Students will learn about personal branding and its importance for career success. Personal branding involves developing a unique value proposition and leveraging it across online and offline platforms with a consistent message. It allows individuals to establish themselves as experts and advance their careers. The presentation will help students understand how to curate their online identities and develop an effective personal brand. They will create a personal branding statement to guide their online and offline presence.

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Personal Branding Training
Facilitation Guide
Developed By: Meghan Campbell, Chris Jones, Hannah Kelliher, and Lenora Willis

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Introduction
For individuals entering the “real world”, learning how to successfully brand yourself is
vital to having a successful professional career. Tom Peters, a prominent figure in the
management world, coined the term “personal branding” in 1997 (Schwabel, 2009). Peters
wrote about how each individual is a CEO of their own company; he called these companies “Me
Inc” (as cited by Dan Schwabel, 2009, para. 1). Peters believed that each of us are responsible
for marketing ourselves in a way that is professional in all aspects of our lives. Dan Schawbel
defined personal branding as:
The process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand
out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether
professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent
message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their
recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility advance their
careers, and build self-confidence (Schawbel, 2009, para. 1).
College is a vital time for students to begin to mold their personal branding statement
because they are training to become professionals within their fields. Schawbel (2009) suggests
personal brands consist of three elements. The first element is answering the question what do
you stand for? The second is what makes you stand out? Finally, the third element should keep in
mind is what makes you compelling. Student affairs professionals should teach college students
the importance of creating a personal brand, being sure to incorporate the three questions listed
above. Personal branding is a way for college students to convey their unique characteristics,
skills, and abilities which, done correctly, could put them ahead of another candidate. With high
competition for those exiting college and entering the workforce, it is imperative that students

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market themselves properly. Training such as this will give students the tools they need to
develop an appropriate brand.
In an ever evolving technological world, it is important to realize what goes online,
never fully goes away. Stereotypically, college students live in the moment and do not think the
pictures or comments they post on the internet will affect them in their future. Today’s
employers search candidates online. If they find something that may cast the student in an
unfavorable light, even from years past, they may pass over that student for the position. As
student professionals, we need to take into consideration how technology and social media
outlets are effecting our students and help students learn how to utilize these tools to their
advantage. Creating a personal brand that is used in all aspects of their life, online and offline, is
one way in which students can use social media outlets to their advantage.

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Schedule
Time: 3 Hours
Location: Computer Lab
1. Introductions of Presenters (5 Mins)
1. Name, Position
2. Ice Breaker (15 Mins)
1. #hastagmania
3. Pre-test (10 Mins)
1. Polleverywhere
4. Prezi Presentation (50 Mins)
1. Night of the Living Selfies
5. Prezi Presentation (50 mins)
1. @Brand U
6. Activity (20 mins)
1. Logo Quiz
2. Build Your Brand
7. Discussion (20 mins)
1. Clean up your Profile
8. Post Assessment (15 mins)
1. About Me
9. Goodbyes! Wish them well! Offer any last advice!
10. Evaluation of the Class
1. Have a volunteer collect the evaluations and return them to Presenter(s) office.
You should not be in the room.
Overall Goals and Outcomes of the Presentation:
● Students will develop an understanding of how their online identities can positively or
negatively affect their brand.
● Students will begin to develop knowledge and skills associated with positive branding
utilizing social media.
● Students will create their own branding statement to be used as a guide to managing their
identities online and offline in the future.

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#Hashtagmania
Objective:
Students will learn to utilize social networking media to interact with one another.
Materials Needed:
Projector
Computer
Twitterfall link:http://twitterfall.com/?trend=%23branding2013%21%231F3547
Description
Students will use their cell phones or computers in the lab to answer to tweet #branding2013 and
answer any one of the following questions.
● What are your plans for the rest of the night?
● Favorite memory @ [your institution]
● What did you do this weekend?
Discussion Questions:
1. Did everyone feel like they shared honestly?
2. How did people feel about sharing some of these questions with one another?
3. Would the amount of information you shared differed if this was not online?

