LinkedIn and Branding: Ways to brand yourself

Skills have no value unless one knows how to utilize them. In today's competitive world, it's highly important to have a set of distinguish skills and more importantly know how to make an effective use of it. If you don't express your skill sets to the world, no body is going to figure out how brilliant you might be! Personal branding can help an individual to shine in this competitive world and get recognized for his/her expertise. 

LinkedIn is a social networking website for professionals. It is number one professional network where individuals get recognized for their contributions and expertise. LinkedIn can become a life changing factor if one understands the power of Personal branding. Power of LinkedIn's use for professional growth is recognized worldwide. Recent figures at wikipedia says LinkedIn has more than 225 million users worldwide. 32% of those users are from US, 9% from India and 5% in UK and Brazil. Having presence worldwide, Personal branding can help people explore various fascinating opportunities worldwide.

I below present few points (taken from here) from my perspective, which if followed will make people brand themselves effectively.

1. Custom LinkedIn URL: Custom LinkedIn URL of form "linkedin.com/in/yourname" highers the chances of people finding you through various search engines. (Try it out searching yourself)

2. Headline: With headline having future goals, others can understand the kind of domain/job you are interested in. Also, headline should be aligned with the past job experience. 

3. Summary: A summary divided in to three sections will help recruiters/managers derive a clear picture of person's background. First section should be about a brief on who you are, a second section should be about experience and expertise and third section about future aspirations. 

4. Detailed Experience: Past experience is a backbone of your LinkedIn profile. Industrial and academic experience plays a vital part in getting the job. Every project, be it academic or industrial, should be mentioned, possibly with all details that can be included. Attributes such as project website, awards honored and co-worker's recommendation can be included, if possible.

5. Volunteer Experience & Causes: A great feature available on LinkedIn. This expresses your social activeness and not just typical workaholic image.

6. Build Network: Add people who you know and can help you in your professional growth. Start following companies in area of your interest. Adding recruiters and hiring managers from interested companies can quickly help you find jobs relevant to your interest and background.

6. External website/work integration: In order to give better idea about your background and skills set, you can link your work to your LinkedIn profile. This work could be your personal website, research paper presented or co-authored, personal/work blog address and website for business owned for example.

I believe above mentioned subtle changes on your LinkedIn profile can boost up your Personal brand on LinkedIn. Keeping LinkedIn profile up-to-date is another important aspect of Personal branding. If you would like to, visit my LinkedIn profile here -http://www.linkedin.com/in/mehalpatel.

Quick Response Codes: Powering Virtual Stores

QR Codes are abbreviated as Quick Response Codes. They are two dimensional bar-codes which can store much more information than it's predecessor - one-dimensional bar-codes. QR codes can hold virtually all types of data including numeric and alphanumeric data types, most commonly used. Some popular usage of QR codes are: URLs, Contact information, Coupon codes, Email Message, Social Networking and E-Calendar. Example of QR codes are displayed below (Scan to find out now!):

Two-dimensional QR Codes were first designed for automotive industry in Japan by Denso ADC. Before that one-dimensional codes were in existence (since 1966) and could store more than a little information. In an attempt to increase storage capacity, 2 dimensional bar-codes were invented. These bar-codes are two-dimensional which can store information in both horizontal and vertical directions unlike one-dimensional bar-codes which stores information in horizontal directions only.

After being introduced for Automotive industry, QR codes quickly became popular because of some of it's unique features. QR codes are fast readable, has greater storage capacity than it's predecessor, has auto error correction and most importantly QR code has no license. More information about QR codes can be obtained here. Apart from automotive industry QR codes are being used in Manufacturing, Warehousing and logistics, Retailing, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Transportation, Office automation and Marketing & Advertisement as stated here.

Now a days QR Codes are driving Virtual Stores across the world. I found this particular usage of QR code quite fascinating. It's amazing how this little piece of square has potential to change the world and enrich people's day to day life.

Virtual store is changing the way people shop their daily needs from their favorite retail stores. Instead of physically visiting stores and shopping daily needs, consumers can scan QR codes of various household items placed in large banners at Train stations, Shopping malls, Airports and inside bus, for example. Consumers can make payment right on the spot as item gets added to shopping cart upon scanning QR codes. Consumers receive their purchased items on their doorstep via shipping.

Virtual store shopping is very convenient and reduces overall time when consumers wants to buy certain household items frequently. Such virtual stores exists in Canada, South Korea, Argentina and many other countries. Walmart and Peapod have already benefited from such virtual stores. South Korea's HomePlus global grocery and merchandise retailer experienced 76% increase in new registered members and their online sales increased by 130%. A short video on HomePlus's success shows the power of QR codes.

With an increase in number of mobile users, Virtual store will take virtual shopping to a whole new level. Virtual stores will help companies increase their online sales and at the same time lowering their need for large number of  physical stores.

Social Networking: Security and Brand Promotions

Social Networking - an inseparable part of our daily life. Let us explore Security of and Promoting a Brand through Social Networks.

In today's world, Social Networking is growing rapidly. It provides platform for people to share their interests, life-events, thoughts, backgrounds and professional career interests to name few. Social Networking brings world closer and provides more elegant way to reach wider set of audience to communicate with. Social Networking platform can be used for personal and/or professional purposes. These rises two interesting aspects of Social Networking platform. Security measures of Social Networking(personal usage) and promoting a brand through Social Networking(professional usage). Let's look at them in turn.

Privacy is the biggest concern for Social Networking website users. Everyone benefits being a part of Social Network. At the same time users want their personal information private. However, privacy can't solely be achieved by Social Networking website provider but along with the help of Social Networking website users. Let's take an example of Facebook's Social Network. There are 3 most popular features - Add friends, Update status and Facebook applications(games & quizzes) as explained here which if not used properly, can break user's privacy. Consider an example where a Facebook user updates status as "Looking forward to the family vacation next week at Disney World".  This is comparable to a road sign shouting an "Empty House Next Week" to the outside world.  Friends of friends on Facebook can see what their friends are commenting on their friend's status. It may seem like nothing but status such as above might tempt strangers (Friend's of Friends or to large number of Facebook users if update shared publicly) to take advantage of an "Empty House Next Week" situation. A real example of such an incident can be found here. Example discussed here implies that it is very important to understand features of Social Networks and requires a second thought before using them extensively in one's day to day life. Awareness to such risks can help mitigate information leaks and subsequent damage.

Social Networking can be viewed from a different perspective where this platform can be utilized for promoting brands. With just a click of a button, businesses can reach out to thousands of customers. A recent study, discussed here, says more and more customers connects to various brands, offering lucrative discounts, through Social Networks. This platform helps connect millions of costumers in a cost-effective way. A successful example of such a media promotion is Dell's discounted merchandise promotion over a dedicated Twitter account. Twitter account alone helped generate $3 million revenue where they posted discounted coupons and new product releases. Similarly other Social medias such as Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Google+ also provides various features for brand promotions. A case study explains how HubSpot, an all-in-one inbound marketing software, took advantage of Facebook's brand promotion to increase sales. HubSpot actively engaged with their Facebook customers with the help of Facebook page and Facebook ads. Various marketing strategies using Facebook page & ads helped them increase their sales by 71%.