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In many ways, the keys to your success in business are right at your fingertips - literally. They are the keys on your computer keyboard.

Many people join Groups and Organizations in hopes affiliation will somehow help their careers, create a more visible Internet presence, or help them gain access to knowledge or people who can facilitate their success.

The problem with joining a Group or Organization is you’ll never get anything out of it if you don’t participate.

Even though a Group or Organization might have a large member population, it is an unfortunate reality that many Groups and Organizations actually have very low member participation.

As an example, I was recently asked to speak about building an on-line Internet presence at a Chapter meeting of the British American Business Council (formerly known as the British American Chamber of Commerce). This is one of the oldest organizations around having been formed in the 1950s, and is the largest transatlantic business network, with chapters — and 3,500 member companies — based in more than 20 major business centers throughout North America and the United Kingdom.

The local Chapter Director told me they have about 400 local members. I asked, “How many actually participate?” She responded, “Well typically about 30-40 will show up to a Chapter networking event, and the most we’ve ever had show up at a Chapter event was about 100 members.”

Unfortunately many people find face-to-face meetings to be a bit intimidating from a social perspective.

This can be true especially where someone’s career doesn’t necessarily cause them to interact with a lot of people they don’t actually know on a regular basis.

So how do you change this if you’re one of those less participatory members I’m alluding to (or the Chairman of a Club or Organization with less than optimal member participation)?

Get on your computer, and find out how to participate in your Group or Organization’s on-line forums.

If they don’t have one, then ask the Chapter Chairman to start one. Tell them the organization could leverage the on-line forum in a way that would create more community amongst the membership and draw less participating members into more active but less socially intimidating participation than face to face meetings. As members start participating more on-line, they will be more inclined to participate off-line in face to face meetings where they will actually have the opportunity to meet members they’ve developed relationship with on-line. On-line forums would also bridge the gap between face-to-face events providing continuity to the membership community as well. And if you have the ability to do so, offer up your assistance as an administrator or moderator of the on-line forum. Just think of how many people you could build relationships with on line - through your keyboard - in that role!!

If you want to leverage an existing on-line forum that can support creating a stronger membership community, Ecademy’s Club capability is a great place to start a branded on-line forum for your Group or Organization.

Ecademy will even set it up (for free) so you can charge a nominal fee for membership to make sure you’re going to have enough chips & salsa for all the additional members that are going to show up for your next face-to-face off-line event if you choose.

Happy Networking.

Ron Bates is an expert in mission critical retained executive search. He is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec’s responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process.

With +27,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as “the most connected man on Earth”. View Ron’s networking profile on Ecademy.

As a recognized expert in building an on-line personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, and is a regular guest on Netshare’s “Ask the Coach”.

Ron’s blog: Internet Presence - Do you exist? can be found at http://www.search-advantage.com

For more information on Conducting a Job Search Campaign go to http://www.job-search-campaign.com

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Personal Internet presence? Why should I care about a personal Internet presence? I don’t want recruiters bugging me.

Unfortunately, this is what most people early in their professional careers think about a personal Internet presence.

Whether you want recruiters bugging you or not, isn’t the point about being found on the Internet. The point is the world of business is changing rapidly, and the Internet is driving the change. The Internet is about access to, and the ability to communicate, information (i.e., there is a reason the Internet is called “The Information Highway”).

The Internet is the go-to resource more often than ever to find answers to questions that start with: who, what, where, when, why and how.

Being associated with the answers is a good thing in the context of your own professional value proposition. Most certainly, just being associated with the answers isn’t good enough anymore. You need to be visibly associated with the answers. In today’s business reality, that means being associated with the answers via content that can be found on the Internet.

Again, so you ask, “I still don’t get it. Why should I care?”

Answer: Most business professionals at all levels within corporate hierarchies are paid by employers, clients, and customers to contribute towards delivering results. How do we deliver results? We deliver results by solving problems: our employer’s, co-worker’s, client’s and/or customer’s problems.

It is becoming less and less common professionals spend their entire career working for one employer. Too many people let their careers happen to them. It is becoming every more important a professional take personal responsibility over their career advancement versus leaving it up to their employer to advance their career based on merit and/or opportunity.

Create an awareness of your ability to contribute to delivering results drives opportunity - within and outside of your current employer. Create a buzz that causes people to say, “I want that individual on my team.”

This is important when it comes to your next project assignment with your current employer. Being on the best projects often translates into the best pay, the best raise, and exposure to the next best project at your current employer - let alone exposure to your next employment opportunity.

Consequently, employees need to be responsible for their own value proposition, their own brand image, their own PR. Too many professionals make the statement, “I’m not very good at selling and/or marketing myself.” Getting good at selling and marketing yourself has high return on investment in the context of making the most of a professional career prior to retirement.

Leveraging the Internet to create visibility for your skills, abilities, and value proposition is actually simple - no matter how early you are in your career.

Everyone is an expert at something. For individuals early in their careers, it is simply being expert at solving the problems and answering the questions you are faced with every day.

When you find yourself answering the same kinds of questions, or addressing the same category of problems, write them down. Then write about these topics, and publish them on the Internet in blogs or articles. Simply make sure you are being generic enough to make sure you aren’t violating your employer’s non-disclosure agreement.

