Personal Branding in the Age of Internet - Internet Marketing, When You are the Brand

Personal Branding and Self Marketing in the age of Internet

Before going to the broad discussion, let's get introduced to some terms:

• Brand = The image, the emotional image, the perceived image, identity, entity by others of a person, character, product , service, organization or abstract entity
• Social Media = Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter where you can interact with others in a network
• Social Network = The group both casual and professional people you can interact with online
• Blog = Short for “Web Log”, just an online diary that can express any idea that you want to talk about. If you are reading this, you already know what it is
• Authority = The situation where you become the most reliable source for information and deemed the most

Some Facts of Self Marketing and Personal Branding

• The most valuable brand in this world is Apple? No, YOU!
• Self Marketing is just like any other product or service marketing, but the product is YOU!
• Personal Branding is equally strong as corporate branding
• Good will is an asset for a company, likewise good reputation is also an asset for YOUrself!
• Internet allows any brand to express their ideas, share their views and philosophies, including YOU!
• If companies and brand can grow their reputation through website, so can YOU!

What Can You Do in the Internet?

• Express ideas and showcase skills & experience
• Share all the above with everyone
• Interact with others and maintain 2 way communication
• Establish yourself as authority
• Measure impression, traffic, and influence

Getting Started with Online Personal Branding

What You Need for a Good Job Application

• A compelling CV/Resume
• Link to your publications, resources, articles
• A website where you can post more information about you, your skill, experience, your achievements, etc.
• A professional blog to express your professional views
• Social media profiles where you can network with like minded professionals and friends

Analyzing Your Personal Brand

• Can you own your actual name? (Asif Anwar)
• Is your name very common? (~20 of them by the same name)
• Can you add anything to your name? (Asif Anwar SEOExpert)
• Is there any nick name you use? (Pathik)
• What about a descriptor /pseudonym? (marketguru)
• Consider and choose a your brand (SEOExpert)
• Create a new term or phrase (SEOple – SEO People)
• Is geography a consideration? (SEOExpertBD)

Finalizing Your Personal Brand

• Pick a brand name
• Google your brand name (Zero Google result is ideal)
• Assess your current reputation
• Check User Name availability with www.CheckUserNames.com
• Create Social Media account for your personal branding
• Create Good Contents and enrich your social media profile
• Get URL Vanity URLs for your profiles (e.g. instead of http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890 get http://www.facebook.com/asifanwar

Considerations for Online Presence

• The link emphasizes your personal brand
• The link is short and easy to type
• The page is public and easily shareable
• The page does not require password or is not invitation only
• The page is search engine friendly
• You can measure and view traffic
• Has the ability to showcase as much contents as you want
• You can update contents easily
• Has the ability to showcase rich contents
• Has networking feature (Friends, Fans, Follower, Subscribers)

Popular Sites for Personal Branding

For Resume: LinkedIn, BDJobs, VisualCV
For Document and CV Upload: Scribd, Google Docs, DocStoc
For Images: Flickr, Picassa, Facebook Page, PhotoBucket
For Videos: YouTube, Facebook Page, Vimeo, DailyMotion
For Presentations: SlideShare, Google Docs, AuthorStream
For Blogging: Blogspot, WordPress, Tumblr, Facebook Note
For Personal Website: Webs.com, Google Sites, Yola, WeblyFor Shortening URL: Bit.ly, TinyURL, Goo.gl
For Audio files and Podcasting: YouListen, MyPodcast, iTunes Podcast, PodBean, PodOMatic.

Few Tips on Resume Site and Offsite Resume

• Pictures are worth thousands of words, use them. Animation, flash, infographics are good way to attract those that leave your site or blog in 5 seconds
• To make your site search engine friendly, make as much pages as you can on your various skills or try to place links to your blog in one place
• For skills, make a video tutorial of what you know and embed them in your site.
• Additionally, you can also put the video thumbnail on your CV with QR Code (Generate from http://qrcode.kaywa.com/)
• Use custom Bitly links (e.g. http://bit.ly/asifanwar) when you refer any link in your Resume.

Have a look at the video of the article in Bangla (English version coming soon)