Gone are the days when you had to wait to be featured in a magazine, newspaper or TV program to become a household name. You now can propel your personal brand to the stratosphere in a very short time. You can use the power of social media to easily and quickly communicate your personal brand message to your target audience. Here is the “how-to” guide.
What is Social Media?
Social media are internet based tools for sharing and discussing information. These tools are designed to encourage participation and rely on users for their content (as opposed to an editorial team).
Social media websites allow sharing of opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives. They have become a popular stop for many internet users. There are not many ways of building your personal brand online, which are as effective as by using social media.
1. Video Sharing
You can use YouTube or other video sharing sites to enhance your personal brand. Starting a video blog is real easy if you have a good message or engaging personality.
YouTube has revolutionized video usage on the internet. It allows millions of users worldwide to watch video clips daily. You do not even need to be logged in to use YouTube. Creating an account allows you to add video, save favorite videos, create play lists, share play lists and create video channels.
Creating a YouTube video channel will put you at par with TV stations or other big brands. YouTube levels the playing field for brands and content creators. They even carry the cost of bandwidth and provide the service for free.
If you are good with video or not camera shy, you can really extend your brand, get your message across and engage your audience. YouTube has built in viral marketing features.
It allows viewers to be able to share videos by embedding them on other sites. YouTube also allows other websites to programmatically access their catalog, thus giving you wider exposure for your personal brand.
Check out YouTube on http://www.youtube.com
2. MySpace
MySpace is a social networking website with an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos.
You can use MySpace to build your network of friends and associates. You can use MySpace to build your Profile Page. The site allows you to customize your profile with music, colors, images and layouts.
Though no longer the most popular social networking website, it features over 100 million users and provides an array of features ideal for personal branding. If you are interested in bands and music, MySpace is the place to be. You can build a fan page and an outlet for letting out your music to a wide audience.
Check out MySpace on http://www.myspace.com
3. Facebook
Facebook users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with each other. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.
It is the most popular social networking website on the planet. The site provides an excellent array of features and privacy controls. You can make new friends on Facebook or keep a network of only close friends and family.
You can build your personal brand using the sites features such as Profiles, Fan Pages, Groups and Events. One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums and photos. Facebook allows users to upload an unlimited number of photos.
Check out Facebook on http://www.facebook.com
4. Twitter
Twitter is the new kid in the block of social media. It has taken the internet by storm. Twitter’s growth, according to Nielsen Online indicates that the site grew 1,382% year-over-year in February 2009. Twitter has Facebook scared and is said to have been the root cause of Facebook changing its page design recently.
Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows users to share messages in 140 characters or less. A Twitter user is called a “Tweep”. A twitter user can “follow” others; they can also “unfollow” someone. If you are following me for example, you will be able to see my status updates. The status updates are called “Tweets”.
Big and small brands are heading to twitter. If you do not have a Twitter account, consider creating one and figure out the system from within. Once you create a Twitter account, please “follow” me http://twitter.com/
Many celebrities, brands and even countries are using Twitter including Ashton Kutcher, Oprah, BBC and Israel. Creating Twitter account takes 5 minutes at most and opens up a world of real time interactivity and personal brand building.
log on to twitter at www.twitter.com
5. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. As of May 2009, it had more than 39 million registered users, spanning 170 industries.
The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.
This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:
• A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second degree connections) and also the connections of second degree connections (termed third degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
• It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network.
• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
• Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
The “gated-access approach” (where contact with any professional requires either a preexisting relationship or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service’s users. (Source: Wikipedia)
Create a LinkedIn Account to start building connections and promote your personal brand. It is a wildly popular professional networking site especially in the United States.
Check out LinkedIn on http://www.linkedin.com
6. Google
Behind the simplicity of the Google homepage is an array of power & social media features. Google is one of the most powerful brands in the world today and you can use their free services to enhance your personal brand.
• Google Alerts - You can set up Google Alerts to be notified instantly when someone mentions your name or anyone’s names on the internet.
• Google Groups - You can setup a group of like minded people to share views, opinions, documents, links or opinions. It is a good way of enhancing your personal brand in small targeted way. Highly recommended.
• Google Reader - It is a way of subscribing to multiple blogs using a technology called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). It helps you keep in the loop of what is going on in your area of interest.
• Google Calendar - A great calendar that I love. You can create to do lists, setup reminders and share your daily activities with colleagues.
• Google Mail - Gmail is a web based email from Google that has a search-oriented interface and a “conversation view” similar to an Internet forum.
experience google cool features by signing for Gmail at www.gmail.com
7. Online Forums
Online forums, also called bulletin boards or message boards are a great way to connect with others and build a profile online. People participating in an Internet forum may cultivate social bonds and interest groups for a topic may form from the discussions.
If you are passionate about a subject, find internet forums that talk about that topic. You can only build your personal brand on a forum if you participate as opposed to being a “lurker”.
Forums are “hang outs” on the internet. People spend hours upon hours on online forums talking, debating and sometimes arguing. Be careful what you say online forums. It may come back to haunt you and your personal brand.
An example of an online forum is http://www.webmasterworld.com which is an online forum for people who build websites or make a living online.
8. Social Bookmarking
Do you have an overflowing list of bookmarks on your computer? Or do you use a public computer? Did you know that you could store your bookmarks on certain websites? You can then access those bookmarks from any computer and share them with your friends.
Social Bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of tags.
You can build your personal brand by being active on Social Bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Propeller, StumbleUpon or Technorati.
9. Photo Sharing
A photo is worth a thousand words. You can use photos and images to communicate various aspects of your personal brand. You may want to showcase your latest holiday or your latest contacts. Whatever your reasons for wanting to share your photos, you can use the following sites effectively.
• Flickr - Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. It claims to host more than 3 billion images.
• Picasa Web - Picasa Web Albums (PWA) is a photo-sharing web application from Google. It allows users with accounts at Google to store and share 1 GB of photos for free.
10. Niche Media
Depending on what kind of personal brand you seek to build online, you can find small websites that will allow you to build your credibility, give and get value, and reach your target audience.
For example, if you run a small business, you may want to list your business in directories that are related to your business. For example, if you run a Web Design company and live in Toronto, you can list your business on a directory targeting “Toronto Web Designers“. That way, people searching for web design services in that city will be able to click to your website.
You can also visit and comment on blogs and websites related to your industry. You can sign up for newsletters or join mailing lists in your niche market.
There also some big sites that you can find a corner dealing with whatever you love. For example, a site like Amazon is huge, but has little corners for all sorts of niche ideas. You could be interested in books to do with Home beer brewing, or Hitler… whatever your interest you can find a group of people who share your interest in sites such as Amazon.com or ebay.com
Summary
I hope this blog post has inspired you to dig into a couple of social media sites to make new friends and promote your personal brand. Go Social. Build your brand.
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