ONLINE Personal Brand – blog

On COMMUNICATING Your ONLINE Personal Brand – 

QUESTION: Do YOU have a “Personal Brand”?

ANSWER:  Of course you have a personal brand.  We all do!  The real question is: how actively are you managing it? 

PERSONAL BRANDING is reputation management or impression management. Ideally, your personal brand transcends both personal and professional contexts.

Managing your personal brand encompasses two main tasks:

1. Identifying – articulating your unique personal brand
2. Communicating – strategically sharing your personal brand 

Over the next few months, we’ll cover many aspects of PERSONAL BRANDING:

• the process of identifying the ideal personal brand
• communicating your personal brand
• explicitly and implicitly
• offline and online

This week’s Talk About Talk ?podcast episode is focused on “COMMUNICATING YOUR ONLINE PERSONAL BRAND.”  (Find it HERE!)

(image: Unsplash @ chrisyangchrisfilm)

This is a great place to start since we leave a digital footprint every time we post something online and every time someone posts something about us. This digital footprint is relatively easy for us to access, assess and update.

Read on to learn:

• 3 Key Principles of Personal Branding
• 3 Steps to Communicate Your Online Personal Brand

3 KEY PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL BRANDING

(image: Unsplash @ hocza)

?Keep it clear and consistent. 

• Just like product brands can’t be “all things to all people,” neither can you. What’s your one key message?
• Are you recognizable across media? Is your personal brand unique and ownable?

?Be generous & gracious. 

• Take a tip from product brands you admire. Are they always in “sales-mode”? No! 
• When communicating, don’t be overly salesy!  Instead, be gracious. Be a generous contributor.

? Keep it updated. 

• Just as product brands evolve over time, so too do people.
• Yes that photo of me when I was 25 years old is lovely.  But if I don’t keep my photos (and other information) updated, I might shock people when they meet me on Zoom or IRL!

3 Steps to Communicate Your ONLINE Personal Brand

There are 3 steps to communicate your personal brand ONLINE:

1️⃣UPDATE

2️⃣PARTICIPATE

3️⃣ MONITOR

1️⃣ UPDATE

(image: Unsplash @tma, Tianyi Ma)

Start by updating your online presence across at least these four online venues…

1. Websites
   • Check corporate and personal websites
   • Update your bio, contact details, photo, etc.
2. Social Media
   • At a minimum, focus on your headline (title, short blurb) headshot, & banner image
   • Regardless of how active you are on social media, you need to keep your profiles updated!
3. Your Email Signature
   • Include relevant contact information. How do you want people to contact you?
   • Consider this as your interactive business card. Update it with links to things you’re proud of.
4. Your Contact file
   • Keep your contact file in your address book complete (social media, title, headshot, etc.), then ping or text it to people when they ask you for your contact info.

2️⃣PARTICIPATE

(image: Unsplash @ cowomen)

Focus on the 3 key principles of personal branding – be generous, be consistent, keep it updated.

Consider various online media or venues to help establish your personal brand:

1. Get out there on SOCIAL MEDIA!
2. Make a statement in Targeted FORUMS (or CHATROOMS or GROUPS) 
3. Consider the impression you make in VIRTUAL MEETINGS
4. Attend online CONFERENCES

3️⃣ MONITOR

(image: Unsplash @ olloweb)

Start by Google Searching yourself

• This is not narcissistic.  It’s prudent. Other people are Googling you. You should know what they see!
• Clear your browsing history/cache first. Better yet, ask someone else to Google you from their device. 
• Go through everything on the first page, and do what you can to encourage, update or delete each entry.
• Beyond the first page, it’s more of a disaster check.

Set up ALERTS

• Enable your browser to send you an alert when someone searches you or posts something about you.
• This tip will enable you to not only monitor your online presence but also alert you to potential identity theft!

Online Personal Branding – That’s a great start!

If you can UPDATE, PARTICIPATE and MONITOR your personal brand online, then you’re off to a great start. For mote information, here are the links to the podcast:

 Click HERE to listen directly on the Talk About Talk website

or

? Click HERE to listen on your favourite podcast player

or 

? Click HERE to read the printable shownotes

Next week I’ll share some questions and prompts to help you start identifying and articulating your ideal personal brand.

Please forward this email to anyone who might appreciate some advice on communication skills and personal branding.  Thank you!  ?