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Slide 2: Table of Contents Introduction - What Is Personal Branding?.........................5 Chapter 1.................................................................7 What Does Personal Branding Accomplish - What Can You Do When You ARE A Brand?.................................................................7 Standing Out.......................................................................7 Career Changes....................................................................8 Increased Sales....................................................................8 Easier Marketing..................................................................9 Extra Money, New Job Opportunities.........................................9 Summary..........................................................................10 Chapter 2................................................................11 Discovering YOUR Brand.......................................................11 Answering the Questions- Reaching Your Brand..........................12 Have a Goal in Mind.............................................................13 Finding Your Strengths and Marketable Attributes.......................13 Going about It A Different Way...............................................14 Discover Your Long Term Brand..............................................14 Summary..........................................................................15 Chapter 3................................................................15 How Does Social Media Help With Personal Branding?...................15 Creating Multiple Communication Channels................................16 Create an Identity...............................................................16 Create a Network of Followers...............................................16 Create a Reputation............................................................17 Summary..........................................................................18 Chapter 4................................................................18 2
Slide 3: Making Use of Social Media to Create and Expand Your Personal Brand ......................................................................................18 Create a Consistent Identity..................................................18 Take Part in Many Conversations.............................................19 Consistency Is an Imperative..................................................19 “Sleeping With the Enemy” Is Not a Recipe for Disaster................20 Build Your Own Niche..........................................................20 Maintain Your Personality.....................................................21 Be Bold and Unique.............................................................21 Be Available and Approachable...............................................21 Be Active..........................................................................22 Summary..........................................................................22 Chapter 5................................................................23 Establishing and Expanding Your Brand through Twitter................23 First Things First, Creating a Profile.........................................23 Post Frequently..................................................................23 Answer User Questions.........................................................24 Engage in Conversation........................................................24 Find People to Follow..........................................................24 Make Use of Apps and Websites..............................................24 Summary..........................................................................25 Chapter 6................................................................26 Establishing and Expanding Your Brand via Facebook...................26 The Basics.........................................................................26 Join Groups.......................................................................27 Make Use of Tags................................................................27 Participate with Personality...................................................27 Be an Expert but Not a Seller.................................................28 Summary..........................................................................28 Chapter 7................................................................29 LinkedIn- The Professional Social Network.................................29 3
Slide 4: Profile Creation..................................................................29 Frequent the Q&A Pages.......................................................30 Create Groups and Events.....................................................30 Use Blog and Other Apps.......................................................30 Summary .........................................................................31 Chapter 8................................................................32 YouTube...........................................................................32 Creating Your Profile...........................................................32 Create Great Videos............................................................33 Promote Your Videos...........................................................33 Summary..........................................................................33 Chapter 9................................................................35 Flickr, Blogs, and Other Social Media........................................35 The Power of Blogging..........................................................35 Flickr and Other Photo Sharing Services....................................35 Forums, Groups, and Message Boards.......................................36 Summary..........................................................................36 Chapter 10..............................................................38 Social Networking and Personal Branding Mistakes and Trends to Avoid ......................................................................................38 Things to Avoid at All Costs....................................................38 Summary..........................................................................39 Chapter 11..............................................................40 Why Online Identity Management and Personal Brand Maintenance Are Crucial.............................................................................40 Separating the Personal from the Professional............................40 Your Online Identity Can Make or Break You..............................40 Google Makes Management Easier............................................41 Why You Can’t Neglect Your Personal Brand..............................42 Summary..........................................................................42 4
Slide 5: Conclusion ..............................................................43 Introduction - What Is Personal Branding? When you think of creating a brand, it is natural instinct to think of companies and corporations and the association they try to make between their products and the way the average consumer views them. But what you may not immediately think of is the brand you create for yourself. Personal branding has been a bit of a buzzword in certain circles these days, especially in light of the massive social networks that allow people all over the globe to come together based on shared histories, shared interests, or even by chance. Personal branding is not really a new concept, but it is one that many people, until recently, never considered for themselves. There have always been people who have turned their names into personal brands. Take Donald Trump, for example. When you think of him, you likely think of hotels and casinos with his name on them, as well as his trademark hairstyle and even his overall business sense. That is because everything he has said and done publicly has been done with his image and his own unique brand in mind. Even outside of the celebrity world, there have been many who have created personal brands and put them to good use long before the concept was popular. Most towns and cities have personal injury attorneys who have a particular catchphrase or personality trait that helps them stand out in a crowd. Believe it or not, all the silly television and radio ads and other similar things are all a method of personal branding- creating a distinct brand and reputation that will come to mind when you think of them. Even if you are neither Donald Trump nor a personal injury attorney, you will find that personal branding can help you in your career. No matter what your chosen field, personal branding can help you establish yourself as an expert. In this book, we will show you how to become your own brand. In essence, personal branding is your way to market yourself. Through the use of the proper techniques, you can create equity in your name and create appeal within your field and within the public sector. In the chapters that follow, we will accomplish a number of goals. Throughout the remainder of this book, you will learn many things. We will help you understand the role of social media in creating a brand as well 5
Slide 6: as how to use the various social networks to accomplish these goals. We will also help you learn what trends to avoid and why you need to always be vigilant in maintaining a consistent online identity and what a personal brand can do for your career. Most importantly, we will teach you how to identify and create YOUR personal brand and how to make certain that it works to help you advance in your career and your life. 6
