You may not have given much thought to this question until the recent popularity and emergence of social media touched the masses. Beyond the social implications of this new media, social networks and social online tools play an essential role for all professionals, entrepreneurs, and business people. Posted content and images either add or subtract from your desired brand.

With over 800 million profiles on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn, and millions more on micro social sites, a mug shot or profile avatar has quite a bit of brand power.

Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Associate Professor and Mervin Bower Fellow in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School conducted extensive research on the subject of social media and images. His findings indicate 70 percent of all social media actions are related to viewing pictures or other peoples’ profiles.

The day when only authors, rock stars, celebrities, and other gurus needed to consider their photo images is gone. Today everyone has a new stage on which to shine or look like a goofball.

And this is not limited to online social communities; the same goes for speakers at conferences. Regardless of your professional status as a speaker, if you are contributing to the program and the organization is promoting you on a Web site, your image counts. This also applies to printed association directories and what you put on your own Web site.

Your mug is your surrogate persona and a voice for your brand.

Don’t fall victim to the crappy, old, and tired photo thing. You can control this part of your brand.

If your goal is to build an online footprint that supports your professional substance and brand, here are some tips I recommend to get the biggest bang from your mug shot.

1) Consistency is key.
Use the same image of you in all of your social communities. This will build equity in your visual mark and strengthen the memory factor.

2) Production quality says a lot about you.
Grainy, wrong, and low-resolution images scream cheesy, unprofessional, and that you are foreign to the online environment.

3) Project your true you.
If you are a creative soul, let your photo image convey that. Cropping, adding a compelling prop, and the right facial expression can achieve that.

Are edge and risk part of your brand? Then demonstrate this with the style of image.

Are you serious, conservative, or highly intelligent? A traditional portrait may best suit you.

For any of these personas, consider your wardrobe, accessories, and the background. All of these elements project a message.

4) Keep your image current.
There is nothing worse than meeting someone who is 25 years older than his or her published photos. Update your photos every couple of years, unless you look pretty much the same—and good for you! This can be a trust issue too.

5) Invest in your brand.
Using a group shot where others were cropped out of the original, or posting a poorly-lit image with no contrast to feature your brilliance are often the product of being cheap and not valuing your brand. Your photo image is often the first thing people associate with you and your qualities.

Remember, first impressions only happen once and people make immediate judgments based on what they see.

As noted on front page of Oddpodz, we are experiencing some changes to our site. Our plan is to re-launch in the next 30 days with better social dialogue tools, more blog contributors, and useful tools to help you grow your business.

During our transition, some items in the Community section of the site are not functioning properly. We are working on all of these.

Thank you for your patience!

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

Hope everyone had good Labor Day, whether you were relaxing or keeping your entrepreneurial pedal to the metal.

My weekend was very productive and enjoyable. I got some serious thinking and writing completed. I played solid tennis and watched the US Open too.

Holidays on Mondays always seem to throw my calendar off a bit. I thought it was Monday all day.

It likely didn’t help matters that I spent half the day grueling over two fraud charges on one of my credit cards.

A lesson about fraud for everyone with a credit card.

Six months ago, I noticed two charges on one of my credit cards. The first flag: it was a card I never use; the second: it was paid to Web hosting company with whom I have not done business.

I immediately called American Express. They opened an investigation and removed the charges. I never thought about it again, until this morning when I received two letters from a collections agency about these two charges, demanding payment and informing me that my credit score was at risk.

Again, I called American Express immediately. They were very nice and helpful, but explained that once something goes to a collection agency, they are out of the loop and the responsibility is back on the card owner. They said I needed to call the collections agency. Boy that was a treat. Even though they tell you that the calls will be monitored, the service and level of kindness was a minus 15 on a 1-5 scale.

This took one and one-half hours. I got disconnected twice and rerouted three times. When I finally had a live person on the phone, she scolded me for assuming the credit card company had handled the matter and informed me I needed to call the company who registered the charge. Here we go again.

