Personal branding is all about how we market ourselves. The clothes we wear, how we behave and interact with other people, our body language: everything is tied to our overall personal brand. Nowadays however, our real first impression is often an online one. In this presentation, you'll learn 10 ways that you can improve your online personal brand
Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them well
10 ways you can improve your online personal brand
1. 10 ways you can
improve your
online personal
brand
2. 2
About Me – Kate Windebank
Founder & CEO of Kate &
Co
Career coach & Personal
brand consultant
Over 12 years marketing
experience in UK/Europe &
Australia
Working with a variety of
business owners,
entrepreneurs & corporate
professionals
3. 3
1. Join In and Participate in Social Networking Groups
13. Kate Windebank
Personal Brand Consultant & Career Strategist
Kate & Co
Email: kate@kateco.co
website: http://www.kateco.co/
Editor's Notes
Choose appropriate sites whose members are people you need to get in front of and connect with (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and many others). Your online profile is a powerful opportunity for personal branding, attracting your target market, networking, and sending the right message about yourself.
This free service lets you know when people say something about you online. Once you set up an account, Google Alerts will send you an email whenever a search term you’ve provided (“your name” or whatever other words you want) is published on the Internet. This will help you to monitor your own personal brand online.
Claim your name by purchasing the domain name yourname.comYour personal URL is the perfect address for your website and/or blog. But even if you don’t plan to launch a website or blog or don’t know what to do with your personal URL, secure it (or a viable option) before someone else does. At some point in the near future, a single Internet destination for all your career marketing documents will be the norm.
Get Blogging
Search engines love blogs because the content is relevant and constantly updated. Comment and guest blog on relevant blogs and/or consider starting your own blog. Blogging is a great way to share your expertise, build community, and position yourself as a niche expert. It is probably one of the best way to build credibility and will exponentially increase your search results and visibility.In any blogging activities, offer timely and useful information. Avoid blatant self-promotion and negative remarks. Remember that anything you post will become part of your online digital footprint. Don’t write anything you may regret later. As a guest blogger, be sure to post an on-brand profile of yourself.
The first step to polishing your personal brand is knowing what's already out there. According to Jean Dobey, founder and CEO of personal publishing social platform Hibe, the information recruiters find from Googling you could be enough to cross you off their list, if you're not careful.
Take some time to search your name on Google and see what information comes up, what key things are missing, and what needs to be taken down. This includes things you might have forgotten all about, like old social profiles from your youth with potentially embarrassing or reputation-damaging content.
Share your expertise on online forumsFacebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Quora, Wiki Answers, LinkedIn Q+A, Yahoo Answers and so many other great places to increase online visibility, while building community, making networking connections, and positioning yourself as an expert. Share your expertise and knowledge freely and this will start to position you as a thought leader in your chosen field.
Launch Your Own Website and Online Career PortfolioEstablish a single destination for all your career and achievement activity. Working from your branded resume and other career marketing documents (cover letter, achievement summary, case studies summary, career biography, reference dossier, etc.), create a vivid comprehensive package illuminating your career history, strengths, passions, brand attributes, and value proposition. Hiring decision makers can easily gain access to everything they need to know about you in one place. Alternatively, look to platform like about.me which aggregates all your online and social profiles in one place.
Be Professional
There's one major caveat to taking your professional brand online - and that's keeping it, well, professional. Remember that everything you do on a public platform can be seen by anyone, so it's important to think twice about what you share and who you connect with, especially if your profiles are open to the public.
Check Your Privacy Settings
You're likely on several different social media platforms for both personal and professional uses. But because you use different platforms for different things, it's important for you to be aware of your privacy settings.
Get to know the ins and outs of the privacy settings on each of your social media profiles, and be sure to stay up-to-date on any privacy policy changes announced by the platforms you use.
Be Consistent
One of the most important steps in maintaining your personal brand is to stay consistent. Anytime you do anything online, you should consider how it contributes to your personal brand. This means that every time you write an article, post an update on social media or interact with your audience, you should think about the overall message you're trying to convey. Keeping your brand consistent helps you build a strong brand online that others will begin to recognise.