Slide 7: Chapter 1 What Does Personal Branding Accomplish - What Can You Do When You ARE A Brand? Before we can really get into the details of personal branding and what it can do for you when you make the most possible use of it, it is important to talk about what it can do at all. What does establishing yourself as a brand really do for you, and how can it benefit your career or you personally? In this chapter, we aim to answer these questions and to help you understand why it is worth your time and effort to make yourself a brand. Standing Out One thing that personal branding certainly accomplishes is that it enables you to really stand out in a crowd. Whether there are ten people in your town or city with the same career path as you or ten thousand, the best way to advance in your life and in your career is to be able to really stand out in a crowd of any size. But more than just standing out, you have to be able to stand out in all the right ways. Working hard and striving for excellence at all costs can help you in this, but when everyone in your field is doing this in order to stay ahead in a frightening job market, you need to be doing everything you can. That’s where personal branding comes into play. Once you have established what you want your personal brand to say about you (more on this in the next chapter), you can focus on really embodying and displaying those qualities in all of your online and business interactions. Consistency is key in personal branding, and you will find that building your brand is the best way to stand out no matter how many other people are in the same field or position. When you are able to stand out in a positive way, by sharing your knowledge and expertise and by working hard to make your brand known, you give yourself better advancement prospects. When there are a large number of similarly experienced and educated employment prospects being considered for a position or promotion, having an employer recognize your name and automatically associate it with hard work and expertise is 7
Slide 8: absolutely to your benefit. Building a personal brand is the key to standing out, and standing out is the key to creating demand for yourself. Career Changes When you spend time creating a personal brand and really working to display the very best of your abilities at all times, it can prove immeasurably beneficial to your career. Most people aspire to one day move on to a different career or a different position on the career ladder, and those who spend their careers building up a consistent personal brand will find this much easier. Your personal brand should always be putting out the most professional and best version of you, both in your online and career interactions. Your brand should encompass everything about you in a professional setting, including how you dress, how you speak, and how you truly interact with others. You want people to experience the best version of you and to really see you as you want your brand to present you. When you truly encompass your personal brand, it will become the association that others make when they think of you. When you are creating a personal brand with the hopes of career advancement in mind, you have a unique opportunity. You can start building a brand long before you start moving towards your ultimate goal. Think of it as long-term preparation- establishing yourself as the ideal candidate not only for your current job, but for your long term prospect, so that by the time you are ready to make a play for the role, everyone else is already envisioning you in it. Increased Sales If you work in sales, personal branding can be a great way to increase your numbers. For anyone in the sales business, you are known as a personal ambassador for your company and the products you sell. This means that everything you do affects the opinion of your company. But there is a bigger reason for branding than this- the more sales you make, the more people are going to become aware of you. You want your brand to display you as the best and the person to turn to in your field. Doing so will in turn help you make even more sales and will help you become even more established in the industry. 8
Slide 9: The simple fact is that the world of technology is a double-edged sword. It can certainly prove frustrating, as it leaves people with a much wider range of options for purchasing virtually anything, but it also gives you the ideal space to create and enhance your brand, offering you a much larger market of potential customers. In today’s world, we have to sell ourselves to customers as much as our products themselves, and technology offers the perfect venue for accomplishing this. Easier Marketing When you are looking to build a solid and reliable customer base, you need prospective customers to really see you as an expert and to value your opinions and your worth. Personal branding offers the ability to really make customers more confident in you. When every result that comes up for your name shows your expertise and your online interactions leave a trail of solid advice and professional communications, you are solidifying that reputation and that notion. Marketing yourself becomes much easier when you are seen as a leading expert and when your name is associated with the best in the business. Personal branding is critical to marketing in today’s world. Your reputation is your biggest selling point, and it is up to you to establish it. Extra Money, New Job Opportunities It is also worth noting that personal branding can be a unique way to help earn extra money or to open doors to new job opportunities in a different field or branch of work. For example, if you frequently mention your love of a hobby or your expertise in an area, those who follow you online will already think of you as an expert in that area. This can create an avenue that you can use to help create a side job or a second job. Diversifying your methods of income in today’s economy can be very wise and it can also offer greater fulfillment. Personal branding can also help you earn extra money in other ways as well. When your brand presents you as an expert in your field and allows you to frequently offer solid advice and information in the areas that interest you, it is easy to get people to see you as the person to go to for all things 9
Slide 10: related to that subject. This can make it easy for you to earn profits by writing and selling eBooks in your area of expertise. Summary The bottom line is simply this- personal branding is more of a necessity than a luxury in today’s world. You need to be your own company, your own entity, even when you are also part of another company or entity. The range of benefits is too large to be ignored, and personal branding offers you the best way to get ahead of the pack in many aspects of your life and career. 10
Slide 11: Chapter 2 Discovering YOUR Brand Before you can work on building your personal brand, you need to know exactly what it is. What image do you want to project? To whom do you want to project it? In this chapter, we will look at identifying and determining your personal brand. Let’s start by taking a look at some questions that can help give you a clearer picture. • • Who are you looking to reach with your brand, who do you want it to speak to? What strengths do you want your brand to highlight? 11
Slide 12: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • What are your motivations? What goals do you want your personal brand to show? What goals do you want your personal brand to help you reach? What do you use to gauge success? How do you want your personal brand to make people feel? What do you want your personal brand to make people think of you? What impact do you want your brand to have on others? What impact do you want your brand to have on you? What are your long term goals and how can your brand help you reach them? What personal changes can help you best embody your personal brand? What is your ultimate goal in creating a personal brand? What are your small or short term goals in creating a personal brand? What top three attributes do you want your personal brand to showcase? What image do you want your name and your brand to evoke? Answering the Questions- Reaching Your Brand While these questions may seem trivial, the simple fact is that answering them honestly and fully is the best way to really discover your personal brand. You need to know exactly what it is that you want people to think of when they think of you. Your brand is essentially your career personality, and it impacts everything about the way prospective customers and employers look at you and think of you. Discovering your brand can really take a lot of hard work and deep thinking, but it is worth it. Even once you know your brand, however, you will find that you need to work hard to stick to it. Before posting any online content or really engaging with others in a professional setting, you need to be certain that your words and thoughts line up with the brand you have 12
