Managing your Mayoral Brand, VLGA Essential Mayors Weekend 01/14
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The document outlines a masterclass focused on personal branding for mayors, discussing the importance of developing a personal brand and its relationship with social media. It covers various branding strategies, success measurement, and the role of personal and professional brands in local governance. Participants also engage in practical activities to enhance their understanding and application of personal branding within their roles.
Managing your Mayoral Brand, VLGA Essential Mayors Weekend 01/14
- 1. Essential Mayors Weekend Masterclass #1 What’s my personal mayoral brand and how do I develop it further? Presented by Belinda MacLeod-Smith Belmac Integrated Communication On behalf of the Victorian Local Governance Association #IJOT2014 @_VLGA
- 2. Masterclass outline The Big Question What’s your personal mayoral brand and how can you develop it further?
- 3. Masterclass Overview We’ll explore the answers to this question by covering the following topics: Branding – product/service vs personal brand Personal brand and social media – who’s in charge? Taking charge – a strategic approach to building/maintaining your brand. So who has a good brand? Session summary and close.
- 4. Survey outcomes 1. Do you have a good understanding of what your current brand is? Two thirds said YES. The remainder weren’t quite sure. 2. List some of the ways you measure the success of your personal brand: Feedback from the public (including thank-you letters) other councillors and council officers (including Communications team) The type/quality of media coverage Annual staff/resident survey Function attendance Successful re-election
- 6. Survey outcomes 4. Do you have a specific branding question or issue you'd like to be covered during the session? How do you build a brand? How do you stop being caught in the dayto-day to develop a brand in such a short time? How does one move between the professional brand and the public mayoral brand and use them for congruence and strength? This is related to working mayors and their time management as well. Given that most mayors are elected by their colleagues and not by the community - but that the outcome is important to the community what role does branding actually play? Are people viewed differently by their colleagues than they are by their community and is this relevant or not? What is the value in having a blog page? With so many social media options out there it would be nice to know which have the best return rate and also which are best sited to different age groups.
- 7. Survey outcomes 5.In a local government context (here, interstate or overseas) who do you think does a great job at managing their personal brand? We’re going to look at our responses to this right at the end of the session, as we may have an attitude shift during the course of the workshop.
- 8. What do we mean by ‘brand’? First of all – even in the marketing world, a brand is not just a product or a logo Brands represent a combination of tangible and intangible qualities (Haighs Chocolates - explain) Branding is a process that creates connection through message consistency and interaction (customer touchpoints - explain) Marketers aim for brands to convey emotional triggers – strength, energy, passion, security.
- 9. Defining brand Definition sourced from http://sethgodin.typepad.com define: Brand Here's Seth Godin’s definition: A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.
- 10. Your personal brand “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
- 11. Find those shiny pebbles To build or manage your personal brand, you need to know yourself. Your values, your strengths, your passions. In public life, you then need to know which of your strengths is relevant to the situation you’re dealing with. If you were a product, this would simply be knowing your tech specs.
- 12. Is a BIG brand a GOOD brand? “If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.” Dame Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop.
- 13. Qualities of an effective brand For your audiences – their overall satisfaction or otherwise depends on whether expectations are being met. Example – A key message from your council might be about fiscal prudence, yet the annual report shows budget overruns and unsustainable growth targets. A strong brand is built on your own values, vision and mission. As an elected member, it’s important to find alignment between your values and that of Council. And what happens to expectation management when there’s a clash of opinions?
- 14. Your brand vs. Council’s brand Your organisation would have a business plan containing values and priorities for a preferred brand experience Ideally, every customer interaction with Council should provide a consistent experience of brand sentiment The way you manage your personal channels means you have the ability to generate a ‘Mayoral’ brand sentiment Every impression* you make contributes to a brand experience for your followers/community My experience is that strong differences of opinion are catered for in either your Code of Conduct or Communication/Media guidelines.