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Polleverywhere
Objective
To gauge the use of Social Networking sites in the audience and also develop a baseline (pre-
test) for how students utilize social media.
Materials Needed:
Projector
Computer
Polleverywhere slide: http://www.polleverywhere.com/free_text_polls/MwZI1uaupdNwynX
Description
Students will use their cell phones or computers to answer the prompt questions.
Prompt Questions:
1. Do you use these sites for personal or professional use?
a. Make sure to go through the list and have each student indicate which ones they
use.
2. Is your profile private or public?
a. Make sure students indicate which sites their profiles are private or public.
3. Do you know everyone who is “Following” you through these mediums?
Discussion Questions:
1. What are the trends among the answers? (i.e Are their certain outlets students are using more
personally rather than professionally?)
2. What are the reasons why you have chosen to make your profile public or private?
3. What benefits or pitfalls are there by having your profile public or private?
Outcome:
● Students will begin to think critically about how they currently use social media outlets.

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Night of the Living Selfies
Objective
Students will be able to recognize their online presence in more than a social setting. They will
be able to put into perspective how their online presence can have an effect on their social and
professional networking. This is a discussion based presentation.
Materials Needed:
Computer
Projector
Night of the Living Selfies @Brand U Prezi
Prezi Notes
Description
The image that you are putting on the internet is the image
that your friends, family, and even future employers have
access to. Ask the class if this is the image that you really
want to put out into the world and if not how are you going
to change that.
Here are some pros of social networking sites and some of
the reasons that they were created in the first place.
Can you think of any other ones?
Here are some of the downsides of social networking sites.
Have you seen any of these?
Have students answer the questions that are written on the
slide and then ask if they can think of anymore?

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Click 1: Catfish is a show on Mtv about people who fall in
love over the internet with people who portray themselves in
a way that may or may not be completely themselves. Talk
about the show a bit with the class and see if they have any
personal experiences with catfishing or know anyone who
does.
Click 2: Write what you want people to perceive you as.
Click 3: Do you think this is how you are perceived?
Students can write their answers on the same paper as the
previous question. When done have them ask someone in
class how they perceive them to see if their answers are
similar to what their classmate says.
Discussion Questions:
1. If someone did not perceive you the way you thought they would how did that make you feel?
2. If needed, are you going to take steps to change the way you act to make the way you are
perceived better? Why? And if not how can you improve this?
3. Are you portraying the best/ realest form of yourself online?
Outcomes:
● Students will consider how their online identity is being perceived by other individuals.
● Students will begin to develop a plan to portray their best or realest self online.

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@Brand_U
Objective
Students will be able to learn how to effectively brand themselves and their organizations.
Materials Needed:
Computer
Projector
Night of the Living Selfies @Brand U Prezi
Prezi Notes
Description
What is personal Branding?
So before we were talking about perception vs reality but when
it comes to self-image perception is reality; the perception that
you are putting out there is the equivalent of your first
impression that 6 billion people are getting of you.
Ask the group what they think the definition of personal
branding is. Solicit feedback and write their thoughts down.
We all have heard the expression perception is reality. Here
you should talk about examples of how this saying is true in our lives. Such examples could be
of a girl dressing with little clothes. The perception of this girl’s choice of clothing would be she
is looking for attention when she could just like the way she looks in sexy clothes and they make
her feel more confident. Another example would be a teacher and a student dancing together at a
bar, the perception could be construed as a romantic relationship is forming when in reality they
are celebrating the student’s graduation. After you give some examples ask the group if there are
any more examples they can think of.
According to the Personal Brand Company, brands are not static.
They are dynamic and living representations of you.
Look back to their ideas of what personal branding means to them
and see if it corresponds with the definition provided on the slide.
Explain what brands not being static means, how they are change
with how you change as a person both professionally and personally.
Explain how they should change their brand should change along
with them changing.

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Brands are like logos that we find on cars, billboards, and all forms
of advertisements. They allow us to connect with an image in an
instant.
Have students choose a partner and think of a company they know
the logo of. An example would be Nike. Have them write on a piece
of paper the responses to the questions. When done you can have a
discussion about the outcomes.
Logo Quiz (See activity)
What are some characteristics of a strong brand?
For this slide you want to talk about what makes a strong brand.
There are some ideas listed but this is a good place to ask students
for their input. Write their answers down as they give them in a
column type of fashion.
What are some characteristics of weak brands?
Just like the slide about the strongest brand, this is a good place to
get students input on what they think a weak brand looks like.
Gather their input and write it on the other side of the column
created for the strongest brand.
Ask the students what are some of their skills and have them
respond with one word. Write these one word responses on the
whiteboard or on easel paper. After words are written ask how
they would market these skills. This could be a conversation type
of activity.
Outcome:
● Students will begin to recognize the importance of branding and realize the importance of
developing their personal brand.

