Post #10: The Promotion Mix

Welcome back,

Chapter 12 of our text describes the Promotion Mix. Here is a a bit of information about each one:

Advertising

In the personal branding model, advertising could consist of web presence on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Social media has been a focal point of many marketing campaigns, and many companies have more than just a social media intern these days – they have large teams managing their social media platforms looking for any online mentions of their company or product. For personal branding, social media sites are a powerful tool. They give people an identity online and allow people to create an image for themselves online as the result of many posts and pictures online. All of those activities add up to create a reputation online. All of those posts can be thought of as sales promotions.

Sales Promotion

Our text indicates that sales promotions coincide with the short-term. Therefore, these could be thought of as posts you might make on Facebook or LinkedIn, or any tweets you make on Twitter. These posts are small promotions of yourself and your thoughts. Even if you are simply going for a laugh, it is really a sales promotion. I used Facebook, as many of you know, to promote this blog over the middle of the semester, and I also posted it on LinkedIn a couple times. When you post on Facebook, know that it is an opportunity to get a message out to many people – be careful what you post.

Personal Selling

This is nearly a synonym for personal branding – more detail in the next post.

Public Relations

Essentially, this pertains to keeping a solid reputation. Being able to head off rumors and build a good image are what makes for good public relations. This is very important in terms of establishing a personal brand in the public eye. After building up a reputation with individuals word will travel into the community and a personal brand will have to be managed more carefully.

Direct Marketing

This is the most important in the personal branding world. In two posts I will go over Direct Marketing in detail.

All in all, I think social media is a very valuable tool if it is used wisely. It is really a personal branding platform in many ways, so go out and use it!

Tim