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.

(The following post is by Sarah Guinot, Oddpodz newest team member).

I was until this week, when I attended Social School in Tampa.

I just joined the Oddpodz team as an intern. I’m finishing my MBA at the University of Tampa and I am thrilled to be working with such an exciting, young social media company. To learn more about me and connect, my Oddpodz user name is sarenka. I’d love to hear from you.

Part of my contributions to the company will be helping the Oddpodz community members and attracting new ones through social media.

My first assignment, get in the social media grove fast.

Lucky for me, the Oddpodz offices are located in www.Walkerbrands.com, a super cool place to work. Not only is it a design-centric, creative environment, the office culture has also lots of means for collaboration and learning via our roommates, tools and events.

This week the office hosted Social School. It was lead by Nancy Walker, President of Walker Brands and a super savvy, branding and marketing pro, and Julia Gorzka, a social media enthusiast and consultant.

The event attracted a diverse group of business people, all like me, hungry to get on the social media train.

So what is this international phenomenon sweeping the media, business and people’s lives?

It’s the “world’s largest cocktail party where everybody is invited”, explained Julia.

Such a definition makes it clear that social media challenges the “old school” marketing thinking. As most of the audience, you might find social media intimidating. After all, there are so many social tools out there, where does one start? How do you find your markets in this new World? You heard about Twitter and might wonder who is this new animal. But have no fear. The good news is that it is completely possible to understand social media and, even better, to make great use of them in order to support your brand and its delivery- two essential components for business success.

Here are some of the highlights I took away from Social School.

1) The first step is to define your brand. A brand is not merely a logo or a catchy slogan anymore. It’s what customers think, feel and expect about you, which is earned at every touch points, every contact with your customers, from product and signage to employee training.

2) Then, once you have a coherent and strong brand essence, it’s time for delivery. You are now ready to hit the social media universe. What are your goals? Is it brand awareness? Discoverability? Finding new leads?

3) Remember that in the World’s largest cocktail party (social media), the communication style is very conversational, helpful and educational and definitely not about hard selling. If you’re focused on mere transactions, you will be quickly black listed and your efforts will be a waste.

As Julia explained, “It is not as much about advertising anymore anyway, when companies were pushing their messages. It is about giving your customers something to talk about”.

For more on how social media can help your business check back, we will be posting other gems gained from the class. If you are interested in attending a future social media class go to social school.

Also we’ve posted and reviewed some great FREE social media tools and resources in Oddpodz FREE Biz Findz.

(Updated 05.07.09)This list grows, thanks to our communities contributions.

Most businesses can gain from standing out from the pack. People too can benefit from being different in the crowded world of bodies and brains. When ever I speak to audiences I always preach “Be distinct, standout and own a space that’s unique”. There is often a big sigh, HOW can we not blend in?

Here are some ideas to help you be unique in your industry. Apply them to one or several brand attributes or touch points. My goal is to assemble a list of 140 soon, all clearly stated in less than 140 characters for the new language of tweet tongue. I’ll be tapping my social stream for more ideas and be updating the list everyday. Have a contribution? DM at @brandingdiva on twitter.
1. Make up a word as your name
2. Leave something out
3. Use different ingredients
4. Sport an odd uniform
5. Do it faster
6. Save the earth while you are at it
7. Cop an attitude
8. Add humor
9. Package it in the unexpected
10. Combine extreme opposites
11. Infuse a foreign language
12. Give something big away
13. Slow it down
14. Jazz it up with a tune
15. Birth a new holiday
16. Hide something
17. Introduce an unbelievable guarantee
18. Splash a wild color
19. Involve younger minds
20. Gift often
21. Start earlier
22. Never close
23. Dispense it from a vending machine
24. Invite animals
25. Be exclusive
26. Create a mascot
27. Blow up a common practice
28. Use the earth to build it
29. Display it on a building
30. Mix in minis
31. Charge a lot more
32. Take alternative payments
33. Reward loyalty with living gifts
34. Start a new way
35. Slice it up
36. Get social
37. Remove technology
38. Add chocolate
39. Make a metaphor
40. Rearrange it
41. Sacrifice something important
42. Break the rules
43. Require tickets
44. Mash up weird things
45. Always have a deadline
46. Partner with an unusual suspect
47. Conduct an annual poll
48. Create controversy
49. Add a feminine touch
50. Be obnoxious
51. Super-size it
52. Get nostalgic
53. Exaggerate
54. Simplify the process
55. Reverse the order
56. Take a pause
57. Sing it
58. Scream it
59. Always whisper
60. House it in a remote spot
61. Sprinkle spice on it
62. Fast forward
63. Get glamorous
64. Dress it down
65. Get folksy
66. Make it low fat
67. Start a trend
68. Infuse a scent into it
69. Make it see threw
70.Make it edible
71.Be an expert
72.Be independent
73.Make it more durable
74.Turn it black and white
75.Add serenity
76.Incorporate cool
77.Expand its dimension

Sound familiar? We’ve all heard this from boyfriends and girlfriends and now business and customer starving brands. Please come back, we miss you badly, it’s not the same without you. Yada Yada Yada.

