Personal branding is a process of individuals marketing their careers and themselves as brands. This is a phenomenon which points to the fact that success in any endeavor comes through proper packaging. Basically, personal branding is a process in which a certain image or impression is established in the minds of people about a firm, a brand or a person.
This can be done on various platforms, and social media platforms are some of the dominant platforms where personal branding is carried out. Below are details about personal branding on some of the most prominent social media platforms.
Personal Branding on LinkedIn
A LinkedIn profile can be likened to exclusive access into your professional personality. It can be regarded as an online resume. Although a LinkedIn profile is some sort of resume, it is much more than that, because it comes with networking opportunities. With your LinkedIn profile, you can promote your brand to professionals that might be in need of your services. A LinkedIn profile connects your professional personality, recommendations from your friends, your knowledge and your skill sets. It is a location on the web which gives you the freedom to showcase everything and all the qualities that will make clients, as well as employers, seek the services that you have to offer.
There are lots of interesting aspects of LinkedIn. However, one of the most powerful is the fact that LinkedIn gives you the privilege to prove your closeness with all those that are a part of your database. In LinkedIn, they are categorized into three different groups. When you first make it to LinkedIn, the first thing that you should do is create a LinkedIn profile. As soon as you successfully create a profile on LinkedIn, you can go ahead and connect with individuals that you know that already have profiles on LinkedIn.
Employment Section
The employment section of LinkedIn is a category of LinkedIn which is focused on your education history, as well as your employment. While filling the employment section of LinkedIn, always remember that you are not supposed to add your favorite sport or movie. Such information should be left for Facebook. The reason is branding on LinkedIn should be strictly professional. When putting in your information on your profile page, you should start out by filling information about the jobs that you have handled in the past, as well as the job you are currently handling. Some of the details that you will have to fill include employer, job title, dates, industry, as well as brief information of what you were able to achieve while on the job. The entire process of filling your LinkedIn profile can last up to 60 minutes. In as much as this form is not difficult to fill, it is one that you should take your time to ensure that it is completely filled.
LinkedIn makes it easy to come across people that you have once come in contact with in your profession. These people might be your former employers, as well as those that worked in the same firms as you in the past. The implication of this is if you once worked in a big firm, LinkedIn can help you find those that worked in the same firm and help you connect with them. It might seem like this feature does not make so much difference. However, when the time comes for you to enlarge your professional network, it proves to be very vital. That is not all. You can go ahead and include your Alma-Ata as this will help you have access to alumni from your school that are currently on LinkedIn for the purpose of networking. As soon as you are done filling all your professional details, the next thing you need to do is put up a suitable picture, and then go on to fill the experience you have gotten in education over the years.
Your Photo
Your photo is also called an avatar and is a very vital aspect of your entire LinkedIn experience. Your picture on LinkedIn is an important aspect of your existence on LinkedIn and brand consistency too. As far as pictures are concerned, you will be able to make a stronger impression if you make use of the exact same picture across all your social networks that you are a part of. The reason for this is it will help people remember you very easily. Now, some folks are against the idea of having a picture on your social network accounts. Well, while this might look a little protective, the truth remains not having a picture on your social media account is like trying to brand yourself but having a mask on.
When getting a picture ready, you have the option of either hiring a photographer or taking the picture by yourself. In as much as the later seems quite easy, the former is more efficient and should be chosen over the later. Now, when taking a professional picture, you should bear in mind that there are certain clothes that you can’t put on. Some of them are a swimsuit or a pair of shorts. If you must have gains from being on LinkedIn, you will have to actually get active on LinkedIn and not just have an account on it. In very much the same way as other social networks operate, with LinkedIn, what you put in is what you will get out. The implication of this is you have to make use of all of LinkedIn’s features if you must get the best out of it.
Various Ways of Networking on LinkedIn
When you are done filling in your work history and education, LinkedIn can go on and connect you with other individuals that have some details in common with you. This could be as detailed as linking you up with an individual that you never knew existed but was a part of your class at some point. While there are quite a number of tools for connecting with people on LinkedIn, one of the tools which you can use to connect with people easily is the “Find Contact Wizard.” With this tool, it is absolutely easy to select individuals that you want to connect with. You can decide to connect with all the people that are a part of your database all at once. Also, you can choose specific people that you want to have a connection with. How you chose to go about it is up to you.
Personal Branding on Facebook
The basic existence of Facebook is to keep people that might not be able to meet physically in touch. Unlike LinkedIn which is absolutely professional, Facebook is a social site which allows you to be very personal and yet well branded. A lot of individuals on Facebook use it majorly for sharing personal content such as pictures and videos.