I called the Web service provider and experienced the same dreadful phone tree, excessive hold time, disconnect, and redirect for around an hour more. Eventually, I heard “Customer service and billing how can I help you?”
I explained my story again, now for the third time to the 11th person, and he said, “Ma’am, just because American Express removed the charge from your card, does not mean you don’t owe us this money. It is your responsibility to contact our fraud department if, in fact, you think its fraud. Would you like me to connect you?”

In a calm, yet hostile voice I said, “Please!”

Wouldn’t you know it—the fraud department voice mailbox was full. I had to leave a message and I got a double shot of tequila.

About an hour later a gentleman phoned me back. “I’m Josh from fraud services at company XYZ returning your call.” I explained my situation again; I don’t know this company, never bought anything from them, etc. He put me on hold and said, “Let me look into something.”

After grilling me with bunch of questions, there was a pause. “Ms. Post, I see a series of missing information in this record. That means I believe you are telling the truth and concur that this is fraud charge. I will remove the charge of $39.00 from your account and you are free to get back to your life.” OK, I made up that last part.

Here’s the point. A small charge like this one for $39.00 can screw up your credit for a long time and cause you to waste a boat load full of precious time along the way.

If something appears on your credit card that is not yours, you must file a claim with the provider, and monitor it until it is resolved. Filing a claim with your credit card is not enough!

In the midst of this bloody mess, while on hold, via one of my great interns, I did discover two very cool, FREE tools to help monitor your competition and your online footprint success. Check these out.

Find out what your site is worth

$timator.com is a calculator that ranks a site’s worth based on SEO, content, back links, traffic, and more and provides you a snapshot of your online effectiveness. Happy to report, Oddpodz earned a “very good” on overall site evaluation and a valuation of just under $600,000. You can run your site along with any of your competitors.

Find out how your site is ranking with social media, buzz, and other marketing channels

Dataopedia.com provides a lot of diverse data concerning the Web; gathering data from more than 50 sources. Datopedia.com is an aggregation web service that lets users find out all the valuable facts about any website, such as traffic, online buzz, contact information, popularity in social bookmarking services…in short, all the essential facts about every website you can come across on the Internet.

This tool is one-stop resource for finding website facts, and the service can be accessed via the website, the mobile site, embeddable widgets for your website, and browser add-ons.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

Last week I earned many of your eyeballs by sharing how I scored a 6-figure gig while using Twitter.

Twitter is definitely a viable method for communicating to prospects, clients, and business fans but, like many new social platforms, it can be overwhelming. Not just how it works, but also how to utilize all the handy applications that are available to enhance your experience and value gained with it.

Twitter is a microblog that enables real-time messaging to the world via your computer or mobile device. The only rule—your message must be under 140 characters.

Start slow and simple. Add apps as you get comfortable with it.

Here’s a rundown on some of my favorite Twitter tools and how I use them. If you have discovered a Twitter tool that really rocks, please share it in a comment on the Oddpodz blog, so others can learn about it.

1) Grade your Twitter profile. Try Twitter grader learn to see if your tweet power, authority, and reach are working for you. This grader not only gives you a score, but tells you how to amp things up.

2) Organize and manage your tweets Better. Check out TweetDeck. This cool tool is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now; connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, and more. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date.

3) Analyze your tweets. Twitter analyzer is amazing. This is a great tool to see what type of professionals are following you, how many people you are reaching beyond your followers, who is tweeting about you, and lots more.

4) Track the Twitter addicts by location. Twitterholic lets you find people in a geographic area and also ranks you in the world of Twitterers. For example, since I live in Tampa, I searched with http://Twitterholic.com/top100/followers/bylocation/Tampa/ and learned how often Tampa folks were tweeting and who they were. I also learned that I am #52 in active Tampa tweeters.

