Using Social Media to Build Your Personal Brand

Over the past month I’ve been asked to give a presentation at local colleges on using social media to self promote, it’s been a great experience. The students in the classes have been eager to understand these new tools and how they apply to their efforts to start their careers. So I thought I would share it with you as well as some of the insights I’ve gained from putting it together and from the questions that some in the audiences have asked.

The concept behind this lecture is to get the students thinking about and working on what some of us have already noticed and have been developing for ourselves, that being personal branding via social media.  It should come as no surprise that companies are using these tools to understand a potential employees personal brand and how that might fit in with their culture and hiring needs.  So why not use the same tools to promote oneself with right?

In this day and age, the idea of not using social media to promote yourself and your interests is almost a form of career suicide.  For those in the graphics worlds tools like Slideshare, Vine, Youtube, and Pinterest make sharing bulky multimedia files simple and consistent for everyone who wants to view them.  For the average business user Blogger and Tumbler allow potential employees to showcase their interests and group their reading lists in ways that allow recruiters to get a feel for the types of materials a candidate is being influenced by.  It goes without saying that LinkedIn is the new way to distribute your resume and network as well as showcase your bio, work product, references, and recommendations.  If used correctly these social media tools can help any job candidate differentiate themselves, get noticed, and into the job market with ease.

http://www.slideshare.net/StevenRValley/personal-brand-40554513

Understanding that your personal brand has many elements and can be influenced by many things is the corner stone of any personal branding effort.  As with any effort to publicize yourself knowing the lay of the land is crucial, since the landscape can change and the leading influencers can come and go and the benefits from them can be huge or can vanish without a moments notice.  We’ve all heard of viral posts and videos suddenly taking off and a windfall of notoriety can ensue lifting a business to rock star status and provide them with a large audience that then eagerly awaits the next installment. So be prepared.

You also need to be ready for the negative aspects of that notoriety.  Yes there are some traps to be aware of, like: being to open and sharing too much, using a social channel that really isn’t meant for branding yourself professionally, and not being aware of your own companies policies regarding your involvement with their social efforts. In my experience with social media, I’ve given presentations to companies and their employees on what to watch out for when it comes to using social media and interacting with their companies social media channel.  The three issues I just mentioned above are the main ones that I point out, but there are more.  What amazes me is that some of the members of the audience are surprised that they would have to curtail their social posting activities or think twice about posting something to their employers page.  But once they consider the situation, and how it could look, they back down and are almost thankful, to have the potential issues pointed out to them. I usually spend a few minutes and slides giving students the same pointers so they can start off on good note with any future employers.

The biggest and most overlooked social channel for an emerging business person is a personal website with an RSS feed from it to the world.  Using that same site to promote certain aspects of job knowledge, or to showcase presentations, and to link out to other sites that they may have had a hand in developing.  The benefits to this for the owner are immense; knowing who is coming and going to their site, what they looked at, how long they stayed, and where they came from and went to, if you’re following this you know I am referring to site analytics and the wealth of info they can provide the owner with. All of that info helps to understand your personal brand and it’s potential value. Mainly though a personal site allows for a greater level of control with regard to content and that’s the main reason for them in the personal brand mix.  This aspect becomes more important for more established professionals but students can gain a lot from a personal site as well.

Along those lines, most of the students and professionals I’ve talked with are eager to jump in to this new way of marketing themselves, pulling all of their work together and culling it down so that it represents their very best work and showcases their full potential in a really rewarding way. Most are willing to abandon their earlier “youthful” posting habits and see their lives falling into two categories, professional and personal.  They get the idea of how far they can reach and how easily they can promote themselves and that can help them get off to a great start or continue the rise in their careers.

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