Personal Digital Brand: Developing Your Strategy

We know that digital is the new normal. As Nike CEO John Dinahoe has put it, the customer today is digitally grounded and simply will not revert back.

With more aspects of our lives incorporating digital, a strategic personal digital branding programme is now an essential component of a successful career plan.  In a previous blog, we discussed the steps you should take in order to define your personal digital brand. This stage required you to think realistically and critically about your personal and professional talents, strengths, achievements, and aspirations. You took the time to determine your purpose, set out your short to mid term goals, audit yourself, and identify the key accomplishments, skills, and attributes you need to champion to align to future market needs. The next step is it to delve into the ‘digital’ element, and how you can begin to convey that personal brand online.

The ‘Digital’ Aspects of Personal Digital Branding

For many, their perception of a ‘personal digital brand’ may be limited to a social media presence. While it is arguably the area with the most opportunity for growth and experimentation, your social profiles are not the only place where your brand comes to life.

Your online presence needs to match who you are in every other setting and scenario of your professional life. Your personal digital brand identity should be felt in the text and WhatsApp messages you send to your contacts. It needs to come across in the email communications you have with partners and prospects. Is the tone consistent? Do you convey similar messages across your digital footprint? This echoes the message in the earlier blog about consistency being the key to authenticity. Your personal digital brand will only work for you if it truly reflects who you are and what you have to offer professionally and how relevant it is for the future market trends and needs.

Social media is not the only digital element of your personal digital brand, but it is definitely where it will be leveraged and showcased the most. It is a tool that is proving too vital to ignore. According to a recent report, the most social media-savvy CEOs had a 5% higher Glassdoor rating, with their companies being rated 3% higher, too. C-suite leaders from some of the world’s top brands use social media daily to advocate for their organisations, establish themselves as industry voices and thought leaders, manage reputation, and build their own personal digital brand. To see some strong examples of this in action, visit the LinkedIn profiles of Walmart Inc’s Doug McMillon, Nasdaq’s Adena Friedman, or Royal Dutch Shell’s Ben van Beurden.

Looking at how other leading executives are using their social media to leverage their personal digital brand online should provide you with inspiration for developing your own strategy. Here is some guidance from us to get you started.

Deciding which Social Medium is right for you

We recommend that you choose one platform and focus your efforts on actively engaging your shareholders, employees, prospects, partners, industry peers, and the general public there. You do not need to maintain a presence on every single site. In fact, if you allocate your efforts properly, you can usually secure better results from a single platform than you would from attempting to be everywhere at once.

Typically, LinkedIn and Twitter are the two most popular platforms for professionals. LinkedIn is the most popular platform for corporate leaders with 44% of CEOs having some sort of presence, while Twitter is second choice with 15%. The choice of which platform to use may come down to personal preference. Some executives may feel overwhelmed by the range of available features on LinkedIn, while others may find Twitter’s character limit to be a bit challenging for detailed thought leadership.

There is a vast amount of data available about social media usage, segmented by a wide range of demographic and psychographic characteristics. If you know who you want to target, you should definitely look into where you have the best chance of reaching them and how they actually use their chosen platforms. It will vary by site.

It is called social networking for a reason, so ask your peers, colleagues, and contacts what platforms they use and how they use them. Check out your competitors’ profiles to see how they exploit social media. If there is a person you particularly admire, learn from their profiles and note what you believe they are doing right.

Even if you already have a social media presence, there is always something you can learn from your peers. Social media is not static. Platforms, trends, and user behaviours change regularly, and your strategy will need to evolve.