Slide 13: created and the attributes you want to showcase. Consistency is absolutely the key. When you have answered all of these questions, you have made a big step towards discovering your personal brand. Of course, we want to be certain that you have really got the best help available in doing this, so let’s take a deeper look at brand discovery. Have a Goal in Mind One of the biggest mistakes you can make in creating a personal brand is to try to do so just for the sake of having a brand. You need to have a goal and a personality in mind, and you need a personal brand that really represents what you are passionate about. Everything you do and post in terms of branding should be reflective of both your personality and your passion. When you can link the two, creating your brand and really keeping it active becomes second nature. The simple fact is that when your goals and your true passions are aligned, branding becomes a simple task. The idea is to help people see you in the same light that you see yourself in terms of your career and your passion for what you do. This doesn’t mean that you cannot have a personality, however. If you are known in the workplace as someone who absolutely knows the job but can also make co-workers laugh in even the most stressful moments, make this part of your brand. Personal branding doesn’t have to be entirely rigid and serious, and the personality traits that best describe you can actually serve to make your brand more effective and more realistic for others. If you constantly have people cracking up in the break room but have a personal brand that is all business and all work, it is going to be hard for people to equate the two or to really see you as your brand. Find your niche and your passion and create a brand around it, but allow your personality to be a part of your brand as well. Finding Your Strengths and Marketable Attributes One key to creating a successful personal brand is finding your strengths and attributes and discovering how to put them to work for you. Are you a hard worker? Someone devoted to always doing the best job possible? Where do you excel even above what others are capable of doing? 13
Slide 14: Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and your personal brand puts great emphasis on the areas where you are strongest. Figure out what attributes are present in most of your competitors and look to find the strengths and attributes that set you apart from them. What makes others unique? What makes you unique? Ask friends and coworkers what they think your strengths and attributes are, both in terms of work and personality. Ask what your perceived weaknesses are as well and work on turning them into strengths. Going about It A Different Way For some individuals, discovering your personal brand can be difficult and even frustrating. If this seems to describe where you are finding yourself, perhaps it will help to approach the situation in a different manner. Working from a different angle can actually help some people discover their brands much more easily. Instead of working to identify each of the answers listed above and to create a brand around them, you can also try working it backwards. Imagine a stranger, someone unfamiliar with both you and your business. This person is looking for select people to be part of a great business venture. The catch, however, is that you have to have what is needed to succeed in this venture. It is up to you to plead your own case. What would you say about yourself? What accomplishments help you stand out and what goals have you achieved either by yourself or as part of a team? When you explain your own importance and why you are the most deserving of this opportunity and you really work to create a case for yourself, you will find that you end up discovering your brand in the process. To really show why you would be the right choice, you would have to address your strengths, your attributes, your aspirations, and your abilities. Discover Your Long Term Brand One last thing that you want to keep in mind is this- don’t create a personal brand today to meet tomorrow’s goal. You need to create a brand that is built for longevity. Take the time to really sit down and think about your long term career goals. What skills do you have to reach them and what skills can you develop and showcase along the way. Creating a brand for short term goals can help you get a result now, but if that persona doesn’t 14
Slide 15: match up with your long term goals, you may find yourself falling short in the long run. Summary The secret to success in personal branding is to make it truly personal. You don’t want to create a brand that represents someone you are not or that signifies who you wish you were, you need a brand that represents YOU. Figure out your long term goals and what makes you uniquely placed to achieve them. Make yourself marketable, discover the personality traits that best showcase who you are as a person and an employee, and then put these things to work to help you create a brand that can help you achieve your goals more easily both now and in the future. Chapter 3 How Does Social Media Help With Personal Branding? There is no doubt that social media is everywhere and that its global impact has been huge. It has been the basis of blockbuster movies, it is referenced in virtually every television show, and it has even impacted the way the world gets to see news events. We have all seen videos and heard news stories about the role social media has played in wartime situations and other global events, including the view we get of natural disasters these days. Simply put, social media is everywhere and it is a phenomenon that is too big to ignore. Ignoring social media when looking to create your personal brand would be unwise. Studies show that an overwhelming percentage of people today use social media on a regular basis, making this a perfect outlet for creating a brand and persona. Social media is a very viable and valuable marketing tool and a great forum for personal advertisement. 15
Slide 16: Creating Multiple Communication Channels When you want to really establish yourself as a brand, one of the best things you can do is to provide a consistent image. Social media really makes this simple, while enabling you to show your personality, strengths, and skills in a variety of ways. With the various social networks out there, you can create blog posts, update statuses, provide tweets, post videos, and maintain a professional business profile all at once. Social networking presents you with practically unlimited opportunities to get your name, your face, and your reputation out into the world. But how does this really benefit you? For starters, it vastly increases your networking abilities and your potential reach. You never know when a prospective employer is going to Google you, but when you are taking advantage of social networks, you can rest assured that he or she will find a wealth of information that can help them better make a hiring decision. Create an Identity Before the era of technology and social media, companies typically had to resort to either hiring from within or taking a chance on complete unknowns based solely on the entries on their resumes. Social media has taken away that need by allowing people to create their own identities and by allowing companies to really see what makes a person before deciding whether or not to hire them. With social media, you are creating a digital history for yourself. Every blog post you make every photo or video you post, or every tweet you send out is another footprint. Hiring managers, recruiters, and even potential clients will almost certainly search you out through social networks, and when you have a solid history behind you that creates the persona and personality that they are seeking, it increases your chances of success. Create a Network of Followers Personal branding gives you another great opportunity when you choose to employ social media as a main form of brand creation and maintenance. It can actually help you build an online reputation as an expert, a leader, or simply the best at what you do and who you are, you will find that this reputation will precede you network of followers, which can present you with many opportunities down the line. When you use your social networks to 16
Slide 17: present viable, helpful information, you gain the interest of others and you get them to in turn recommend you to their friends, employers, and coworkers. If you are wondering what possible benefit gaining a network of followers from different industries and different nations could have, it is important to realize that your future potential is unlimited. You never know when a networked connection could present you with a unique career opportunity or even an opportunity that you may never have imagined for yourself. When you have followers across a wide range of careers and locations, the opportunities presented can be equally varied. You may discover that there is great need for a book based on your expertise or that there is a team of workers who could benefit from a seminar or lecture based on your unique skills and offerings. You may receive job invitations, offers, and more. At a minimum, you will have the chance to interact with a variety of people, sharing your expertise while greatly expanding your reach. Create a Reputation While we already touched on your ability to create an identity using social media, it is important to realize that you can also create a reputation. Your identity will establish your areas of expertise and your personality, but your reputation does more than this. When you create When you really establish yourself with personal branding, you will find that you can get people talking about you even off of your own social media sites. When someone Googles your name, prospective employers can click on virtually any result and see what it is that they most need to know about you so that when you walk into their office; they already understand that you are a trusted expert in your field. Social media presents you the opportunity to generate endorsements and partnerships as well. When you establish your reputation in the industry, you will find that bigger and better individuals and companies will want to align themselves with you or allow you to align yourself with them. Experts and clients will also want to leave feedback on your posts and content, explaining what benefits were gained, providing you with a unique form of endorsement that actually helps to further establish you as a brand. Your online reputation is always growing as long as you are remaining consistent and staying active with your social networks, and the potential benefits can be simply amazing. 17
