Developing your brand.
(Jobvite, 2012).
In this blog post I will focus on the idea of your personal online brand.
about.me:
A starting point to further developing a professional profile is to create an about.me page. This page can act as a ‘homepage’ of you. On the about.me page it is advisable to add a short bio about you, and a picture. From this page there will be links to your other online profiles such as your Twitter, WordPress blog and LinkedIn (though you are able to add many more if you want). See mine below:
LinkedIn:
To start, a professional profile picture is vital. Under this, add a summary, so think elevator pitch-esque, not too long, but something that will give the reader a taste of who you are.
Jobvite, 2012
Connections are vital and allow you to connect with other likeminded individuals, these are integral to you securing links with other people and potential job offers/prospects that may come your way. Furthermore, it give employers an idea of who you connect with (Shin, 2014), over half of the best candidates have also come from referrals from sites like LinkedIn (Jobvite, 2012). For added convenience, LinkedIn provides a setup wizard that guides you through the various set up stages, it then provides your ‘Profile strength’, the picture above shows mine.
uk.linkedin.com/in/charliemason1/
Twitter:
After making your account it’s important to follow people or organisations which you are interested in, and then engage. A way to get your personal brand going on Twitter is to engage in immediate, topical debate and spark interest, the use of Tweetdeck can help you do this more effectively.
Four more years. http://t.co/bAJE6Vom—
Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 07, 2012
Capturing immediacy can be seen in this Tweet. The tweet from Obama’s account captured the optimism of the time and had over a million interactions through RTs and Favourites, and sparked debate giving people the opportunity to engage (Chitwood, 2014).
To further your online brand, it’s a great idea to provide links in your Twitter bio to your LinkedIn and blog. That way you are always redirecting people to you.
BrandYourself.com:
Finally, BrandYourself.com is a DIY tool that allows you to manage how links show up when people Google your name – this is effective if there is unwanted or incorrect results attached to your name (in my case it’s a murderer and an astrologist) – essentially it gets in the way of the promotion of the right results when people Google you.