Top Tips for Social Media Engagement

Here are some general social media guidelines to follow for those wanting to build their own personal digital branding presence

• Don’t Overwhelm Your Audience: The point of maintaining a professional social media presence is to get in front of your audiences, but there is a fine line between under sharing, oversharing, and just the right amount of frequency. You will of course want to post frequently enough to be seen and considered ‘active,’ but not so much that your posts become irritating and off-putting. If your posts clog their feeds, you risk your audience tuning out or unfollowing. A good rule of thumb is to post three to five times per week, and no more than twice in one day.
• Build an Online Community: Treat your social media community the way you would treat your wider digital or offline contacts. Follow or connect with your colleagues, stakeholders, partners, contacts, and prospects. If you attend an event or speak at a conference, connect with the other attendees or speakers. Also, be sure to follow key figures in your specific industry, news sources, or prominent companies. Interact with others’ content by liking, resharing with commentary, or leaving value-add or encouraging comments. LinkedIn has a Groups feature, which allows professionals to connect with and share insights with professionals they share interests or characteristics with. There is a group for almost everything. Start by exploring relevant groups for your industry or job function, and then look into others related to your geography, education, or other characteristics (i.e. ‘Women in Business’ groups)
• Be Personable: When reaching out to new connections on LinkedIn, be sure you always customise the invitation. These requests feel much more personal and are less likely to be ignored or denied. Your invitation should briefly introduce the contact to you, highlight any common ground you may share (i.e. attendance at a recent conference, group membership, mutual contacts), and close with a friendly message. Just as you would not lead with a sales pitch when meeting face-to-face, you should not attempt to sell overtly in these connection request messages.
• Content is Key: Ensure that your content reflects the goals you set for yourself and the personal digital brand image you defined early on in the process. Your content should not be self-promotion, and to be considered a thought leader you need to contribute to the greater conversation. Share third-party articles relevant to your industry job function, new regulations, or pertaining to other areas of interest or causes you champion. However, instead of simply sharing links, be sure to add some analysis or commentary. If allowed, keep your followers updated about the projects you are working on, the events you are attending and participating in, or the latest news from your company. Your content should reflect that you are tuned into what is going on in your industry and you have valuable insights to offer. Your followers should be able to get a good sense of your interests and positioning based on the content you curate.
• Pay Attention to Your Audience: Keep track of what’s working and what isn’t for your audience. What types of posts resonate the most or earn the most engagement? What time of day does your audience seem to be most active? Do not be afraid to experiment with different times and alternative types of content until you find what works for both you and your followers.

Your hard work in the early stages of digital personal branding will start to take a concrete shape once you begin applying the principles of your brand online. It will require trial and error, but so long as you remain authentic and stay focused on your goals, maintaining your brand will become a natural and integral part of your regular workday activity and attract opportunities you seek.

Reflecting on the ways we worked 15 years ago feels like gazing into another world. If you wanted to check your emails out of hours, you didn’t have a smartphone to do it on; you used a Blackberry or a mobile made by Nokia. We had yet to truly reap the business benefits of social media, as at the time Facebook was just for students, Twitter was still a year from introduction, and we wouldn’t post to Instagram for another five years. Jobs like SEO specialist, UX designer, Cloud services manager, and more simply did not exist. We even sent faxes still – and regularly!

That was 2005, which simultaneously feels like yesterday and eons ago. If that much change can happen in the workplace within a period of 15 years, imagine what the next five, ten, or 15 years will bring.

The truth is, the future of work is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed. Certain industries and sectors have adapted quickly to new technology and have been successfully implementing it for a while now. Even in the laggard industries, there are certain companies that either had the foresight or the budget to adapt quickly, and now find themselves leagues ahead of their peers and competitors as a result. But soon enough, those laggards will be faced with a sink-or-swim ultimatum to either catch up or be left behind for good.

It can be extremely hard to prepare when you aren’t sure what lies ahead, or how to get there. Many times, it is a team and stakeholder alignment issue of getting people onto the same page quickly – and understanding all voices. In the face of so much disruption and rapid change, how can you scale top line growth at the right margin, ensure high performance, improve employee wellbeing and customer experience, or develop and successfully execute new business strategies? The answer lies in Augmented Intelligence – Consulting (AI-C).

Defining the ‘Future of Work’

Before you can prepare for what’s next, you need to understand exactly what that entails. Many people hear the term ‘future of work’ and envision a world run by robots or a scene from a science fiction film. While elements of increased automation will play a key role in the future workforce, what we’re discussing here is much less drastic as humans and robots work together to form hybrid working. As mentioned, the future of work is already here; it’s just that your organisation may not be there yet.

