Create a professional career brand using social media

How career practitioner or any professional can use social media to brand/market themselves

In today’s fast paced and interactive world of work branding and marketing yourself is the key to career success. In the past branding was limited to products and corporate sectors and it was a domain of marketing companies with large budgets (and it was an expensive exercise.) In today's present information and digital age branding moves from products to persons and every citizen of the world can benefit from it - thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web. With a little bit of indigenous touch any individual can define, create and promote their brand without paying a cent to marketers.

For the marketer, word of mouth is world of mouth and therefore any person can brand themselves through word of mouth using social media on the Internet. It provides them an opportunity to tell the world who they are and what difference they can make in the world. This applies to all career development practitioners as well. Every career practitioner has unique talents, skills and experience, which they can promote through their unique brand to the right audience. "What makes you unique, makes you successful" - William Arruda. To tap the power of social media you need a very simple and well thought out strategy.

There are four steps to this strategy, which any career professional can use to define, design, communicate and refine their online and offline brand.
In the first step you need to define your unique offerings, talents, skills and experiences, and how you can create value in people's lives. This is your unique promise of value that you have to offer to others. For this you need to define your vision - ideally what value you can offer to people; your purpose - how you can add value to yourself; your goals - how you can reach your vision and purpose by asking what, where, when, who and how questions; your values - what is important for you; and your passion - what makes you jump out of bed in the morning.

In the second step you design your brand by working on social networking tools that will help you in creating a positive and desirable image of yourself in people's mind. This includes developing your online bio, resume, portfolio, professional presentations, videos; writing blog, posting comments, photos and news about/by you. For off-line branding you can join professional associations and attend conferences. Be mindful of consistency and clarity in your message and image. Once you develop and establish all the necessary social media tools in the next step you need to communicate them to the world.

In the third step you are going to communicate your brand to the world using social media, one of the most powerful and effective tools of networking. This does not mean that you underestimate the power of in-person networking but compliment it by building your on-line brand. The third step includes developing, writing, updating and maintaining good relations and reinforcing and communicating your unique image to the world by using different social media tools. At this step you need lots of energy and motivation to establish your presence. It is similar to an airplane, which needs extra energy and thrust to take off from the ground, once it is in the air it flies with less energy and help.

In the fourth step you refine your brand by continuously improving your brand on the basis of the feedback you get from your audience/customers. This step includes regular refining, aligning, adding and changing your purpose and goals and communication strategies to keep your brand in-line with who you are and what value you offer to others that makes a difference to all the people you serve.

"Building your personal brand online gets you noticed in the real world". Kirsten Dixson

By following these simple four step you will begin your marketing strategy of branding yourself by who you are and what you can offer, which allows you to deliver your unique promise of value.

Remember your brand creates your demand, and commands your success in career and life.

For additional help on branding refer to:
www.paulcopcutt.typepad.com
www.thepersonalbrandingblog.com
www.personalbrandingblog.com