5) How does your profile compare to others (like your competitors) and how do subjects compare. Twittervolume provides a great snapshot. Type in your handle along with competitors; Tweetvolume shows you the volume tweets. Want to find the best key word? Type in several like I did: sales, marketing, branding, and women business. Guess which ranked highest? I won’t tell—you’ll have to check it out.

A blog post on Twitter tools could go on for days. Every day, new and improved Twitter tools are hatched. If you need more good ideas, check out my pal Chris Brogan’s blog, he has a great post called “50 ideas for using Twitter for Biz”
Also see my other super-smart marketing friend John Jantsch of “Duct Tape Marketing,” at ducttapemarketing. John’s blog is filled with sound insight.

Have an awesome week! And don’t forget to check out Oddpodz Free Biz Findz. This week we are adding 20 new super, cool, and FREE items.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers¹ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

And connect more dots.

One of the most important attributes of a being a successful entrepreneur is having the ability to generate fresh and meaningful ideas, often. Then, connect the dots to move your business forward.

Many times circumstances for entrepreneurs make this pretty darn challenging. You have a microscopic budget, no staff, juggle two full-time jobs to pay your bills and your cat has the chicken pox; all while you’re building your dream.

No problem. Some of the biggest and best ideas are birthed because of the above. Why? Because you are forced to be a truly creative problem solver.

My best creative thinking happens when I stimulate my brain by exposing myself to other cool ideas that empower me to recognize patterns, think in a metaphoric way, and absorb a lot of information quickly.

Here are 4 easy ways to increase your idea flow.
1) Visit online and offline, high-volume idea venues.
Trend reporting websites like Springwise and Iconoculture are two of my favorites. Springwise showcases entrepreneurial ideas from around the globe, and Iconoculture recaps top consumer and business trends with a good mix of recent market facts and statistics in a free newsletter.

Schedule a trip to a shopping mall. Don’t go to shop. Go to discover with a conscious eye. Watch how people behave and respond to marketing initiatives; evaluate displays, and listen to conversations.

Annually attend industry tradeshows in innovative sectors. Journal what you see; the good and bad, pick up marketing collateral and take pictures of exhibits and people.

2) Pay attention to smart, successful companies and people.
My list includes competitors and random organizations, both large and small. I keep an admiration notebook and folder on my computer. I include words, images, and processes that I find intriguing.

3) Develop a habit of producing idea quotas.
This means, need a solution or big idea? Set a daily volume quota for your ideas. For instance, need a new product name? Jot down five possibilities a day for two weeks. Invite a friend or colleague to do the same. In 14 days you’ll have at least 70 seeds for finding your big idea. Remember, don’t set any limits for your ideas, the wilder the better. Ignore budget restrictions and don’t strive for the perfect idea; aim for quantity.

4) Master the art of scan and skim, and read more.
Early in my career I attended a workshop on how to read the Wall Street Journal in less than 15 minutes. This 60-minute class dramatically increased the amount of information I can absorb which, in today’s world of massive data deluge, is a necessary skill to have.

Here’s the fast track on how to be a better scanner and skimmer of publications.

Turn off distractions like music and the TV. Go straight to a publication content summary, sometimes this is the table of contents, sometimes it is a special section that features top stories. Find subjects that interest you, jump to those articles. Then read the subheads, the intro and the last paragraph. This filtering method is a quick and efficient way to cover a lot of ground. I also scan all visuals, images, and charts and graphs and set a reading time limit on a publication. I also use an index card to underline what I’m reading and I highlight information I want to retain.

New, different, and sometimes even recycled ideas are the vital ingredients for problem solving and connecting the dots. The better and bigger the idea flow, the higher propensity you’ll achieve success.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

CBS’s 10Connect in Tampa filmed a segment on Oddpodz. Interns Sarah, Justin and Baptiste got walk on roles.

Check out the broadcast segment.

Trying to get publicity on your business can be a grueling effort. You are competing with every organization out there, the news professionals are many times extreme stress baskets and under huge deadlines, and then there’s the $2 million dollar question “what is really news worthy?”.