The funny thing is when I was a loyal customer I never heard a peep, I depart and suddenly I get their attention, a little late I’d say.

Companies and brands do this all the time and it makes me crazy. Why not show love for the ones who are loyal and loving you back, before they leave, instead of begging for defectors and offering sweeter deals to new customers instead of giving long time customers a perk for being a customer, that’s so annoying.

Here’s some tips for you sleeping brands.
-Say thank you often.
-Gifts for paying customers are good.
-If you do offer a special for new customers, offer the same level of perk for your current customers.

Today I got three, please come back offers yesterday.

Hello!!!! If you pay attention and give attention while your customers are paying you and provide a good product it will likely cost you a lot less than all this begging stuff, deep discounting stuff.

Most people hang in jobs they hate for years. Work for bosses they despise and accept an easy career path instead of pursuing their dreams and passions.

OK, collecting an unemployment check may make life a little tough, but at least you are one big step out of a gloomy career rut.

The world is changing at the speed of sound. This recession will end and it does have an upside. It is producing many new business sectors, start ups are emerging, and your pink slip may actual be your big pass to an opportunity of your lifetime, it’s just in total disguise.

Whether you are thinking about birthing a new biz, rebranding you or merely finding an ideal company to work with, you’ve got to:
* Lose all the resentment
* Embrace the challenge
* And get focused on finding the career that you love, not a job that makes you sick.

Here’s 5 tips that can help.
1) Accept what is and work on creating what you want.
2) Do what you need to, to pay your bills and protect your credit. This may mean swallowing your pride and taking an “in the meantime gig” to bring in some short term cash.
3) Get out of your comfort zone. No risk, No nothing.
4) Be proactive. Most opportunities do not know where you live and won’t find your door step. Network every day. Reach out to people you don’t know and be clear on what you are seeking to do and how you add value back to them.
5) Hang around other positive people who have made the leap from recently unemployed to totally empowered.

There is only one person who controls your destiny. There is only one person who can make you feel great or like crap.

You are the lucky one because you have access to them 24/7.

We’ve all have been there, a bathroom in a business that was not a memorable experience, unless it was so disgusting it left a dreadful, bad impression.

Roadside gas stations are notorious for this. But, I’ve also been in some pretty high-brow retail stores where the loo was a lot less than lovely. In fact, it was missed many opportunities to connect their brand with customers, clients and employees, often and intimately.

If you think about, when someone visits your room of resting it’s a pretty uninterrupted experience, where small details surface and a lot of messaging is communicated.

Take a look at these 3 environments and see how they could be translated into a brand impression.

Unfortunately I see this one a lot.
1) A nasty, un kept facility with no obvious thought about design or decor, multi-used as an unorganized, cluttered stockroom and no basic supplies in sight.

Hmmm is this how do they run their business too?

2) An immaculate space, friendly signage about plumbing sensitivity, interesting art, painted walls and lighting that make your look great, not sick and subtle branding details that further the story about the brand.

This feels good. What a nice experience, I believe this company is thoughtful and these small details tell me more about who they are.

3) I’m blown away. This 2-minute bathroom excursion is so unique. Every detail is memorable from the lighting, to eco-friendly fixtures to the branded soap products.

I can’t wait to tell my friends about this. This company is so creative, innovative and distinct. This makes me feel special.

So which one is your company? And what do you need to do to bring the toilet up to total brand standards?

Here are some ideas to pump up your bathroom branding.
1)Change something out regularly. So people want to visit. Make it a seasonally experience.
2)Consider leveraging more than one sense. What can you do to the scent, the sounds, touch and textures or visuals to make it more memorable?
3)Inject some humor in to the room. Provide custom reading material with a brand twist.
4)Think about how can you imprint your brand graphics into the experience? On the soap, tissues, floor, ceiling or wall tiles.

Here are a couple of my favorite restrooms experiences.