Slide 18: Summary In truth, there are countless ways that social media helps you in your quest to establish a personal brand. In today’s world, connecting online is essential for truly advancing in business. The biggest companies and corporations conduct their job searches on a national or global level, and you need to be established in your niche if you hope to be able to compete. Social media can help you form powerful and necessary associations and partnerships and can provide you with the identity and reputation you need to ensure that you are able to get ahead and to always keep moving forward. Chapter 4 Making Use of Social Media to Create and Expand Your Personal Brand Now that we have covered why you need social media to help you establish and grow your personal brand, it is important to delve into how to accomplish this. In the chapters that follow this, we will take a look at making use of specific social media formats to help you establish yourself as a personal brand. But before we do that, it is important to take a look at how you accomplish these goals as a whole. Think of this as a primer before you set to work on individual social media accounts. Create a Consistent Identity A very wise idea when looking to establish yourself in social media is to create an identity that is personal and to try to use it with every social network you take part in. While this can be hard if your name is, say, David Smith, you need to try to find a moniker that you can use that is easily recognizable, consistent, and career oriented. For example, if it was available on the major networks, you could establish yourself as DavidSmithInvesting or DavidSmithCareerCounseling. Building a brand starts with creating a successful and easy to remember name, just as it does for major companies. And you will find that when you 18
Slide 19: create a name that creates an instant association with your niche or area of expertise, it makes you easy for people to remember and recommend to others. Take the time to select an identity that you can use across all networks, see it as an extension of yourself, and create your brand around it. Take Part in Many Conversations This is something that really cannot be emphasized enough. When you are looking to establish yourself as a brand, you need to do more than make blog posts and create status updates. Create a profile on major message boards and websites and really take part in the conversations people are having. It doesn’t matter if people are talking about you or a competitor. What matters is that you are providing valuable, honest answers from the perspective of an expert and that all of these answers and conversations are attached to the identity you have created. Keep your answers consistent with your personal brand, and keep the conversations flowing. Take the time to search out questions in popular forums that are related to your brand in some way and offer people the answers and help that they need. Remember that the more sites you take part in, even if simply to answer the occasional question, the farther your reach. Personal branding should help you establish yourself as a brand entity, and when you are using a single identity to help people across the web reach answers, you are boosting not only your reputation, but your ranking in the search engines. So start talking and engaging others and make sure that you are getting your name and your expertise into the market. Consistency Is an Imperative We have already touched on the importance of consistency in personal branding, as well as on the need to keep your name as consistent as possible. But it is critical that we take the time to really emphasize the importance of creating a consistent identity. Your brand hinges on people being able to have a solid image of you. That means that you can’t establish yourself as a marketing professional or other career minded individual one day and someone who spends weekends getting drunk with friends the next. Your brand and your posts need to be consistent not only with one another, but with your brand. Before posting anything online from an 19
Slide 20: account that uses your personal brand moniker, take the time to ask yourself how it aligns with your brand and how it showcases the strengths or attributes that you want others to associate with your brand. When you are consistent, it becomes much easier for people to see you in the way that you want them to. “Sleeping With the Enemy” Is Not a Recipe for Disaster While you may think that posting answers in forums or on blogs related to your competitors is a bad business move, it may not be. If you play your cards right, you may even find that this can be beneficial to you. You never want to approach such situations from the position of trying to sell yourself on someone else’s site or to belittle your competitors, but every market is a good place to show off your expertise and knowledge. For many, posting valuable and helpful information in such forums can lead to surprising and beneficial partnerships. It may lead to the ability to network together or to work together to help better an industry. Competitors are not necessarily enemies. Get your name, your brand, and your expertise out there, and while you want to take a very non-aggressive approach to doing so, do not hesitate to offer your expertise in forums and venues that you may consider “enemy territory”. Build Your Own Niche Another thing that you will find that you can gain from using social media is the ability to create and establish your own niche. Remember there are tons of companies out there that offer similar services to one another. For example, there are tons of tech companies in the world today. But even in an industry that is saturated with competition; social media can let you carve out a niche for yourself that helps you stand out. When discovering your personal brand, you should have found the niche that you want to serve. Whether this is a certain demographic of people, a certain area of your career that fuels your passion, or just some concept or perspective that you have on your field that many do not seem to have, create and carve out your niche and make sure that your social media pages and communications serve to show you as a unique entity within this area. 20
Slide 21: Maintain Your Personality If you want to be regarded as someone who is incredibly knowledgeable but also incredibly well humored, remember to establish this when you are using social media. It doesn’t mean that every post or answer has to be laugh out loud funny, but the personality you are looking to showcase really needs to shine through in all you do. There are thousands of blogs and profiles out there that are strictly informational. They read much like a textbook. They may provide valuable information, but the simple fact is that today’s web users have increasingly short attention spans. If your communications are not engaging and full of personality, the simple fact is that it is going to show in the number of followers you have and the number of people who bother to read your content. Be real and be informative, but always, always, always showcase your unique personality Be Bold and Unique While you don’t want to be known as someone who trashes the competition and steps on anyone in the way in order to get ahead, you do need to be bold and unique in your online presence. If you are saying the same thing everyone else is saying, what is going to keep people coming back to you as a source of information, news, or advice? You need to be putting content out there that draws in readers and that really makes people need to follow you or interact with you. Is there some aspect of your career field, the market, the economy, or your interests that really bothers you or consistently fails to meet your expectations? If so, why not address it? Explain why it bothers you, say who or what you feel is to blame, and propose a solution. Explain how things could or would be different if you were able to change the situation. Find what motivates you and what frustrates you and don’t be afraid to have an opinion and to share it. Generate a buzz and get people talking and sharing your content with others. Be Available and Approachable While you want to come off as an expert in your field and someone whose insight and knowledge is of value and importance, you also want to ensure that your followers see you as someone approachable. You don’t want 21