This past week I called one of the local news stations about doing a feature on Oddpodz. I reached the morning show producer, but unfortunately, she was putting out a fire and gave me about 15 seconds to tell her our story. At the end of my sprint pitch, she requested, why don’t you email me something. “Great” I replied, “it’s on its way”.

I sent her a brief, to -the-point note about our company and three angles that may light her fire. I knew her show was a mix of stay-at-home businesses and professionals on their way to work. I attempted to appeal to those audiences.

A couple days passed. No word from my contact at the station, should I call her, email her again or blow it off?

I rationalized, sure she’s busy, but they all need news and our company is newsworthy—so I picked up the phone and followed up.

Man, I’m glad I did. When I got her on the line, she recalled the company and me. She politely said, “I do remember seeing the information and I also remember accidentally throwing it out. Can you send it again?” Sure can.

I resent the info, waited another day and called her again. This time she was very attentive, had questions and said, “sounds like a perfect story for Monday’s morning news, we’ll send cameras today and can you be at the your office at 4:30 AM Monday for a live feed too?” Absolutely!

Quick PR lessons.

1) Timing is the magic in the news room.

There are slow news days, interviews cancel, breaking news can bump your piece off the schedule, but TV stations always need stories. Scoring a segment often is not just about the hard news factor of your pitch, but about filling the airways and lucky timing.

2) The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

My follow up calls got us booked. If your story is newsworthy, non-annoying and resilient follow up calls can definitely make a difference.

3) Don’t give up so easy.

If you get a big fat, “No we are not interested”, don’t take it personal and throw in the towel. Re slice that cheese, there are many, many ways to present a story. Ask yourself, would it fly if it were tied into something already in the news, like a current affair? what about if it were pitched as a round up story with 2-3 other examples? or what about connecting it to a holiday?

4) News is often like art, its value or market merit is often left up to the eyes and the schedule of the producer.

We’ve all seen stupid stories that sound like the biggest commercial ever, with no apparent news angle, and wonder “How did that get aired?” Someone was persistent.

Our story ran this morning and will again run at noon, plus with the Internet, it will be streamed later today and be around forever, got to love that.

That’s an interesting mix of subjects that should resonate with most of our readers. I must admit, I’m starting to really enjoy this blogging thing. Sharing what I know and what I believe with a bunch of creative-minded biz friends is fun and challenging.

Blogging.
As I sit down at my keyboard tonight and begin to write this week’s posts I ponder about some things.

1) Should this blog and Oddpodz for that matter be more narrowly focused, our content, tools and offerings?
Today, we strive to give creative-minded business people and organizations, from a 1 person solo practice to a 500-person enterprise, good ideas, free tools and a network to find and connect with other valuable resources and people.

Is diversity a good thing? Or is a more laser-like target better? Please tell us what you think.

2) What does it take to build a power blog?
In general terms, we know it’s about good content, ongoing SEO efforts and participating in other high traffic communities and blogs. But what are the top 10 most powerful actions a blogger can do to significantly move the reader meter.

I’m going to post both of these questions in our forum and invite you to add your feedback. I’ve been using my Linkedin groups quite a bit to have discussions on a bunch of issues. I’ll be compiling these soon and sharing them with in Oddpodz.

Headlines.
It was my intention to next blog about my friend Dan Schawbel’s new book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success

Me 2.0 teaches people how to use social media tools for personal brand building and is the first book of this kind written for the millennials generation. I suppose us older folks can also learn from this book, since we often act like we are 30 something. The book is great and I will be posting a review in the book review section in the Oddpodz forum and will dedicate our Tues. blog to some of the book’s highlights and the topic of personal branding.

Sorry, I got side tracked.
As I was crafting my blog title on personal branding, I discovered a very cool, free tool that analyzes headlines for its emotion marketing impact. As you know, reaching your customers in a deep and emotional way is a key to successful copywriting, and your headline is unquestionably the most important piece of copy you use to reach prospects.

