Public Speaking Archive

With the announcement of Ashley Seffernick joining Delightful Communications in January to help us expand our personal brand workshops and overall client offering, we’ve been busy adding more personal branding workshops and training in Seattle to our list of events we’ll be attending, speaking at, and facilitating.

Here’s an example outline of what attendees are likely to expect from one of our personal branding workshops or presentations:

Research from Nielsen says just 50% of people believe what a company has to say about its products and services, while 83% will trust the opinion of a friend, peer or family member.

The explosion in use of digital media has given professionals the opportunity to have their wisdom and experience be discoverable, shareable and memorable like never before. It’s a wonder then that so many people have not grasped this opportunity and insist on having their life’s work generate a mostly mediocre impression on the world.

In this session with Personal Branding Expert, Mel Carson, you’ll:

• Get an introduction into personal branding and why it’s so important for your career and the success of your company.
• Learn how to create a personal branding strategy to help your expertise stand out in your industry.
• Understand what you need to do to establish your professional purpose and create a personal branding statement.
• Receive a whole bunch of tips on how to get the most out of LinkedIn and other social platforms and tools.
• Learn how to establish a communication cadence and success measurement framework to keep your personal brand on track.

If you want us to travel to your part of the world to deliver one of these workshops, then please contact us  for more information on The Personal Brand Lab!

Cheers,

Mel

Later this month on the 27th October, I’ve been asked to sit on an esteemed panel in Seattle to discuss the US election and give a British perspective and my opinion on how digital and social media has been a factor in the presidential race we have seen so far.

Here’s how my colleagues at the Britsh American Business Council are framing the discussion:

As the US approaches the eve of election night, the country does so facing many of the same instabilities and angst that faced the UK as the vote was cast in favor of a Brexit. While our two countries share some similarity in political situations, each is still unique and the outcome for America still unpredictable. As US voters ready to head to the polls this November, what influences, rhetoric and facts could impact the ultimate result? Join with local experts in a lively, engaging and timely discussion as they explore the rollercoaster dynamics of this year’s US election season, including the connection to UK voter sentiment, media and millennial influences, emotional drivers and the expected aftermath on Nov. 9.

Panellists beyond myself include:

David Postman – Chief of Staff to Washington Governor Jay Inslee

Randy Pepple – President of Persuasion Communications, and Executive Director of the Reform Alliance

Ian Toner – Managing Director of Strategic Research at Verus Investments

John Dickerman – Head of Washington Office Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

Gareth Wade – our brilliant BABC chairman – will be moderating.

I’m looking forward to it as I think I’ll learn a lot from these guys. This election has been an incredible beast and I’m thrilled to have a forum in which to dissect and try and make sense of it!

If you’re interested in attending please register here: Pre-Election Breakfast BABC

Last week, I had the pleasure of addressing 40 young women aged between 16 and 19 at Expedia’s head office in Bellevue, WA.

Earlier in the year (and out of the blue), I had received an invitation to speak at the GirlsWhoCode.org Program near Seattle (one of 78 locations around the US) about my experiences in the tech world, so I offered to talk to them about personal branding.

While my job and career has always entailed enticing consumers to spend more time on the internet (searching and viewing great content), since having two young daughters of my own, I must admit I’m terrified they will make a mistake with their usage of social media sites that then hampers their career at some time in the future.

So, my talk was on how to build a safe personal brand online with great thought and discipline.

I have to say, it was one of the most rewarding hours of my speaking career with lots of nodding heads, ah-ha moments and some great questions at the end.

One young lady even followed up via email apologizing for being on her phone the whole time as she was deleting “silly” old Photobucket accounts she’d set up in 7th grade!

All the girls seemed to love the program Girls Who Code had set up, and the interns at Expedia chaperoning them were really first class as well.

Can’t wait for my girls to be old enough to join in the program, it really does seem like an excellent way to spend the summer holidays!

Cheers,

Mel

I am beyond thrilled to have been invited by industry peer and friend, Rob Garner, to speak at a Workhacker.org event in Dallas on 28th June >> sign up here.

The whole idea of these events is to give people a steer and help them with their career aspirations, so I’m delighted to be giving them a talk on personal branding.

Here’s the blurb:

Discoverable, Shareable and Memorable – How People Need to Define and Amplify their Personal Brands to Compete Effectively in the New World of Work

Research from Nielsen says just 15% of people believe what a company has to say about its products and services, while 90% will trust the opinion of a friend, peer or family member.

The explosion in use of digital media has given professionals the opportunity to have their wisdom and experience be discoverable, shareable and memorable like never before. It’s a wonder then that so many people have not grasped this opportunity and insist on having their life’s work generate a mostly mediocre impression on the world.