Take it one step further and don’t simply create Internet content. Actually learn how to create visible content people can find when they do relevant key word/phrase searches in Google and other search engines. The great thing about this learning curve is you don’t need to be a technologist to learn and understand a few basic principles you can leverage to create visible content that effectively establishes your visible personal Internet presence. Anyone can do this.

Leverage content publishing sites:

Example: Networking platforms like Ecademy whose blogging content benefits from high ranking in search engines.

Example: Ezine publishing sites like EzineArticles whose article content benefits from high ranking in search engines.

Combine this with cross linking URLs within content you create, and building key word/phrase association in the search engines by hyperlinking key word/phrases to the URLs of the content you create.

Don’t fail to leverage the Internet to create a visible value proposition. Take ownership of your brand image and PR. By implementing these simple principles, you’ll be building a base of visible content, and as a result, a visible personal Internet presence that will propel your career beyond those who don’t.

Ron Bates is an expert in mission critical retained executive search. He is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec’s responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process.

With +27,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as “the most connected man on Earth”. View Ron’s networking profile on Ecademy.

As a recognized expert in building an on-line personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, and is a regular guest on Netshare’s “Ask the Coach”.

Ron’s blog: Internet Presence - Do you exist? can be found at http://www.search-advantage.com

For more information on Conducting a Job Search Campaign go to http://www.job-search-campaign.com

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The power of a personal Internet presence was the subject of a conversation I had with a colleague the other day. He was trying to understand what the value of a personal Internet presence was to a non-executive.

I asked him if he saw value in other industry colleagues, peers, co-workers, subordinates, superiors, existing or prospective customers, media or trade-show personal, fellow industry association members, et al. being able to learn more about who he is as a person, a professional and/or his subject matter expertise and abilities. Notice I didn’t even mention - recruiters.

I then suggested if he believed there to be tangible value in the above, then having the ability to simply say, “If you’d like to know a little more about me, just Google me” is an extremely powerful statement. I also told him he’d really know how powerful this is when after saying this to someone they respond with, “I already Googled you; that’s why I contacted you.”

In the business world, we are all pressed for time, and most of us have far too many people asking for our time. Not only does having visible information on-line anyone can find by doing a simple “Google me” search help you when deciding whether or not to consent to a meeting with someone else, it can also help those who want to meet with you have a more aligned and productive conversation with you. This says nothing about the increased exposure it gives you in the business world to opportunities to share your subject matter expertise through speaking engagements, publications, forums, etc. Notice I didn’t even mention - career opportunities.

The key concept many people fail to understand is the following:

It is one thing to have content floating around the Internet pertaining to you. It is an entirely different thing to have content visible on the first page of hits when someone does Google you.

So how do you go about proactively not only building a personal Internet presence, but also building a visible Internet presence by driving content in your control to the first page of Google? Start writing. It’s that simple.

What do you write about? Write about the problems you solve everyday. Write about the systemic problems and/or issues you address everyday and how you address them based on your unique perspective and subject matter expertise. You don’t have to give away the farm. Simply speak about situations and solutions in more general terms.

This also begs the question: Where do I publish what I write? There are all kinds of places to publish content, but the media you’ll most likely want to publish in are blogs and articles. This content will typically become more visible (i.e., rank higher) in search engines faster than general personal or corporate website content you might publish. That said, all blogs and article sites are not created equal. There are many, many, places to publish content, but you want to publish content in places which will result in high ranking content that will ultimately show up on the first page of Google.

So how do you identify the “right” places to publish your content? Look for sites that have a lot of traffic combined with also having a lot of changing or new content. Sites that have these two elements going for them will typically result in content that ranks higher faster in the search engines. Sites combining a lot of traffic with blogging or article content are typically the best. On-line networking sites such as Ecademy combine a lot of traffic with constantly changing new blogging content. Article sites such as EzineArticles combine a lot of traffic with constantly changing new article content. You can also create even more exposure for the content you create by leveraging sites like ArticleMarketer that broadcast your article content to even more article, blog, newsletter, etc. publishing sites.

Here is the key: the power of leveraging sites such as Ecademy, EzineArticles, et al. comes from using them to point to other web content you’ve created and/or already exists that you want to drive higher in ranking in the search engines. You benefit from “guilt by association” as a result of hyperlinking to other content. When search engines like Google scan your content on sites like Ecademy and EzineArticles and find hyperlinks to other content, they give preferential ranking to the hyperlinked content.

With a little effort, and by leveraging the power of sites like I’ve mentioned above, you can build a visible personal Internet presence in as little as a couple of months. You will then be able to benefit from the power of being able to say, “If you’d like to know a little more about me, just Google me.”

Ron Bates is an expert in mission critical retained executive search. He is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec’s responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process.

With +27,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as “the most connected man on Earth”. View Ron’s networking profile on Ecademy.

As a recognized expert in building an on-line personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, and is a regular guest on Netshare’s “Ask the Coach”.

Ron’s blog: Internet Presence - Do you exist? can be found at http://www.search-advantage.com

For more information on Conducting a Job Search Campaign go to http://www.job-search-campaign.com

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