Thing 1 - Personal Branding
In this Thing you will consider your personal brand. “Branding” is often thought as a negative thing - why would you want to be a brand rather than a person? Really, branding is about how you present yourself online, and can be about promoting yourself to achieve career goals. It is also known as “online identity management” or “personal reputation management”. Have you ever Googled yourself? This is a good way to see what’s out there about you. You might be surprised by the results! Your online presence is reflected in everything you do online, as well as what others say about you. This can include news about you, participation in blogs and forums, personal websites, social media presence, pictures, video, etc. All of these things can create either a positive or negative impression. Your online presence should be an accurate reflection of who you are, but of course if you’re trying to get a new job, you want your employer to get a favourable impression of you! So there are ways to influence your online presence, and make sure a positive impression is presented high up in search rankings. One way is to be consistent across platforms - for example using the same name and photo for your email address, Skype, Twitter, blog, etc. You can check if a username is available at a service like http://namechk.com/ Finally, there is often a difference between how people want to be seen, and how they present themselves online. It’s rare that people are totally professional online - most go for a ‘profersonal’ approach (professional/personal). This allows people to express their personality along with/to complement their professional image. At the other end of the scale, students often use social media for purely personal purposes - posting drunk photos on Facebook and interacting with friends on Twitter. Your approach will depend on what you want to show people about yourself. Why is it useful for a careers professional? Careers and Employment staff need to be aware of issues around social media and able to advise and lead students. Good institutional and personal social media presence can be of benefit to both the institution and the individual. Social media knowledge could benefit your personal and professional development. It can show that the university is forward thinking and willing to engage with new technologies. For Careers & Employment it will show that we can lead and become experts - increasing our profile within faculties and with students. Employability benefits for students Students tend to use social media for personal reasons - posting photos of nights out on Facebook and interacting with friends on Twitter. They often don’t consider the impact of what they’re putting online as doing so has become seamlessly integrated into their lives. It’s important to impress upon students that what is online is there forever. Employers are increasingly googling applicants at the application stage, and a negative impression will have an impact. This practice is not illegal; although it could breach discrimination laws it has not yet been tested in court. Students need therefore to be aware of how they are presenting themselves online. What do they want an employer to know about them? Particularly if a student is trying to get into a profession such as law, pictures of them drunk with a traffic cone on their head may not go down so well. If the student is particularly interested, it’s worth emphasising the benefits of having a good online profile. It’s not just about preventing people seeing embarrassing photos - students can actively promote themselves to help with finding employment. In particular, students who want a career in the media should be using Twitter and blogging, as this is what employers expect. A good online presence can show skills in social media much more effectively than a line on a CV. Task 1: Google yourself Make sure you’re on a ‘clean’ PC - search engines optimise results based on your previous searches. So if you search for yourself using your regular browser, you’re more likely to find results about yourself. To get a neutral results, try using a PC or browser you haven’t used before (if you normally use Internet Explorer, try Firefox). If you have a common name, try using an extra keyword such as ‘UK’ or ‘careers’. Do any of the search results on the first page refer to you personally? Are they the things you would want someone to find if they were looking to find out information about you? Which of your profiles come first? Is there anything about you on the results page that you wouldn't want a potential colleague/employer finding out about you? Task 2: Think about your brand How do you want to be seen by others? Do you want your online presence to be purely professional, or profersonal? Do your search results reflect how you want to be seen? Think about what you could do to influence your presence. Task 3: Google Michelle (optional) Google Michelle Bond and see what you find - then tell us what you think of her brand! Further reading The Wikiman (Ned Potter) is big in the library world - he’s written about how to influence your brand, as well as answering the question “Do you really need to market yourself?” http://thewikiman.org/blog/?p=1926 http://thewikiman.org/blog/?p=1858 A good guide from tech website Mashable on the basics of personal branding: http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-101/