Essentially, the future of work involves humans and technology working together in partnership to accomplish tasks in a more agile, effective, and efficient manner than ever before. Smartphones, social media, and other technology have become commonplace not only in the office, but in our everyday lives. As a result, today’s customers and multi-generational workforce increasingly value personalised, immersive data-driven experiences.

Business leaders have access to more data than they ever have before. In fact, the total amount of data that is created, captured, copied, and consumed globally is forecast to reach 59 zettabytes in 2020 and more than double to 149 zettabytes by 2024[1]. Businesses are beginning to understand the value of the data they generate and collect, but many are struggling to use it properly. Technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) can help to make sense of and use this data in ways we never would have imagined possible previously.

New software and tools are introduced to the market daily, all of which aim to turn available data into insights or to accomplish a specific task. There are tools available that can monitor every online conversation about your brand to provide insight into customer attitudes, write content for you, handle your hiring, identify sales opportunities, and so much more.

Surely, tech-driven environments require tech-focused solutions. But there’s so much more to this than simply adopting some new tools and updating your equipment.

Securing increased Alignment with AI-C

The humans involved in the change process are far more important than the technology. Most change or transformation programmes fail because of misalignment, with research sources quoting between 50% to 84% over the last 25+ years, which negatively impacts careers and business progress. The way that leaders think and manage their teams needs to become more agile and flexible in order to keep up with the rate of change and effectively execute new growth strategies.

It’s ‘easy’ for the C-suite to decide to sign off a transformation process, but most of the implementation will happen at every level of the business. A typical team raises on average 167 opinions on a given topic and 61 barriers as to why it can’t be done. If there is discord, lack of clarity, or miscommunications throughout the business, the change process has a very high potential for failure.

This is where Augmented Intelligence – Consulting (AI-C) can be massively advantageous. This advanced method of management consulting combines concepts from Harvard academics Professor Chris Argyris (Action Science) and Professor Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Prize recipient (Game Theory), as well as SchellingPoint’s applied research into Relational Network Analysis. It has been proven in over 500 real-world business projects and applications. This breakthrough in change management and leadership methodology is also now being taught at some of the US and UK’s leading business schools including Wharton, Warwick and Cornell.

Through this ‘lean’ consulting process, AI-C helps business leaders produce a credible and complete roadmap to address today’s business, cultural and digital transformations. This can include the creation of a new target operating model, cost reduction, efficiency, productivity requirements and strategic growth. AI-C gives everyone in the organisation a voice in co-shaping change and optimises alignment to future goals. It accelerates business-focused learning, reduces bias, increases collaborative thinking and insights in relation to securing future business goals. As a result, AI-C helps leaders adapt and increase the speed of decision-making to rapidly changing marketplaces, overcome increased competition, improve processes by implementing automation or next-generation technologies, determine policies, and develop new market-winning business strategies.

One of the key benefits of AI-C is its cost-effectiveness. It is delivered predominantly through virtual dialogues without the need for in-person meetings or workshops, which is ideal in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. The average timeline for an AI-C project is 6-8 weeks but it can be completed in as little as 3 days. Therefore, the AI-C process is concluded as efficiently and effectively as possible for significantly less cost than deploying internal resources and results in a more reliable, valid and endorsed set of actions to deliver business outcomes.

Business has come a long way in recent years, and there’s more change yet to come. While some businesses thrive ahead of the curve, others risk getting left behind indefinitely if they do not adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace. It’s clear that in this face-paced and increasingly competitive space, the old tools and methods of leading will not suffice. AI-C can help business leaders undergo their transformation process as effectively as possible by ensuring organisational alignment. In a time where leaders and workplaces need to become more agile to succeed, AI-C is fit for purpose for the digital age and gives both internal/external stakeholders more of a voice in tackling any business challenge.

