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.

If you are like many others out there, the current economic conditions might be having an impact on your top and bottom lines. The challenging environment means that we need to find new ways to generate sales, hold on to current customer and attract new ones. I’ve had three interactions with sales and customer service folks that left me shaking my head and wondering aloud, “who told them to say that?” These are NOT winning strategies. Please do not replicate them.

1. The car service department catastrophe
My car, fortunately, has an extended warranty that lasts for a few years and tens of thousands of miles. I am in year three of ownership of said vehicle and I am still below the milage threshold. I called to make an appointment for one of the scheduled tune-ups. The woman on the other end of the phone barely eeked out a polite “hello-and-how-can-I-help-you?”. I told her that I needed to make an appointment for service. She asked the make, model and year of my car. I supplied the information not a second after I’d finished, she shot back with, “this will be your last complimentary tune up.” I was taken aback for a couple of reasons. 1. It wasn’t correct. 2. If it was correct, why would you inform me like that? Here’s a suggestion, let me enjoy my last complimentary tune up, then tell me that I am off warranty, but that you can help with my future needs.

I was so turned off by her attitude, all I could think was, “great! I’ll start looking for a new mechanic, because I know I don’t want to send any money your way.”

If an organization has a customer in a complimentary/free program and that customer is going to have to start paying for a product or service somewhere, why not retain that customer and transition them into a paying customer? If I’d had a great experience with this car service place, I’d be happy to give them my future business. Don’t alientate your free customers and make them feel like they are the unwashed masses - they are leads you already have. You have a chance to interact with and perform for them and make them realize how much they love you and that they can’t live without you.

2. The HVAC company that blows hot air
My friend’s central air started acting funny during a heat wave we had last week. The unit on their house is on its last legs, but it’s not dead yet. She called the company she uses for servicing the A/C and and made an appointment to have it checked out. The repairman showed up, asked her a few questions, took a BRIEF look at the system and told her the unit was dead. There was NO way to repair it. He started talking in techincal jargon and said that he could have his Sr. Technician come by to double check that the system was, in fact, dead. The “Sr. Technician,” Tommy, was not a repairman. He was the company’s salesman. My friend had not planned on spending hours on this appoinment or on purchasing a big ticket item that day.

Tommy started by telling her that the unit was dead, then started throwing around four and five figure estimates to replace the A/C unit. He had sheets of paper for her to sign and asked if that Friday would be a good day for the new system to be delivered and installed. She was so disgusted by this bait, switch and fib tactic, that she has vowed never to use this company again. Furthermore, she has told all her friends (including me) about their slimy sales tactics. Word of mouth works both ways - good and bad. Unfortunately for this company, studies have shown that BAD word of mouth spreads ten times faster than glowing WOM.

She got a second opinion from a guy who has a small HVAC company. He came highly recommended and got her A/C working for $20. He said that she could call him anytime the system acts up and he’ll fix it until it is unfixable. Although he can’t sell and install a new unit, he offered to help her get fair estimates when the time comes (at no charge!) Guess who she will be using for all her future repairs?

I know times are tough and we have sales quotas, but in this case David’s approach beats Goliath’s. The small business that was honest and met the customer’s needs (she needed the unit repaired, she didn’t need to be sold a new unit) wins. Twenty bucks isn’t a lot, but lots of customers at $20 and a steady stream of happy repair customers is probably a more sustainable business model than one-off sales of big ticket items with 10-12 year life spans.

3. Let me tell you what I CAN’T do for you
There is a vendor that I work with (that will remain nameless) that has some pretty odd customer retention policies. I have been working with them for about three years. During that time, I have upgraded my services with them as needed. However, right now, I just do not need the capacity that I had in the past. I downgraded my services with them in January, then needed to do so again last month. I didn’t need to be paying for something that I wasn’t using. Instead of saying “thanks for your business, we appreciate you as a customer no matter what size you are,” I got a note that said, “I notice[d] that this was the 2nd request to downgrade your account so far this year. Unfortunately we do have a limit of 2 downgrades per year and will be unable to honor any further downgrade requests for the remainder of 2009.” What kind of inflexible policy is that? Next time I need to “downgrade” I might just downgrade myself right off your client list and over to another vendor. And, when my demand for your service picks up, my upgrade will be with the other guy.

Please do not follow that example. I would never want a business to operate at a loss to be accomodating, but seriously, what would it cost them to be flexible and accomodate my needs? If you can help out a customer, do it. It’s likely that they will remember your kindness and stick with you as they grow.

Have you had experiences with any sales tactics that left you thinking “what are they thinking?!?”

Do you have any success stories to share? Leave ‘em in the comments section!

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.