Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Self-Promotion, Personal Branding, Professional Image and E-Reputation

Are unsure of how to showcase your competencies or accomplishments?

Is it hard for prospective employers to notice the value in your work experience abroad?

Are you looking to launch a career as an autonomous worker, consultant or artist, but have yet to develop the necessary network of contacts?

Is nobody contacting you for your services due to a lack of Internet presence?



Perhaps you are ready for the concept of  Personal Branding, the creation of a self-image. So what exactly is personal branding?


Personal branding is, for some people, a description of the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the body, clothing, appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable.

Personal branding has continued to gain in popularity as a tool to manage reputation online, especially through social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

(source: Wikipedia)
Some dislike the words 'branding' or 'brand', as their origins in marketing and business strategy may leave the impression of reducing individuals to mere objects.If that is case, you may refer to it in broader terms: self-promotion, professional image, e-reputation, electronic or online reputation, to name a few.

In any event, your image on the Internet is closely related to the more visible elements of your online activity: the sites you contribute to, your profile names and photos, the things you mention in your bio, etc. You must showcase what you perceive to be your best attributes in order to increase your potential employability.

You will find many suggestions enclosed in this document. You are not obligated to try all of them. In fact, it may even be counter-productive to have a presence on sites that mirror one another too closely, like Quora and Focus, or Vimeo and YouTube. Try to identify which sites correspond the most to your needs and willingness to engage in each respective social network. That being said, doing nothing is seldom an option that will help you attain the desired objective; in this case, a job.


1. Start a blog or personal website.
One of the most effective ways for you to assert your competencies and online activity is by creating a blog (yourname.blogplatform.com) or a personal site (yourname.com). If you are not comfortable with adding original content, you can  use it for SEO (Search-Engine Optimization) purposes in order to increase your visibility and to redirect people towards your other online hubs.

You will have to do some site optimization to ensure your page is easily indexed by the various search engines out there. While this all may seem a bit technical, most blogging platforms (Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress, etc.) offer step-by-step instructions on how to proceed.

You should, at the very least, use your site as a landing page to redirect folks to your other online accounts, be it on LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, etc. One such example would be the www.dartbits.com page.

2. Open a LinkedIn account.
A great way to show your understanding of current labor market standards and procedures as well as display your seriousness and professionalism is by creating a LinkedIn account. You can simultaneously increase online visibility, look at what factors go into play when professionals in your sector are hired and get a glimpse at what your portfolio or resume may be missing.Pay special attention to vocabulary, particularly the terms used in job descriptions, work experience and requisites. Recruiters are accustomed to having previous work-related experience presented to them in a certain fashion. For instance, someone who works in IT must specify which programming languages or software he is familiar with.




3. Showcase your prior accomplishments.
While LinkedIn is an excellent tool to increase online visibility, it is too limited a space to raise the profile of your acomplishments, artistic or otherwise. Depending on your sector, there are specialized social networks that are field-appropriate. For instance, if you are into performing arts you should consider uploading a few video segments onto a YouTube or Vimeo account. Teachers can look into Slideshare , a social network dedicated to PowerPoint presentations. Visual artists are best served on sites like DeviantArt, Flickr or even Facebook. Musicians looking to put up their music should do so on MySpace, SoundCloud or BandCamp.

What matters most is not whether you're on every social network, but whether you're on the ones best suited to showcase your expertise to the right people, which in turn ensures visibility and a quality online reputation.


4. Assert your expertise.

If you are knowledgeable in a given subject, video editing or finance for instance, then you have a degree of expertise you can share with other online citizens. There are over six billion people on the planet, many of whom have Internet access: certainly others will be interested in finding out what you already know. Furthermore, if the topic is related to your professional field, then asserting your expertise online is one of the best ways to improve your online visibility and reputation, which in turn can prove quite beneficial when it comes to networking or job searching.

There are many sites to choose from where you can showcase your expertise. Certain social networks are centered around the notion of asking questions and giving answers. Anyone with a query on any given subject will turn to a group of their peers who are experts in their field in order to find a solution. It is in such a public arena that you could have a chance to demonstrate your own degree of expertise in front of people who will acknowledge the quality of your contributions. Without a doubt, the most well-known of these sites is Quora, but you may just as well chip in on Yahoo! Answers, Focus or Ask. If you already have a LinkedIn account, you will also have access to LinkedIn Answers.


The formula for most of these sites is relatively simple: create a profile, name your topics of interest (either based on expertise or personal curiosity) and start answering questions you know the answers to, or start asking questions of your own. It's that easy!


5. Use this opportunity to grow as a professional.


You are under no obligation to use these services to strictly broadcast your experience. You'll discover there are many things you just don't know, even in your area of expertise, and especially in related fields. When one is job-hunting, one tends to have a bit more free time than when one is employed, but one won't necessarily land a job by simply sending out resumes on a full-time basis, even if one had the resolve to do so.




Make the most of this occasion to heighten your degree of expertise, your knowledge and your level of familiarity with certain work-related notions. When you don't know something, ask about it. When you notice others successfully self-promoting themselves, observe them and learn from their example. If you want to know more about a given topic, ask a question on one of the aforementioned social media outlets, or consult Wikipedia, About, maybe even a message board. Once you are so active online, you will be showing your network and subsequently potential employers that you are capable of learning new things how adaptable you are to the reality of the day. That, in and of itself, is an important hiring criterium, and counts for more than you would expect.

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