Slide 22: to come off full of yourself or as someone who believes that only your own opinions and insights matter. You want people to be comfortable asking you questions and to really engage in conversation. Talk to people rather than at them. You never know when someone reading your posts or answers is a prospective employer or a career recruiter. The more you engage others in conversation and the more you interact, the more you are going to be able to build upon your brand. You want people to turn to you with their questions rather than someone else, but in order to do this you need to let them know that you want to answer their questions. You also need to be able to provide timely responses. Be Active This last piece of general advice for making the most of social networks may actually be one of the most important. If you create a number of profiles, but rarely use them, the effects will be quite minimal. Likewise, if you build a blog but rarely make new posts, you are not going to gain a loyal and consistent following. Remaining active is a critical part of using social media to build your personal brand. The online world offers us a source of instant gratification, and people want someone who offers frequent content and fast answers to their questions. Remember than any question you leave unanswered is going to be answered by someone else instead. Holding onto your followers and building your brand means staying active in your networks. If your time is limited, you need to choose the networks that will work best for you, rather than spreading yourself too thin over a variety of platforms. Summary Making the most use of social media to help establish your personal brand means following some basic guidelines. While there are different strategies you can take based on the platform you are using, these rules will help you make the most of any and all social media formats that you choose to make use of. Take the time to really understand these guidelines and you will find that you can really make the most of the social networking trend in helping to build and increase your brand recognition. 22
Slide 23: Chapter 5 Establishing and Expanding Your Brand through Twitter Twitter can be a great place to expand and build your personal brand, especially for those who are pressed for time. Twitter is unique in that it has a 140-character limit for your posts. This means that everything you say must be short, simple, informative, and engaging. This is a difficult feat, perhaps, but one that you will grow accustomed too quickly. First Things First, Creating a Profile Your profile is going to prove just as important as your tweets themselves, especially in the beginning. Remember earlier when we talked about consistency in your identity? Well, here is where you will start putting it to work. Choose a professional picture that best represents you that you will use for all of your social networking profiles. Now, crop out just a headshot. This will be your Twitter picture. In terms of the profile itself, you need to make it professional and informative. Add in links to all of your other social networking sites as you create them, and make sure that you explain whom you are and what you do. Allow your personality to shine through even in your profile. Remember that people are likely to read your profile before deciding whether or not to follow you and let it showcase the best of your brand and the best of you. Post Frequently While you don’t want to bombard the feeds of your users like some Twitter users do (there are some people who literally make hundreds of tweets per day), you do want to keep your name and your brand on their minds and relevant. Shoot for between three and five relevant tweets a day. They can be tips, advice, or even links to blogs (by you or someone else) that you think are relevant to your brand and interesting. Another thing to keep in mind is this: the most active time for twitter is actually in the afternoon around most people’s lunch breaks. Sharing links, blog posts, videos, and the like through Twitter is a great idea. You will find that most websites today offer you the option to “share” 23
Slide 24: their content via Twitter, and you can even add this option to your own blog. You would be surprised how many followers will in turn re-tweet your posts, gaining you a wider audience and even more followers. Answer User Questions Another unique thing about Twitter is that it is not private like other social networks. This can absolutely work to your advantage. Using Twitter’s search feature, you can type in keywords relevant to your niche to seek out questions that people may have and then answer them. Remember that this can help to not only gain you a following from people whose questions you answer, but from those who follow them and even others who seek out the same terms. Engage in Conversation Take at least five to ten minutes a day to engage in conversation with your followers and fellow Twitter users. Ask questions, respond to posts, and generally engage as many people as you can. Let people know that you are accessible and really work to get conversations started and to keep them flowing. Find People to Follow Spend a few minutes each day looking for new people to follow via Twitter. You can follow your peers in your industry, people whose interests fall within your niche, or any other group. You never know when people you follow are going to start following you in return, especially if you engage them in conversation, and you will find that others in the industry may offer great posts for you to re-tweet; which may lead to them returning the favor in the future. Make Use of Apps and Websites A great part of the social media era is that these networks are designed to be incredibly user friendly. There are a number of apps available for your computer and Smartphone, as well as a number of websites that are all designed to help you make better use of social media. TweetDeck is an app that lets you easily post content to your Twitter and Facebook feeds. Twellow and Tweeble are great references for finding new people to follow 24
Slide 25: based on interests and existing friends and based on content. TweetLater allows you to write all of your tweets for the day at once and schedule when you would like them to post throughout the day, enabling you to set things up when you are free without needing to miss peak tweeting times. When you make the most use of available apps, you can accomplish more with less time. Take a look at the various apps and sites on offer for your computer and other mobile devices, and keep checking the markets and search engines (as well as the posts of other users) for new apps as well. These add-ons can easily make your Twitter profile more effective and can make it much easier for you to use the site to establish and promote your personal brand. Summary The bottom line is that Twitter is simply an excellent resource for helping to establish your personal brand. It offers a number of qualities that make it unique in the social networking world, including the fact that you can see and respond to anyone’s tweets regardless of whether they follow you or not. The character limit can serve as a benefit, rather than a detriment, by forcing you to create compelling and engaging tweets that are not overly wordy or drawn out. Take the time to make yourself familiar with the site and never hesitate to watch what your peers and competitors are doing to establish and enhance their own personal brands. Learn as much as you can and maximize your use and understanding of the site. When you are able to really get the most out of the site and out of your profile while maintaining consistency within all of your other social media profiles, you will find that Twitter can indeed be a very powerful branding tool. 25
Slide 26: Chapter 6 Establishing and Expanding Your Brand via Facebook Facebook is certainly one of the most popular websites in the world today. Not only is it the leading social network, but in the United States, it is actually the second most visited site after Google. This should indicate to you just how powerful the site is and just how wide its reach extends. Facebook should be one of the primary tools in your personal brand building arsenal, and in this chapter, we will help you learn how to maximize the benefits of Facebook to your brand creation and growth. The Basics The first thing you are going to have to decide when creating a Facebook page is whether you want to build a fan page or a personal profile. There are benefits to each, and for some it may even prove best to start with a personal profile and to create a fan page as you near the limit of 5,000 friends. Personal pages can easily enable you to make friend requests, whereas fan pages are typically found either by search or by Facebook or an individual suggesting that someone “Like” the page. Building a profile and then requesting that your friends move to the fan page can help you build instant rapport, which will increase the number of times that your page shows up in someone’s suggestions. Ultimately, however, the choice is up to you. Whichever option you choose, you will find that your profile should once again be consistent with your other social media profiles. This means using the same name and the same photo as with your other social networks so that you are easy to recognize. Whether your page is a fan page or a personal one, you will want to include your other social media profiles as well as links to your blogs or other pages. If you opt to create a fan page, you will find that you can easily set up unique features, such as a page of events or appearances, links to press information about you, bookmarks, discussions, photos, and more. There is also a traditional wall for engaging in conversation with your fans and followers and for posting brand-relevant content and information. 26
