Wrapping up our wonderful experiences this winter co-facilitating, presenting and building the online community for Stanford Continuing Studies’ course “Branding Yourself Strategically”, Carla and I would like to thank dearly instructor Angelika Blendstrup, the students and the presenters with whom we had the pleasure of working. Being a multi-cultural team ourselves, Carla and I enjoyed interacting with the lively and colorful group of students from different places across the globe and their diverse backgrounds. Creativity flowed in every class where brands and bonds were developed, home made cookies eaten and even the unexpected: Gather Your Crowd’s Carla Ivette Yashiro delivered her second baby boy a month early! Welcome Nicholas Ryuji Yashiro! Some students suspect that the baby’s first word will be, “Tweet!” 

Never a dull moment, Angelika nurtured the fun and rich learning with an exciting and irreverent line-up of guest speakers. We all got to meet amazing people behind refreshing and well-crafted brands, such as Rani Gill of Tech + Education + Business, Ravit Lichtenberg of Ustrategy, Jeremy Toeman of Stage Two, Erica Lee of Strategiclee, Valerie Orsoni of Le Boot Camp and yours truly, Gather Your Crowd. 

Carla and I were especially excited to see the class’s Facebook Fan Page, Stanford CS: Branding Yourself Strategically, serve as an informative and engaging place where students extended their bonding and branding beyond the classroom. Angelika shared additional news about branding; guest speakers and their brands were introduced to students prior to presenting in class; and, most importantly, students immersed themselves with sharing their branding questions and experiences with each other. 

Everyone was so jazzed up about where the branding and bonding process took them that they want to continue to the next level. Could this lead to a  new course titled, ”Connecting Your Crowd to Your Brand”? Regardless of next steps, based on the energy portrayed in this group photo I’d say everyone had a fun “branding” experience this winter and is ready for more! 

Stanford Continuing Studies Course "Branding Yourself Strategically" Group Photo, Winter 2010

 Enjoy more photos from Stanford CS: Branding Yourself Strategically (Winter 2010)

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R to L: Valerie Orsoni, CEO of Le Boot Camp®, Angelika Blendstrup of Blendstrup & Associates, Cherie Del Carlo of Gather Your Crowd

Valerie Orsoni, CEO and Founder of MyPrivateCoach® and LeBootCamp®, leading European, American and Canadian online coaching programs for healthy living and weight loss, is living testament to a personal brand success story! Just listen to a portion of her bio:

Orsoni’s successful battles against a brain tumor and cancer led her to become one of the world’s most inspirational coaches. In 2003, she founded MyPrivateCoach®, a coaching service that uses a large array of tools and methods including behavioral science, management trends, work space ergonomics, Feng Shui, spirituality, philosophy, finance and business to help individuals unlock their inner potential in the areas of business, life, relationships and weight loss. Today, Valerie oversees more than 90 coaches worldwide who use her hands-on, personal approach to help clients achieve and exceed their personal goals.

Helping people enhance the quality of their lives through MyPrivateCoach® brought Orsoni tremendous gratification. At the same time, the experience helped her recognize how valued the weight loss services offered by MyPrivateCoach® were to so many. As a result, Orsoni tweaked her successful business model to launch LeBootCamp®, an online service focused solely on weight loss coaching. Over the past two years, more than 700,000 people in Europe, North America and Australia have joined the LeBootCamp® community to benefit from the effective, scientifically-backed, personalized weight loss program that boasts a stunning 92% success rate.

Gather Your Crowd had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Orsoni this past Wednesday evening at Stanford University’s Continuing Studies course, “Branding Yourself Strategically” where she shared on her founding principles and tactics she uses for maintaining her international acclaim.

Rooted in her successes at overcoming her life’s challenges, she was first very clear on the value proposition she wanted to deliver to others. Valerie started out by creating for people the kind of value we all want in our lives: health and well-being. Only then did she begin to create her brand which she said grew rather organically at first and not without challenges of its own.

With her delightful humor and candid openness, Valerie informed the class of her early mistakes which, being the optimist that she is, served as stepping stones toward the right course of action. It wasn’t until she landed a radio show in Canada syndicated out of Vancouver that she began to see her hard work pay off. As she put it in her French accent, “It was the first thread I started pulling that lead to more.”

Valerie’s talk reminded students that establishing a successful brand is more than finding the right opportunity; it’s about creating opportunity. The successful CEO spoke of ways that work for her brand, which include publishing her own books under her own name and sending out press releases that get people’s attention. But for any brand maker at any phase of the process Valerie stressed a universal truth, “Don’t undervalue or underestimate people you don’t know.”

Gather Your Crowd asked Valerie to share how she uses social media in particular to continue leading her brand and here’s what she had to say:

You can follow Valerie on Twitter at LeBootCamp and you can Fan her Page on Facebook at Le Boot Camp Fan Page.

Vous remercier Valerie Orsoni pour partager avec Rassemble Votre Foule que vos médias sociaux mélangent. Le c’était véritablement une joie vous rencontrant!