- 15. Strategic communication approaches When we looked at ways to leverage your personal brand, I listed some activities and techniques you may already use (pie chart slide 5) What underpins all these activities? Why do we do them? With a marketing hat on – it’s because we want to influence behaviour. We want something to change. We want people to change: …their thinking …their behaviour …their attitude
- 16. Strategic communication and brand in action Brand in Action Activity Time for some practical application with a team approach. I’ll put you into pairs. Overview: 30 minute activity (20 mins prep, 5 mins presentation). Only one of you will present the following overview back to the group: 1. Your qualities/values 2. A situation to deal with 3. Target audiences and methods to reach them 4. Elevator pitch
- 17. Brand management on social media (content informed by SlideShare presentation given by Rubina Carlson) Popular political platforms Australian politicians (in general) use only the most popular of social media sites, Namely: Twitter Facebook YouTube
- 18. Social media as brand channel Twitter - Microblogging site ( posts of up to 140 characters, hashtags # ) Posts occur more frequently(compared to FB posts) Content may be more trivial Why politicians like Twitter outlet for their personal voice (e.g. “Just sat down for #qanda) ability to disseminate message(s) to many, other than followers ability to listen to political chatter, surrounding #qanda #auspol
- 19. Social media as brand channel Facebook - A social networking site - platform to share news, photos, videos, links Why politicians like Facebook they try to create a greater sense of community and connection to the person/party/policy Facebook offers directed discussion spaces (e.g. comments, discussion boards) Facebook allows you to address on one-to-one, oneto-many or many-to-many basis
- 20. Social media as brand channel Most popular video sharing site Register, then customise your own channel Why politicians like YouTube casual way of addressing Australian voting public through video platform where the party can showcase existing footage e.g. TVCs, vox pop, policy announcements, testimonials – excellent visual medium
- 21. Social media as brand channel LinkedIn – seems to have been a sleeping giant. I like to think of it as Facebook for grown-ups Professional networking platform Greater capacity to demonstrate professional skill set, and obtain recommendations/endorsements Excellent online networking opportunity Possible to create groups dedicated to specific areas of interest (communities of interest)
- 22. Social media as brand channel Other options that may be in your ‘mix’ Instagram Pinterest Google+ Tumblr REMEMBER – use the right channel for your target audience. There’s honestly no prize for using the newest, most popular social media channel. Know your demographics. It is all about them.
- 23. Social media demographics An excellent, Australian reference for current social media/social business statistics Yellow™ Social Media Report, 2013 95% of Australian social media users are on Facebook 41% of 14-19 year olds use Instagram 67% of Australian users access social sites on a smartphone Google+ use is increasing, with highest usage among older Australians Fantastic resource which the VLGA will make available to you post-session (or you can Google it – cerca trova!)
- 24. Social media governance – general Adapted from information sourced from: http://socialmediagovernance.com/ Questions to ask yourself: Have you been provided with a current Councillor Code of Conduct? Does it include specific guidelines around Communication and Media? Does your organisation have a clear and accessible set of social media guidelines? What guidelines/recommendations are in place for when your personal views differ from the organisational position? What are the consequences of potential breaches of your organisation’s guidelines?
- 25. Social media governance – general Other hints Protect your privacy Be safe Keep your professional and personal lives separate (very important for public officials) Location, location, location Think before you share (in social media, there is no ‘off the record’)
- 26. Who does a great job? Robert Doyle, but that is probably mainly because of the high level of exposure he gets. Boris Johnson (City of London) Robert Doyle (City of Melbourne) Don Nardella (Politician) An obvious candidate is Stephen Mayne (City of Melbourne Councillor, business journalist, shareholder activist) another is The Lord Mayor of London - but what is the relationship or correlation between high profile and effectiveness? Quiet achievers undoubtedly manage their own personal brand very effectively. One can always improve - the world is not a static place The new mayor of Geelong Darryn Lyon is out there, loud and proud maybe a bit over the top but so far has the town talking.
- 27. Mayor of Geelong
- 28. NEXT! With that in mind, I thank you for your input, and hope you enjoy the rest of what will be a truly excellent weekend. Twitter: @belmac_ic LinkedIn: Belinda MacLeod-Smith
Editor's Notes
- #2: My name is Belinda MacLeod-Smith, and while I’m not the social media guru you may have been expecting, what I am a guru of is communication, marketing and public relations. My personal digital footprint may not be deep, but it’s certainly broad. From a personal perspective, I regularly use (or manage on behalf of clients) LinkedIn (manage group)Facebook (personal and company pages)Twitter (personal account only)eBlogger (personal)YouTubePinterestInstagramYelpSlideShare I’ve also designed and built websites, and created and implemented a range of on and off-line community engagement and evaluation strategies. You can find my full profile on LinkedIn, which will be a Now, there’s a lot of things today will cover, but one thing that won’t be the best use of our time is spending too much on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of how to use these platforms. I will take you on a quick tour of LinkedIn. But don’t worry, if you do have burning ‘how to questions’, we will be having a Q&A session at the end with myself and the very talented and experienced Dan Hoban from session sponsors, Delib. Dan has an incredible breadth of experience in the digital media space, and has promised to lend his brain if there are any really tricky questions.I like to run a fairly informal and interactive session, however I do ask you permission to keep us on time, and respect the other participants by having just one person speak at a time.If there’s a BURNING ISSUE that you’d like addressed during the Q & A at the end of the session, you’ll note I’ve set up a ‘CARPARK’ over here – simply write your question on there, or pop a post it note up and we’ll get to it at the end. But of course we will cover some important ‘hints and tips’ relating to critical areas such as privacy settings, security and the ever present ‘terms and conditions of use’. The other thing I must mention is that given the timeframe in which I had to prepare, I have relied upon social media to source information so that this session would provide as much value to you as possible. In all cases, I attribute the source, author and location – these details will appear in the presentation notes that’ll be provided to you after the session. I have also made the session available on SlideShare, an excellent resource sharing platform.