Some other users go beyond being just personal and having fun. They make use of Facebook for business purposes. Facebook is a social site which allows users to get professional even after being very personal. It can be used for purely personal reasons and can also be used as a blend of your personal and professional life.
Facebook is a site with more than 2.50 billion monthly active users. The implication of this is there will definitely be a lot of people that you know on Facebook. This means you can always build a network of friends starting from the few friends that you know that are on Facebook
What Can You Gain from Using Facebook?
If you are one of the many people that log into Facebook on a daily basis for the purpose of sharing pictures and videos, reconnecting with old schoolmates and linking up with friends, there is a possibility that all you see Facebook as is a system for socializing. Well, beyond just helping you socialize, Facebook can be used to upgrade your personal brand and get a professional network built. Some of the things that you can do on Facebook are:
Brand Yourself Professionally with a Facebook Page
If you want to have a clear distinction between your personal profile and your professional life, Facebook makes that possible. You can make use of your personal profile for your private life and a Facebook page for anything that concerns your profession.
You can Support a Cause
One very easy way to make your personal brand prominent is by supporting a cause. There is an application called Facebook Cause. This application makes supporting various causes quite effortless. You can even persuade those you have built a connection with on Facebook to give to the causes you support. Supporting various causes is a trusted way to develop your personal brand story. Philanthropy is one way to get very successful in the world of business. As a matter of fact, if you decide to ask a number of business people how they became successful, a lot of them will mention philanthropy.
Why is this so? The simple reason for this is when you dedicate time and money to a certain organization; it offers you the privilege of building a network with other individuals that are associated with that organization. So, if you must build your personal brand, the place of networking cannot be overemphasized. Facebook might be considered a social network site. Well, the truth remains that social network sites have professional working as a part of them.
With Facebook events, you can locate events in your locality which you can attend and meet with new people. As you get to meet more people, the bigger your chance of spreading your personal brand story. You see, Facebook is a lot about your personality. The implication of this is it can be used as a personal website without even needing you to code. To enjoy having a website without actually coding, the first thing to do is create your page on Facebook.
What You Should Know About Facebook
Just like other sites that are dedicated to social networking, Facebook is made up of various elements and describes different features and functions with specific terms. On LinkedIn, a friend is called a connector, on Twitter; a friend is called a follower. However, on Facebook, anyone that connects with you is called a friend. Also, when anyone connects with you on your page, such a person is known as a supporter. So, on Facebook, you can actually have friends and supporters.
Basically, a professional page is a way Facebook makes it possible for businesses to have accounts on Facebook. The term for accounts owned by businesses on Facebook is a professional page. However, they are commonly referred to as pages. If you must make use of Facebook as a tool for personal branding, you will have to first get a personal profile built.
Personal Profile and Professional Page
Basically, on Facebook, there are two types of pages. They are the personal profile and the fan page. On Facebook, personal profiles are built for the purpose of representing an individual and not an entity. Now, a question arises, what is the ideal type of page that anyone should create; a professional page or a Facebook personal profile?
Well, answering the question might not be so easy. Nevertheless, armed with the right knowledge, you can choose the right Facebook account. Regardless of the type of page you intend having on Facebook, it is important to note that every page must be connected to a personal profile. Without a personal profile, it will be impossible to own a professional page on Facebook. Well, with just one personal profile, you can have as many pages as you want to have on Facebook.
Facebook has an official policy concerning Facebook Pages and personal profile. This policy contains in-depth information on the rules and guidelines of these pages. What this basically means in simple language is people have people pages, businesses have business pages. Mind you; there is no rule against using your profile for business and your personal life. However, to get the best out of your use of Facebook, it is better to have separate accounts for your business and personal things. If you do not have a different account for your business and personal life, your clients might end up having an idea of personal like. So, if you want your Facebook profile to be private, it is best that you have a separate account for business and a separate account for personal branding purposes.
How to Create a Personal Profile
As soon as you visit the Facebook home page, you have to get registered if you must be able to do anything on Facebook. This can be done by filling a form which has spaces for your name, your date of birth, your gender, your email, and your age. After filling this form, you will have to upload a picture and also share some details about where you schooled, where you work, etc.
On Facebook, it is quite easy to find friends. As soon as you find people that you know on Facebook, send them a friend request. If they accept your request, they become your friends on Facebook. In addition to filling basic information about yourself, Facebook also asks for details about your interests, your likes, your hometown, etc. It is not compulsory that you give out all the information that Facebook asks for. It is in your place to decide how much details about yourself you want to release on a public platform like Facebook.
