What's in store for this edition:

• Personal Branding Guide

  • Why is having a personal brand important?

  • How to Build your Personal Brand

  • Personal Brand Goal

  • Developing a Persona

• NEWSWORTHY: I Scream, You Scream...

• COOL or CRINGE: Black History Month

• TOOLKIT 🧰 — DeepSeek R1 🐳

• Attention Seeker of the Week 🐶

Personal Branding Guide

What makes you-you? Your skills, values, experiences, and your personality. Personal branding is about shaping others’ perceptions of you in professional and personal contexts. Think about it: companies have their brand and unique value proposition - why shouldn’t you?

Marketing yourself and your career as a brand, when done consistently, makes it easy for your audience to pick you out in a crowd.

Why is having a personal brand important?

✅ Helps you stand out in a competitive world.

✅ Builds trust and shows that you are an expert.

✅ Opens the door to new opportunities, like jobs, partnerships or collaborations.

✅ By reflecting your true self, it shows authenticity.

How to Build your Personal Brand

Start by answering these questions:

• Do you understand your strengths, unique skills, and values?

• What do you want to be known for?

• What value do you provide?

• Who’s your audience?

Once you’ve answered these, follow these steps:

1. Craft your story.
   Share what makes you unique. (Here’s mine with tips on how to craft yours)

2. Build Your Online Presence
   Optimize your LinkedIn profile, create a website, and social media accounts. Share your expertise through blogs, newsletters, and videos.

3. Network and Collaborate
   Attend events, collaborate with peers, and engage with communities in your niche.

4. Monitor and Adapt
   Regularly assess how your brand is perceived. Adjust based on feedback or changes in goals.

Personal Brand Goal

My goal is to be positive, uncomplicated, and helpful—not far from the real-world me, which is also often seen wearing sunglasses.😎 In everything I put out, I remind myself of this: Is it helpful? Is it positive? Is it simple?

Developing a Persona

Persona is the cornerstone of personal branding—it’s consistent across all communication channels. A strong persona helps others recognize and relate to you.

Some personas stand out because of their appearance:

Mamma Stanley — The cherished Edmonton Oilers super-fan.
Jesse Cole — Savannah Banana owner who embraces the yellow suit and has started a sporting sensation.
El Santo — The luchadore who elevated wrestling and could teach a master class on persona.

Others stand out because of their qualities:

Oprah Winfrey — Known for empowerment, authenticity, and empathy
Kris Carr — Radiates positivity and healthy living.
Sara Blakely — Embodies for empowerment, confidence, and innovation.

Who is your favorite?

Do this now:

1. Answer the questions at beginning or article to start building your personal brand.

2. Do an audit of your social media accounts to make sure they are reflecting your personal brand.

3. Write out questions to ask yourself before you put anything out, to make sure you reflecting your personal brand.

Get PR techniques from recent news.

Newsworthy

I Scream, You Scream… We all scream for Chili Ice Cream?🌶️🍨

Skyline Chili and Graeter’s have created a controversial ice cream flavor.

@junglejimsofficial

Graeters made a Skyline Chili ice cream? AND it's amazing!? Come try it when it launches at #junglejims on Monday, January 27th! #skylinec... See more

Skyline Chili and Graeter’s created buzz with their controversial chili-flavored ice cream collaboration.

Here’s why it worked:

• An unconventional but intriguing partnership.

• Fueled speculation by teasing potential flavors online before launch.

• Promoted heavily on social media platforms.

• Created a product that sparked curiosity—and debate!

This reminds me of my client who made Dill Pickle Taffy—you either loved it or hated it, but everyone talked about it!

✍️ Key PR Takeaway: Sometimes controversy creates interest—don’t be afraid to think outside the box (of chilies).

Learn from others.

100% Cool : 0% Cringe

Black History Month.

Reporters love stories, and wherever you are throughout February you will find many great stories being told during Black History Month.

Here’s a preview of an upcoming story I was involved in:

How do you get your story noticed?

Essential strategy:

• Plan well in advance.

• Pitch to the right reporter.

• Produce good content.

• Get creative and make it visually interesting, unique, fun.

💫 Pro Tip: Reporters will love you even more if you share content such as your high quality images, videos, graphics, hashtags, product descriptions and links to your owned media. You can provide to them directly or make them available on your website’s newsroom or press page.

✍️ Key PR Takeaway: Use events like National __ Day/Month in your PR promotions, product development, and social media plans.

Useful PR Resources.

🧰 TOOLKIT

DeepSeek 🐳 — An AI tool that should be on your radar

Keeping up with all the AI tools is no small task, but one new tool you may want to check out rivals the most powerful reasoning ChatGPT model (o1) that OpenAI has created. This one is coming from China and is called DeepSeek.

Built at a fraction of the development costs of the American tech giants combined with its great performance has it shaking up the tech stocks this week.

Best of all you can use it for free.

One key feature usually only found in paid models, is it can search the web and incorporate the results in its response.

Give it a try with this prompt:

 tell me about Keren Speck and attnseek.com newsletter

I have covered a few models in my AI Guide for Public Relations, but I may need to update the list now. Let me know what you think.

Attention Seeker of the Week

This little 11-week-old toy Fox Terrier, Archer, loves to watch TV, he is playful, smart and enjoys classical music.

I learned something new, this breed is highly intelligent and trainable - that is why they adapted so well to circus life. Talk about loving attention!

Thanks to his family that I met while having my afternoon coffee.

Can we feature your attention seeker?

Welcome new readers, happy to have you here, and always appreciate suggestions if you have any topics you want me to cover. 😋

Until next week, keep your shades on and stay cool.

Your fellow Seeker,
Keren

🕶️