- #3: This is the question that will guide our work today. First, we’re going to look at the definition of branding in the traditional context.This’ll help unpack what we mean by ‘personal’ brand.
- #4: This is an overview of what we’ll cover in the next few hours. I’ve tailored the session to cover the essentials, but also to cover topics raised by those who were able to complete the pre-workshop survey.Keep in mind that the session plan is quite flexible, and if we need to spend a little more time on any particular topic, I’ll check in with the group if that’s okay.I must however commit to finishing on time, as you all have networking to do, and you have a big few days ahead of you.First of all, thanks to those of you who were able to complete the pre-workshop survey. Your responses were a huge help in tailoring the session and gave me some good low-hanging fruit to work with.For those of you who didn’t get the chance, it’s not a problem, as we’ll quickly cover the responses now, and pick up on any queries you might have.
- #6: We can see quite a few thing going on here.I always keep in mind the saying that ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’, and it could be that many of you have exactly the kind of brand awareness that you need, for the value proposition you provide to your audiences.I’ve put a big fat gold star next to the ‘personal marketing strategy’ response – we’ll be having a look at that later in the session. Having a plan for your brand (if that is a priority to you) directly links to one of my favourite quotes (up on the wall) “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else”.
- #7: (Respond to each of the questions, indicating in which section we’ll address them)
- #9: Why theHaighs brand resonates for me.
- #11: We may agree to disagree on this one – HOWEVER – in the survey, some people expressed that they weren’t really sure what personal brand is.We need to go back (not that long ago) to when the only option for us marketers to directly and strategically create brand impressions was to PAY FOR IT. TV, radio, every kind of major broadcast media was out of reach for the average person.When us poor PR hacks would write, send and follow up a gajillion media releases, hoping that they hit the spot for the journalist of our choice, in the publication of our choice.Here’s the thing.With the advent of the internet. And the many, many online ‘channels’ that we now have access to, guess what? Anyone, intentionally or not, can create a version of themselves that the whole world can access from the comfort of their computer (whether desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone).The easy accessibiliy and instant access of platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube – traditional media (like the news) now report on these.As individuals, we have more power than ever to make, or break, our own reputations.And high profile doesn’t always mean high value when it comes to brand.
- #12: Shiny pebbles – a phrase from my days in public relations, and senior government communication roles where we sometimes had to really, really search for positive benefits relevant to the audience.Who here feels they can summarise their ‘brand value’ in three words?For example – for me, my brand (or flavour) encompasses an energy, passion and intellect. These are three things I know about myself, and discuss carefully with clients. I’m not always a good fit, and that’s okay. Matching client expectations is easier than trying to change my strengths.Enough about me, let’s talk about you.If I said – what are your key strengths – is that an easy answer? (whiteboard capture)Knowing your strengths, and how they match any given situation, is the key to the ongoing managing of your brand.
- #13: Your brand, and the activities you undertake to support it, need to match your objectives.For each of you, having a clear understanding of your different audiences and the best way to communicate with them is critical to supporting your brand, remaining authentic and matching expectations.Example – whose Council area has a demographic leaning towards older residents? It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for you as Mayor to start an Instagram account promoting Council’s fantastic recycling initiatives. Great message, potential great visuals, but totally wrong channel for that demographic, and could potentially undermine any part of your brand that promotes the fact you’re in touch with your community.
- #14: FIRST OF ALL - I’ve highlighted the word ‘effective’. I want to be very clear that “high profile’ does not equate ‘effective’ UNLESS IT IS PART OF A STRATEGY.
- #15: If your position on an issue is vastly different from that stated by your organisation, what are your options?
- #16: How are we going in terms of unpacking the meaning of ‘personal brand’?I’d like to move on to what it looks like for each of us when we use ‘brand thinking’ in action.
- #24: There are some rich sources of information about social media usage – again, it’s all about the demographics, and the resources you have to manage these channels effectively.You need to have a keen understanding of posting frequency expectations with the platform you may choose – an out of date or non-responsive Facebook page does more harm to your brand than good.Highlight resources available today : 10 steps to building your brand, 10 free online brand management tools
- #25: Resource : Social media checklistI’ll go through these few slides but be aware that all the Information on the following few slides is available in this handout.
- #26: Now, as we get to the end of my ‘bit’, I just wanted to touch upon one of the points from the previous slide – keeping your professional and personal lives separate. I’m going to put my marketing hat on for a minute, and we’re going to spend a bit of time considering how by putting ourselves ‘online’, we are essentially creating a brand, in the product sense of the word.
- #27: At the beginning of the workshop, we looked at the pre-workshop survey questions, and deliberately left this one to the end.The question of ‘who does a great job managing their personal brand’ is one that needs to be looked at in the context of ‘what is it they are trying to achieve for their brand?High profile, high analytics does not equate to brand effectiveness. Who’s familiar with the Mayor of the City of Toronto fiasco?(unpack). Lots and lots of hits on YouTube, but for all the wrong reasons.