“Networking and

Establishing Your

Personal Brand with

Online Video”

Yelena Kadeykina

eTeamsIII @MIT

Cambridge, MA

May 2012

©Yelena Kadeykina

Personal intro

• Serial entrepreneur

• Specialty: online marketing/video marketing

• MIT Sloan Alumna

• Community work

©Yelena Kadeykina

Outline

• Introduction • Personal intro

• Why network

• Why MIT/Boston

• Networking Basics • Who/When/Where

• Do your homework before an event

• Dos and Dont’s of Networking

• How to Follow Up

• Examples: Venture Café

• Personal brand. How to establish and promote personal brand

©Yelena Kadeykina

Outline. Continued

• Video as a tool for establishing your personal brand

• Why video

• What makes video convincing

• How to get started on video

• What types of video to create

• How to have your videos found

©Yelena Kadeykina

Why network

• Build access to talent, capital

• Learn and grow as a professional

• Build partnerships

• Acquire customers

• Find a job

• Face to face is the

strongest means of communication

©Yelena Kadeykina

According to a recent

survey of the Department

of Labor, networking

accounts for at least 69% of

all annual hires.

Networking is the BEST

way to find a job or

internship.

Why MIT

• Strong entrepreneurial ecosystem. Solving real

world problems • 25,000+ companies founded by MIT alums (i.e., Akamai, Intel, HP,

iRobot, Gillette, Dropbox)

• 3.3+ million jobs

• $2 trillion in annual world sales (source: Kaufman Foundation 2009)

• MIT Intellectual and Technology Powerhouse • 72 MIT-related Nobel Prize winners (including 9 current faculty

members)

• 5 schools, 33 departments/divisions/sections/other programs (57 interdisciplinary research units)

©Yelena Kadeykina

Why Boston

• Cambridge innovation and intellectual capital: 74 colleges &

universities, $1.5 billions spent on R&D annually

• $2.4 Billions of VC investment second after Silicon Valley,

highest investment/capita: $457/capital (source: Flybridge 2010)

• Innovation clusters: Cambridge, 128/495 clusters –benefits of

high concentration

• Boston startup incubators&accelerators: CIC, Dogpatch,

MassChallenge, TechStars

• Future IPO candidates: HubSpot, Brightcove, Kayak and Tech

giants: Microsoft, Google

• Every night there is an entrepreneurial event!

©Yelena Kadeykina

Don’t be afraid of failure

©Yelena Kadeykina

Value of wingman for networking

©Yelena Kadeykina

• You are shy

Find a wingman who is outgoing, social, and cares about you

• You can not start a conversation

Have your wingman start a conversation

• You can not get motivated to go to networking

events

Have multiple event wingmen, who you push yourself to call and

invite to events

Your Wingman= Ice-breaker

Who, when & where

Who:

• Be open to meet people, yet prioritize! Make a list of top

people you want to meet (i.e., organizers, speakers)

When:

• Networking is a continuous life long process. Most

networking starts with a casual routine conversation

• Be proactive. Build it before you need it

Where:

• Offline: entrepreneurial events, workshops, conferences,

training programs

• Online: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, forums, favorite blogs

©Yelena Kadeykina

Do you homework

• Prepare and practice

your elevator pitch

• Prepare your presentation

materials (i.e., business cards)

• Research the list of attendees

• Make a list of top 7-10 contacts

• Research their bios

©Yelena Kadeykina

Do’s of networking

• Give before you ask. Always be open to help people in your

network

• Develop relationships, don’t just acquire a bunch of contacts

• Listen to people’s stories. Make it about them, not about you

• Follow up with people once you meet them

• Be genuine

• Be passionate about your ventures

• Smile

• Be realistic about what you should expect and follow up on

promises

• Stay professional and relevant (i.e. , no gossips)

©Yelena Kadeykina

Don’ts of networking

• Don’t’ brag about yourself

• Don’t exaggerate the truth

• Don’t try to discuss everything. Value other people’

time.

• Don’t ask personal questions (i.e., questions about

salary)

©Yelena Kadeykina

Follow up/Stay in touch

• Follow up on the night you met

• Make it personal: include 2-3 points from the

conversation

• Be brief and to the point

• For VIPs, handwritten notes are preferable

• Schedule another on-one-one conversation with the

people you found some immediate common

interests

• Stay in touch via events/social media (i.e., LinkedIn)

©Yelena Kadeykina

Venture Cafe & Masschallenge

• Research topics of the upcoming talks at Venture

Cafe

• Research bios of people who will attend Venture

Cafe

• Research companies that reside at MassChallenge

• Set up an objective for visiting each venue

• Talk to at least 10 people at each venue

• Recruit a wingman

• Set up follow up meetings

©Yelena Kadeykina

What is your personal brand

Personal brand – timeless. It is how we market

ourselves to others. We sell something every day.

