Jumping On The Brand Wagon

I can honestly say that prior to the start of this semester that I did not give much thought to my personal brand. Don't get me wrong, I do have the summary section filled out on Linked page, but I wouldn't exactly say it is my "personal brand".

That being said, I decided to take a look at some of the profiles of classmates, colleagues and executives that I am "connected" to on LinkedIn and see what it is makes their pages so effective. There are several factors that make a profile effective, but the common denominator is that they all have a "personal brand".

I'm not one for rushing to do what everyone else is doing, for example I will not be buying the new iPhone 5s until any bugs (and there will be some) are fixed. I also refuse to wait in line for 2 weeks for anything, but I digress.

 

However, as someone who is aspiring to be successful in their career, developing my own brand is one band wagon I don't mind jumping on. But the burning question is “Brand myself as what?”

After giving it some thought, (and having to go around the room one by one in my Social Media Marketing class and share), I came up with this: Innovative and creative, aspiring marketing professional looking to pursue a career in social media marketing for high-end beauty brands.

Based on this, my objectives would be:

• To develop more of a presence on the social media channels LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ because these are the platforms my target audience frequently use or are starting to use.
• Showcase my ideas and personality on these platforms (especially Twitter) to engage my target audience.
• Use a platform like Klout, to measure my success against my objectives.

Audience

My target audience would be potential employers within the marketing and beauty industry.

Social Media Channels

I plan on using the following social media sites to market my personal brand. 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Google+

I’m very active on LinkedIn. I try to keep it up to date and connect with employees of companies I would love to work for.

Twitter however, is a different story. In the 4 years that I have used twitter, I've only tweeted 456 times, and about 50% of those are from my Instagram or interesting news articles that I've read. 

I occasionally share a witty comment or will retweet a post from my favorite companies, I don't use it as a professional platform, otherwise.  Until now, that is. 

I created a Google+ account this weekend but it’s still a work in progress. I laid down the ground work, now I have to beginning adding people to my “circles”, following my favorite companies and start engaging potential employers.

I'm really excited to begin the process of developing my brand and seeing how each of us grows and develops our brands as the semester goes on.

Until next time,

Ashley