Now, let’s talk about uploading pictures on Facebook. You cannot upload just any picture on Facebook. Remember you are trying to make an impression. If you are not convinced that a certain picture is great, you cannot use that picture as your profile picture on Facebook. The quality of the picture you make use of as your profile picture is very important as it could put people off if it is not a very good one.
Now, if people are put off by your picture, you could lose out on some very important connection. So, to avoid losing out on even the least of all connections, it is important that you make use of the right pictures. So, how do you get a good picture? Well, that is really easy. All you need is a good photographer. Get a professional or anyone that has a good camera to snap you. Resolution is not everything. Nevertheless, it is important. You should look approachable. It is almost natural for people to avoid talking to individuals that do not look approachable. In the same vein, it is quite normal for people to want to talk to people that look happy and have a smile on.
Ensure that your face is tightly cropped so that it does not appear too far. Just like in physical conversations, it can be sometimes awkward talking to someone that appears a little too distant.
Personal Branding on Twitter
Twitter is a tool which does not only promote conversations. It is a tool that can help you in building a great personal brand to grow a network that is already thriving. Since it was developed, Twitter has grown in leaps and bounds. At the moment, it has up to 500 million users all over the world and is, therefore, one of the most ideal places for anyone that is interested in networking with a huge number of people all at once.
Let us give this some thought for a moment. Five hundred million surpasses the population of the United States of America. This, therefore, makes it a very significant number as far as networking is concerned. If you are well branded on Twitter, you definitely will enjoy a huge database of people that can be aware of the services that you offer and even patronize you. On a daily basis, up to 200 million contents are shared on Twitter. When looked at carefully, this number of tweets can be broken down to 2,340 tweets every second.
In as much as some of these many tweets might not be of any significance to a lot of people, a lot of them are accepted wholeheartedly by quite a number of people on Twitter. Now, on Twitter, there are lots of Tweets which might not be relevant to absolutely everyone. Nonetheless, the amazing thing is every single tweet you put up will be absolutely useful to certain groups of people.
Why you should use Twitter
There are lots of reasons you should make use of Twitter when sharing your content. It is one of the trusted platforms where you can build a brand for lots of reasons. Some of the reasons are:
You Can Converse Directly with Clients
To the average person, Twitter might not be as interesting as other social media networks. That notwithstanding, it is a perfect means for communicating with potential clients. So, beyond being a medium for the sharing of content, Twitter can be used as a means of discussion between people from different parts of the world.
You Can Market your Personal Brand
Twitter is a medium that you can take advantage of if you want to share your knowledge with people from different parts of the world. Even more interesting is the fact that Twitter is more recent that Myspace and Facebook. In as much as all social networking platforms are still growing, Twitter operates a system that is quite new when compared with the system operated by other social media networks.
It is Possible to Track Your Competitors
It is not a break from the norm for competition to exist in every aspect of existence. Twitter is not an exception. Well, the amazing thing about Twitter is it can help you track the content that is being put up by your competition. So, the implication of this is you can know the exact move to make just by watching what your competitors do on Twitter.
You Can Have Access to People with Similar Passion
Lots of tweets hit the Twitter platform on a daily basis. A lot of these tweets are very divergent while a lot of them have certain things in common. Well, just by searching for what inspires you, you can connect with people that are driven by the same things that drive you.
How to Create a Twitter Profile
Now that you have some information about the things that you can achieve by making use of Twitter, the next step is to create a Twitter profile. To enjoy all that Twitter has to offer, the first thing that should be done is to create a profile. Your Twitter profile can do for you what a website can do for your business. Your Twitter profile is a means to build a connection with other people on Twitter and grow your personal network. To put in some personality into your Twitter profile, you can go on and get your background and settings customized.
When selecting a Twitter name, you have to ensure that it is something that can be easily remembered and is quite related to your name or to the name of whatever you are really trying to promote. To ensure that things are done very easily, you can simply make use of your name. So, if your name is Maurice Robert, your Twitter name will most likely be @MauriceRobert. Well, if your name has been made use of by some other person, you can add a number to your name to come up with a Twitter username. As soon as you have a Twitter user name, get a good picture uploaded. The next thing to be done is to fill your profile accurately.
With your profile, people can have an idea of who you are and what you are about before following you. It is important to add your website address, as well as your blog URL to your profile. At this point, you need to get Twitter followers. Having a Twitter account without having any followers will make your efforts in getting an account on Twitter very useless. If you do not have friends on Twitter, everyone would naturally assume that you do not make use of Twitter. To have friends and followers on Twitter, simply follow some people. This should include regular people, as well as influential people. Some will follow back while others will not.
