By Laura Gainor – Guest blog post for myFootpath.
myFootpath.com strives to help people “find their footpath.”
When leaving high school, many people don’t realize it’s important to begin developing your personal brand and start your professional career. College is the first step in your career, so it’s very important to start making a name for yourself.
Young professionals entering college now have the advantage of using social media to create their personal brand. Building your personal brand begins with what you put into it. The more you put into it, the more exposure you receive for building your professional career.
So listen up to these next five tips to start developing your personal brand:
Setup your social media channels.
- Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and SlideShare are all great places to start.
- Keep these channels professional. Google indexes all content and potential employers are not going to be impressed with the college drinking parties.
- Determine your unique URL for all social media channels. Keep everything consistent for this is a vital step in developing your personal brand. The best URL would be to use your first and last name.
- Examples: www.Twitter.com/LauraGainor, www.SlideShare.net/LauraGainor,www.LinkedIn.com/in/LauraGainor
- Stay away from using random numbers in your URL. It will be too difficult to remember.
- If you first and last name aren’t available, use your middle initial.
- If your name is too long or hard to spell, choose a nickname that represents yourself and use this same nickname across all channels.
- Most importantly, choose a name that will stick with you for the next five to ten years. With all of these channels you are building up your SEO rank and content for potential employers to be impressed with what you’ve created for yourself.
Create a personal blog.
- Determine your overall message. Your blog should have a common theme so your audience knows what they can expect to learn more about when visiting your site. You should NOT write about anything and everything, but keep the majority of your content around the same theme.
- If you’re in college, document the projects and courses you’re currently taking. I wish I had created a personal blog while I was in college and document all the projects I worked on while in the fine arts and journalism programs. Even though they were classes, these are vital steps in your professional career where potential employers want to know what you studied in school and what you’re capable of doing.
- Most importantly, publish content frequently. Show potential employers you have a passion for sharing information and you’re dedicated to your blog.
Use a professional photo of yourself across all channels.
- This is the first impression of you for potential employers. Keep the photo professional and use the same photo across all channels so people easily recognize your personal brand.
- Show a little personality, but not too much. You don’t want to have a “stiff” photo of yourself, but be genuine.
- It’s very important this image is also of high quality and not pixilated.
Engage in conversations. Network!
- One of the key advantages with social media is you’re able to network with professionals locally, around the country and around the world! Determine what industry you’re interested in working for and engage in conversations with people that have the same interests as you.
- Browse LinkedIn for discussion groups you feel you could learn from. Following these discussions to learn from others and share your own information.
- Stay connected. Don’t just reach out to someone when you need something. Chances are they are not going to help you, but if you stay connected by saying hello every now and then, those contacts will be very helpful when growing your career.
- Help others. You never know who knows someone.
Get creative. Play with social media.
- New social media platforms are created every day, opening up creative opportunities to find ways to utilize them for your personal brand.
- Spend 10 minutes each day browsing blogs, such as Mashable and TechCrunch.
- Use Twitter to see what your network is talking about.
- Play. It’s very important to not be hesitant about experimenting with new social media platforms. When you do, you’re shown as a thought leader.
Did you just graduate high school? What are you doing to start developing your personal brand as you begin your college career? How are you utilizing social media in your college courses? I would love to hear about what you’re doing.
Laura Gainor is a Social Media Strategist for Comet Branding + PR. Gainor has an extensive background in client services management, personal and business branding strategies. In addition to these areas, she excels in creative talents through photography and graphic design.
Gainor is an expert on how to create a successful personal and business brand through social media after landing a job by showcasing her expertise using various social media tools. You can connect with her at www.LauraGainor.com,www.LinkedIn.com/in/LauraGainor, or www.SlideShare.net/LauraGainor. You can also follow Gainor at @LauraGainor and Comet Branding at @cometbranding.