You have no doubt seen the proliferation of video’s on the web this year and probably noticed how impactful they are in bringing your brand to life.

I’ve been using video’s on one of my websites as a lead generator for three years and in some of the paid mastermind programmes I have used them to provide resources to delegates.

What I can tell you is that video’s are a powerful way to build your personal brand and reputation online. Or if not done well - destroy it!

If you are camera shy, you don’t have to have to create video with you as a talking head - you can be inventive with the backdrop you choose, record your voice alongside a screen capture or create a PowerPoint slide presentation and do an accompanying voiceover.

And don’t forget you can also package the video’s and burn them onto a DVD which you can make available as paid for information product that you can sell while you are sleeping.

If you are not sure where to start, my friend, author and podcaster Leesa Barnes has a three minute video on what to look for when choosing video capturing software. And while you on that page you can find other video’s she has done on her blog. Access the video HERE.

Let me know what questions you have about creating video online and we’ll see what we can do about covering your questions on a future podcast or at PodCamp Ireland this year.

NOTE: Leesa’s video is a primer for a virtual seminar she is hosting on 23 and 24 July 2008 about how to boost your business using video. If you are interested in that course, make sure you scroll down the page and enter in the VIP code (VID 723) so that you will get into the virtual training for just US$20).

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This week I am honoured to be a guest on Zane Safrit’s Blog Talk Radio Show and we’ll be talking about Personal Branding and Employer Branding.

I first came across Zane when he was the CEO of conference Calls unlimited who sponsored the bridge lines of last years Personal Branding Summit which I chaired and co-hosted.

Zane has a great show on Blog Talk Radio Show and has interviewed people like authors Jackie Huba and John Cass, marketer and blogger Drew McClellan and employee engagement consultant and blogger David Zinger. All their interviews are available for you to listen to at Zane’s Blog Talk Radio page.

You can join us live at 3.30pm Ireland/UK time, 10.30am ET and can either dial in or listen to the live streaming. And if you miss the show you can download the recording later. All the details are on Zane’s Blog Talk Radio page. Hope to see you there!

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You might recall a few weeks ago seeing me live blog some conferences I attended using CoverItLive which is a great tool.

Whilst it’s pretty challenging typing and listening to the speakers at the same time, I have found that the notes I have been able to keep have been a great resource to others in my social network or reader of my blog who were not able to attend the conference and for my own research and archives.

Proving this valuable information also supports your reputation and personal brand online as someone providing great resources and information to your network. And of course you can always add in your own perspective and point of view - you don’t have to report only the speakers comments.

However everywhere you go, you are not guaranteed a great Internet connection - or any connection at all as I found at a recent conference I was speaking at?

On that occasion I used my Blackberry to live tweet from the conference and then add a hash tag so that it can be found later. Hash tags are particularly helpful if several people use them so you can find all the Tweets about an event - such as the hash tag we use for PodCamp Ireland #pci.

However another alternative which I have yet to have the opportunity to try out is LiveTwitting.

It’s easy to set up you just need to follow @livetwitting on Twitter learn a few commands, and start LiveTwitting!

You can use any means of Live Tweeting - the web, IM, SMS, Twhirl or Twitterific.

You also can edit or delete your events, sessions, and coverage at any time from the manage page on LiveTwitting.com

What I particularly like is that if you don’t like typing in “livetwitting”, you can use “livet”.

So if you have a conference you are attending soon and can not guarantee there will be an Internet connection, or want to be less conspicuous and not have your PC or Mac with you, why not try Live Tweeting the conference using LiveTwitting.com?

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Did you miss our recent ‘Biz Growth Live Masterclass’ about mobile marketing for small businesses?

Well I’ve great news for you - as we have now moved the programme to our ‘Biz Growth Live BlogTalk Radio‘ and the content of the call was so terrific the last time, our guest expert Kim Dushinski has generously offered to be our guest again this week.

I do hope you will join me to find out how mobile marketing can help you as a small business especially as the economy continues to suffer and marketing and client attraction is getting increasingly challenging.

In fact this week I heard a number of difficult situations with contracts being cancelled for some of my colleagues and unexpected job losses for friends of mine.

So over the summer, rather than taking a break as planned from our ‘Biz Growth Live Masterclasses’, we are going to hold them each week. Stay tuned in our newsletter for all the details.

Kim Dushinski, is the author of the forthcoming book The Mobile Marketing Handbook and I’ll be in conversation with Kim on Monday 21 July 2008 at 1pm ET  (6pm Dublin and London).

Here are the details of the Masterclass:

DATE OF THE MOBILE MARKETING MASTERCLASS: Monday 21 July 2008

TIME OF THE MOBILE MARKETING MASTERCLASS: 6pm Dublin and London/ 1pm ET/10am PT

INVESTMENT: FREE

HOW TO LISTEN

• Join us live by dialing into Biz Growth Live Blog Talk Radio show (it’s a US number). Call-in Number:  +1 347 633-9467
• Access the live streaming audio of this weeks at Biz Growth Live Blog Talk Radio
• Subscribe to the show through our Biz Growth Live Podcast feed and you will receive an update when the recording of the show is available
• Subscribe to the show on iTunes - see the link on our Biz Growth Live BlogTalk Radio page

Some of the questions we will be covering include:

• What is mobile marketing and why is it an important strategy for us to begin to consider?
• What are the different elements of a mobile marketing strategy that we need to consider?
• How mobile marketing should be implemented in relation to your overall marketing strategy for your firm/business
• What we need to take into consideration if we are to invest in making our website mobile friendly?
• How and when to use text messaging as part of your mobile marketing strategy?

If you have questions for Kim and I you can ask them by posting them here or on our live questions page or to our FriendFeed room.

If you want to get the low down on mobile marketing, don’t miss this Masterclass - and remember it’s free to join us.

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Researching and writing about the intersection of brand engagement and social media, I come across a lot of interesting resources and tips that Ifind helpful and think you mightdo too.

Here is a quick summary of some of the things that have caught my attention this week.

• If you are the proud owner of an iPhone then you might want to take a look the Wordpress for iPhone application

• Find out what Time magazine think are the top 11 applications for the iPhone

• Vodafone in the UK  provide free unlock codes for phones purchased from them so you can then use any SIM card with them

• Creating a Facebook application? Then make sure that you read this story about as a warning on how to ensure that you don’t ruin your reputation

• Read how Facebook and other social networks are being used by prosecutors, who have used photos of defendants they find on social networking sites during sentencing hearings to influence judgements.

• Allen Stern shares in a video blog the importance of disclosure on blogs, podcasts and video blogs. Bottom line - if you are being paid to write a post or review, if you have received free services or a product and you write or speak about it, disclose - it’s critical to be transparent for your reputation and personal brand online. Related articles to the video blog post are at Techcrunch, Pat Phelan’s blog and Sarah Austin’s blog.

• As you may already know, Biz Growth News is featured in the AdAge Power 150 of the worlds top media and marketing blogs.  Whilst most blogs are authored by US / Canadian bloggers, around 15% of them are European bloggers - you can find the list of European bloggers on the AdAge Power 150 here thanks to Nick Burcher.

Additional Podcasts From Krishna

This week we started a new podcast at PodCamp Ireland where each week we will feature an entrepreneur or business leaders from Ireland who is using social media in their business, perhaps to build their brand online, connect to new customers or even are developing social media tools and platforms for us all to use. this week we featured Johnny Beirne of DownloadMusic.ie

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