Slide 27: Join Groups One of the biggest benefits to having a personal Facebook page is the ability to join groups. This is an excellent networking strategy and may provide a solid reason to make use of the personal page and fan page approach. Connecting with as many brand relevant groups as possible is a great way to increase your network, while answering questions and making posts within these groups is a great way to gain followers for your fan page as well. Find groups that are relevant to your career, your niche, or your brand and join them. Don’t worry that you are a member of too many groups as long as you check in now and then and make posts that are relevant and engaging. Building associations is always a key component not only to networking, but to really establishing your brand identity. Make Use of Tags With Facebook, you can easily tag someone or even a fan page in your post by prefacing the name of the person or page with the @ symbol. When you tag other people or pages in your posts, they will show up on their wall as well as your own. This can be a great way to increase your visibility, show off your associations, and help others mentally link your name with other industry or niche leaders. You will find that tagging can be extremely helpful when you are looking to build your personal brand. When users comment on a post that you tagged, even on another wall, you can easily engage in the conversation as well. This is an excellent way to meet new people, continue establishing yourself as an expert, and really just help to increase your reach and your impact. Participate with Personality Unlike Twitter, which has a strict character limit and little room for lengthy conversations, Facebook is built for sharing ideas and thoughts. When you are looking to establish and expand your personal brand via Facebook, you are going to want to take advantage of this. Make frequent posts that are not only relevant to your brand and niche, but that show off your personality. Facebook users are seeking to really connect with people, 27
Slide 28: companies, and peers, and you need to really ensure that you are interacting with others. While you don’t want to be unprofessional or over the top Facebook is probably the best form of social media for really displaying your personality. You can easily post witty comments, make creative wall posts, or share business relevant blogs that offer humor as well as information. This is where the majority of your fans will really decide what your personality says about you as a person, and you want to make sure that even while you are engaging about business and niche related topics, you are sticking to your brand and really displaying the personality traits that you feel best showcase who you are. Be an Expert but Not a Seller When users “friend” you or “like” you on Facebook, it is a great chance to interact and engage. What it should not be, however, is a selling opportunity. Even if your primary business is sales, you should not use Facebook as a promotional tool. Your page is designed to sell you as a person and your personal brand, not your products and services. This doesn’t mean that your page won’t help you increase sales; simply that it should not be your tool for actually doing so. With your Facebook profile, you are allowing others to get to know you, your beliefs, and your personality. You are showing off your expertise by offering valuable information and posting links to relevant blogs and sources. Let people see that you really know your business better than most and let them come to your site when they want to make a purchase or become a client. Summary Facebook, as the world’s leading social network, is certainly too huge to ignore. When properly used, it can actually be one of the best ways to help establish your brand and to really get your brand personality out into the market. But you need to know how to make the most of it, as well as whatnot to do, which we will cover in a later chapter of this book. 28
Slide 29: Chapter 7 LinkedIn- The Professional Social Network LinkedIn is, much like Facebook and Twitter, a social network. Yet it is distinctly different from both of these sites in that its primary goal is to be a networking tool specifically for professionals. Joining LinkedIn gives you the chance to easily start networking with other people in your field and even in your niche, as well as to form partnerships and connections with people outside of your market who may have expertise that provides value to you as well as a need for your specific expertise. Profile Creation As with all of your other social networks, you are going to want to use the same photo. This, once again, creates easy brand recognition and makes it easier for people to find you across a range of networks. When creating your profile itself, you will find that you are initially assigned a random URL. You will, however, be given the option to create a personalized URL. Ideally, this should be the same as the username you have chosen for your other sites, such as linkedin.com/davidsmithmarketing. When creating a profile on LinkedIn, you are given the ability to write a summary of yourself. You should absolutely take advantage of this, ensuring that you really describe yourself, your motivations, and whatever you feel best describes and states your personal brand. In the specialties section of your profile, make sure that you enter keywords that will help others find you easily based on your skills, market, abilities, and niche. Consider the creation of message signatures that help establish or confirm your brand. Last, when your profile is created and established, you will be given some code or buttons that you can put on other profiles and on your blog so that others can simply click to visit your LinkedIn profile. Adding this to your blog, your website, and your other social networking pages can certainly prove quite valuable and can help bring people to your professional network page. 29
Slide 30: Frequent the Q&A Pages On LinkedIn, you will find that there is a special section for posting questions and answering the questions of others. This is absolutely a terrific venue for brand building and networking, and you will want to take full advantage of it. Be wary of advertising yourself or your business, but always provide answers to as many questions as you can find within your range of expertise. When answering questions, be certain that you are providing solid answers and back them up with experience or evidence when possible. Don’t just share, a straightforward answer; share a story of how you learned the answer. Tell the story of your personal brand with your answers and make sure that you are not just adding meaning and insight to the conversation, but leaving room for it to continue as well. Create Groups and Events While pages such as Facebook also offer groups and events, they are a little different on LinkedIn, if only because they are created by and for professionals who share a common interest or business. Creating groups or events places you in the center as the expert and allows you to really create and facilitate conversations, meetings, and more. Once you create a group, start inviting people with shared interests, career trajectories, or expertise as well as people that you think may be able to gain or offer benefit from the group. You will find that if you keep the group going and the conversations happening, everyone involved can gain a great deal of value and benefit while keeping you and your brand at the center of it all. Use Blog and Other Apps If you have a blog, you will find that making use of the apps available at typepad.com or wordpress.com can be a great idea. These apps can actually integrate your blog into your LinkedIn profile so that your most recent posts always show up. By linking your blog, you are sharing your thoughts and personality as well as the fact that you are always up to date on what’s happening in your industry. You may also find that other LinkedIn apps can be useful to you. If you like to create slideshow presentations, there are apps that can help you 30
Slide 31: integrate your latest slideshows into your profile, while the Box.net Files app will allow you to enable prospective employers and associates to download your portfolio with the click of a button. Summary The array of social networks you can use to create and build your brand is both vast and varied, and this is an excellent thing. Where Facebook is your avenue for connecting with the public and showcasing your personality, LinkedIn in your place to network with other professionals and show off your expertise. Learning to distinguish the best types of content for each page can take a bit of work, but by following the tips outlined in this chapter, you can turn your LinkedIn page into a viable and valuable networking tool. 31