Thank you Valerie Orsoni for sharing with Gather Your Crowd your social mix. It was truly a joy meeting you!

Do you truly embody your personal BRAND? What’s your signature look? How do you communicate? What makes you UNIQUE?

Last night, Stanford CS: Branding Yourself Strategically had 2 outstanding presenters who emphasized these questions.

The first presenter was Erica Lee, VP Global Marketing and CEO of StrategicLee, Inc. She shared 10 important steps in the branding process:

(1) Create the brand (2) Find the medium (3) Build your community (4) Create a signature (5) Define your platform (6) Start partnering (7) Start communicating (8) Start conversing (9) Get out there, and (10) Become consistent.

She also stressed the importance of ENGAGING with people and to always remember that your AUDIENCE is king. Erica really encourages to  ”do unto others as you would have them do unto you” which means attending your friends/followers events, commenting on their blogs, retweeting their posts, etc.

Gather Your Crowd asked Erica about her brand engagement using social media and this is what she had to say:

The second presenter was Jeremy Toeman, Founder of Stage Two. Jeremy, who is an expert in digital media and consumer technology, delighted us with his sense of humor and shared very useful tips on the use of Twitter for Branding.

He is a believer in showing WHO you are in the process of engaging with others using social media. “Communicate your GOALS visibly, be personable, relevant and above all, consistent!” “All is fair in love and Twitter!” said Jeremy while talking about the type of information to be posted on Twitter. He also made reference to the Social Media Venn Diagram.

We asked Jeremy about his prefered social media tools for personal branding online and here is what he told us:

Participate in the Branding discussion. Become a fan of Stanford CS: Branding Yourself Strategically on Facebook or find the #StanfordPB conversation on Twitter.

Join Gather Your Crowd at Stanford University as a special guest to Network and learn about Branding this coming Wednesday, January 10th, 2010.

To participate:

• You must be Gather Your Crowd’s Facebook Fan.
• You must contact us here! The first 3 who reach us will be the lucky winners.

Featured speakers:

• Erica Lee of StrategicLee
• Jeremy Toeman of Stage Two

Event details:

• Stanford Continuing Studies: Branding Yourself Strategically
• Instructor: Angelika Blendstrup
• Wednesday, February10th, 2010 6:15PM-9:15PM

Two Thumbs up! Gather Your Crowd feels extremely proud to co-facilitate Stanford Continuing Studies class: Branding Yourself Strategically. In only 3 sessions Angelika Blendstrup, the instructor, has created a family-like-environment where people from a diversity of professional and cultural backgrounds are now making long lasting connections. Really! Only someone like Angelika who is fluent in 5 languages and has lived on 3 continents can achieve such a feat!

The first half of the class, students had a chance to learn specific tools for reputation management online. Angelika’s suggestions included: Zoominfo, Ziggs, ClaimID, LookUpPage, CV 2.0, and Visual CV. We then moved into Blogs and Angelika quoted Tara Hunt, author of “The Whuffie Factor“. Tara has 8 Tips for the courageous people diving into the blogosphere:

1. Get advice from the experts but design for the novice
2. Respond to ALL feedback
3. Don’t take negative feedback personally
4. Give people credit
5. Point out and explain changes as you make them
6. Make small, continuous improvement
7. Go out and find your feedback + Respond as needed
8. Ignore the haters

During the second half of the class we had the pleasure of having Ravit Lichtenberg, Founder and Chief Strategist of Ustrategy Consulting,  present the awaited “5 Keys to Creating a Successful Online Brand”. Ravit’s presentation was truly impeccable! If I may say, having worked for 12 years in Television doing Branding, I can attest that Ravit truly personifies the BRAND she has created for herself, and THAT is a true achievement. Gather Your Crowd had the pleasure of interviewing her and this is what she had to say about the one social media tool she uses most effectively online:

Key takeaways from Ravit’s presentation include:

1. You cannot NOT communicate
2. Branding yourself with social media requires a strategy—in its core, is the perception you’d like others to have of you and your offering
3. Like it or not, branding yourself requires you to think of yourself and your offering like a product. Your job is to help your audiences separate you from everyone else.
4. Create campaigns! Choose 2-3 campaign objectives and stick to them
5. Don’t try to do everything at once: pick a few key personal campaigns and 2-3 tools that are relevant to your brand message and to your audience and stick to these first
6. Make sure you build a foundation that allows you to adapt and change quickly

To get Ravit’s complete presentation please click here.

Join our Gather Your Crowd Fan Page on Facebook! We’ll let you know as new information arrives.

Carla Ivette Yashiro and I (Cherie Del Carlo) had the opportunity to present to students at Stanford Continuing Studies’ course, “Branding Yourself Strategically” on the topic of “Building Your Brand Using Facebook.” Thank you Angelika Blendstrup for the invitation!

We covered several high level essentials of BRANDING and focused on the benefits and best practices of building your identity while engaging your network on both a Personal Profile and a Fan Page on the most popular social network today: Facebook.

