15 August 2012

How To Create Your Own Social Media Brand

With the increasing relevance of social media to corporate life, you can be sure that more and more organisations are looking to your online brand in order to understand who you are.

No surprise, then, that the design of your online presence is crucial for enabling others to not only connect with you, but also to understand the ways in which you’re thinking and engaging as a professional. With the LinkedIn facility being one of the best ways to establish your online identity, it might be useful to note the following tips for creating your profile and maximising your brand power.

· Customise your URL – the URL for your public profile is located on your
   profile page. Change it to something more meaningful and use it on your email
   signature and/or resume.

· Optimise your job title and/or create a strong headline – extremely  
   important as this is one of the first things a reader will see.

· Add connections – this increases your visibility and connectivity. Also seek
   recommendations that will similarly help improve the visibility of your own
   profile within internal LinkedIn searches.

· Complete your summary – search engines index this section, so don’t
   underestimate its importance. It should be written in first-person, feature
   keywords, and highlight the skills and experiences that differentiate you from
   others.

· Complete the Skills and Specialties sections – specialties are searchable
   through the LinkedIn Advanced Search feature and can provide detailed
   information beyond your professional experience.

· Join related groups and use LinkedIn Answers – find groups that other
   industry professionals have joined and look to participate. This will add value to
   your own profile and help get you found by other industry contacts. Contributing
   to LinkedIn Answers can also help build up your reputation within a field. From
   an SEO perspective, this also builds the number of internal links pointing to
   your profile from within LinkedIn, which in turn helps to strengthen your search
   engine profile.


Author: Dr Kristine Dery – senior lecturer – University of Sydney Business School (in association with EMBA graduate Christine Bishop)

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