The Advanced Marketing Institute provides the free headline analysis tool.
The Advanced Marketing Institute is a group of researchers, educators, and developers who have come together to provide real tools and knowledge to businesses and individuals who are tired of struggling to control their chaotic systems.

How does the Headline Analyzer work?
Simple go to: Headline Analyzer

Type in your headline. It must be under 20 words. Hit analyze this.
Your headline will be analyzed and scored based on the total number of Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) words it has in relation to the total number of words it contains. This will determine the EMV score of your headline. In addition to the EMV score, You will find out which emotion inside your customer’s your headline most impacts:

Intellectual
Words which are especially effective when offering products and services that require reasoning or careful evaluation.

Empathetic
Words which resonate in with Empathetic impact often bring out profound and strong positive emotional reactions in people.

Spiritual
Words which are especially effective when offering products and services that require reasoning or careful evaluation. Words which resonate in with Empathetic impact often bring out profound and strong positive emotional reactions in people. Words which have the strongest potential for influence and often appeal to people at a very deep emotional level.

So I tested out a few headlines. There is no limit to how many headlines you can get feedback on.

Remember this title is for a blog post for Dan Schawbel’s new book,and other personal branding insight.

My first headline: Be a business magnet Project Authority Earn trust Win Contracts
My Headline’s EMV Score: 40%

My 2nd headline: How to be a business magnet, project authority, earn trust and win contracts today
My Headline’s EMV Score: 42.86%

My 3rd headline: Stop losing opportunities. Be your strongest business magnet, exude authority, earn trust and win more clients today My Headline’s EMV Score: 52.94%

This score indicates that my headline has a total of 52.94% Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) Words. To put that in perspective, the English language contains approximately 20% EMV words. And for comparison, most professional copywriters’ headlines will have 30%-40% EMV Words in their headlines, while the most gifted copywriters will have 50%-75% EMV words in headlines.

Yahoo, I’m gifted! For at least a few minutes.
This is a cool tool and gets you really thinking about how to write more emotionally charged copy. But for a blog title, it also has me thinking search engine results. So my recommendation is: Headlines should be short and include keywords, use the highest rated title as a subtitle.

In closing, what does constipation have to do with any of this?
Well for starters, brilliant comedians have been leveraging this writing technique for years. It’s called a triple. Two words are normal, expected and could go together. The last word is goofy, unexpected and some times shocking. Which makes the choice and combination of these three words so effective in getting attention and hopefully a laugh. You can use this method when you are speaking or writing.

Last week I talked about dealing with creative brain freeze, which could also be described as creative constipation. This week I’ve been jamming, pumping out ideas and enjoying my favorite things, writing, thinking and problem solving. If my thawing your brain tips and the free ebook on creative productive we recommended didn’t help, start reading Mark McGuinness’ blog, it’s amazing! Or, eat more fiber.

No matter what your budget is you can launch this priceless campaign and start reaping the rewards right away.

Say thank you to your customers, your employees, your prospects and your vendors. And not just when you like what they dished out.

When they do business with you
When they compliment your company
When they offer suggestions
When they try something new
When they recommend a friend
When they are patient
When they help you serve them better
When they complain
When they make you smile

If you have a budget, say it with a note, a gift, a card, a phone call, a meal or with a personal visit. Emails count but, not as much.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Oddpodz is not a Facebook and not a Linkedin and does not want to be.

While we appreciate both of their roles in business, they are enormous tracks of land, full of weeds, bugs, ugly and beautiful flowers. They are general spaces and if you are not careful, you can easily get lost.

The mega sites growth has been remarkable, the combined two sites of Facebook and Linkedin is over 250 million people strong. Social networks have truly changed the way people communicate, get info and even how brands market. It is a whole new ballgame.

