 |
 |
 |
|
09.22.08 Use Social Media To Brand Yourself  By Jeremy Griffin Whew, I know it has been a long time, but I am back with the next edition of How to Use Social Media Marketing to Promote Yourself as a Brand. This time, I'm going to help guide you to being the best at what you do and making sure others realize it, too. Do What You Do (And Do It Well) A mistake that people often make when promoting themselves online (and offline) is that they think that they can get away with putting something out there just to put it out there. Sling some paint on a canvas and call it art. Now, I don't want to be the one to tell you that you can't put lipstick on a pig, but before you start marketing yourself all over the place, claiming to be the next or whatever, stop and ask yourself one question: Why me? If you had no problem answering this question: great. If you strongly believe you are the best at what you do, though, you can always learn more. Writers: no matter how good your copy is, there are ways you can improve. One way to do this is by seeing what others are doing wrong and offer some help. Set yourself above the rest and establish some relationships. For some other writing tips, check out this post on BadLanguage. Now, here are some things about maintaining your personal brand that you might not know: • You are online, even when you're not - By creating an online presence, it means that you are connected and always available to be contacted. If you set yourself up right, by making it easy to access your content or your skills, you have an advantage over someone who is being managed by higher ups. You control your own moves and do the work, so be available. Bands, comedians, artists, listen up: make your content available. That means that there is no reason you should make any of your profile information private (i.e., your MySpace page. How can anyone hear your music if they have to be your friend to do it?). If you want something to be private, keep it offline. • There is information available on you already - so why not be the one to determine what that information is? We've all Googled our names at some point in time, but what is turning up when you do so? By doing a little online identity management ), you can assure what people see is what you want them to. You also want to do this when you want to be the first John Smith that people see, John Smith.
• Be Transparent - I talked about this before, but I can't emphasize this point enough when it comes to marketing yourself as a brand. The only time I could see NOT being transparent working is if you are a superhero and need to keep your true identity safe. • Be Real - For a long time, I was a little concerned about making my professional life and my "private" life two different things. Now, I'm realizing that it is more important than ever to just be who you are and let those other aspects of your identity come together. (That being said, I invite you to please follow me on Twitter, Plurk, Rejaw, and Tumblr. For now, I leave you with this to consider: Are you the best you? What are you doing to make sure? I'll be wrapping up this diatribe next time, folks, so if there is anything you want me to cover that I haven't yet, please let me know. Next time: Finding Success. Also, here are the previous posts, for your revisiting purposes. Comments About the Author: Jeremy Griffin is a contributing writer and Senior Copywriter for IgniteSocialMedia.com. |
||||||||||
|
| ||
| --
PromoteNews is an iEntry, Inc. publication -- iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Rd. Lexington KY, 40509 2008 iEntry, Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article |