We invite you to join us for our Future of Work virtual seminar on 18^th November. Associate Director Russell Beck and Rialto Director Richard Chiumento will examine the global trends impacting the workplace and providing useful insights into how organisations and employees can futureproof themselves. Register here

Additionally, to learn more about our AI-C methodology, you can join Associate Directors Lesley Lindberg and George Mystkowski for our virtual seminar on 3^rd December where they will be sharing how one Company used AI-C to help shape and implement new and high performing working practices following COVID-19 challenges. Register here

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/

Only a small number of organisations have been able to successfully scale their digital initiatives beyond the experimentation and piloting stages, a study finds, which identifies six barriers which must be navigated on when embarking on a digital transformation journey.

Business analyst Gartner contends that this is because digital transformation requires more than simply investing in the latest technology – it demands significant changes to culture and systems.

“To change an organisation designed for a structured, ordered, process-oriented world to one designed for ecosystems, adaptation, learning and experimentation is hard,” said Marcus Blosch, research vice president at Gartner.

“Some organisations will navigate that change, and others that can’t change will become outdated and be replaced.”

The six barriers and Gartner’s advice on overcoming them are outlined below:

1 A change-resisting culture

“Culture is organisational ‘dark matter’ – you can’t see it, but its effects are obvious,” said Blosch. “The challenge is that many organisations have developed a culture of hierarchy and clear boundaries between areas of responsibilities. Digital innovation requires the opposite: collaborative cross-functional and self-directed teams that are not afraid of uncertain outcomes.”

Those aiming to establish a digital culture should start small: define a digital mindset, assemble a digital innovation team, and shield it from the rest of the organisation to let the new culture develop. Connections between the digital innovation and core teams can then be used to scale new ideas and spread the culture.

2 Limited sharing and collaboration

Digital innovation with its collaborative cross-functional teams is often very different from what employees are used to with regards to functions and hierarchies and resistance is inevitable.

“It’s not necessary to have everyone on board in the early stages. Try to find areas where interests overlap, and create a starting point,” said Blosch. “Build a first version, test the idea and use the success story to gain the momentum needed for the next step.”

3 The business isn’t ready

Many business leaders are caught up in the hype around digital business. But when the CIO or CDO wants to start the transformation process, it turns out that the business doesn’t have the skills or resources needed.

Gartner recommends focusing on the early adopters with the willingness and openness to change and leverage digital. But keep in mind that digital may just not be relevant to certain parts of the organisation.

4 The talent gap

Employees need new skills focused on innovation, change and creativity along with the new technologies themselves, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT)

“In smaller or more innovative organisations, it is possible to redefine individuals’ roles to include more skills and competencies needed to support digital,” said Blosch. “In other organisations, using a bimodal approach makes sense by creating a separate group to handle innovation with the requisite skill set.”

5 Current practices don’t support the talent

“Some organisations may shift to a product management-based approach for digital innovations because it allows for multiple iterations,” said Blosch. “Operational innovations can follow the usual approaches until the digital team is skilled and experienced enough to extend its reach and share the learned practices with the organisation.”

 6 Change isn’t easy

Developing platforms, changing the organisational structure, and creating an ecosystem of partners is challenging.

According to Gartner, enterprises should build the organisational capabilities that make change simpler and faster. To do that, it said, they should develop a platform-based strategy that supports continuous change and design principles and then innovate on top of that platform.

It seems that UK leaders still need reminding that people are what makes the difference between success and failure in a digital transformation programme, not technology.

New research published today by Capita Resourcing finds that four-fifths of HR leaders (82 per cent) reckon their workforce needs to improve its skills in order to get the most out of digital transformation. The vast majority (94 per cent) of HR leaders report difficulties accessing the skills their organisation requires to support its transformation objectives, and the research reveals that many of the most significant transformation challenges facing organisations are skills-related.

Significantly, more than one third (36 per cent) of businesses are suffering due to a lack of leadership skills and experience of running change programmes, while 35 per cent are finding it difficult to predict future jobs and skills requirements. Beyond this, 29 per cent are held back by a lack of digital skills among their workforce and 28 per cent are hampered by a lack of access to high quality digital talent.