Before diving into our topic, we asked the class to tell us what the Gather Your Crowd brand name made them think and feel. Here’s what some of the students had to say:

• “You’re building a group of people that share something in common with you.”
• “Reminds me of either a concert or a graduation or some sort of enormous celebratory event.”
• “There’s no social media in it.”
• “For me, my emotions when I read your title its great, I want to go to your page and I want to read about this, and I want to be in that crowd…. It’s all positive emotions.”
• “Feels like the logo is still evolving. Doesn’t feel like you’re sure about it yet.”
• “I was thinking more networking with common interests. Looking at the picture that you used, what I perceive is that it’s an event and that everyone is there for a common purpose. And then the words “gather your crowd”, like if you’re at a football game you’re cheering for the same team. So there’s the common interest then the words.”

This was a great exercise and opportunity for us to receive feedback on our brand. Having built it on our own, Carla and I were equally flattered and made wiser by students’ perceptions. Thank you students of Branding Yourself Strategically!

Whenever you get the chance to get feedback, take it! Ask people to tell you how they perceive your brand name or what feelings your established brand identity evokes in them. Be ready to adapt and change if the answers do not match your original objectives.

Here’s some wisdom from the class about what a BRAND should do:

“Your brand is the experience you want your clients to have.” “It should contain three elements: who you are and what you are, how you do it, and who the people are that you help.” “Your passion makes a difference, then it’s not sales. Knowing what you have to offer, what you have to share is different. People can choose to receive it, pass it on or pass on it.”

Once you’re ready to take your brand public and gather your crowd keep in mind these and other best practices on Facebook.

• Choose privacy settings and friend filters on your personal profile to reflect how much, how little and what kind of information you want people to see, including who can and cannot see it.
• Share your information and become a trusted agent instead of promoting or selling to avoid being a perceived as a spammer.
• Listen to and monitor what people are saying about your brand
• Adapt and let your brand evolve
• Be one with your Brand Identity
• Be consistent

As you advance and become comfortable with owning your brand through your persona, there are other best practices to implement that will help you better ENGAGE your fans and friends in both your Personal Profile or Fan Page. If you’d like to know what these are, send us a note with your request for the presentation and we’ll gladly provide it.

When you’re ready, Infographics are another great way to further your marketing efforts and promote your brand using the power of visual imagery. Let your brand and who you are, what you do and whom you help shine through a colorfully pleasing and informative Infographic. Dosh Dosh makes this evocative and agreeable statement about Infographics, “In the realm of art or activism, images reflect the underlying current of collective feeling by vocalizing both public consensus and private desires.”

To enhance our presentation we developed an infographic to communicate key components of the Gather Your Crowd brand, which included our Mission Statement or mantra and our values, strengths, and role with our clients. To view larger, simply click on the graphic:

Gather Your Crowd's Branding Infographic

Stay tuned for next week’s article highlighting week three course presenter, Ravit Lichtenberg of Ustrategy. Ravit will talk about, “Managing your brand: What are your steps to drive your brand?” Looking forward to it Ravit!

Stanford’s Continuing Studies course Branding Yourself Strategically had its debut yesterday with a very diverse group of students from countries like Finland, Germany, France, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, India and of course the US. Angelika Blendstrup, the instructor, masterfully engaged the students’ attention and provided some very insightful tips as to where to begin when creating a personal brand.

“Your brand is what makes you memorable,”  a student said during one of the exercises. Among the highlights of the first half of the session, Angelika brought to the forefront the Eight Laws of Personal Branding by Peter Montoya and the Made to Stick Model by Chip and Dan Heath.

The awaited first speaker arrived during the second half of the session, Rani H. Gill who is an instructional technology designer. Rani’s  presentation titled, “Creating a Brand: Test & Reiterate” covered her best practices which include having two elements very clear: WHO you are and WHERE you want to go. Gather Your Crowd had the pleasure of interviewing Rani and this is what she said about her philosophy of success and how she promotes her brand online:

To follow and or participate in the Twitter conversation of this class use #StanfordPB.

Stanford University

This winter Carla Ivette Yashiro and I will be presenters, co-facilitators and online community builders for Stanford Continuing Studies’ course, “Branding Yourself Strategically,” lead by Angelika Blendstrup of Blendstrup & Associates. On Wednesday, January 27th we will present on “Building Your Personal Brand Using Facebook.” Come back next week for my blog post covering nuggets of interest from the group and our slides. Also, please join the online community in Facebook by becoming a fan of the Stanford CS: Building Your Brand Strategically Fan Page!

Of special interest, Carla and I will be interviewing each of the other guest presenters, kicking off engagement with them on the Fan Page and writing further about them here. The line-up of presenters is sure to deliver well-informed and inspired participation. This week’s guest presenter is Rani Gill, who will talk about, “How to Put Together a Brand Strategy.”

Lastly, the excitement of getting to know new people and their brands won’t go unnoticed! Carla and I are looking forward to interviewing and blogging about the talent that shows up for BUS 194 over the next six weeks!

Remember to use the Twitter hashtags: #StanfordPB and #GYC.