Oddpodz is fortunate to be housed in the Walker Brands Building in Tampa. Walker Brands specializes in experiential, destination branding and their building is the first “Gold” LEED certified property in the city. Which means they were recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council’s leading-edge system for designing and constructing a sustainable, energy-efficient and high-performance building meeting key eco-supporting standards.
The entire space is awesome and a creative haven, but the bathrooms are a great example of a thoughtful on-brand experience. The 8,400-square-foot building has four uniquely wonderful lavatories, all delivering a cool and memorable experience. All designed with a consistent style, each sport a wall-to-wall photo graphic depicting a story and travel experience. One is Fenway Park, one is an aquarium with whale sharks, one is Times Square in New York City and one is a Roman scene. In addition to energy-saving and beautifully-design fixtures, they all have life like sound effects from the featured destination.

My other example is not quite as full drama, but equally as on-brand. The company is a consulting practice and investment banking firm called Santa Fe Capital. It’s owned by emerging business guru and author David Silver. David is very creative, not your typical finance guy and loves art and collects it. His office is packed with an eclectic mix of paintings, sculptures and photographs. And so is his restroom, wall to ceiling, you feel like you are at the MOMA and not in a small business bathroom. It’s impressive and memorable.

If you want to see some other noted restroom environments for more inspiration check out this link highlighting 10 of the most unique restrooms in the world.

Your company toilet, bathroom, power room or what ever you choose to call it is an important branding touch point, don’t to waste the opportunity. Have you seen a cool and on brand bathroom? If so, share it with us.

Personal branding “Me 2.0″ style
Stop loosing opportunities. Be your strongest business magnet, exude authority, earn trust and enjoy more success today.

My friend Dan Schawbel’s new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success is out today. It’s a great read for its dedicated audience of young professionals, along with us older folks who act all different ages.

Here are some pointers I soaked up from the book and some inspirational, insightful thoughts from a couple of my favorite business experts.

Dan professes, “personal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leverage it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility, advance their careers, and build self-confidence .”

He also suggests you ask yourself this important question before you launch off into your Me 2.0 initiative.

Does your career path make you happy?

If yes, great keep working it. Make the most of your talents and skill set to achieve maximum success.

If no, change it. Find the right path for you and focus on making it work.

If you’re unsure about your future—define it. Weigh all the factors that matter to you and find the career path that fits best.

Dan believes it takes a four-step process to build a powerful personal brand for a successful career:
Discover. In the discover step, you will learn about yourself, figure out what makes you distinctive, and learn how to develop the right skills.

Create. In the create step, you will build a complete marketing kit that you can use in interviews or when networking.

Communicate. In the communicate step, you will take everything you’ve created and promote it to others.

Maintain. In the maintain step, you will perform routine maintenance so that your reputation is monitored and protected.

A big chunk of his book is focused on e-Branding through social media and online channels. Here are some great tips.

When applicable
-Always include your name, picture, and personal brand statement.
-Always include personal information, not just professional experience, so that the user can get a feeling for your eBrand.
-Always keep your site engaging, user-friendly, and easy to navigate.
-Always use aesthetic choices (font style, background color, logos, etc.) that will capture and hold your audience’s attention without annoying them.
-Always use design choices, including a color scheme, that represents your personal brand.

Dan knows first hand about creating a personal brand. For being on earth for only a short time, he walks his talk. Personal brand requires hard work and dedication. But if you’re dedicated and create an online and offline brand presence that relates to the demands of your target audience and delivers what they’re looking for, they will embrace it. When this happens, you’ll be amazed to see how many opportunities for success open up.

Just consider these cool, smart guys quoted in Dan’s book who have certainly earned their top places in business and society through their strategic and persistent online footprints.

“I kicked off my un-keynote at the first PodCamp by telling everyone there that they were superheroes. Why? Because through their use of social media, they had the power to bypass hierarchies, discover and connect to meaningful two-way conversations, and build value and brand without getting permission to do either.” —Chris Brogan, cofounder, PodCamp

“People should do what they do/love as well as they can. For me, it’s blogging and speaking. My thinking is that if you do good stuff, your brand will naturally come out of your actions. But if you focus on ‘what makes me look good,ʼ you’ll just be a slick and shallow persona.”—Guy Kawasaki, managing director, Garage Technology Ventures

Keep up the great work gentlemen and congrats Dan on a solid, valuable book!

In the past few years, we’ve heard our share of news stories on dishonest, scum bag, greedy souls. From the Enron gang, to Allen Stanford, to the biggest scammer of all, Bernie Madoff who misled investors and lost over $65 billion. These people are a disgrace to business and mankind.