The white paper based on the research, The Case for Workforce-led Transformation, also reveals that there is still too much emphasis placed on technology. More than 200 HR leaders at companies employing more than 100 people reported that their organisations have primarily focused on technology within their digital transformation programmes, in terms of resource, investment and time. Only one third felt that culture and people have been a key focus in their transformation strategies up until now, and only 35 per cent stated that skills had been prioritised.

“Our research has clearly highlighted that digital transformation is about so much more than just technology,” says Geoff Smith, executive director at Capita Resourcing. “Organisations must start to realise that transformation always needs to be workforce-driven. He adds that HR must protect and establish the right culture and behaviours within the workforce and they must also work closely alongside their counterparts in IT.

This isn’t the first research study to throw light on why organisations find digital transformation so difficult even though it has been on the agenda for several years now. There is no doubt that such transformation represents one of the biggest and deepest change programmes that some organisations have ever faced. In many cases, it touches every part of an organisation so, of course, is going to bring a significant number of challenges. But organisations must learn from others and stop repeating the mistake of placing technology before people. Problems also seem to be rooted in the silo-based mentality that has existed in too many companies for too long. The far-reaching nature that digital transformation brings exposes the risks of departments and a lack of joined-up thinking within firms.

Ultimately, there is only one direction in which to look to address these issues: the top. Once again a lack of leadership is cited as one of the problems but there is only a limited window of time left in which this void can be tolerated and it is already threatening the future of companies. Leaders need to ensure that not only must skills, culture and talent rise to the top of the agenda but that they remain there throughout the digital journey and beyond.

No-one said digital transformation was going to be easy but it seems many organisations are a long way off even beginning to realise the benefits of their initiatives. According to a new report from self-service integration specialist, SnapLogic, two-fifths of organisations are behind schedule with their plans or are yet to start them. More than two-thirds (69 per cent) have had to re-evaluate their digital transformation strategy and, as a result of this, three-fifths (59 per cent) said they would do things differently if they had an opportunity.

Market research company, Vanson Bourne, carried out the survey on 500 IT decision-makers, representing medium- and large businesses with more than 500 employees across the UK and US. Three fifths (58 per cent) admitted that there is a degree of confusion within the organisation around what they are trying to achieve.

This all makes for worrying reading and even more alarming are some of the common roadblocks identified: internal politics (34 per cent); lack of centralised ownership (22 per cent); and a lack of senior management buy-in (17 per cent). More than half (55 per cent) noted that a reliance on legacy technologies and/or a lack of the right technologies within their organisation was holding them back, while one third were stalled by a lack of the right skilled talent, and 31 per cent reported that data silos were causing problems.

Additionally, one fifth of organisations didn’t test or pilot their digital transformation projects before deploying them company-wide, while 21 per cent of IT decision-makers continued to roll out company-wide digital transformation despite unsuccessful pilot programmes in one part of the business.

Gaurav Dhillon, CEO at SnapLogic, described the research as a stark wake-up call to the technology industry that they must do a better job advising, partnering with, and supporting customers in their digital transformation journey “if we are to ever see the reality of a digital-first economy”.

It is not only the technology industry that should be shouldering the responsibility for these failures though and senior leadership should not escape blame. Given the scale and pace of the change, it perhaps isn’t entirely unexpected that internal politics and lack of project ownership are issues but there shouldn’t be a senior leadership team in the land that doesn’t have buy-in to their digital transformation strategy. Indeed, they should be championing and leading such programmes.

No leader should be allowing failed pilots to run out in other parts of the organisation. Aside from the costs this could incur, it risks alienating and demotivating employees. We can only assume that too many leaders are distancing themselves from digital transformation projects and outsourcing responsibility to those below them. This simply isn’t good enough and programmes will continue to fall short of expectations if this situation prevails.

Digital transformation represents a massive opportunity for organisations to be more efficient, more productive, to break into new markets, win new customers and develop new products and services. It also gives leaders an opportunity to shape a brave new business world and make their mark in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. None of the above will happen though unless leaders grasp this opportunity with both hands and get stuck in.