In 2006, we started the Oddpodz community with the goal of building a place for creative-minded people to unite, share ideas and gain stuff that makes a difference. Like a lot of young companies, we have good days and days we ask ourselves, why us, why this? Yep, that can be frustrating at times, but we continue to move forward and grow. Our community has gone from two people with a passion and an idea to a wonderful network of talent, creativity and growing businesses. We touch over 10,000 creative people every week.

Jocelyn and I have been working hard at making the Oddpodz site more useful, easier to get around and richer with ideas and content that helps you prosper.

The Oddpodz team is a very small group of dedicated creative souls.

In addition to the founders, we are like to recognize other important people that are adding to the growth and value of our community. Some have been with us since the beginning, others have recently joined the team. They include: Jack Omlor, Kristen Friend, Michelle Carrigan, Ann Marie Gardner, Son Nguyen, Kyle Williams, Shaina Bindeman, Heidi and Victor Morrill and the Wyndstorm development team. In addition to working with Oddpodz, they all have their own gigs too. You can learn more about their talents through the Oddpodz network search tool.

We are now ready to take Oddpodz to the next level

But we can’t do it without you. The real power of community comes from active connections and collaboration. Our focus these past few years has been to build the Oddpodz framework. While it’s not perfect, we have a lot of engine power ready to help you. To activate more of the energy in our community this week we will be adding several new things and we invite you to check them out, give us your feedback and participate in.

•We will be launching a Creative Inspiration Contest to help all businesses get past these touch times.

•We’ve added new forum discussions and will be actively posting to them. They include: Book reviews, lessons learned and a Web site critique.

•And we are most excited about our new dedicated section of FREE Biz Findz. We have over 75 awesome, totally free tools and resources to help you success. This list grows every week.

•We’ve enhanced our bi-weekly Idea Engine Newsletter with forum and blog posts too.

Thanks for all your support! We look forward to big year!

By Guest blogger Niki Fielding, president and CEO, Jump Start Social Media

DO demonstrate your professional skills by starting an industry-related blog or by helping your peers on LinkedIn Answers.

DO use your real name to brand professional profiles on LinkedIn or other sites. For personal profiles (stuff you don’t want employers or colleagues to see, such as family photos), pick a made-up username that only your friends or family knows about.

DO buy your domain name (www.JohnDoe.com ), even if you don’t intend to use it right away.

DO develop your “elevator pitch” (a concise description of who you are, what you do, and who you do it for) and post it to your online profiles.

DO have a photo on your social media profiles. Help your connections put a face with a name – they’ll be more likely to remember you when they need to find someone with your expertise or skill set.

DO strategize for how you want to be perceived by other business people in your network. Let your overarching strategy guide the type of information you include on your profiles and the tone of the content you post to social media networks.

DO be keenly aware that potential employers, clients, and even members of the media may be checking out your online profiles to get a better idea of who you are before they hire, do business with, or interview you. Present yourself at your best, at all times.

DO take advantage of Facebook’s excellent privacy options if you choose to have a presence on that site. Facebook makes it easy to split your content into items that can be seen only by close friends and family vs. content that can be seen by your entire network. You can go ahead and post your Maui beach vacation photos so that your college friends can see them, but your boss and that new client you landed yesterday can’t.

DON’T neglect your online profiles once you set them up. Make sure you update your profile details when you change jobs or start a new venture.

DON’T use bad language or complain about people in specific terms online.

DON’T forget to set up a Google Alert for your full name. Google will notify you by e-mail of the latest mentions of your name on the Web.

DON’T include content on your profile that can be considered controversial. It’s best to leave political and religious preferences off the table.

DON’T use social media as an advertising tool. Just as businesses have learned the hard way that their audiences don’t want to see marketing messages on their social networking sites, your personal network will not appreciate being spammed with information about your latest business products or services.

DON’T use add-in applications unless you carefully review the terms of use for each one. There are few LinkedIn and even fewer Facebook applications that are appropriate or useful for business purposes, so it’s often best to avoid them entirely. If you do decide that you would like to “throw a snowball” at some of your Facebook friends, make sure that you don’t let the application access your entire contact list.