While these criminal profiles are plastered on every media venue from out there, and they should be, what about companies and brands that behave less than truthfully everyday in their advertising and communications? I think they are just as guilty, and consumers should be aware of their shady moves and then make their choices on what company they should do business with.

I’ve talked about some of these less than forthright brands in my speaking programs and I’ve written about them in the past. We just posted a story I wrote for Fast Company called Integrity, an invaluable brand asset

These companies really get under my skin. In fact, this morning I was reading a half page ad for “The Perfect Pitch” giveaway in Tampa. It is sponsored by Teasdale, marketing of distinction and some other seemingly reputable media companies. The ad says: throw us your perfect pitch and two companies could win $250,000 in media to promote your company and the at applicants get a gift bag valued at $3,000. What it did not tell you was that it costs $500.00 to apply. That information was only found inside the site on the PDF form. To me that’s creepy, and falls under the category of not being honest. Why not put that information on the ad? Wasting my time because of a lack of full disclosure or not clearly marking fees puts no integrity points in their basket. In fact I’ve shared this example at 10 times today with my business buddies.

Contests are notorious for these sneaky ploys. Big brands have dirt on their collars too.

I just received a mailer from Verizon. The offering was $99.00 flat fee for Internet, TV and phone service and they give you $150.00 back. Sounds great, right? So, I call my friendly sales rep to investigate. I wait on hold for 17 minutes, just to find out the boxes you also need for the TVs were not included and neither were the taxes. The drive out price was the same as what I already have. Wasting my time because of a lack of full disclosure or not clearly marking the real price is no better than a friend telling me a big lie. It hurts the relationship.

This list of slimy-talking, deceptive messaging happens every day. And brands wonder why consumer trust is at an all time low. If you know of a company that is resorting to dishonest marketing messages or campaigns, please share, so we can inform our community that the brand in question may too deserve the Bernie Badge of Deception.

Speaking of my pal John Jantsch, forgot to mention that he has invited me to participate in an upcoming Webinar sponsored by HP. The Webinar is called Small Business Branding and its FREE. Joining John and me are:
* » John Moore - Creator of Brand Autopsy & Author of Tribal Knowledge
* » Sam Horn - Author of Pop! - Stand out in any crowd
* » Aaron Weiss - Chief Product Officer for MarketSplash

You don’t want to miss this, register today.

Small Business Branding
The “Truth” About Small Business Branding - using your small business brand to outsmart the competition - a panel discussion featuring practical branding tips and tactics from leading small business branding experts.

* Date:18 Mar 2009, 9 A.M. PST
* Duration: 00:60 min

We gave you a list of reasons why having some FREE juicy business tidbits is a viable strategy back when we launched Free Biz Findz. If you missed that article, or were still skeptical, we have have further proof. While perusing our stack of daily online reading, we found this entry “The Business Case for Giving Away Your Best Work for FREE!” on Tom Peters’ blog. So, if you didn’t listen to us, we’re sure you might think twice now. Tom Peters also has a section on his site that is dedicated to giving any visitor to his site tons of FREE business know how. Despite giving away all this free “stuff” he still sells books, consults (to paying clients) and speaks (to paying audiences). The free stuff just enhances his brand as a business expert!

So, you still don’t believe it can work. We’ve heard all the arguments against FREE as a strategy. Two of the most frequently used are: 1)if something is FREE, people will regard it as lacking value, and 2) the recipient of the free info will be able to leverage the free tidbit into something of great financial value to themselves and that the author/creator of the the FREE item in question will not be rewarded. To both, we wholeheartedly disagree.

We don’t want you to give away all of your secrets and end up penniless. We know that you can use FREE as a viable business strategy. We’re pretty sure that everyone has some valuable bullet points, tips, graphics, videos, tutorials or insight that they can share without negatively impacting their own livelihood. If we’ve learned nothing else in our days in the branding, marketing and start-up worlds, we now know the following to be true: it’s all in the execution. It is unlikely that your primer on branding will allow a reader to go out and do a kick-ass job overhauling and relaunching a brand. So, if you have something that you can give away that positions you as an expert, people will probably remember you as such. Then, after they’ve read, seen, heard, interacted with what you’ve put out into the universe for FREE, they might just tap you to help them execute the next project or deal which you’ve proven you can readily tackle.

We are constantly compiling and reviewing the best of free biz stuff out there. Do you have a free offer that you would like us to review? Feel free to leave it in the comments section or send us an email at info[at]oddpodz[dot]com.