as individuals. You must be willing to experiment in order to grow, but you must also make sure that you do not waste company resources on things that don’t work.

So where are you supposed to start?”

• the reputation economy

“You don’t need to be BP, Toyota, News Corp or even Tiger Woods to know how quickly ‘brand equity’ can be destroyed by screw-ups, cover-ups and indiscretions. In the face of such PR fiascos, the accepted repair strategy has been to come clean as quickly and as contritely as possible. But in an era when corporate skeletons are subject to constant social media scrutiny, your business can suffer just as easily by being too transparent. Ask Bank of America. “