©Yelena Kadeykina

Project

to your

boss

Vacation

trip to your

spouse

Why your personal brand is important

Strong personal brand=VISIBILITY

• Speaking engagements

• Jobs

• Clients

• The opportunity to make a difference!

©Yelena Kadeykina

Establish your personal brand

• Offline and online brand. Can you control the first

impression people make about you?

• Your self-impression = How people perceive you

• Each detail matters: • How you shake hands

• How you are dressed

• Your body language

• How you treat other people

• Your Social Media profiles

• Your resume

• How your write e-mails

©Yelena Kadeykina

Promote your personal brand

©Yelena Kadeykina

Do’s and Don’ts of personal brand

in social media

• Friending and following everyone

• Using social media as a direct response vehicle

• Creating inconsistent profiles

• Taking the same approach to different networks (i.e.,

LinkedIn vs. Facebook)

• Failing to invest sufficient time and effort

• Focusing internally

• Spamming

©Yelena Kadeykina

Why video

©Yelena Kadeykina

Video is powerful

• On YouTube alone over two billion videos are viewed

every day

• The average U.S. Internet user watches 186 videos per

month

• Having video on your website makes you 53x

more likely to appear on the front page of

Google search results…

©Yelena Kadeykina

Video is convincing

• Reveal your passion

• Show that you are genuine

• Establish your unique identity

• Explain complex things

• Build trust

©Yelena Kadeykina

24

What makes video engaging

• Emotion

• Humor

• Surprise

©Yelena Kadeykina

Video is expensive and I need a ton

of resources to get started…

©Yelena Kadeykina

Housekeeping Notes What Do You Need to Get Started?

There ARE options…

©Yelena Kadeykina

•Don’t overspend: $100-200

range

•Get a camera that allows an

easy download (i.e., USB

port)

•Good ones are:

•KodakZx1 (USB and

waterproof)

•Samsubg HMX-20

(autofocus & optical

zoom)

Get an easy-to-use camera

©Yelena Kadeykina

•Video is for your audience.

Make it interesting . Don’t

sell. Educate

•Don’t try to please

everyone with one video.

Clear messaging

•Don’t be vague. Use

specifics and real life

examples

•Include a clear-call-to

action

Content is king

©Yelena Kadeykina

Basic tips to shoot video

•Take a camera and hold still at

least for 10 seconds

or use a tripod

•Be close to the camera for best

audio

•Turn on all lights in the room

and use daylight

•Film people facing a window

•Don’t zoom

•Use a quite place

•Be authentic

©Yelena Kadeykina

What types of videos to create

©Yelena Kadeykina

Types of video for personal brand

To Build Your Brand

©Yelena Kadeykina

How-to’s

About you

Testimonials

Interviews

• 30-40% of video views:

Search queries

Google, YouTube, Bing

• 30% of views:

Social sharing on Facebook,

Twitter, blogs, etc

• The rest:

Discovered the video right on a website

or a video platform

How your videos get found

©Yelena Kadeykina Source: Pixability, Inc. (www.pixability.com)

Where to put your videos

Your Video

“Posting” Public video sharing

platforms

“Hosting” Dedicated player on your

site

More control over player

Better analytics

Higher quality

Free

Views count for YouTube SEO

Source: Pixability, Inc. (www.pixability.com)

Promote your videos

• Have a landing page video

on your Facebook page

• Post videos on YouTube

• Include videos in your LinkedIn

• Include videos in your tweets

• Put videos on your website!

©Yelena Kadeykina Source: Pixability, Inc. (www.pixability.com)

The top 3 things successful

video marketers do

1. Produce way, way more videos: Top marketers publish 11x more videos on YouTube

2. Invest in metadata that drive SEO: Top marketers use 52% more tags, 20% longer description texts and 585% more playlists

3. Use video assets on all channels: Top marketers have 53% more videos on their websites

©Yelena Kadeykina

Source: Pixability, Inc. (www.pixability.com)

• It is all about people

• Don’t take other people’ time for granted

• Build long-term relationship

• Build your brand and be genuine

• Don’t be afraid of failures

• Enjoy your journey!

©Yelena Kadeykina

Final thoughts

Additional resources

• MIT Trust Center

• MIT Enterprise Forum

• MIT people hubs: Jose Estabil, Joost Bonsen, Bill Aulet

• Communities/media: DartBoston, MassChallenge,

Cambridge Innovation Center, Greenhorn Connect,

Mass High Tech, BostonInno, TechStars, Xconomy

©Yelena Kadeykina

Questions?

Thank you!

Contact information:

E-mail: yelena@sloan.mit.edu

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/yelenakadeykina

Twitter: @ykadeykina

©Yelena Kadeykina