Personal branding: The hows
In my previous post, I talked about the whys of personal branding. In this post, I’m going to detail the hows. I’m my own little personal experiment and case study, and this is how I’m going to define and record this whole exercise.
This is what I’ve done so far, as well as what I intend to do:
1. Be clear about what I want my personal brand to be about
This blog is still a work in progress, as I’m still feeling my way around it and trying to figure it out myself.
But what I am clear of at this moment is this: Careerwise, I’m decently happy where I am at the moment. The company I’m working for and the work that I do with it currently allows me to utilise my public relations and journalism training. More importantly, it allows me to integrate all my other unquantifiable skills and experiences into the work I do. It can be quite a challenging job at times, but I’m learning tons, and that’s what matters at this point in my career.
On the other hand, me starting up this blog was also to help establish myself as a writer-for-hire. This also ties back into the following points of me finding my niche and developing it, as well as me updating regularly so that I get to polish my writing here. After all, if you don’t use it you lose it, right? And practice makes perfect!
Plus, looking at how long winded my sentences have been of late, I so do need that practice.
2. Start a personal blog with my own personal domain.
Now that I’ve gotten the above out of the way, starting this website after hibernating on a private blog was the next logical step. That way it ensures that my name is right on top of the list in search engine rankings (unless of course there are a million other Charmaine Hons out there) if and when someone does choose to find me online. Right now, when I Google my name, this blog comes second on Google. My Twitter is on top. For now.
3. Join relevant social networks
I’ve been on Facebook for ages because all my friends are on it. I also joined Twitter a couple of months ago, and I just remembered that the reason I signed up was because enough of my friends were on it for me to hop onto it and have a ready network of people to twit and be a twat to.
I’ve also recently joined LinkedIn, because my boss was bugging his staff to get on it. LinkedIn wasn’t relevant to me before, but it has become so lately, so onto that bandwagon I hop.
I’ve been on DeviantArt for ages, under two accounts, but given recent circumstances, my art isn’t my career priority. However, it is something that I am capable of and that is still quite dear to me. Plus, to me, an extra set of skills and perspective is always valuable, especially when you’re working on design related projects.
Plus, with any social networking platform, after you take away the hype and newfangledness surrounding it, in the end, everything still boils down to the genuine relationships that you build. Whatever platform you use is merely a medium.
4. Update regularly with authentic, quality content
The key words here are “authentic”, “quality” and “regular”.
Authentic: I took down my previous post for a couple of days, because I was afraid that prospective employers who stumbled across my blog would get the impression that I was undecided on where I wanted to go careerwise. First of all, I’d like to assure them that I’m not. And in the end, I put it back up because I felt that it was important to me. And from a different perspective, it could also say that I am someone who could add a lot of value an organisation.
Quality: I will not write what I do not believe in. And I will not write about what I’m not passionate about. And I will ensure each post that is churned out is written in a manner that is easy to digest and yet does not compromise what it says.
Regular: I have set a target to myself to post at least once a week. That way, even if I’m swamped with work, the one post a week won’t be too heavy to deal with. And it will help my in my writing discipline.
5. Find my niche and roll with it
In the end, personal branding is merely another term for “self-marketing”, isn’t it? I’m trying to market who I am, and what skills I have to offer. I also need to find my niche and become an expert in my field.
Right now, my work-related niche is mainly social media, new media and online marketing. A lot of what I do at work is common sense to a lot of us in my generation. But our generation is but a fraction of the entire population, and there will still be many people in the working world who need to be introduced to the sheer capacity of these new technologies, as well as to be coached to be responsible, genuine and effective social media users. I’m so not going to help churn out the next big social media abuser (a spammer, in other words).
6. Be myself
I may be aiming to use this blog to further my career goals, but it doesn’t mean that I will choke out all else that is not part of the whole career plan. This blog bears my name, and it’s only fit that the rest of me outside work should come through. Albeit in moderated doses.
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In the meantime, this blog is still far from complete. My “About Me” page is constantly changing as I strive to rewrite it to present well, and to convey what I’m about. My “writing portfolio” page is also incomplete, because my net was giving me problems when I tried to upload the rest of my writing samples. Garrr.
My current list of links includes the sites that I have personally found very useful, and would really love to share with everyone else. That list is also still a work in progress.
Until then, I’ll be off for the long weekend. Cheerios, everyone!
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