The Campaign

It is Friday evening and I am feeling very anxious. I had been an extremely private person in the past and was very reluctant in the beginning to even join LinkedIn and now I was having a complete campaign focused on my personal brand.

I start uploading all my stuff on to my profile. My new head shot, new headliner, my personal brand and my resume has been summarised into my LinkedIn profile.

Now I am ready to post a new discussion on all my group boards. You can imagine how nervous I was feeling. I was already overwhelmed with the response to my original discussion and now the whole campaign was going to be there for all to see. My stomach was churning. You know what I really wanted to do was to turn the clock back and be a vegetable about the whole situation but no chance of that happening. You can see how my brain was not functioning correctly through this blog and all the emoticons.

My discussion announcing the launch of the campaign.

Over the past few days some of you would have seen my discussion on personal branding. Is it going to work? Will I have a career self destructing moment like an Australian football star? Will I get my 15 minutes like the British lady on a reality talent show? Or will I float away like a leaf in the autumn breeze?

You be the judge.

Tomorrow, 23rd May, there will be 2 campaigns running concurrently.

1. Paper campaign. There will be an ad in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald, general news section.

2. Digital media campaign. From Saturday through to Monday (local Sydney time), the campaign will be on the home page of www.MyCareer.com.au

I would like thank Job Camp, ‘Getting Australia Working” for inspiring me to think differently about my career and work, The Face Euro RSCG for the campaign and to the sponsors MyCareer.com.au.

And thank you to all who have taken an interest in my campaign.

Please check out my campaign, “Check with Chan”.

The online campaign was to begin at midnight which means the rest of the world is still awake or even just starting their day. I wake in the morning and head to the corner shop for the weekend paper. I am excited wondering what the campaign looks like in the paper and the placement of the ad. This is the whole of the SMH page 4 for the 23^rd May. The young man says, “This is only the beginning, you will be on page 1″, yeah right .

The email inbox is next. I am not overwhelmed there are a few comments on my discussions and they were all new people, nobody from my previous discussion. I start getting emails, text messages from my friends, a couple of recruiters and a call from one very excited gentleman from our southern highlands who was very animated about the ad in the paper. I now had 2 online ads, a paper ad and my online discussions but compared to the posting of my first discussion the response was quiet.

Saturday passes, Sunday comes along, something is not right but I don’t know what. I feel like I am floating away like a leaf in the autumn breeze. Sitting, waiting, waiting for something to happen. It is late Sunday afternoon, then, it all of a sudden dawns upon me, OMG! I know it was the dumbest thing I have done since being on my journey. You know when they talk about people talking to themselves, well, the swear words just flowed. I could not believe want I had done. I had deleted the first discussion! So all those people following my discussions were all gone!

I don’t know what was in my head when I was deleting the original discussion. I had stopped at one stage but thought ‘why do I need this first discussion?’ I did not think about when I posted my first failed comment I received email for comments following mine. What was I going to do! I pace and pace and pace then I realise I have the LinkedIn emails from those who posted or wrote to me offline, I can save some .

I spent Sunday night sending a personal LinkedIn note to all those who posted a comment or sent me a thread offline. The following grovelling personalised email was sent to everybody.

I must apologise for deleting my initial discussion. It was very rude of me especially when you had taken an interest and had gone into the effort to write something on my discussion.

I am very new to networking no MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or anything else like that. LinkedIn is the first network group I have joined and only since the end of March. But have now realised the benefits of connecting.

I did not realise the payback of adding onto my original discussion and how it would always be on top if there was enough interest, hits or comments.

So please accept my apology and I hope you still get a chance to catch my campaign at www.mycareer.com.au , homepage, the ad is in an advertisement box on the right hand side, the ad may take a bit of time to stream through.

I would love your feedback and thank you for taking an interest in my campaign.

Since the campaign was running until Monday midnight (it was only extended a further 24hrs on Monday), many people would not see the note until after it had finished. So I had a strategy, if they answered and saw the online ad, they got a generic invitation and then a thank you note afterwards.

Then there were those who answered after the online ad ended. I sent them a following note but it was even more personalised with their name in the middle of the paragraph and a generic invitation to my network. I start copying, pasting, send the notes and then the invitations to my network. Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, then I realise I have personalised the note in the middle as well. So all these people are getting notes with the name ‘Tim’ in the middle of the paragraph . So I have to send another apologetic note, saying this is what happens when you do a copy and paste.

Out of all the notes I sent, only 2 did not accept my invitation. I realise now I should have sent a personalised invitation after they answered but because I was new, everybody answered my note accepted my invitation. How do I know this? I was told by many. But since then I have accepted many generic invitations myself, I believe in expanding my professional network and sharing my network with others. Though I do like the personalised invitations, it does make one remember who one is.

I have sort of saved the connections that I have reached out to through my discussions. But where are the people wanting to hire? Was it because I stuffed up the original discussion note. This should not be a reason as the original campaign was only based on the local paper advertisement. The week begins and I get further feedback from those who saw the ad in the paper. I also have a couple of interviews with recruiters but none with direct leads .

What I do find out though, much later, like weeks and weeks, is that people have written about the campaign. This is what happens when you google your name which I had not done until well after the campaign launch. Mentions in comments on other blogs, and the following and surprising links about the campaign.

 
Bandt.com – cutting edge, must read news that the advertising and marketing professional cannot live without, Jobseeker becomes the brand, on page 3.

Turning Leaf Blog, Fantastic Marketing – Of A Person!

My friend, Dr Nancy Dailey, Bragging Rights, Women and Personal Branding, where I also receive a mention in the Future Women Leaders blog.

 
From my friends at JobCAMP :

Raz Chorev, JobCAMP supervisor, Check With Chan – Personal Branding Campaign;

Luke Harvey-Palmer, JobCAMP creator, JobCAMP WIN a Personal Brand Campaign;

The Face, which I only found today, the Check with Chan campaign including complete Sydney Morning Herald advertisement and placement.

 
Notice I have not commented on any of the blogs or any others where I should have to get more coverage. I didn’t know how to. Not like I didn’t know how to type in the square. It was that fact that I had never encountered web 2.0 and just didn’t know what do to. Like what I did with my first discussions .

Time passes, I have learnt from my faux pas and I am still working my network. I have my coverage with the help of my JobCAMP family, I have my growing connections and I have many interviews but no job. I arrive at another, ‘But what now?’ point.

 

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