DON’T forget to make sure all your social media profiles are indexed by the search engines. Facebook and LinkedIn both give users the option to allow their profile to be indexed or not. Part of a good online brand management strategy is taking ownership of the search results that are served up when someone searches for your name. Social media profiles are a great, easy way to take over some of those top 10 results.

Jump Start Social Media is a service designed to help professionals accelerate their adoption of social media for personal brand management.

Oddpodz is a small start up and we always need bodies to help us move forward. We also have limited resources to pay these bodies, so one day we thought college interns could be a path to low-cost talent.

I remain optimistic on this notion, but caution the small business recruiter that employing students is more art than science. If the selection and “hiring” processes are not handled properly, lots of time could be wasted and you could develop a quick distaste for students everywhere.

Avenues to pursue.
Official intern programs.
Most colleges have an intern program, where students learn, contribute to your company and earn credit. Most of these programs are structured and require that the student have 3-5 different projects to complete in a set time frame. Excessive filing and taking out the trash are not acceptable projects. The projects need to be defined as win/win for the student and the company. Most universities have an intern liaison department and an online posting system. This is who you need to reach out to.

Job posting boards.
This type of internship will be more flexible in terms of not being tied to any curriculum structure. These job boards are usually free and expose you to students just looking for extra money. If you are lucky you’ll connect with students studying something that has to do with your business. Contact the career out placement department.

Class projects.
This type of intern effort or student help is launched by a professor and can involve the entire class working on one project, or the class may be divided into several groups. If you score a smart class you can get some great ideas for no money. Which is good. And, the students gain exposure to real world business problem solving.

Pay or not to pay?
I have tried both. And as of writing this blog post, I have yet to recruit a meaningful intern without paying them something ($7-10 bucks an hour). Your range of cost will vary by economic conditions and the size of market you are in.

My overall experiences have been mixed. When you find a great one, you get a lot more than you pay for, I suppose that balances out the lame ones you waste time on. We have had our share of super lame ones. Looking back, I think we were guilty of not recruiting or outlining tasks well.

Here are 6 tips that can help be apart of a win/win intern program.

1) Make sure your job post is well written and clearly defines your expectations.
Include info on your company culture and describe the ideal personality and interest area you seek. Skill sets are usually to virgin to throw into the mix. Key attributes for us has been problem solving and creativity. I found some great examples in www.docstoc.com.

2) Use filters in your interview process.
Once you start getting resumes, filter out the slackers by replying with a clear question or mini project that requires thinking, writing and problem solving. Then start with a phone interview. Ask questions that will test their research and preparation initiatives. This will give you a lot of insight into their verbal communication skills. If they have not done a google search on you and your company, NEXT. If they pass both of those with flying colors, then schedule a face-to-face interview.

3) Do not expect CEOs from this bunch. They are student interns.
However, the more disciplined you are in planning and documenting their assignments, the better work product you will get. Require time-tracking and written communications.

4) Recognize their achievements in private and in public.
One of the most important things a supervisor can do with an intern is to help build their confidence. Many students will operate in a low self-esteem mode and will be scared to try things they could mess up.

5) Don’t assume they know everything.
There are a lot of things entrepreneurs and managers have learned though life experiences. For the most part these students don’t have those experiences. Don’t assume they do. Could be a disaster headed your way.

6) Patience is not a virtue. It’s a necessity.
It you don’t have the luxury of time, an intern may not be the most effective way to get good, low-cost help. If you do have the time and patience, you can find a gold gem, like the one Oddpodz has right now from the University Of South Florida. Keep up the good work, Shaina!

In closing, I stumbled upon this great doc that describes “How to be a good intern.” Click here to read. It’s a valuable perceptive for intern prospects and recruiters. It was produced by number17, a multi-disciplinary design studio working in print, television and online, and lead by Emily Oberman and Bonnie Siegler.