Social media used to be considered just a fun place to chat with friends, share photos of funny cats, and the great dessert you had with dinner last night—today, it’s a different story, and there’s no going back.
Consider the fact that, thanks to the powerful search capabilities, Facebook and Twitter’s recently announced that they would be incorporating search capabilities into their backend. How does this affect you? An immense amount of information about you can be found almost instantly along with your work history, likes and dislikes, all with a click of a button.
What this boils down to is that because of social media, your life has become extremely transparent—exposed in ways that people haven’t seen before now. Your personality, lifestyle, and preferences are an open book. Recruiters, prospective employers and clients who want to know who they are dealing with can use different social media platforms to “discover” more about you - quicker and easier than ever before.
It’s a scary thought, but don’t freak out and shut down all your social media accounts. Being ‘invisible’ will probably do you more harm than good. If you are invisible to the public, the question begs to be asked, “What is this person hiding?” In today’s risk averse business environment, this is not good. You’ll be passed over for someone else that they can connect to, or lose that important sale.
Instead, consider using this newly found transparency to your advantage by taking your personal branding to new heights! It’s pretty easy, and just takes a few minutes each day or at least every other day to make your personal online brand shine!
The steps to do this are pretty simple and straightforward. You can always delve into it more in-depth, but here’s an easy way to get started with a three-step approach:
Searching and Tidying Up
Assuming you are signed on the top three social platforms—Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (and if you’re not, you should be!)—the first step is to go on Facebook, use their Graph Search and search for any questionable photos of wild partying and/or inappropriate comments and delete them. It’s important to search ALL of Facebook using Graph Search to find questionable things that may have been posted by your friends, about you!
Completing your Profiles
Secondly, make sure you complete all your online profiles for each platform. Make sure each one has a photo, (no eggheads, please!) The photo doesn’t need to be a stiff, passport-like photo it just needs to look sharp, friendly and professional.
For Twitter, a bio that is well-crafted is a sure winner. Give a little snapshot into who you are, your likes and interests. Be personable, funny is also good. A two-word bio will most certainly tag you as a spammer, so make sure you use all 160 characters for your Twitter bio—you get an extra 20 characters than a standard tweet—use them!
Maintaining your Brand
Your last step, maintenance, is more of an ongoing process. Keep each of your platforms up-to-date with regular updates. Shoot for at least one a day across the different platforms. The object here is to become an expert in your field that people consistently look to you as a person to go to for good information.
Websites and blogs make it easy to share posts that are interesting and newsworthy. Make sure to share, re-share and re-tweet the people you have identified as being leaders in the field you are interested in. People love their posts or tweets re-shared, soon you’ll be the person that will be re-tweeted, and that’s how you’ll know your personal branding efforts are a success!
Want to learn more? Take a look at 5 Marketing Methods To Drive Business Success.
Written by: Donna M. Young, Director of Social Media for NTENT
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