Discover Your Personal Brand
Here is this week’s most oft-asked question:
“In social media, how do you separate your personal life from your professional life?”
photo credit: Kelly Hau Photography
The questioners explain that they thought LinkedIn was professional and FaceBook was personal — but now that people are using FaceBook for professional reasons — what is one to do? (And what about separating Twitter accounts: one for personal, one for professional?)
The answer: Think in terms of your “personal brand.”
What is your brand personality? Quick! Name your three personal brand attributes. Don’t know what they are? Find your personal brand attributes with an easy exercise! In branding exercises, we know that “your brand is what people say it is.” Find out what your customers, prospects, and markets are saying about you — that’s your personal brand. Balance this with the image you’d like to project to the world.
When you know your personal brand attributes cold, go to FaceBook. (Or LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, your blog, et. al.)
Before you post hastily, ask yourself,
“Is the content I’m about to post consistent with my personal brand attributes?”
If it isn’t, don’t post!
Your brand is what people say it is. You may not like it, but when you participate in social media, you have a personal brand.
Choose to present your brand wisely! Future employers are listening. Your customers are listening. Your prospects are listening.
Represent!
Be yourself!
Be your best self.
Related Posts:If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
[...] @manicactive, via Twitter The above tweet was sent out yesterday by the infectiously enthusiastic Laura Bergells. (Side note: Whether sharing information, links or just chatting, Laura has a way of communicating [...]
[...] If you were paying attention in your 10th grade literature class, you’ll remember a certain Mr. Shakespeare (through the most famous romantic character in history) once asked, “What’s in a name?” Well, Juliet, if your name is good enough and your product relevant, people will remember. It’s called branding. Has it worked yet? I’ll spend a lot of time postulating on the concept of branding, especially personal branding, in this blog because I’m working on discovering my personal brand. [...]
Laura, you are so diplomatic. You talked around it but didn’t quite rub our faces in it.
Face it people, even in your personal life you have a brand.
Don’t rebel against the mixing of contexts. Embrace it. Your friends know who you are. They accept your brand. They expect you to behave a certain way. That’s your brand.
If you are lucky or good, your personal brand is compatible with your professional brand. If you aren’t lucky or good, then you might think about reconsidering one of the brands. It’s a fact, the two worlds are getting closer together. Stop being 2 people and decide who is real.
I think this mixing of contexts is here to stay because of technology. My entire work team has friended me on facebook. Go with it. It’s the bold new future.
Dennis