In this session with Personal Branding Expert, Mel Carson, you’ll:

• Get an introduction into personal branding and why it’s so important for your career and the success of your company.
• Learn how to create a personal branding strategy to help your expertise standout in your industry.
• Understand what you need to do to establish your professional purpose and create a personal branding statement.
• Receive a whole bunch of tips on how to get the most out of LinkedIn and other social platforms and tools.
• Learn how to establish a communication cadence and success measurement framework to keep your personal brand on track.

Will I see you in Dallas?

Sign up to the event here!

On 30th of July 2015 you’ll find me at Surf Cabana speaking at Tribe of Zero’s Power of Branding event here in Seattle.

I’ll be speaking on Personal Branding Strategy and how to stand up and stand out in your niche.

Looks like a great line up of speakers and at just over $100 a ticket I think it’s a bargain.

Register here: http://tribeofzero.com/events/thepowerofbranding

And get $30 off the price of a ticket using my exclusive code: MEL307

Hope to see you there at the end of the month!

Online conferences seem to be all the rage right now and I’ve been asked to present a 15 minute talk on Personal Branding for the Outreach Marketing Virtual Summit which will air all day on Tuesday 28th April 2015.

Given I just have 15 minutes, we titled the talk a Personal Branding Crash Course with the blurb: 

This session will cover: What is personal branding? How can having a compelling personal brand help you and your company? What strategies and tactics do you need to understand in order to leave a lasting impression about you and your business? 

You  should check out the extensive list of other presentations to as there are loads that you might be interested in!

The event has been organized by the very chirpy and delightful Kristen Matthews from blogger/influencer outreach software company Group High.

I’ve not been familiar with their product, so they’ve done a good job using an event like this to raise awareness of their toolset  with influencers in their target market and I will be checking it out soon.

In other news  >>  we’ve launched a brand spanking new newsletter that will bring regular updates on digital marketing, PR and personal branding right to your inbox, so hope you sign up soon to The Delightful Times!

I obviously couldn’t get enough of Utah last time around, so I’m going back with the fabulous Melanie Reed from Bing Ads to speak at the next SLC SEM event next Wednesday 18th February.

I’ll be representing Majestic.com and talking about the latest and greatest the platform has to offer, and Melanie will be speaking about how to maximize your investment on Bing Ads.

So if you’re local to Salt Lake City and want to get the low down from two SEO and PPC powerhouses you can register here!

Thanks to the awesome SLCSEM crew for having us.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

This article has been cross posted from the Delightful Blog:

Some of you might know that one of my many Delightful hats is actually more of a crown.

A Majestic SEO crown.

For over a year now, I’ve been lucky enough to act as Brand Ambassador for Majestic here in the USA, and speak at conferences about their incredible “big data” toolset.

My remit is to help broaden the audience for the brand and get other digital marketers enthused about getting smart with link data and using it for more than just SEO (search engine optimization).

I’ve done a couple of presentations this year and a couple of blog posts too about how best to use what Majestic has to offer, and on Friday 6th December at 9.30am PST (5.30pm GMT) I’ll be delivering a webinar on how businesses can use their tools for influencer discovery, digital PR and competitive analysis.

If you’re interested in hearing some top tips, feel free to register for FREE below:

Beyond SEO – Loving Link Data for Social Media Digital PR and More

If you know anyone in PR or social media that you think might benefit from a talk like this, please share this post!

I’ve only just got back from a family holiday in San Diego, but I’m jolly pleased to be going back in a couple of weeks to speak at SearchLove.

Watching Will and the team’s events with envy from afar for all these years, I pitched to talk about Pioneers of Digital at their California conference and they said yes!!

Not only am I speaking but I’m kicking the whole thing off, so no pressure!

Paradise Point

Not sure about the venue though. It describes itself as a private island paradise, so who’d want to spend a couple of days and nights there huh? I mean really!

Luckily I have friends like Kate Morris, Rand Fishkin, Ian Lurie and Joanna Lord to keep me sane while I endure Paradise Point at SearchLove San Diego!

I’m seriously grateful to the team for having me talk on the same agenda as these guys. Seriously.

And I look forward to blogging and twittering all about it during the event so you can hear all the digital marketing goodness they will have to share.

If you’re interested in coming along and joining us, here’s the line up and register here.

Those nice people at Don’t Panic Projects have asked me to a judge for the US search awards that will be handed out at Pubcon in Vegas this October.

I’m joining people like Rand Fishkin (professional crush/swoon), Chris Boggs and Richard Gregory (who I have not seen for donkey’s years)!

Not going to say I’m humbled and honoured etc because I’m English and we don’t do that sort of thing. I will say though, that I’m looking forward to seeing what people submit.

I recently judged the Performance Marketing Awards in the search category and was totally astounded by the ingenuity and attention to detail the shortlisters possessed; so seeing how they measure up to US strategies and tactics will be fascinating.

Read more on the judges and awards here and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

Oh and if you’re a search marketer, please share this post so the awards get some more visibility.