Well, the fact that not everyone you follow will follow you back should not deter you in any way. When some of the influential people that you follow on Twitter put up tweets, you can like their tweets, retweet their tweets or comment. Doing any of those will get you noticed by other people on Twitter, and this might make them follow you. Now, on Twitter, a lot of people are not sure what to tweet. While this can be a major issue, it is pretty straight forward. Ensure that you tweet only those things that you can tell people to their faces.
Personal Branding on Quora
Quora is basically a forum where anyone with questions can ask, and people with answers can make contributions. As soon as answers are provided by certain folks, the other people on Quora can vote for the answers they think are right and against those they think are wrong. When this happens, the answers with the most votes to find their way to the top while those with votes against will go further down.
Although Quora is a forum and not a social media site
it is still a place where you might want to build a personal brand. Well, if you want to build a personal brand on Quora, there are certain things that you should do. Some of them include:
Ensure your Profile has a Profile Picture as Well as a Profile Description
As far as the internet is concerned, authenticity is very important. People are not just interested in hearing from people. They want to hear from real individuals and not internet bots. In very much the same way as your Twitter pic should not be left vacant, if you want your Quora answers to be credible, you should have a profile picture and also have a brief profile description which tells individuals on Quora a bit about you and why they should take your answers seriously.
You can Always Alter your Profile Description
On Quora, participants have the freedom to slightly alter their profile description to suit the topic that the question they are trying to answer falls in. This makes participants qualified to provide answers to certain questions in the eyes of other people with accounts on Quora.
Answer Questions in Popular Topics
Just like blogging, certain topics or niches on Quora have more followers and attract more attention than others. This simply implies that if you want to have lots of views when you answer a question, try providing answers to question in broad and popular topics. Some of the topics with the most followers on Quora are love, business, entrepreneurship, movies, marketing, self-improvement, and business.
Your Answers Should be Some Paragraphs
The aim of answering questions on Quora is not just to answer questions. The aim is to show your authority in a certain area and also educate people that are interested in knowing more about such topic. As a result of this, answers that are longer and more detailed receive an increased number of upvotes. In the same vein, if you provide an answer that is considered to be too brief, or you plagiarize an answer that was previously given, your answer will be pushed to the bottom of a page. This is in addition to the fact that it will be moved to the trash bin. While trying to write an answer that is fairly long, you should not go ahead and write a mini- eBook. This might contain absolutely all that you know about a certain topic. Nonetheless, a lot of people will not have the time to go through it.
Personal Branding for Pinterest
Pinterest is rapidly becoming a major force in marketing and retail. As a result of this, a lot of individuals are beginning to shift focus to this platform. Well, as an individual that is into business, Pinterest can really be of help to you in lots of ways. Pinterest is not only good for business people. It is also of great benefits to individuals that are trying to promote a brand. If you are a blogger, a celebrity, or an author, you can take advantage of Pinterest in many ways.
How do you Make Use of Pinterest for Personal Branding
The first thing to do if you want to make use of your Pinterest account in attracting increased traffic is to set up your accounts and profile in the right way. At the moment, there are over 335 million monthly active users on Pinterest. This, therefore, makes it a nice platform for branding. Personal branding on Pinterest can be done in a few steps. They are:
Switch to a Pinterest Business Account
You do not have to pay for a Pinterest business account. Also, it makes it possible for you to monitor your audiences, your views. When you switch to a business account on Pinterest, your settings do not change your profile details also do not change. What actually happens is you have access to extra features. Some of the extra features include the ability to see analytics and get a pin boosted. With these analytics, you can decipher the perfect time to put up posts. It also makes it possible for you to know the pins which have the best performances. That is not all. You can also know a lot more about the individuals that repin and review your posts.
Get Your Website Confirmed
Getting a website link added to your profile comes with lots of benefits. It is also needed for you to make use of Pinterest analytics. As soon as your website gets confirmed, the link appears in your bio. The amazing part of this is Pinterest makes you aware of how frequently your site gets clicked on through your bio links or pins.
Get Your Profile Filled
You can make use of your personal name even if you make use of a business account. If the aim is to promote your name more than your blog, you should use your personal name. However, if the reverse is the case, you should not use your personal name.
Create New Pinterest Boards
This is perhaps the most strenuous thing that can be done when carrying out personal branding on Pinterest. While at this, ensure that you do not deviate from the major aim of your Pinterest profile. The major aim of your profile includes directing traffic to your site and looking knowledgeable and professional.