Slide 32: Chapter 8 YouTube While you may not immediately think of YouTube as a social network, this is one site that it would really pay to consider when looking to build your personal brand. Think of how many celebrities got their start through the site and how many Internet sensations would be completely undiscovered if it were not for their videos. Think also about the role the site played in the campaign of many candidates in 2008 and since, as well as the fact that it remains the location for the president’s weekly State of the Union Address. The simple fact is that video may in fact be the best marketing tool of all. It gives you the chance to share your personality, your image, and your voice and to communicate through sight and sound. It is an excellent way to showcase your expertise and image all at once and to really make viewers feel as though they are getting to know you. Creating Your Profile The first thing to think about when creating your YouTube profile is your channel name. As usual, the best bet is likely to be your consistent username/URL throughout your social networks. You will find that if your videos are going to encompass different areas or themes, you can easily sort them into groups later, and you want a channel name that makes it easy for people seeking you to find you. Ideally, when choosing a channel type, you will want to choose guru. The reason for this is simple. It establishes you as an expert and allows you to insert a custom logo as well as custom links. Title your channel something simple that explains your brand and your goals, such as David Smith’s Marketing Expert Tutorials. Make certain that you pay attention to the area for tags, as this is where you will put the words that will determine when your videos and profile turn up in searches. In terms of theme and colors, you are free to be a bit creative here, although if your personal website has a particular color scheme, you would be best served to create consistency between the two. Remember that you want people to associate all of your networks with one entity- your personal brand. The more alike each page is, the easier this is to achieve. 32
Slide 33: Create Great Videos Sure, this is easier said than done, but this is the truth of YouTube. If you want your videos to spread and to really make their way around the web, you only have a few strategies to choose from. Your video either needs to be incredibly interesting, deeply mysterious, or uproariously funny. Choose the theme that best suits both your personality and your brand. If either you or your brand are extremely serious, you are going to want to avoid attempting to create a virally funny video. Instead, create content that is simply astonishing and informative or create a video that poses a question viewers will desperately want to answer… and leave them waiting for you to answer it in your next installment. After you create your videos, you will be asked to enter Meta information and keywords. Choose words that represent you and your brand, but also choose words that are relevant to the video that people not looking for you in particular might be searching for. Make sure you choose words that accurately represent your content, but try to reach as broad an audience base as possible. Promote Your Videos Once you have videos up and running, it is time to get people watching them. Promote your videos by linking them to your social networks. Send out links via Twitter, post the videos on your Facebook wall, share it with friends, and add it to your LinkedIn page. Make certain to include the video on your blog, to embed it in your website and even to post the link when answering related questions in message boards. Get your videos out into the market as much as possible and boost your views. The more views you get, the higher your video will rank in the searches. YouTube videos can be great for creating your brand, moving it into new markets, and enhancing recognition and popularity. The key is simply in learning what people want to see and creating content that fills those needs. Summary While YouTube may not be the first social network you think of when it comes to personal branding, it is worth not overlooking. Video is a very powerful medium and it is one that can help you reach a new audience and 33
Slide 34: make a deeper connection with your existing one. Video may not be for everyone, but if you have unique expertise and the right way to share it, it is indeed a very marvelous branding tool. 34
Slide 35: Chapter 9 Flickr, Blogs, and Other Social Media Before we move into the final chapters of our book, it is important to take a brief look at a few other forms of social media. While we have covered in-depth the most popular forms of social networking, there are still a few options that have not been covered but that warrant discussion. Here, we will look at blogs, photo sharing services, and message boards and how they can help your personal branding campaign. The Power of Blogging When the World Wide Web was first getting started, blogs were something truly unique. Not everyone had them, and it was easy to gain followers. Today, it seems like almost everyone in the world has a blog, and most of them aren’t all that great. Yet, a blog can still be a major means of personal branding. Take Perez Hilton, for example. He started out as a guy who just happened to blog about whatever he saw celebrities doing while he was sitting in a local coffee shop, but now his name alone evokes for most an image of a celebrity gossip expert. While Hilton’s blog IS his brand, it goes to show you just how effective blogging can be when you know who you are and where your market it. Create a blog and populate it frequently with relevant, interesting, engaging, and brand specific information. Link it to your networks and link your networks to your blog. You will find that it can indeed be part of an extensive and effective social media-branding web. Flickr and Other Photo Sharing Services While Flickr, and similar sites are primarily photo sharing services, they are also great branding and networking tools. You can easily integrate Flickr with your Facebook and other profiles to share your photos between them, but Flickr has its own unique groups and conversations for you to take part in. As someone looking to establish a personal brand, you may wonder how a photo service can come into play. Whether your niche is marketing, design, or some other aspect of business, however, you are likely to come across things related to your niche in your everyday life. Posting photos of clever 35
Slide 36: ads or signs that really prove effective- or that don’t- can be a great way to start a conversation that will help get others talking about you. Forums, Groups, and Message Boards Last, we want to look at some of the more unique means of social media out there. While not social networks in the sense that we think of them today, forums, message boards, and online communities are in fact the original social networks and they are still excellent branding and networking locales. There are communities and message boards for every subject, niche, and market under the sun, as well as communities where people can pose questions on anything in the world. Taking part in communities like this can be an excellent way to help build your brand. On Ask.com, you can become a top answer provided within certain markets and themes, and Yahoo Questions offers you the ability to become a top contributor as well. Seek out message boards and communities across the web and actively take part in conversations that are relevant to your personal brand. Don’t advertise your services or your products and don’t try to use these forums as a means of outright self promotion, but instead get people more familiar with your name and your expertise. Leave a link to one of your primary social networking pages (preferably LinkedIn) in your signature when creating job related posts and answers and let people come to you. Remember that the more you post and the more you help others and present yourself as an expert, the easier it is going to be for people to naturally associate your name with your personal brand. Summary While there are far too many forms of social media to discuss each in detail, we have offered some of the less traditional but still highly effective options available to you. Increasing your reach is an important part of branding and a great way to ensure that recruiters and executives have the best chance of finding you online. You never know who will see your photos, read your blog, or find your messages, but when they are consistent with your brand and link to your page, you can ensure that they make it easy for people to learn about you and to connect with you. 36
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Slide 38: Chapter 10 Social Networking and Personal Branding Mistakes and Trends to Avoid Before we close this book by taking a look at the importance of managing your online identity and making sure you attend to your personal brand, it is important to offer one last section of advice in regards to social networking as a personal branding tool. In this chapter, you will find a bulleted list of trends and mistakes to avoid in branding and a brief explanation of each. Things to Avoid at All Costs • Being Inconsistent. You need your brand to be absolutely clear, and this means setting a clear list of objectives, standards, and goals. It also means presenting a consistent name and image and working to embrace the same ideals and goals across all of your sites and content. Being Repetitive. You don’t want to come across as aggressive or as purely promotional. Personal branding isn’t about making sales; it is about creating an image. This means offering valuable information without saying the same thing repeatedly. Being Stale or Quiet. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you never want to go for long periods without offering content or to stay behind the latest trends and information. Stay relevant and stay active, just don’t be overactive. Advertising and Self-Promoting. This really can’t be stressed enough. You don’t want your pages or your forum answers to come across as though you are trying to sell anything or even to gain benefit. Your sole purpose is to turn yourself into a brand name and an expert in your niche. Don’t just talk about your experience and your knowledge, engage with others and ask for their opinions and insight as well. Not Being Network Specific. The odds are good, especially as you build your brand, you will have followers that are the same on most or even all of your pages. Don’t post the same status or link on every page and don’t use stock messages to send connection invitations. • • • • 38