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Logo Quiz
Objective
Students will be able to see the importance of branding and marketing themselves but testing
how quickly and easily the recognize logos from their everyday lives.
Materials Needed:
http://www.logoquiz.net/
Description
Logos leave an imprint on our subconscious so that every time we see the logo we automatically
associate the company and what they do to an everyday picture. Let’s see how many logos you
find familiar. There are 20 total questions.
This is an excellent activity for students to participate in to physically see how important
recognition of logos are to companies successes. Have students go tohttp://www.logoquiz.net/
and play the game. If you want you can reward the student with the highest score at the end with
a piece of candy or something else.
Discussion Questions:
1. How do you think your brand would stand against big time brands?
2. Is your brand strong enough to make you stand out in a crowd in a good way?

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Clean up your Profile
Objective
Students will consider being more intentional about managing their online identities.
Materials Needed:
Computer
Projector
Night of the Living Selfies @Brand U Prezi
Prezi Notes
Description
Talk about what this quote means to them.
Ask students what they think their brand destroyers are, write down
responses as they are given.
Talk about how they can avoid these brand destroyers.
Answer these questions with the class. Refer back to the definition of
personal branding they helped create. Talk about what each of the
bullet points mean, you can make this interactive by asking what does
target your audience mean? What does stay authentic mean to you?
What does make it punchy mean? Can they give an example of a good
punchy vs bad punchy. Talk about an appropriate length of a statement
and again how personal brand is ever changing and should change as
you do both personally and professionally.
Talk about each of these points. Ask students for examples of things they
have seen online that may be inappropriate. Maybe give an example you
have found such as this woman who thought it was a good idea to dress as
a marathon bombing victim for Halloween and then post pictures of
costume online.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/what-happens-when-you-dress-as-a-boston-marathon-
victim?bffb
Discussion Questions:
1. Have you ever seen a profile of one of your friends that made you cringe because you
thought it was inappropriate?
2. Does everything that happens in your life have to go online?
Outcome:
● Students will understand the impact their online identities can have online and offline and
think about better managing their online identity.

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About Me
Objective
Students will be able to reflect on their social network usage and their existing personal brand by
coming up with action steps/mission statements about how they will actively improve their
online presence.
Materials Needed:
Computer
Projector
Night of the Living Selfies @Brand U Prezi
Prezi Notes
Description
Answer the following questions in 140 characters. You may use the twitterfall and
#branding2013 so that everyone in the session can see it as a form of accountability.
Discussion Questions:
1. What did people include in their personal brand statements?
2. Was there anything you wanted to include but did not have room for?
3. How are you going to incorporate this statement into your online and offline identity?
Outcome:
● Students will begin to incorporate their branding statement into their online and offline
identities.

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Evaluation of the Class
Directions: Please ask for a student to hand this evaluation out and collect it when completed.
This assessment is used for the presenter to assess the quality of the presentation on Personal
Branding. It also allows the presenter to see what the students have learned from the presentation
itself.
Evaluation
Directions: Please answer the following questions as honestly as possible. Thank you!
1. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how would you rate the
presentation?
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2. Can you put into your own words what personal branding is and why it is important?
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3. What steps are you going to take to ensure your online personality is made to show who
you are in the most positive light?
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4. Did you feel as though the information you learned relates to you? If yes, how? If no,
what can be done to change that?
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5. How did you like the activities?
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6. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how would you rate the
presenter’s knowledge of the material?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. Was the presentation fun? Boring? If you thought it was boring, do you have any
suggestions as to what would make it more engaging?
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8. If you had the opportunity to add something to the presentation, what would you include?
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References
Schawbel, D. (2009) The real definition of personal branding. Retrieved from:
http://personalbrandingwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/16005465/FrontPage

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Talking points for presentation:
· Personal Branding is a process where people make themselves stand out in a crowd by
highlighting their strengths, their values (both professional and personal), and using this in a
multitude of platforms to best market themselves.
· Personal Branding is important for college students to learn because it will help them market
themselves in a professional manner.
· Personal brand statements allow students to form a concise statement that helps them be
competitive in the job market.
· Technology is used in everyday life, in and out of the classroom and for this reason it is vital
for students success to learn how to best use it appropriately and to their advantage.
· Students need to learn what is appropriate and what is not material to go up on social
networking sites and why this is.
· Students need to learn how to use social networking in a professional manner. They need to
learn which sites are geared towards professional life and learn how to use them to their
advantage.
· Students need to learn how to use their personal brand in their virtual lives as well.
· OUTCOMES FOR TRAINING can go here too…