Slide 39: Keep your posts network specific, i.e. being more personal on Facebook and more professional on LinkedIn and remember to maintain your focus. • Unlinked Profiles. While this is admittedly an easy mistake to fix, it can be a costly one if not remedied quickly. You want your Facebook connections to be able to access your LinkedIn professional page, and you want your professional associations to be able to get to know you more as a person by accessing your more social pages. Always ensure that your profiles are linked to one another. Off-brand Messaging. This is perhaps one of the biggest personal branding mistakes in the social media era. When something shocking happens in Hollywood or you find out some exciting personal news, you may want to discuss it with the world. But sit back and wonder how the discussion will look to a prospective employer six months from now. Keep your messages, answers, and posts brand specific at all times. Being Overly Personal. We will discuss this in much detail in the next chapter, but one of the worst things you can do when using social media to create your personal brand is to put too much personal information out there. Even when it is not on your professional pages, you need to understand that content about you circulating the web is going to be viewed by employers interested in you as a brand and a prospective employee. Despite the temptation, you need to always keep it professional. • • Summary Following these simple tips can make it much easier for you to achieve success in personal branding through social media. It all comes down to really learning the ropes and learning who you are as a brand. When you do this and you learn how to create content that instantly helps increase and promote your brand image, you can achieve great success. It can take a bit of practice, but avoiding the mistakes outlined here can go a long way. 39
Slide 40: Chapter 11 Why Online Identity Management and Personal Brand Maintenance Are Crucial Your online identity has a massive impact on your personal brand, and because of this, you need to be careful to manage it properly. This means really thinking about any content you post online, but it also means ensuring that you manage content about you posted by others as well. While you may not be able to keep other professionals from sharing their opinions on your posts and expertise, you can certainly keep your friends from taking and posting photos of you during a wild weekend. Not only can you do this, but you must do this if you want to protect your personal brand. Separating the Personal from the Professional One thing that can help you greatly in managing your online identity is to never allow your personal and professional lives to cross. While you can certainly share a personal anecdote in your blog to emphasize a point, you don’t want to use your professional pages as a place to display vacation photos (unless you are a photographer, of course) or to air personal disagreements and the like. Think of your personal brand identity as a completely separate identity from your personal one. Of course, you will find that in the online world, you need to be careful even with your personal pages. Keep in mind that anyone on your friends list can access and share your photos and posts and that, even when their intentions are good, this can lead to prospective employers, recruiters, or partners finding information that you did not mean to share. Many sites do not have enough privacy policies to ensure that your information is completely inaccessible, and these policies change so frequently that your information could easily be left exposed even without you meaning for it to happen. Your Online Identity Can Make or Break You Creating a personal brand online can be a great way to reinvent and establish yourself, but it can also be a major source of over sharing if you are 40
Slide 41: not careful. One thing you really want to become adept at and to do with great frequency is to search for yourself using the most popular search engines. Search by name alone, name and location, name and market, etc. Look at what information is out there and work to remove anything that you would not directly share with a prospective employer. You can bet that when you are looking for top tier jobs or to work for a major corporation, they are going to learn as much about you as possible before making a decision. What you may not know is that they will likely do this before they even contact you or make an offer to meet with you. This means that you need to be vigilant in monitoring and managing your online identity. Everything that can be found about you online should be a part of your personal brand. When the content you find does not align with this, you need to take the necessary steps to change or remove it. Make sure that your friends are not tagging you in photos that you do not want to share and really keep an eye on anything circulating around with your name on it. It is up to you to protect and manage your online identity, just as major corporations stay on guard against libel, counterfeiting, and slander against their own brands and names. Google Makes Management Easier One thing that can help greatly when you are looking to manage your online identity is to set up Google Alerts. Google is still the top ranked search engine, and their alerts feature can let you know when new results come up using any of your saved search criteria. Recommended searches to keep alerts for include your name, your email addresses, and your name your market or niche. This can help you keep better track of all information regarding you that may be circulating the web. And now, via the Google Dashboard, you have one more option as well. The newest online identity management feature is called Google Me On the Web and it is an easy step-by-step process that helps you keep yourself in the know. With this feature, you can easily remove unwanted content about yourself and remove associated results that come up when you are searched. You can even get alerts any time your personal information shows up online. 41
Slide 42: Why You Can’t Neglect Your Personal Brand One major pitfall that many fall into when looking to establish a personal brand is letting the brand get diluted or even neglected over time. When you start branding yourself, you likely get into it with a great deal of enthusiasm. After all, this is a chance to figure out who you are, reinvent yourself if needed, and really just create a solid reputation for yourself. The problem is that many people create profiles all over the web, build blogs, and join communities, only to stop adding new conversations and content over time. While your blog and your brand are building dust, there is someone out there working hard to establish himself or herself and to capitalize on your brand and your niche. People who are looking for experts, employees, and information are going to find it; the question is simply whether they find it with you or with someone else. You really can’t neglect your brand or your online identity. Not in today’s world. The absolute truth of the matter is that there are tons of people vying for every job and every position and if you want to be able to make your way up the career ladder, you are going to have to put in the required work. Summary The simple fact is that the first impression you make on most people today will happen before you ever know that they were looking at you in the first place. Gone are the days of initial meetings, resume discussions, and personal interviews as a means of presenting yourself as a top job applicant. Instead, your online identity and the personal brand that you have created for yourself will provide the introduction that recruiters, associates, and networking professionals will use when deciding if you are someone they want to make contact with. Managing your online identity isn’t just recommended, it is an imperative. Even with your online identity managed, and even with all of the proper alerts and careful watching, however, you need to be constantly and consistently building your brand. If you decide to allow some slack in this area, rest assured that someone else would pick it up. Gaining interest is a fantastic thing, but if you are not working hard to keep it, the era of technology and instant gratification ensures that people will start to look elsewhere. 42
Slide 43: Conclusion It is my hope that within these pages you have gained more than just a deeper understanding of personal branding as a concept. It is hoped that you have learned the strategies you will need to build a strong and lasting personal brand in today’s social world. Social networks are always growing and the chances are good that a few years from now, today’s most popular social networks will be but a footnote while others have taken over the web. But the basics of personal branding are the same. When you understand how to turn your name and image into a brand and what you have to do to really gain the interest of both prospective employers and even your peers and prospective customers, branding becomes much easier. You will find that when your name is associated with being the best in your niche and when you are, in fact, a brand of your own, your potential for sales and employment can skyrocket. Personal branding is critical in today’s world and it is our hope that we have equipped you with the tools you need in order to succeed. 43